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October 3, 2004 - October 9, 2004

Search and Cluster the CIA WMD Report with Clusty

The folks over at Clusty (aka Vivisimo) have just released a search/cluster version of the CIA WMD report that was released on Wednesday.

In July, Vivisimo made a search and cluster version of the 9/11 Commission Final Report available.

Posted by Gary Price on October 8, 2004, 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Publisher Reactions To Google Print; What About Authors?

New Google Service May Strain Old Ties in Bookselling from the New York Times today has some nice quotes on how publishers are reacting to the expansion of the Google Print service.

Here's something I haven't yet seen (if you have, tell me). How are authors going to react? After all, publishers are now set to earn revenue off AdSense ads that appear in these books. But the books are the works for the respective authors. Shouldn't they get a share? Do contracts cover this? Will they have to going forward?

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 8, 2004, 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

E-Mail Alerts at Feedster, RSS Feeds at Yahoo

+ Scott Johnson has let everyone know that Feedster's E-Mail search alerts are finally working correctly. He even thanks me for the motivation to fix the problem. You're MORE than welcome Scott and thanks for listening.

+ Earlier this week I mentioned that Yahoo News would soon be adding an XML button on all news search results pages that allows you to add an RSS search results feed to ANY aggregator. As of today, this service is working. Of course, you can also add the feed to your My Yahoo page with just one click. Previously, you had to use the tool on Jeremy Zawdony's site (it remains available) to create a Yahoo News RSS feeds.

Btw, Speaking of Yahoo and RSS...
Dan Rosenweig, Yahoo's COO, said yesterday that the company will introduce advertising into RSS feeds. You can learn more about it in the eWeek article: Yahoo Readies Ads for RSS.

Posted by Gary Price on October 8, 2004, 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Web 2.0 Search Wrap-Up

O'Reilly's put out its official wrap-up of various things discussed that were search-related at its Web 2.0 conference: Search: The Current and Next Big Thing. As a recap, here is other search coverage from the show we've blogged about:

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 8, 2004, 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Where's The Privacy Freak Out Over Search Personalization?

Alan Chapell raises a good question in his Amazon.com's A9 Adventure article. Why haven't privacy advocates freaked out loudly and in large numbers about a9 and its personal search features? Only a few months ago, privacy concerns over Google's Gmail made headlines.

I agree with one of his Chapell's main arguments, that Amazon's built a reputation of trust with many of its users for handling personal information well (though Amazon subsidary Alexa did agree to settle a privacy dispute back in 2001).

Perhaps part of the reason the a9 launch (and other personal search features debuting since then from Ask Jeeves and Yahoo) haven't raised more ire is because search privacy was raised as an issue last year.

Perhaps. I think the real answer is that people still aren't largely thinking much about search privacy. Gmail wasn't a search privacy issue. It was an email privacy one. I think people know inherently that there are private things sent via email. The idea that that email is going to be analyzed to show ads -- even through an automated process -- sounds scary.

Another reason may be that Amazon's a9 simply isn't used by that many people. In contrast, Google is by various metrics still the most popular search engine. What it does in terms of search impacts many more people.

In fact, that's one reason why Google got singled out for privacy concerns back in 2002 and 2003 relating directly to search. It was so big that privacy advocates figured it deserved the most attention.

In contrast, I think search is seen largely as a transient thing to many people. They really don't stop to think much about the very personal things they look up. They've also had no real experience with this information actively being recorded in a way they can use, unlike with email.

Last year, I looked at search privacy issues in my Search Privacy At Google & Other Search Engines article. I explained then how search was largely ignored as a privacy concern compared to things like cookies because search features themselves had no "memory" to them. Now that search memory tools have arrived big time, I'm sure we'll see search privacy concerns grow as such tools become used.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 8, 2004, 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Travel Search: Take a Trip with Kayak

Kayak, a new travel search meta site that I've mentioned several times on the SEW Blog, has just launched a beta version.

Kayak, simultaneously searches more than 60 site for air fares, hotels, and car rental pricing info.

Competitors in this section of the travel search space include Fare Chase (from Yahoo), Mobissimo, and SideStep.

One feature I like about Kayak is how simple narrowing a results set it. Several refinements can be made by simply by moving 'sliders' (change flight times, price range, etc.)

This is very similar to the Smart Sort technology that Yahoo makes available for several product categories. Here, you can use sliders to help select the best product based on what's more or less important to you.

Kayak offers both HTML and Flash search interfaces.

Former executives from Orbitz, Travelocity, and Intuit are all part of the Kayak management team.

Here's the Kayak beta release announcement.

Also, Pamela Parker takes a look at Kayak in the Clickz article: Travel Vets Launch Beta of 'Google for Travel'.

Posted by Gary Price on October 8, 2004, 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FindWhat To Carry Verizon SuperPages Paid Listings

Local paid listings from Verizon's SuperPages program are now to be distributed though FindWhat's distribution network. More details from the FindWhat press release.

Last year, Verizon licensed technology from FindWhat to build the SuperPages.com Pay Per Click program that launched in May.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 8, 2004, 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Top Coders Say Google Is Tops

TopCoder.com polled its 44,000 members worldwide about their favorite search engine. A much smaller number actually voted, 450, and they really like Google. It gained 92 percent of the vote, followed by Yahoo at 3 percent.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 8, 2004, 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Demos Word Clustering

Andy Beal has a nice write-up of Google showing off its word clustering tools at the recent Web 2.0 conference: Web 2.0 - Exclusive Demonstration of Clustering from Google. Jason Calacanis also has an MP3 audio file of the presentation you can listen to.

We've had some hints at such technology before. Google Sets, which was released in 2002, lets you enter some terms and see other terms that may be related to it.

Related Searches came-and-went quickly with Google AdWords and have occasionally popped up in the past on a very small sample of Google users (see an example here).

Neither Google Sets or Related Searches provide clustering as was demonstrated or as can be seen via Vivisimo (or Vivisimo's recently launched consumer site Clusty). But some of the underlying clustering technology may be used for these.

Also interesting is mention of Google excluding "noisy" data to focus on the key part of a page. It's common that search engines may ignore "stop words" such as "the" when indexing or searching. However, Google's "named entities" would go beyond that to focus on the core content of a page.

Both clustering and named entities have interesting applications to searchers and search marketing. By understanding clusters of search results, it may be easier for Google (and other search engines) to determine pages that don't seem to belong somehow on a particular topic -- in particular, spam pages that given their often artificial nature might stand out more.

Similarly, understanding the key concepts of a page and first ranking pages based on a concept match, then following on an actual word match, might help eliminate some false poor matches.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 8, 2004, 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

IceRocket Launches Blog Search

IceRocket, the new search engine that investor Mark Cuban calls his "toy" now offers weblog search. Loren over at Search Engine Journal has the details along with an interview with IceRocket CEO, Blake Rhodes.

Posted by Gary Price on October 7, 2004, 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google & Synfonic Both Launch SMS Search Tools

Google has a just launched a new site that allows you to search and access content via SMS (short message service/text messaging) that's very popular in Europe and Asia. However, this new Google beta is only available in the United States.

