Best of Google Tools & Tips for Internet Marketing Resource Center 

Advanced Dork is a Firefox add-on that gives access to Google's Advanced Operator search tools with the right click of your mouse. These operators are the indispensable tools you need but can never remember the commands for. The easiest way to use the tool is to click on any word in a Web page, right click on your mouse and pull up the Advanced Dork tool to launch a search using any of Google's advanced operators; for example inurl:, site: or froogle:.

Once you've mastered the basics, you can get even more advanced. For example, you can be on any Web page and choose the Google's "intitle" operator to launch a search for all sites with the same words in their HTML title tags. Or, you could choose the "allintext" search function to find sites that use the same alt tags as the page you are looking at. This is a very useful piece of functionality for advanced search dorks.

As you probably know, Android is the open-source operating system for mobile phones, spearheaded by Google and expected to be a serious contender against the iPhone and BlackBerry. On top of this operating system, marketers like Amazon, eBay, Bank of America and Visa have created branded applications that users of Android-powered phones can download the same way iPhone users can access complimentary applications through the iPhone App Store.

Amazon is out front, as you would expect, with its Amazon MP3 for Android, which lets users search for, sample, buy and download music. The Bank of America mobile banking app lets users check balances, pay bills, transfer funds and locate ATMs.

At time of writing, the adoption rate was small but expected to take off as more users upgrade to smartphones. (The T-Mobile G1 mobile phone is the only one offered at time of writing.)

Somebody called Google's new Ad Planner tool "Google Trends for Web Sites on steroids," and that's not really an overstatement. Even experienced media planners will want to test-drive this gratis, information-rich planner program that lets you tap into Google's wealth of information and build media plans with just a few clicks.

Create or log in to your Google Account first, then start your research or build a media plan. Choose your country, language, demographic data, likely keywords and sites, then see which sites Google says your audience is likely to visit.

Within the application, you can click on a site and get thumbnails showing relevant data: how the site performs on your chosen demographics, by country, other sites visited, popular keywords, etc. Keep the thumbnails open for fast comparison. Click to view according to audience reach, best matches or composition index to further refine your results.

This nifty little tool is a fast way to look at A/B split tests of ads in a Google AdWords campaign to determine whether you have enough history to safely eliminate the lesser performer. Offered gratis at Vertster's Web site, it doesn't require registrations, log-ins, downloads or add-ons.

Write in the number of clicks and the CTRs for the two ads you want to test in the tool's data form, then click "Calculate." The tool will tell you whether you have to collect more history to make a statistically valid decision, or whether you have enough to decide and how confident you should be about your decision.

If you're an AdWords user, log in to this tool to find out why your ads are not appearing the way you think they should be. This diagnostics page links to the AdWords Diagnostic Tool itself (AdWords account required) and also to other helpful pages in the Google AdWords domain. These include the Disapproved Ads tool that shows which of your ads bear the dreaded "disapproved" label, the "Can't See Your Ad?" troubleshooting wizard and the Ad Preview tool. It also has its own help center and search tool, glossary and link to the AdWords Help Discussion Group.

Got a couple reasons why your ad isn't showing up? According to "Can't See Your Ad?" it could be any of these reasons: daily budget lower than recommended, keyword deleted or inactive, ad is disapproved, IP unknown or outside target area, ad was not on the front page or browser page is not refreshing.

Here's one AdWords tool that you can use even if you aren't an AdWords client. This tool will help you come up with new AdWords keywords, either by generating new keyword combinations you haven't considered or warning you off others because they'll return tons of irrelevant traffic or are being used by everybody else in your market.

Search for keywords two ways: Plug in either the ones you're using now or considering for use, or use your Web site's URL and let the tool pull keywords from your site content. Either way, you'll get a long list of possible keywords, sorted into relevant groups, with a long list of bar-graph options showing search volume and popularity. Find one that looks like a winner? Click to add it when you sign up for AdWords, or download the list into a file for later use.

We ran a test using a personal blog site and found out we've likely been attracting the wrong crowd with the keywords we've been using and will instead plug in some of the suggestions the sandbox returned. Cool and geeky.