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July 9, 2006 - July 15, 2006


Lunch with Pheedo

RSSAds.jpgI had lunch today with Bill Flitter, founder and VP marketing of RSS ad network Pheedo.com. Walking up to the restaurant, I knew he'd already arrived. How? I passed his vehicle.

Posted by Pamela Parker on July 14, 2006, 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Google Sends Aspirin After AdWords Changes Causes Headache

Earlier this week, Al Scillitani posted at Marketing Pilgrim about how all the recent Google AdWords changes were giving him a headache. Today, he posted how in response, he'd been sent some acetaminophen in response from Google. I thought it was interesting enough to note in today's search headlines roundup but not that big of a deal overall. How wrong I was :) Over 3,000 Diggs later, the story's got legs. Adam Lasnik from Google's search quality team says he's the culprit. Adam's actually got nothing to do with AdWords, but the gesture was funny anyway.

Postscript: I deliberately went with aspirin (acetylsalicylate) in the headline, which is a different than acetaminophen, simply because it makes the headline sound catchier. But parents, remember, they aren't the same thing and can have serious issues if you give a child aspirin when they have a viral infection. For more about Reye's Syndrome, see this site.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 14, 2006, 7:49 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search Update

Yahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.

On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index."

Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 14, 2006, 2:44 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 14, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:

  • Google: No, We Don't Let Click Fraud Happen
    We posted earlier about Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted as saying click fraud was "self correcting" with an economic solution of "let it happen." Those quotes got the blogosphere buzzing. Google's now responded on its official blog in "Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no., to say that Schmidt was talking about hypothetical approaches to click fraud rather than what Google itself does. The post also links to the entire presentation, so people can watch and judge for themselves....
  • Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have It (They Don't)
    Microsoft to Google: Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business." Gosh -- I though enterprise search was Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house. This recent Investors Business Daily article had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by FAST, IBM and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once....
  • Caffeine and Tin Foil At Windows Live Search
    What do Microsoft Interns, birthdays, caffeine and tin foil have to do with each other? Well, nothing. But at Microsoft, they have tin foiled and over caffeinated an Intern in the Windows Live Search group. Check out this picture of the Intern sitting at his desk, with his computer wrapped up in tin foil and with 99 cans of Cherry Coke. Why did they do this to that Intern?...
  • KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google
    Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the company will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt will go down in flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities Google has created for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and Pagerank work....
  • Many Advertisers Are Frustrated With Google's New Quality Score & Pricing
    On July 7th Jennifer Slegg reported that the new Google AdWords landing page quality score algorithm has been updated. Since then, the effects of the new algorithm have been rippling through AdWords campaigns and digging deep into the pockets of many of Google's advertisers....
  • Newspapers To Team Up With Yahoo To Create An Online Classifieds Network
    Reuters reports on a Business Week article that shows how a "loose consortium of newspaper publishers" are in discussions with Yahoo's HotJobs to build an online classifieds network. For Yahoo, this can help increase the popularity of HotJobs and for the newspapers, it can help them drive more ad dollars, but this time, online ad dollars....
  • Specialty Search Roundup #7
    Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 14, 2006, 2:08 PM | Permalink


Daily SearchCast, July 14, 2006: Judge Decides Google Can Rank Pages As It Pleases; Google Lets You Just Say No To ODP Descriptions; Microsoft An Enterprise Search Player? & More!

Today's search podcast covers KinderStart's loss in a lawsuit over search rankings; Google allowing webmasters to prevent Open Directory descriptions from being used for their pages; Microsoft's pot show at Google coming into Microsoft's "enterprise search space" feels weak and more!

Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the Daily SearchCast FAQ.

Below are links to items discussed:

  • KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google
    Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the company will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt will go down in flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities Google has created for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and Pagerank work....
  • Interactive Review of SEOMoz's Page Strength Tool
    Rand posted information about a new tool he launched named the Page Strength Tool. It is pretty cool, and why can't it replace PageRank? :) Anyway, here is my interactive review of the tool, you can find more details about what the tool exactly measures here....
  • Counting Links At The Search Engines
    Rand has an excellent post on how to get your hands dirty by manually checking your links at the various search engines. He reviews Google's link command and how bad it is. He also reviews MSN's link command and explains how you can add modifiers to the link or linkdomain commands (i.e. exclude site A from the command). Rand then reviews the Yahoo link command, and explains that although Yahoo has Site Explorer, the "most accurate" result set still comes from search.yahoo.com. He recommends you use search.yahoo.com and then append &b=999 to the end of the URL manually. Like MSN,...
  • Google Adds Supports For NOODP Tag To Opt Out Of ODP Titles
    Singing for joy! Google has now added support for the NOODP tag that MSN initiated on May 22nd of this year. Yes, Danny asked for this back in June, and now Google has granted our wish. If you have one of those pesky titles pulled from the ODP (dmoz.org) directory, don't fret it, just add the NOODP tag. How do you do it? Just add <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> to your page source. If you want to just exclude MSN use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP"> if you just want to exclude Google use <META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="NOODP">....
  • More Details On Google Sitemaps Query Stats
    DaveN at ThreadWatch posted his love/hate for Google Sitemaps, but what I find to be the most interesting part is the discussion taking place in his post at his blog. Vanessa Fox, Google Engineering, from the Inside Google Sitemaps blog posted a comment at Dave's blog explaining why a the Sitemaps query stats may say you come up for a popular term even though you don't mention that term or phrase on your pages of your site....
  • Eric Schmidt Claims The PPC Model is "Self-Correcting" In Terms Of Click Fraud
    Donna Bogatin reports that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt claims that click fraud is "self-correcting." Meaning, Eventually, the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the conversion will decline, because the advertiser will realize that these are bad clicks, in other words, the value of the ad declines, so over some amount of time, the system is in-fact, self-correcting. In fact, there is a perfect economic solution which is to let it happen. So the "let it happen" quote, in terms of Eric Schmidt saying let click fraud happen, has been buzzing through the blogging community. Schmidt writes off...
  • Google: No, We Don't Let Click Fraud Happen
    We posted earlier about Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted as saying click fraud was "self correcting" with an economic solution of "let it happen." Those quotes got the blogosphere buzzing. Google's now responded on its official blog in "Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no., to say that Schmidt was talking about hypothetical approaches to click fraud rather than what Google itself does. The post also links to the entire presentation, so people can watch and judge for themselves....
  • Many Advertisers Are Frustrated With Google's New Quality Score & Pricing
    On July 7th Jennifer Slegg reported that the new Google AdWords landing page quality score algorithm has been updated. Since then, the effects of the new algorithm have been rippling through AdWords campaigns and digging deep into the pockets of many of Google's advertisers....
  • Dr. Google Sends Pain Relief
  • Booby Trap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode 54
  • Galaxy's Child, Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode 90
  • Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have It (They Don't)
    Microsoft to Google: Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business." Gosh -- I though enterprise search was Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house. This recent Investors Business Daily article had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by FAST, IBM and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once....
  • Newspapers To Team Up With Yahoo To Create An Online Classifieds Network
    Reuters reports on a Business Week article that shows how a "loose consortium of newspaper publishers" are in discussions with Yahoo's HotJobs to build an online classifieds network. For Yahoo, this can help increase the popularity of HotJobs and for the newspapers, it can help them drive more ad dollars, but this time, online ad dollars....
  • Windows Live Adds Search/Personalized Toggle & 34 New Markets
    Gary Price points to two Windows Live blog posts including, search/personalized toggle and now in 34 new markets. The first describes how you can now toggle between search and personalized experience. Your last selection will be remembered for your next session. The blog says that this "replaces our old 'hide' option, with a much improved experience in 'search only' mode that is faster and includes search filters." Windows Live also entered 34 new markets including;.
  • Yahoo's Livesearch Added To Firefox
    Yahoo launched Livesearch on AllTheWeb back in May. Danny has a detailed post about how it is similar to Lookahead and Google Suggest. Anyway, as we suggested on May 16th, Livesearch capabilities from Yahoo has been added to a new version of Firefox 2.0. You can download the new Firefox here and give it a try. Also you can read more at the Yahoo Search Blog, which has links to more methods of downloads....
  • Specialty Search Roundup #7
    Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so....
  • Caffeine and Tin Foil At Windows Live Search
    What do Microsoft Interns, birthdays, caffeine and tin foil have to do with each other? Well, nothing. But at Microsoft, they have tin foiled and over caffeinated an Intern in the Windows Live Search group. Check out this picture of the Intern sitting at his desk, with his computer wrapped up in tin foil and with 99 cans of Cherry Coke. Why did they do this to that Intern?...
  • Here?s What Happens When You Scrape a Hacker Site, SEO BlackHat

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 14, 2006, 1:51 PM | Permalink


Search Forums Roundup: July 14, 2006

Today's SearchDay, Search Engine Forums Spotlight, features our weekly links to this week's hot topics from search engine forums across the web: Open Letter to Google Regarding Changes to The Ad Words Program - Analytics Analysis For Search Marketers - MySpace - Highest Traffic Site on Web - Google Search Finds Widespread Malicious Code, and more.