They've offered a version of Google optimized for wireless browsers for a couple of years.

Yahoo also offers numerous services for wireless web users. For example, you can receive keyword news alerts via SMS.

Recently, we've posted about a service in the UK that allows you to ask questions and receive answers via SMS.

Google SMS returns answers not links for certain types of queries. Examples include:
+ Dictionary definitions
+ Product comparison info
+ Local business (name, address, phone) info.

Btw, just yesterday, Berkeley based Synfonic launched an SMS-based search tool called Synfonic411 that offers directory and local business info from the Yahoo Local database.

Finally, a "tool" for SMS that's been getting press lately is Vazu. It allows the user to send any phone number found on the web along with other contact info to their cell phone/wireless device. I'm a Treo 600 guy and have found it very useful.

Wireless access to search tools (via SMS and the wireless web) will continue to come online as the wireless web and SMS continue to grow in popularity. Even specialized databases are developing "mobile" interfaces. The National Library of Medicine already offers a version of PubMed for wireless web browsers.

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread: Google SMS Search.

I've posted the complete text of the Google and Synfonic announcements below.

=====
=====
Today, Google announced the beta release of Google SMS, a new offering that enables people who are away from their computers to quickly and easily get instant, accurate answers to specialized queries through text messaging. Using a cell phone or handheld device such as a Blackberry, users can obtain local business listings, dictionary definitions, product prices and more--all available through Google.

Google SMS returns specific information related to a user's query as a text message to their mobile device. For example, to find a pizza joint in a specific neighborhood, users can send a text message to the 5-digit U.S. shortcode 46645 (also GOOGL on most mobile phones) with the query and city or query and zip code, i.e. [pizza 94043], and immediately receive the name, address, and phone number of local pizzerias in that area. This type of concise information can help mobile users find exactly what they're looking for anywhere and any time.

Using Google SMS, people can:
. Find names, addresses and phone numbers for local businesses and residences
. Look up dictionary terms to get definitions, expand their vocabularies, or even settle bets
. Compare online product prices with those they find in retail stores, i.e. to find the price of an iPod, users can enter the message [price ipod 20gb]

Google SMS, currently in beta on Google Labs at http://sms.google.com, extends the reach of Google's search services to mobile phones and devices, while staying true to Google's mission to bring more of the world's information directly to users. Google SMS currently works with wireless providers in the U.S. only, including AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint PCS.

Google is continually developing innovative ideas to improve our users' search experience, and as always, we welcome your feedback. For instructions on how to get started, users may send a text message to 46645 with the word [help]. More information about Google SMS can be found at http://sms.google.com.
=====
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SYNFONIC LAUNCHES FREE 411 SERVICE

WIRELESS APPLICATION COMPANY PROVIDES DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE SERVICES FOR TEXT-MESSAGE ENABLED WIRELESS PHONES

BERKELEY, Calif., October 6, 2004, Synfonic Inc., a leading provider of on-demand data services for wireless phones, today announced its new Synfonic411 service providing directory assistance and local business information using text messaging short-message service (SMS). Cell phone users send a text message to Synfonic411 with the city, state, and business name, and Synfonic returns a text message with the desired address and phone number in seconds.

Unlike conventional directory assistance service, Synfonic411 also
provides additional information on similar businesses in the vicinity. “A user in Berkeley might look up the name of their favorite Japanese restaurant in order to make a lunch reservation,” said John Chen, co-founder and chief executive officer of Synfonic. “Within seconds, our free service will send the user the address and phone number of the restaurant, as well as two or three other restaurants in the neighborhood.

The service is exactly the same as today's directory assistance, but you don't need to write the number down, and we add a couple of alternative suggestions too.”

All cell phones manufactured within the past three years are SMS enabled, and text messaging usage is increasing in all age groups. Synfonic is aiding this trend by developing on-demand mobile services for consumers and businesses to get information sent to their cellular phones. Synfonic411 is the first in a series of SMS-based information search services from Synfonic, turning your cell phone into a mobile search engine.

How to use Synfonic directory assistance service:
Synfonic's directory assistance service is available at 650.430.7183.
Simply send a text message with the city, state initials, and business name, separating each item with a comma. For example, to find Oakland Airport, type “Oakland, CA, Oakland Airport” and send the message to Synfonic411.

About Synfonic
Synfonic is a Silicon Valley based developer of on-demand information
services for cell phone users. Using its patent pending mobile services platform, Synfonic brings the power of the internet to mobile handsets, stripping and formatting web content to fit cell phones. For more

Posted by Gary Price on October 7, 2004, 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google PageRank Update Underway

If you're one who obsesses over Google PageRank scores (you shouldn't, but people do), you'll be happy to know that the little PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar is now showing new scores for pages for the first time in many moons.

Bear in mind that the PR scores used as ONE part of the Google ranking algorithm may have been updated before this within the algorithm itself, but now the toolbar is likely playing catch-up. Or not. It's another reason why you shouldn't freak about it.

Barry Schwartz gives a little background here: PageRank Update Taking Place. Aaron Wall here: Google PageRank: Toolbar Update. Nick W dissects who should get first dibs on spotting the update and a tip to force your toolbar to see it: PR Update - Confirmed.

Want to comment or discuss? People already are in our forum discussion: Finally, a PR Update!

Postscript: Barry's added a nice recap of various forum posts on the topics from across the web.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 7, 2004, 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks For Your Horrible Link Request

As part of my Intro To Search Engine Marketing session at our Search Engine Strategies conferences, I always have a segment on link building and the appropriate way to do it. Key tip? Understand the site you are making the request from. What's it about? What's the best place for a link? How can you make this easy?

Then I usually drag out one of the many generic link requests I get that violate all the rules. I just got another one of these classics:

We have recently visited your site, http://www.searchenginewatch.com, and found it to be not only professional and interesting, but very informative too. We would like to propose entering into a link exchange that will be beneficial to both your site and our clients' site.

As you're probably aware, search engines (such as Google) prefer sites that are linked from other related sites. For some time now, reciprocal linking (sites trading links to each other) has been used to improve link popularity and rankings in many of the major search engines.

I have something like this I use already in my talk. It's makes for a good laugh. What? Links are important? Wow, thanks for letting me know! I mean, I run a site all about search engines. It's a good thing you've come along. This is a great tip. I'd better let my readers know.

Please, thanks for showing me how much thought and effort you put into this request. But it gets better:

However, these same search engines are now gradually discounting the benefits of direct reciprocal links. Many search engine discussion forums have already identified the trend among the major engines to give more preference to sites that have "one-way" links. This means that any two sites directly linking to each other will no longer be improving their search engine visibility as much as sites that have "incoming-only" links from other topic-related sites.

What we are proposing is a link exchange that will benefit your site and our clients' site, without having an ineffective direct reciprocal link exchange. Our proposed link exchange creates, in effect, an "incoming-only" link for each site. This is a more desirable (and more difficult to achieve) link which will help both sites improve their search engine visibility, while at the same time it completely avoids the detested spamming dangers of "link farms" and similar ill-advised approaches.

