Google owns the universe. All you seo’rs out there… What’s the deal with trying to fight the power? I mean, I “get it”, sorta, but from a business perspective, does it really make sense? Are you doing your clients a service or disservice by taking on Google?

Check out this thread by my friend Michael Gray (Wolf-Howl.com) where we discuss this topic. Read the comments too. His argument is valid, yes, but I argue it’s a waste of time to cry “unfair”.

Oh, and watch my video below for my full take on this matter. My advice… Give into Google and ride the wave. So what’s your take? Hey, try and leave a Seesmic video response below!

Click To Play

Google has decided that they’re going to allow you to create sitemaps for them for your video content. This is great news. I’m in. Let’s do it.

So I head over to the page explaining how to make them, and I’m stopped dead in my tracks.

Are you kidding me? It’s way too complicated.

So this post really isn’t about Google’s new video sitemaps. It’s a post about why companies make things too hard to do unnecessarily, using Google as a good example.

Google should never have released this without some type of easy-to-use video sitemap creator tool. Same with their other sitemaps too. I should be able to go to this page, then have a little tool, either a web admin or download, that I can insert my video url’s into, which would make me a coded sitemap for submission.

Done. Easy.

But they don’t do that.

Remember, if you want your stuff to be used, you have to make it easy for them. Today’s world is filled with endless distractions. The truly successful solutions are ones that make things easy.

When was the last time you looked at something you were doing objectively? Do you make it easy for your customers, or your readers/viewers?

Ever wonder why you’re not getting more people to interact with you, or use your online tool? Did you ever think about if you’ve made it easy enough? You should.

The legitimizing moment for blogs has occurred. Google is adding blogs into their regular index as part of Google Universal Search (video link).

Starting this week or next, queries on the leading search engine will return links to blogs alongside the images, news, books, local maps and video, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, told eWEEK in a briefing at the company’s headquarters here.

I’ve posed this thought for years, and I’m glad to see it finally happen. With the growing number of blogs (content), it would be impossible for Google to ignore blogs, and they would be forced to include blog content into the mainstream flow of blood.

I argue, and now believe I have proof, that Google would not be able to distinguish the difference between a “blog” and “regular” web content, therefore, they would have to make this move eventually, and they are now.

What does the future hold for blogs and Google?

Blogs are generating content at a pace that is faster than you can possibly imagine. In the next 10-years, the massive amount of content that will come in blog form will choke the Internet. Ok, not choke it, but it’s going to account for a massive percentage of content… that Google simply cannot ignore.

I started blogging in 2001. Back when many still didn’t believe in blogs, and certainly back when nobody thought a blog could actually “do” something. I’m glad to see this moment for bloggers. The days of discounting us as non-legitimate sources of content are over.

What is Google Universal Search? Watch this video.

Donna over at Seo-Scoop.com wrote a ponderous post today musing about why more people in the SEO industry aren’t more willing to advertise if no Google juice is involved.

I love Scratchback and the whole concept behind it (Scratchback is that widget to the right that says Are You In My TopSpots?). I might not be totally crazy about the nofollowed links, but hey, they are Google-friendly, so I’m doing the “right thing”, right? I understand people don’t want to pay a lot of money for G-friendly links – I get that. But when it’s difficult to practically give them away – what’s up with that???

She then asks the million dollar question (bold emphasis is mine)…

When did the concept of advertising disappear? Is it ONLY about link juice? Hey, I’m an SEO. I love link juice. It’s the nectar of the search heavens. But I also appreciate the idea of cheap, targeted traffic. Juice or no juice, what I want at the end of the day, is cheap, targeted traffic. You don’t?

You can read my thoughts on this topic in her comments.

Very interesting discussion to say the least.

Today, in what means to me that they REALLY mean business, Google decided that you can’t advertise with them if you’re trying to promote the selling of links that pass page rank.

Google continues to crack down on those text link advertising methods which don’t carry the “nofollow” attribute as a “machine-readable disclosure.” The latest move, triggered by communication between Google’s web spam team and the Google AdWords department, as Google’s Matt Cutts says, is to disallow the advertising for such PageRank-selling schemes via Google.

