No doubt that the choice you make with your domain name is important for marketing your business online. When it comes to choosing a TLD (Top Level Domain: .ca, .com, etc.) many people run into the issue of availability: mycompany.com is taken, should I register the .ca, or find another .com? What effects does this have in my search engine results?

As you may have noticed when you visit google.com it usually forwards you to google.ca. So you must know who your market is. Are you offering a product or service only to Canada? Only to the US? What if you want to market your product and service to both Canada and the US?

From my experience I’ve noticed three things that determine whether or not you are displayed in the country-specific google pages and how google weighs your site for each page.

Firstly, your TLD. Naturally, a .ca domain will appear in the google.ca search results, while a .co.uk will appear in the google.co.uk, and a .com/.net will appear in the google.com results.

Next, where your website is hosted plays a part as well. If your domain is hosted on a Canadian IP address, it will appear in the Canadian results, same goes for American hosted sites showing in google.com.

Finally, your company address listed on your website. If you have your company address listed on a contact page on your website this seems to play a part in where it gets displayed.

So, taking my site – www.websavers.ca – as an example. We can look at the keyword “shoutcast hosting” for 3 google search pages.

1. Canada Search Results:

The Canadian (google.ca) page displays our result as #2 – given more weight because of its .ca and less competition for keyword in the google.ca search results. (Note #1 is a .com but lists a Canadian address in their contact info)

2. America Search Results:

The American (google.com) page displays our result as #21 – given weight due to the fact that the site is hosted in the US, but with more keyword competition.

3. UK Search Results:

The UK (google.co.uk) page displays our result as #97 – weighted very low due to tld, no UK address and not being hosted in the UK.

As always, these are just my conclusions from experience, and an examples. Google is a mysterious being and you can’t guarantee much when it comes to search marketing.

The idea and a pitch will be put up on my Current Projects page this evening. However, iBranded needs an identity. It needs a logo and an image.

This post is looking for just that. If you’re reading this and are interested in designing a logo, know someone who does identity creation, or any other connection to a designer please let me know. Depending on the amount of work, payment can be worked out either as a up front or a percentage.

The day started early with a 5 minute presentation by each of the 10 employers present at the event: Sunlife Financial, Frito Lay, Pepsi Bottling Group, Xerox, Bell Aliant, Fastenal, Enterprise, Canadian Tire, Labatt, and Investors Group. After the employers were wrapped up the students had the opportunity to take the floor. We each had 1 minute to give an “elevator pitch” or a mini speech aimed to essentially stand out amongst the other 25 or so students.

I was fortunate enough to be selected to interview with every company, which meant a fun but busy day. It was a great opportunity to meet some wonderful people from a variety of organizations and industries. It’s interesting what a day can do to change your perspective on your career path. I must say that Sunlife had a wonderful 5 minute presentation, and combined with a great interview with Suzanne from Sunlife has completely changed my opinions on financial planning as a career option.

I would recommend this event to any student. It’s a great way to meet some key people and to build on your job searching efforts. Big thanks to Management Career Services for organizing the event.

While we’re watching McCain commercials, lets travel back to 1997 with one of their first commercials for this ever so lovely cake.

Since I’m back in school mode, expect more blogging.

I’m sure most of you have heard the news about Microsoft’s now withdrawn offer to purchase Yahoo. It was an ongoing adventure over the past year and a half. In May of 2008, Microsoft put in a formal bid to purchase Yahoo outright for $47.5 Billion, or $33 per share, looking to expand their online advertising presence and compete with Google.

I know if I owned shares in Yahoo (YHOO) I would have been a little upset. Especially considering they were trading at between $26 and $28 per share at the time of the bid. Yahoo played a little too hard to get in this relationship, as senior executives rejected the offer believing the company was worth more around the range of $37 per share. After a few more weeks of negotiations, the announcement was made that Yahoo and Microsoft were no longer talking.

You may also have heard that, Yahoo, now hurt from the break up with Microsoft, crawled into bed with Google. A rebound relationship that has many questioning Yahoo’s actions. Yahoo and Google announced the deal on the same day that talks with Microsoft ceased. Yahoo has outsourced some of its paid search ad business to Google. Although the deal is still undergoing the loop holes required to be approved, it won’t surprise me when it gets approved.

Now at this point you may be asking yourself, “why do you care?” Ahh good question. As mentioned, I don’t own shares in Yahoo so the fact that they are now trading 30% less than Microsoft’s offer doesn’t keep me awake at night, or the fact that they dropped more than 15% since the acquisition fell through. What I do care about is what will now happen to online advertising, and the future of Yahoo. I see people removing their Yahoo ads, and instead investing more into their Google advertising since their ads will still display on both Google and Yahoo sites because of the deal.

I like Google. They’ve definitely done some great things and continue to amaze me all the time. But the competition from a Yahoo-Microsoft merge would have been nice to see in the online advertising industry.

The complaints stated that the commercial was “offensive” and “inappropriate to see two men kissing”. Wake up! I’m pretty sure that even in the UK, same-sex relationship exist. To be deemed “inappropriate” seems a little harsh. It was launched in the UK by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO – their first ad since winning Heinz’s $20 million UK account last year. Unfortunately it may be their last as well. The ad was meant to be humorous, displaying an English family with an Italian “mom” or chef, which goes along with the whole Heinz Deli theme. I think it did a pretty good job at being funny. Clearly, other people have different thoughts.

“Other complaints included that the ad was ‘unsuitable to be seen by children’ and that it raised the difficult problem of parents having to discuss the issue of same-sex relationships with younger viewers.” Even though this ad wasn’t allowed to be shown in or around children’s programming because of the Mayo’s fat and sugar content. I’m sure by 2009, we’ve all been exposed to some sort of same-sex relationship. I don’t see this commercial being confusing in this sense.

I guess I’m just a little disappointed that it received so many complaints. I don’t blame Heinz for pulling it from the air – it’s not good for business to leave up an ad that receives so many complains. I also commend Abbott Mead Vickers, being a marketing major I can understand the controversy that can go along with creating an ad like this and I’m glad they went through with it. Unfortunately the UK isn’t quite ready for it. I guess they do take a while to catch on to some things – hygiene?