Not quite right. Folks can (and do) debate, but my view is that links between two entire SITES are not likely to be discounted. After all, what's a site? A domain name? Well, you've got plenty of domain names shared by multiple web sites within them. Going to discount all those links? That's going to make a mess of your link analysis system. Too many innocents will be caught.

More important, you want to offer me a link on some unknown page that might not have any visitors at all? That's what I care about -- a page that has visitors I'm interested in, not one that may (or may not) have any impact on search rankings.

Thanks -- I can't be bothered with your off-topic request that shows complete ignorance of what my web site is about. I'll stick with my

Thanks -- I can't be bothered with your off-topic request that shows complete ignorance of what my web site is about. I'll stick with my Three Golden Rules Of Link Building, instead.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 7, 2004, 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some Google Print Follow-Ups

In my article on Google Print yesterday, I noted in the version for SEW members that electronic copies of books aren't being accepted at this time. Tara Calishain highlights that this means plenty of digital copies in libraries won't yet be included: Google Print, Google Print, Argh Argh Argh.

As for Project Ocean, a rumored plan by Google to digitize the Stanford Library, Tara says that Google itself still has no comment on such speculation.

Barbara Quint also touches on the issue of picking up on electronic copies in her write-up: Google Print Expands Access to Books with Digitization Offer to All Publishers.

Meanwhile, Gary checked in with Amazon yesterday. They say the Search Inside The Book service has 100,000 titles at the moment, but they won't say how many they add each month. For more on Search Inside The Book, see the end of my Google Print Opens Widely To Publishers article.

In case you missed it, Gary also blogged some tips on searching the full text of books outside of Google and Amazon: More Full Text Books, plus how libraries can get you access indirectly to such material: The Virtual Reference Service.

Finally, want to see how Google Print results now appear in OneBox display? Visit Dirson's Example Of The New Google Print.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 7, 2004, 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

myGoogle Search Aims To Refine Google Results

myGoogle Search is NOT from Google, and somehow I suspect the letter asking for a name change will be coming from the lawyers at the Googleplex. But the idea is in the right spirit. Do a Google search, then tick the results you DON'T like to automatically bring back more that match what you DO want. The site's How To Use page has more explaining the concept, with examples.

The concept isn't new. We've had stuff like this in the past on major search engines, especially at both AltaVista and Excite, if I recall correctly. And the Similar Pages link at Google is even supposed to do something like this, though I've never found Google's implementation very useful.

Tara spotted the new site and provides here write-up here: User-Guided Search Refining in Google. Be aware that when I tested it today, the site didn't seem to be working properly. Want to comment? Visit our forum thread: myGoogle Search.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 7, 2004, 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Opens European HQ

Google Blog and this Channel News Asia article: Google sets up shop in tech-oriented Ireland, informs us that Google has just opened it's "European Headquarters" today in Dublin. Sergey, Larry, and the Irish Deputy Prime Minister were in attendance.

Posted by Gary Price on October 6, 2004, 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search as a Platform: The Panel

Jeremy Zawodny provides an excellent "unofficial transcript" of the "Search as a Platform" panel at the Web 2.0 Conference. The panel consisted of:
+ Steve Berkowitz (Ask Jeeves)
+ Udi Manber (a9)
+ Louis Monier (eBay)
+ Christopher Payne (MSN)
+ Jeff Weiner (Yahoo)
+ Google was a no-show.
Thanks JZ! This is a must read. Plenty to think about. Comments soon.

Postscript: Looking for audio of the discussion? Jason Calacanis has some for you: Web 2.0 Search Panel (MP3 files uploaded!!!)

Posted by Gary Price on October 6, 2004, 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most Searched For Shopping Brand?

What's the most popular search for brand in the shopping category?

Amazon? Walmart? Nope, according to some just released stats from Hitwise, it's eBay.

Hitwise Search Term data show that for the four weeks ending Sept. 25, 2004, the term "ebay" commanded 1.49 percent of queries across all major search engines that delivered traffic to Shopping and Classifieds sites. Meanwhile, "walmart" represented 0.28 percent of all searches; "best buy" 0.26 percent; "amazon.com" 0.24 percent; home depot 0.24 percent; and "target" 0.22 percent.

The full text (with more stats) is below.

Halloween and back-to-school drive searching in September

NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2004 - Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive Intelligence service, reports that while eBay is the most visited online shopping and auction destination, it also is the most searched-for brand in the entire Shopping category. According to Hitwise, the popularity of the term "ebay" dwarfs the level of search-engine queries for all other retailers fivefold or more.

"Similar to its dominance of shopping Web traffic, the popularity of eBay among total shopping searches reflects the brand's equity," said Bill Tancer, Vice President of Research, Hitwise. "Considering this massive consumer appeal, both small and mega online retailers should consider eBay not only as a competitor, but also as a potential partner in their ongoing customer acquisition and e-commerce strategies."

Retailers Dominate Brand-Specific Searches, While Halloween and
Back-to-School Influence Generic Product Searches

Among the top 50 brand-specific search terms delivering traffic to the shopping category, retailers dominated over product-specific brands.

Highlights of the top 50 product searches for the four weeks ending Sept.
25, 2004:

The arrival of Fall sports have helped make "sporting goods" the
number-one product search term. And with Halloween approaching, "halloween costumes" was the second most popular search term.

Eight of the top 50 product search terms included the word
"books", driven largely by college students on the prowl for affordable texts. Top search terms included: "used books", "used textbooks", "college textbooks", "college books", "used college books", "cheap books" and "used text books".

Fifty-two percent of search-engine queries delivering traffic to
shopping sites included only one or two words. However, there is significant variation in word count across sub-categories, depending on how descriptive the searches are. For example, 56 percent of search queries delivering traffic to apparel sites contain one or two words, while 58 percent of searches delivering traffic to automotive sites contain three or more words.

Chart: Word-Count in Search Term for Shopping Searches

Hitwise U.S. Search Queries Report

Queries Resulting in Visits to Shopping & Classifieds Category

Period - Four Weeks Ending 09/25/04

1 words

19.61%

2 words

32.40%

3 words

23.66%

4 words

12.67%

5 words

6.00%

6 words

2.79%

7 words

1.34%

8+ words

1.53%

Chart: Top 25 Brand/Product Search Terms resulting in visits to Shopping
sites

Hitwise U.S. Data

Top 25 Search Terms By Brand & Product resulting in Visits to Shopping &
Classifieds Category