The assault on link brokers continues. Gotta give Google credit though… they are putting their money where their mouth is. Wait, does that make sense? I think so.

I’m a big believer in Google Universal Search, the video piece of it at least. Heck, I directed and wrote a video commercial for it. That’s me “the boss” in the beginning.

I’ve even helped build an entire business model around it.

So I’m constantly monitoring the Google looking for indications that it’s finally going to roll out on a full-scale. Why it’s taking so long, I’m not sure. I guess more testing. But when it does go into 100% mode, it’s going to blow the doors off the search industry, particularly online video.

Get your cameras ready is all I have to say.

Today I got some good indications that we’re getting close to that day.

Sometimes I use Google to find blog posts on my blog. So today I was looking for an old post so I typed in “kukral utterz“. Here’s what I found. See one of my videos showing up in the organic results?

I get the same thing when I do “kukral wendy“, or “kukral shoemoney“. And on and on.

Interestingly enough, however, if I just type in “kukral blog”, no video shows up. So what I’m thinking is happening is Google is somehow testing it out on “non popular” search phrases.

But who knows? I can’t wait for it to launch. Have you had any experiences with Google Universal Search? Any insights?

You can now log in to Adsense and choose the Adsense for Video, which I just did.

Update: Ads not showing up in blog entry, so I removed the examples. Anyone have a fix for posting the code in a blog entry?

Check out my other blog at AsktheBlogger.com, or Jake’s blog for a great view of it in action.

Here’s a video of how to setup your new Google Adsense video ad units. Hat tip Shawn at Affiliatetip.com.

In addition, here’s a video from the video product team at Google explaining it all.

Game on for video publishers. There is officially no reason to not get into the video business. In another HUGE move by GoogTube, they have announced that they’ll begin showing videos as ad on “other” websites. What does this mean? Let’s examine it.

With the new twist, websites participating in AdSense now can sign up to specify the kinds of YouTube videos they want shown on their pages. A website focused on automobiles, for instance, might want to display YouTube videos about cars and other vehicles.

Why is this big bucks for YouTube partners? Because imagine this. If you are a selected partner, and you have let’s say 100 high-quality videos about auto repair, all kinds of car sites can now choose to put an Adsense formatted video ad in their sites, distributing your video to possibly millions and millions of their viewers.

Do the math. Let’s say you have hundreds of videos in a niche and you’re one of only a handful of trusted partners of YouTube. Your videos have the potential to be pushed to thousands and thousands of websites instantly, of which you share in the profit of the ads with the website publisher.

Take a YouTube partner like Tim Carter of Askthebuilder.com. How many home improvement websites are out there now? 100,000 or more, right? Probably. His videos can now be served to all of those websites (if they choose it). So now Tim has to only focus on creating high-quality videos, and YouTube will distribute them over, and over and over and give him his cut.

Read/Write Web is right…

It’s a simple story, but if it is true it is going to blow the world of online video and advertising wide open.

It’s true, and it WILL blow the doors off the video industry.

Start making those videos, and figuring out how you’re going to get on the YouTube publisher/partner list. I can already tell you how to do it.

Make high-quality videos. That’s it. Make a lot of them.

More at Techmeme.

Are you buying or selling Google juice? The debate rages on. Or, actually, did Google just end it?

Last week, I noticed the Stanford Daily had dropped from when I wrote the above in April to PR7 today. That’s a huge drop that has no apparent reason to happen. Some others were also reporting PageRank drops. So I pinged Google, and they confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links.

In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well.

Game on. As Sam says, if you’re going to dance, you gotta pay the band.

Or is this just Google flexing? As Andy states…

Google are attacking my personal brand, my business, and my integrity.

You know what I think? I think that Google is gonna get what they want, regardless of what some bloggers or seo’rs say or do or think.

My advice? Same as it always has been when it come to seo. If it feels wrong, Google probably thinks it is.