Period - Four Weeks Ending 09/25/04

Brand/Navigational

Product

ebay

sporting goods

ebay.com

halloween costumes

walmart

consumer reports

best buy

books

amazon.com

used textbooks

home depot

used books

target

furniture

sears

auto parts

amazon

tires

circuit city

flowers

lowes

lingerie

www.ebay.com

college textbooks

ikea

prom dresses

barnes and noble

posters

dell

homecoming dresses

walmart.com

shoes

costco

digital cameras

target.com

coupons

ebay summary

free music downloads

bed bath and beyond

costumes

overstock.com

digital camera

blockbuster

music downloads

office depot

auctions

toys r us

engagement rings

babies r us

music

Chart: Top Shopping Sites Ranked By % of Total Visits

Hitwise U.S. Data

Top 25 Shopping & Classifieds Web Sites

Rank By Visits for Week Ending 09/25/04

Rank

Name

Domain

Market Share

eBay

www.ebay.com

24.71%

My eBay

my.ebay.com

10.77%

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

3.08%

eBay Motors

www.ebaymotors.com

2.16%

Dell USA

www.dell.com

1.63%

eBay Stores

www.ebaystores.com

1.27%

Walmart.com

www.walmart.com

1.25%

Yahoo! Shopping

shopping.yahoo.com

1.14%

Target

www.target.com

1.02%

NexTag

www.nextag.com

0.89%

BestBuy.com

www.bestbuy.com

0.88%

BizRate.com

www.bizrate.com

0.72%

Ticketmaster

www.ticketmaster.com

0.65%

Sears.com

www.sears.com

0.61%

CircuitCity.com

www.circuitcity.com

0.59%

Shopping.com

www.shopping.com

0.57%

JC Penney

www.jcpenney.com

0.50%

QVC.com

www.qvc.com

0.49%

Overstock.com

www.overstock.com

0.48%

Sprint PCS

www.sprintpcs.com

0.47%

The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

0.46%

eMachines

www.emachines.com

0.42%

Half.com

www.half.ebay.com

0.40%

Barnes & Noble.com

www.bn.com

0.37%

Publishers Clearing House

www.pch.com

0.36%

Posted by Gary Price on October 6, 2004, 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Virtual Reference Service

One more plug for libraries today.

A reason you might not be able to find what you're looking for with Google (or any other web engine) is that it's just not there.

However, here comes the library plug, many libraries offer FREE access to databases that contain the full text from thousands of publications often not easily or entirely accessible via a general web engine. Search has become much easier in the past few years. However, if you want to use these databases in an "advanced" manner, they can also be very powerful.

Access is available 24x7x365 without having to visit the library building. All you need is a library card. Here's a SearchDay story with more details.

Need help answering a specific question? Many libraries around the world offer "virtual reference desk" services where you can chat with a trained librarian. These services can be based locally, statewide, or at a national level.

For example, Australia has a virtual reference service available to any resident via the web. Here's a list with some (but not all) of these services.

The best place to learn about virtual reference services is by checking your library's home page or by calling and asking if this type of service is available. Of course, many libraries will be happy to help answer your question on the phone or via email.

Posted by Gary Price on October 6, 2004, 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Couldn't Find On Google? Tell "Can't Find On Google"

Can't Find On Google is a cool site to let you post what you couldn't find when searching on Google (or rightly, another search engine). Others can contribute to help. I just think it's an interesting new place to understand how people are search. Nice catch via InsideGoogle.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 6, 2004, 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More Full Text Books

Well, Google Print for books is here.

Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" has been around for a while.

It's worth mentioning that several other services are out there that offer searchable, full text and full image, access to book material online. In many cases, access is free to the end user.

These services don't place any limits on how much of a book you can read and also allow you to bookmark pages and add notes.

One player in this space is NetLibrary. This Boulder, Colorado company (part of OCLC) has been around since 1998 and offers their service to thousands of libraries around the globe. Currently, NetLibrary offers access to about 76,000 books with about 1300 new titles added each month.

The user accesses NetLibray via their local public or university library. With a library card, you can "virtually" check-out and read books (full image) without having to visit the libary building. That's right, 24x7x365 access. In many cases, content can be printed.

NetLibrary continues to bring new publishers on board. In September they announced a deal with Penguin USA.

Another company is ebrary. This California company has been in business since 1999 and is under the direction of Christopher Warnock. You can read an interview with him here. ebrary provides access to more than 50,000 titles (books, maps, sheet music, etc.). Like NetLibrary, ebrary licenses their service to libraries and educational organizations and users can login and access via any computer with web access.

ebrary also offers a program (if you're library doesn't offer the service for free) where you can register and access more than 20,000 books from more than 180 publishers. Once registered, you can read (make notes, bookmark) all the you want for free. However, there is a per page charge to copy and print material (up to a limit determined by the publisher).

Posted by Gary Price on October 6, 2004, 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Print Invites Publishers To Expand Content

Google Print is moving into a new chapter with the launch of a new program to gather up content from publishers. I've posted a rundown on the changes in today's SearchDay: Google Print Opens Widely To Publishers. Google's also posted new information on the Google Print site itself.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 6, 2004, 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Board Member Says Browser Not Going to Happen

At the Web 2.0 Conference Google board member John Doerr said that Google is not going to enter the browser space.

"Browsers are going to come back...We'll see a lot of innovation," said Doerr, speaking to a roomful of attendees at the Web 2.0 conference here. He added that as new browsers come onto the market, Google's application protocol interfaces and advertising network will be there to plug into and support them.

Doerr later joked, however, that just because he was on the board of Google didn't necessarily mean he knew what they were doing.

Though reluctant to talk in depth about Google's future or IPO, Doerr gave guidance as to where the company will likely go, including making more information searchable, growing internationally and becoming "the Google who knows you."

More about what Doerr has to say along with continuing Web 2.0 coverage in the News.com article: Investor doesn't see browser in Google's future.

Posted by Gary Price on October 6, 2004, 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Snap To It: New Search Engine Launches

Yesterday Stefanine Olsen reported from the Web 2.0 conference about a new project from Idealabs's, Bill Gross. Details in this blog post.

Today, Olsen talked with Gross about another new search project he's working on called Snap. A beta went live today. You can learn more in: New Snap site thinks outside the search box.

"It's going to be controversial, but it's awesome," Gross said in an interview at the Web 2.0 conference on Tuesday. "We're trying to improve search productivity.

It's also one of the first search engines to harness data on "user intentions," extrapolating meaning from words typed into a search box. It's done so by licensing data feeds from third-party Internet service providers, which have tracked, anonymously, what people do after they've typed in a specific search terms. It uses this special sauce, a data feed of more than a terabyte, to compute the relevancy of certain searches and resort results.

"...the most "subversive" part, Gross said, is that the service is transparent to advertisers and visitors. Snap will make money by selling advertising placements at the top of search results, but the twist is that it will let marketers pay specifically for people who buy at their site as a result of the Snap listing, a "cost per transaction" model. Furthermore, advertisers can specify, for example, that they want to pay 25 percent of their product cost or $4 for every widget they sell if a consumer buys it from the ad at Snap--and that information will be displayed in Snap's product listings. In comes the transparency.

Snap has licensed search technology from desktop search player x1. Data comes from Gigablast, Looksmart, along with "anonymous data feeds" from ISPs.

A Snap site tour is available here and Gross explains the new service on the Snap Weblog.

He writes, "We even are revealing OUR REVENUES. Our conviction is that you get better results because transparency prevents advertisers or others from gaming the system.:

The Snap help section has a bit more info about their ranking algorithm. Say hello to Snap Rank!

"...'Snap Rank' algorithm combines advanced calculations involving analyses of the web itself (such as link strength and query matches) with a large body of human data to deliver results that are accurate, trustworthy, and directly related to your intentions and needs. Snap processes post-search actions from our Snap Network, started in January of 2004. Snap evaluates where users go after a search - what listings they choose and how many pages they review on that site, right after the same search you did. The overall popularity of the site also influences the ranking.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Semel Says Yahoo Needs No Merger

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel spoke at an investment conference in New York today and this article: Yahoo chief sees no need to join media merger frenzy, offers a few quotes from the presentation.

In an era of widespread media consolidation, internet media company Yahoo believes television networks, movie studios and music companies should look to it as a partner rather than a merger candidate, chief executive Terry Semel says.

"I think there's another alternative. I see Yahoo as a perfect partner who could help traditional media," Semel said in response to a question about media consolidation at an investment conference in New York.

Semel said Yahoo will continue to build its advertising network around free content as well as developing revenue from premium services aimed at its 300 million unique users.

Semel also recently spoke at the Harvard Business School. This blog post has the details.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Legg Mason Owns Lots of GOOG

Reuters reports in: Legg Mason owns large stake in Google common stock that the Baltimore-based asset management firm owns about 13 percent (4.3 million shares) of Google's Class A common stock.

Three weeks ago it was reported that Fidelity Investments owns about 16 percent of Google's Class A shares.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More From The Microsoft Search Champs

Microsoft's Search Champs have been hearing from Microsoft Research today about various projects, none of which is under NDA. And that's not surprising, given that nothing I've read blogged so far hasn't already been mentioned in a variety of stories over the past few months.

Nevertheless, you still might want to check out David Weinberger's rundown on Stuff I've Seen, personalization and answer search: Microsoft Research. And for fun, Swag covers the upside to spending a day with Microsoft. Liz Lawley provides a similar recap, sans swag: msr presentations to search champs. Meanwhile, Peter Da Vanzo jokes of swapping spam techniques with infamous Google spammer™ Greg Boser. (Hey, Greg!).

For more on Microsoft's answer search stuff and related Microsoft Research material, be sure to see Gary's past post: Microsoft Research Gets Serious About Search. He's also got a bit more on the personal stuff here: Search Everything You've Seen.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finding Canadians

Today, Canada411.com added a few new features to their service. They include:

+A new reverse telphone number lookup

+ Reverse address lookup,

+ Partial name search.

These services are also available via a new French language version of the site.

The site is powered by Seattle-based W3 Data.

A few more details in the news release.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Everything You've Seen

Allow me to suggest a personal search option that I would like to see one or more of the "big guys" offer in the future.

How about a feature that allows you the option to automatically record and save EVERY html page that appears in your browser and then offers you the option to keyword search the full text of this material?

A kind of Tivo for the web.

It would not only potentially save you time (compared to saving a page at a time) but would also allow you to easily and efficiently build your own Wayback Machine. You might also be able to share your personal archive with others.

Of course, users would be able to remove any page at any time from their archive and also go back and annotate pages with metadata and notes.

This is not a new idea.

Battelle calls this the saving of "search streams" and compares it to Bush's Memex tool.

In this SearchDay review of , a product called Seruku, currently offering this type of service, I also compare the idea to the Memex.

A new product, Recall Toolbar, offers something similar.

Microsoft Research is also doing work with the "save everything" concept. It's called Stuff I've Seen, part of their MyLifeBits research.

Since many companies want to play in the "personal" search game these days it's going to be important for these organizations to differentiate themselves from one another. Why should I try Service A when Service B offers the same thing? Why should I switch services?

Because everyone uses the web in a different way, a variety of options will be the spice of life when it comes to personal search.

NOTE: Yes, it is possible to search your cached pages with IE and Mozilla. However, this feature does not allow you to annotate and search your pages, limit by date or date range, mark important pages, search phrases, etc. Also, since your cache is a dynamic entity results will also could change on a regular basis.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Investor Relations Site Opens

No, don't get excited -- investor.google.com is not a new feature where you can build your custom stock portfolio at the Google stealth portal. Instead, it's the new Google Investor Relations area, for those who now hold stock in the company. Nice catch from the InsideGoogle blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kanoodle Gets Self-Serve Contextual Ads, Too

I try to keep coverage of contextual ads to a bare minimum, because they aren't search. But earlier, we did mention that FindWhat had launched a self-serve contextual ad program similar to Google AdSense. Now Kanoodle's doing the same. See the press release here for details: Kanoodle Launches BrightAds Automated Content-Targeted Sponsored Links Solution.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New DoubleClick Search White Paper: Stats But Not Clarity

DoubleClick, in conjunction with its Performics subsidiary, has released a new Search Campaign Considerations white paper (link is to PDF file). Based on data from analyzing thousands of terms managed on behalf of more than 100 clients that Performics handles, the white paper seems to promise some actionable data that marketers can use to do the right thing in their own campaigns.

Seems to. Digging into it, there's no particular "right" answer but rather stuff that feels more like obvious wisdom. For example, low volume terms are deemed important because even if they don't individually produce a lot of traffic, collectively, they add up. That's no surprise. That's obvious to anyone who has reviewed basic data as provided by Overture's search term suggestion tool.

One interesting nugget is the idea that conversion rates diminish if CPC cost exceeds 50 cents. Interesting, but also a scary conclusion. Why does that rule of thumb emerge, when each particular client might have a completely different cost structure? It implies that if you spend more than 50 cents per click, you're on the path to failure. In reality, that might be perfectly fine, for your particular situation. Only your own metrics will give you the right answer.

More nuggets. A few high volume terms drive most conversion. More than half of "active" keywords in a campaign (those that get at least one click per month) generate less than 10 clicks per month. And high position is NOT seen as equating to high traffic. In other words, you can be lower in the results and still get plenty of traffic.

That contradicts the findings of a report from DoubleClick-rival Atlas DMT, released earlier this year. The Atlas "How Search Engine Rank Impacts Traffic" report (link is to PDF file) found high position should equal to higher traffic.

I did a long write-up of that report for our Search Engine Watch members: New Data On How Paid Ranking Translates Into Traffic. I came away scratching my head about some of the predictions on impressions were formed.

With this latest DoubleClick report, at least now I can see a trend. Expect more companies with lots of aggregate data to release further white papers. There will be lots of stats, some headlines but likely still no clear solution to how you should run your particular campaign.

Kevin Ryan takes a longer look at the report here: DoubleClick on Pay-for-Play.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Week Clusty, This Week Clush

Last week Chris and I wrote about the release of Clusty, a new consumer search product from Vivisimo.

Today, we learn of a new product with another "interesting" name called Clush in an article from eWeek titled: Search Startups Target Clustering.

Unlike Clusty's meta search capabilities, Clush uses its own index that is very small (about 1 million pages at the moment). Like Clusty, both tools cluster results into categories.

I haven't had much time to use Clush but here are a few things I noticed:
+ All results have static page images next to them.
+ Registered users can "Rate" pages.
These ratings "will be added to the "overall relevancy score of that particular webpage."
+ Clush offers a paid-inclusion/rapid recrawl program ($19.95/year) for one url

I ran a few searches with Clush and was not impressed with the quality of the results. In a couple of cases I found pages that didn't contain any of my search terms. Let's give the database some time to grow and see what happens.

Searcher Perspective
When I want to cluster web results I'll use Clusty or another site that uses Vivisimo's technology.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gmail Alerts via an ATOM Feed

Several stories out there today like this one: Gmail Atom Feed Coming? that discuss a new button that's now appearing on Gmail and how it might signal a new feature that will push new email alerts (subject line, the e-mail address of the sender and a brief summary of the e-mail message) to an aggregator using ATOM.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Ad Pricing and Current Events

Bambi Francisco takes a look at the relationship between current events (for example, the recent Vioxx recall) can drive keyword advertising in: News expands paid-search terms.

But is sponsoring keywords related to news event an effective source of marketing?

Apparently it is for at least one law firm that paid up for the term Vioxx.

"On Friday, we received about 13,500 hits on our Web site," said Richard Patterson, an attorney at Owen Patterson & Owen, a nearly 30-year-old law firm specializing in personal injury cases. Roughly 2,500 visitors came from the search campaign Friday, 25 times the total traffic (search-engine leads as well as visitors that go directly to the site) on a typical day, Patterson said.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2004, 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Threadwatch Tracks SEM Forums

Search engine marketing forums can be great reading, but finding the best stuff among the chaff can also be hard. Threadwatch is a new blog from long-time forums participant Nick W, where he highlights threads he likes. Thanks to SEO Book for the catch!

Want more forum recap resources? Search Engine Guide has for ages given a rundown on the best three or four threads from various forums in its free daily newsletter. Search Engine Guide also kindly provides a recap of these for our own SearchDay newsletter, which runs on Fridays (here's an example from last week).

Need to search across the many search marketing forums out there? Check out Marketing Forum Watch for that. OK, our own Search Engine Watch Forums aren't yet indexed there, but they're working on that.

Finally, where are these forums? We have a small list in the lower left-hand corner of our own forum site -- look for the Forum Roll box. We've also just had a discussion on this topic naming even more: Important/useful SEO/Webmaster Forums. Head over to that thread if you want to comment or discuss this post.

Postscript: I should have also mentioned originally that the Search Engine Roundtable blog from Barry Schwartz (AKA rustybrick) is an outstanding place for forum recaps, as well. It's definitely worth a subscription or regular visit, if you want to keep up with topics. It does a great job recapping various key issues.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Yahoo Next" For Tech Previews

OK, we've had Google Labs launched in 2002, a place where Google rolls out beta projects to the public. Overture then unveiled Overture Labs in 2003, later rebranded as Yahoo Research Labs at the beginning of this year. Now there's Yahoo Next, which has just taken over as the place to watch for Yahoo technology demos. The My Yahoo Search Beta is currently featured there. By the way, MSN's lab area is the MSN Sandbox.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Yahoo Search Offers Personal Search Features

Just a day after releasing Yahoo Local, Yahoo has launched My Yahoo Search, offering several new features that allow you to save, annotate and search listings from Yahoo search result pages.

Chris Sherman has a full rundown here in SearchDay: Yahoo Introduces Personal Search. I've written a companion piece for our Search Engine Watch members looking at how personalization impacts the task of search marketers and especially how Yahoo's new "Block Site" feature operates: Search Personalization: A Marketer's Perspective.

Chris finds personalization at Yahoo is nicely done but underpowered compared to some other similar services and more a good start than a must-use application, in his view. I'm much more positive.

Talking with both Chris and Gary, they seem to especially like services that let you both save sites you've visited and search against the text of the pages you've found. That's why they love things like Furl, which LookSmart recently acquired.

Me, I'm not so bothered about needing to search through the pages I've found. Heck, I found them. I know what's on them. Instead, I find myself more interested in trying to recall what I searched for originally and remember sites I found as matches for a query.

For that, I've been loving a9's features. It's automatically keeping track of things for me, but it also gives me the quality of Google's results. In fact, I find myself more and more disliking the fact that Google itself isn't keeping track of things for me automatically.

Now Yahoo's jumped in with great search quality and easy to use "search memory" features as well. For an ordinary searcher, I think it's really compelling. I especially like the simple way someone can make a note right within the search results, plus the ability to have things remembered automatically if the Visited Results feature is enabled.

Ask's new personalization features are compelling in much the same way, to me. So in a matter of just weeks, I find these tools to me now being an essential part of any search engine's offering -- and a nice return for the majors since the last time they were tried, by MSN back in 1999.

What about Google, the most notable of the majors now without them? Google tells me it has no future plans for search memory-style tools to announce at this time. Instead, personalization remains restricted to the Google Personalized Search beta service that alters things based on interest areas and Google's Site Flavored Search, which operates in a somewhat similar manner for publishers.

Want to discuss or comment? Please visit this thread in our forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEMPO Search Marketing Survey Opened

Last week, I complained that little is known about the size of the search marketing industry. Paid search spending, sure -- we've got some sense there. But money being spent directly with search marketing companies themselves, on both paid and natural listings? Who knows?

I also mentioned that one bright spot was planned research by SEMPO to survey the market. Now that survey's begun. Anyone is able to participate using the form now posted here: SEMPO Research Survey.

Results are planned for release later this year. More details on the survey can be found in this press release: SEMPO Launches Survey on the Size and Impact of Current SEM Activities and Spending.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2004, 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blogger Founder, Evan Williams, Saying Goodbye to Google

Evan Williams, the founder of Pyra Labs/Blogger and currently the Blogger Program Manager, has just posted an announcement on EVHEAD (his blog) that he's leaving Google this Friday.

Google purchased Pyra Labs in February 2003.

William's mentions that he's gotten the "itch" to start a new company but isn't commiting to anything at the moment. He also writes that it's time to "pay attention" to other parts of his life.

Problems at Google?

Williams says that his departure has nothing to do with with Google or Google management. He writes that "all and all they've been awesome" and have "pretty much" allowed him retain control of Blogger since purchasing the company.

So Why the Departure?

The reason I'm leaving probably comes down to personality more than anything. I've just always been stubbornly independent-minded -- even when it wasn't necessarily in my best interest...When I started at Google, I knew I was giving up my independence and knew I probably wouldn't like that eventually. So I promised myself I'd stay at least a year. I stayed for a year and eight months and have had a fun, fascinating, and extremely educational time. I'm honored to have been a part of Google for such a historic period.

Good luck Ev! Enjoy the time off and when the time is right, we're looking forward to learning about your new company.

Just for Fun: Remember the Early Days

Here's a look at the Blogger and Pyra home pages from 1999.

Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Early Blog Reports From Microsoft's Search Champs

Microsoft's new Search Champs team has met, and now their blogs are reflecting comments. Microsoft Search Champs - morning from David Weinberger gives some names and some self-characterized breakdowns, like that there are three "search manipulators" and one "story-teller." He finds the discussion lively, but an NDA prevents specific details from coming out. Liz Lawley finds the discussions a free-for-all: search champs meeting thoughts. Dave Winer says he's there but has yet to post. I'm sure that will come, so keep an eye on Scripting News. Meanwhile, via a post from our forums, a list of everyone there complete with web feed links: Hotshots: The Members Of The MSN Search Champs Advisory Group.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 4, 2004, 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social Networking Meets the Yellow Pages

Stefanie Olsen reports in a CNET article about a new project from Bill Gross, the CEO of Idealab: Idealab chief stakes out new direction in search. IdeaLab is where Overture (known at that time as GoTo.com) began. To be unveiled at JB's Web 2.0 Conference, it's called Insider Pages.

The Web site lets people sign up to connect with friends and mine their recommendations for local shops and services. The free product, still in experimental form for Los Angeles residents only, puts a new spin on social-networking services like Friendster by infusing it with the local insider feel of Craigslist.

The article mentions that Seattle-based company called Judy's Book is about to launch a similar service.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More Chinese Censorship At Google? I Think Not

Zhang Lin's translated account on Epoch Times, My Experience of Google's Censorship, explains how a search on his name at Google reveals tons of "omitted" results, another apparent sign of Google caving into the Chinese authorities.

Well, almost certainly not. It's pretty normal that if you go to the "end" of results for any query on Google with a lot of matches, you'll get an "omitted" message. This is Google's way of telling you that there are a lot of pages it considers similar to each other.

OK, it is annoying that when you go through some of these omitted results, they may indeed turn out to be more unique that what Google's automated processes think. But that's a Google indexing problem, not a conspiracy with China.

Heck, search for my name, Danny Sullivan, on Google. When you get out to the 816th (or so) result, you'll notice Google comes up with this message:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 816 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

It's fair to say, China had nothing to do with "omitting" these results that seem largely about me from the initial Google search. The same is almost certainly the case with Zhang Lin's situation.

Zhang Lin's also upset that Google's "Chinese Department" failed to correct an "obvious mistake" of not listing him tops. Another sign of Chinese government interference?

If so, then perhaps the race car driver Danny Sullivan will be complaining to the US government that Google fails to list him at the top of Google's results instead of me, clearly another obvious mistake. Or in reality, just a sign that relevancy is in the eye of the beholder (for more on this, see my In Search Of The Relevancy Figure article).

Any search engine censorship of material in response to national laws is a concern to searchers (and nor as I've written is Google alone in doing this). But it's also a concern that censorship may be assumed, when it actually doesn't appear to be the case. That's the situation as far as I can see it here.

In a related story, Google China censorship: more mentions a program those in China can use to overcome filtering and mentions that Yahoo China does filtering as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 4, 2004, 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech Preview 2 Now Officially Live

MSN's Search Tech Preview 2 is now "officially" live and ready for testing. It was available for a short period of time on Friday but was soon taken down. You'll find an extended entry from me about what's in the new release here: MSN Search Preview Back Online.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Redball Launches Discussion Search Engine

Not much to say on this one (they don't have an English language interface yet) but Redball.info from Austria has launched a new engine that claims to provide searchable access to 100,000 newsgroups, and 90,000 mailing lists. Lycos recently launched a "discussion search engine" that Chris reviews here.

A bit more about Redball.info in this news release.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Semel Speaks at Harvard

Terry Semel spoke to MBA students at Harvard on September 20th. Yahoo CEO Describes Art of the Deal from HBS Working Knowledge has the story. Semel sheds some "behind the scenes" info about the Overture and Inktomi acquisitions.

The fuel for Yahoo since he arrived, he said, has been acquisitions. The biggest price tag to date has been for Overture, a search advertising company, for $1.63 billion. This negotiation was seemingly interminable--"We closed and got board approval three times," he said--but it also illustrated the importance of careful analysis and patience, Semel said.

"Our teams established a relationship, and everyone liked each other. We were [Overture's] biggest client already by far. They could not afford to lose us as a client, and every day we would remind them of that.

"There was just one problem for us: There was nowhere else for us to go."

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yellow Pages Publisher Launches Search Marketing Program

Dex Media Pursues SME Market, Analysts Ponder Relevancy
Source: Media Post

Dex Media, publisher of print edition Yellow Pages, has designed a new program, which aims to help small- to-mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) establish both an online presence and a search marketing campaign. Analysts say the new product is simple enough to incentivize SMEs to allocate spending, but worry whether the cost-per-click (CPC) model is relevant to their needs.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft's Search Champs A Man's Club?

Microsoft's new Search Champs initiative, which involves 30 bloggers to help the company brainstorm search, counts only one woman among 30 participants. That's Liz Lawley, who comments about the situation here: i feel very alone. Super search guru Tara Calishain would have been an obvious (and excellent) choice. And she was but couldn't make it, as she comments here: Microsoft's "Search Champs" Team.

OK, brainstorming quickly between Gary and I, how about:

Reva Basch
Mary Ellen Bates
Susan Feldman of IDC
Marti Hearst at UC Berkeley
Susanne Koch of Pandia
Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide
Elizabeth Liddy of Syracuse University
Marydee Ojala, editor of Online magazine
Barbara Quint of Searcher magazine
Avi Rappoport of Search Tools
Amanda Spink at the University of Pittsburgh
Genie Tyburski of the Virtual Chase
Leslie Walker from the Washington Post
Our own Elisabeth Osmeloski

I'm sure we're still missing plenty of women -- and we could go even longer if we added names of people purely involved on the search marketing side of things (or employed by other search engines, like Monika Henzinger at Google or Srinija Srinivasan of Yahoo).

In short, there are plenty of women in search out there. The real issue might be that they don't all have blogs, so they may not have been visible to blogger Robert Scoble, who helped organize the Microsoft search champs. He comments here: In trouble with Liz.

Postscript: Robert tells me Microsoft asked him specifically to gather people who weren't already known for being involved in the search industry, so he mainly went after those he felt blogged interesting things about search on a more casual basis. That's one reason some on the list above may not have been included.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 4, 2004, 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Local Tabs

With the launch of Yahoo Local today I've noticed that Yahoo can now add a tab for Yahoo Local on the streamlined search.yahoo.com interface. The option to customize search tabs using this interface has been available for several months.

Btw, Yahoo Local is also available for the Australian market.

Finally, take a look at the Yahoo Australia home page. Select Local Search. You should see the search interface change to Local Search without a page reload or moving to a new page.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Keyword Search Audio From First Presidential Debate

C-SPAN and StreamSage (the folks behind CampaignSearch) have just made available the chance to keyword search the audio of the first presidential debate, find results, and then click to view the section of the debate where your search terms are spoken. StreamSage uses voice recognition technology. It's not perfect. I would expect that the other debates will be available. To access material:
1) Enter Search Terms
2) Click search
3) Sort results by date, the link to do this is right below the search box
4) Select results and watch video segments with RealPlayer
5) This database contains more than material from the first debate. C-SPAN's "Audio Track Search" contains 175+ hours of keyword searchable C-SPAN content.

Speechbot, from HP, also uses voice recognition technology. This database contains nearly 15,000 hours of keyword searchable radio material.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just the Facts

An article from BBC Online, The future of facts, takes a brief look at information quality and authority issues on the open web and then discusses what a couple of companies are doing about it.

The article mentioned is Kozoru, a product being developed in the U.S. that we blogged about here. This post also contains a mention of GuruNet.

Also mentioned in the article is Smart Search technology from Ask Jeeves and Ask Jeeves UK. You can see Smart Search in action when you search for newsmakers/celebrities, want to know who won an Oscar, or need basic links/info for a specific location. Unlike the "old Jeeves" where question and answer sets were built by humans, most of this is done by automated mining specialty databases. Instead of just providing links to possible answers we're seeing actual answers given (mined from "trusted" sources) or direct links to focused sites. This way the searcher is not only saving time but also being directed to quality material similar to how a good librarian might suggest a specific reference resource. One of the five laws of libray science (yes, laws exist) is to "save the time of the reader." In some ways Smart Answers is doing this for the web searcher.

Finally, 82ask.com is mentioned. This is a UK based service that answers questions via SMS. We blogged about another SMS service here.

Posted by Gary Price on October 4, 2004, 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Paid Inclusion Can Be A Bargain

Fredrick Marckini looks out how paid inclusion on Yahoo can bring in traffic more cheaply than paid placement through Yahoo-owned Overture, in some cases: Paid Inclusion Beats PPC in Many Markets, from ClickZ.

Of course, it's also cheaper because the traffic is less predictable. You don't know if you'll actually show up for a term. If you do, you could be anywhere in the listings, rather than near the top. That potentially mean less traffic than with paid placement.

On the flipside, paid inclusion ironically is a paid route into the free or "natural search" results that searches are more likely to click on, as the article notes. That could mean more traffic for you, in some cases.

For the many issues paid inclusion raises, see my past article: Going Beyond FTC Paid Inclusion Disclosure Guidelines.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 4, 2004, 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Candidates Missing Out On Search Ads

From Business 2.0, an interesting article saying that political campaigns are failing to consider search in their marketing mix: Political Campaigns Are Missing the Boat on Paid Search. The Dean campaign found it effective. But others haven't got on-board. Good quotes. Thanks to Search Engine Guide for the tip.

Meanwhile, an article from MediaPost, Pew Study Reports Meager Spending On Web Ads By Political Campaigns, discusses a new survey of online media ads for campaigns. Don't get your hopes up about getting some real stats on political search spending, however. The survey only tracked banner ads. Survey can be found here: Presidential Campaign Advertising on the Internet.

Here's also some other articles on search and political ads:

Political Groups Dabbling in Search Engine Marketing from MediaPost, via a write-up in the blog last month.
SEM Power Politics: PACs, Nonprofits, and 527s from ClickZ, April 2004

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 4, 2004, 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Local Leaves Beta, Graduates to Yahoo.com

Yahoo Local moved out of beta moments ago, launching with a cleaner look and feel, improved relevance and a significantly expanded database of local listings.

In Monday's SearchDay article, Yahoo Local Officially Launches, I take a look at the upgraded service and describe some of the new features that make the service even easier to use.

Kudos to Yahoo for moving from a beta service to a fully-featured release in just two months. By contrast, Google moved its local search from Google labs into beta back in March, and not much seems to have changed since then. At least at this stage, Yahoo Local is the superior service. I'm looking forward to Google's response, which given the history of competitive jostling between these companies should happen relatively quickly.

Want to comment or discuss? Please join our forum thread: Yahoo Local Grows Up.

Posted by Chris Sherman on October 3, 2004, 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo News Results as an RSS Feed

Online about about a month ago, officially online today, Yahoo News has added a link on every search news search results page (right column) that allows the searcher to add the search query directly to their My Yahoo page. New results will be delivered as a "feed" on My Yahoo pages.

It's possible to create and transport advanced queries to a My Yahoo page. However, you cannot limit to a specific source.

As of today, RSS-based delivered Yahoo News search results will only work with My Yahoo.

However, later this week, look for a second button on the right side of the page which will allow you to take Yahoo News search result feeds and add them to ANY aggregator.

Posted by Gary Price on October 3, 2004, 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WebSearch University

A post on the Yahoo Search Blog late Friday by Jon Glick, Sr. Manager of Yahoo Search reports on his visit to WebSearch University where I was a member of the faculty. Chris was also there.

Jon writes, "Web search has now become the de-facto starting point for most researchers, and premium databases and verticals are increasingly used as fall-through."

I have to disagree with Jon. Of course, web search services from Yahoo and others are IMPORTANT and ESSENTIAL tools for the type of researcher that attends WSU. However, saying that web search is the de-facto starting point for "most researchers" is a bit of a stretch. Knowing where to start is often a challenge but in many cases the place to begin is with a premium database and "vertical" on the open web.

I think these types of tools are growing in importance as the searcher realizes that one search tool can't answer evey query. We've been seeing a growing interest in the vertical or "specialized" search tool business.

Actually, even if a general web engine can provide an answer, how long is it taking the searcher to find it with a general web database? Many presentations at WSU talked about using the right tool at the right time. It's been my experience that a reason people don't begin the search process with a vertical and/or premium resources (and waste time looking elsewhere) is because the searcher is unaware of their existence or believe these types of tools are difficult to use.

Posted by Gary Price on October 3, 2004, 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How Much RSS?

For your stats folder.

A post on the Topix.net blog lets us know that the amount of RSS content from news organizations is not as great as some might believe.

Rich Skrenta reports that of the 7000+ news sources Topix crawls only 7% have feeds. He goes on to say that even if the site has a feed, Topix usually crawls the HTML content.

"Even for sites which offer feeds, we'll generally continue to crawl the human-readable version. We've seen sites where the RSS broke but no one at the paper seemed to notice, or cases where the RSS was out of sync with the human-viewable web content."

What about search tools that focus on weblog content?

About a month ago a member of the Waypath team posted some stats in the SEW Forums.

It contained the following numbers:
+ Only 63% of the weblogs Waypath crawls have feeds; only 22% have full-text in their feeds.

These Waypath numbers were a bit surprising to me. I was thinking that the penetration of RSS/XML feeds in the blogosphere was greater especially when it comes to blogs offering full text feeds.

>From the searcher perspective it's worth remembering that an RSS search might not be the same thing as a full text search.

Thanks to G.L. for the news tip.

Posted by Gary Price on October 3, 2004, 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gigablast Grows

Gigablast, the useful search tool that searches its own database of web content, has grown. An update on the Gigablast home page today informs us that the database now contains more than 640 million pages. Previously, the total page count was at 475,577,392.

In April ACM Queue published an interview with Gigablast's developer and sole proprietor, Matt Wells.

Posted by Gary Price on October 3, 2004, 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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