Posted by Chris Sherman on July 14, 2006, 12:49 PM | Permalink


A Lengthy "Sneak Peek"

scannerdarkly.jpgNow, I've heard of giving viewers an online taste of offline content, but a 24-minute-long preview? Yup, that's what the "A Scanner Darkly" (Keanu Reeves' latest futuristic flick) marketers are doing, distributing an exclusive 24-minute-long preview to the gaming audience via IGN.com. The site is also offering video interviews with the actors and director.

Initially, I thought it was crazy to offer this big a bite of the new movie, but 24 minutes is really just long enough to get you through "act 1" where things start to get exciting, in your typical feature film. With that in mind, this seems like a good call. (Though I might have gone more wide to YouTube, etc.) Interestingly, they're having to age-restrict the preview since it's "R" rated.

Posted by Pamela Parker on July 14, 2006, 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Google: No, We Don't Let Click Fraud Happen

We posted earlier about Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted as saying click fraud was "self correcting" with an economic solution of "let it happen." Those quotes got the blogosphere buzzing. Google's now responded on its official blog in "Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no., to say that Schmidt was talking about hypothetical approaches to click fraud rather than what Google itself does. The post also links to the entire presentation, so people can watch and judge for themselves.

Postscript: I've had a chance to listen to the key part now (it begins at 31 minutes, 11 seconds into the video), and the context is important. Schmidt was specifically asked if there was an economic solution to click fraud, as opposed to a technological one.

The "great fun" comment he makes about click fraud for Google's engineers comes at 32:39 and is part of him saying immediately before this that Google "worries about [click fraud] a lot" and the fun is trying to say ahead of the challenge.

Then at 32:45, he says:

Let's imagine for purposes of argument that click fraud were not policed by Google, and it were rampant. Eventually, the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the conversion will decline, because the advertiser will realize that these are bad clicks. In other words, the value of the ad declines. So over some amount of time, the system is in fact self correcting. In fact, that there is a perfect economic solution which is to let it happen. But because it is a bad thing, and because we don't like it and because it does, at least for the short term, create some problems before the advertiser sees it, we go ahead and try and detect it and eliminate it.

Postscript 2: Donna Bogatin in Challenge to Google's Eric and Shuman: Be real men, don't selectively hide the 'world's information' pushes back at Google suggesting things weren't in context in her original post.

Postscript 3 by Barry: Google has added a link back to Donna's original article this weekend. See the link at the top of Google's blog post in blue underlined, "quoting."

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 14, 2006, 11:13 AM | Permalink


Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have It (They Don't)

Microsoft to Google: Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business."

Gosh -- I though enterprise search was Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house. This recent Investors Business Daily article had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by FAST, IBM and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once.

Other reports (InformationWeek, InternetWeek) talk about Turner saying Microsoft is strong in the enterprise space overall. Sure. But enterprise search as Microsoft's business? And Google's trying to take it? That doesn't wash.

Google's been providing a dedicated enterprise search product, the Google Search Appliance, since 2002. They also offered hosted site search solutions from before that. Enterprise search isn't something Google's suddenly decided to do, just because Microsoft is doing it. The same is true for other companies that fall under Turner's ire:

Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off of our plate, because that is what they are intending to do.

In reality, Microsoft seems to have no serious enterprise search house at the moment, and if anyone's trying to grab food off the plate, it pretty much sounds like it's Microsoft doing the grabbing.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 14, 2006, 9:36 AM | Permalink


Caffeine and Tin Foil At Windows Live Search

What do Microsoft Interns, birthdays, caffeine and tin foil have to do with each other? Well, nothing. But at Microsoft, they have tin foiled and over caffeinated an Intern in the Windows Live Search group. Check out this picture of the Intern sitting at his desk, with his computer wrapped up in tin foil and with 99 cans of Cherry Coke. Why did they do this to that Intern?

They didn't want me to do any work on birthday, so they unplugged my computer and its many peripherals and wrapped them in foil along with pretty much everything else in my office. The soda cans I did to myself (thanks Microsoft for free soda) but the Dixie-cups full of diluted Cherry Coke were part of the "upgrade."

And you thought only Google and Yahoo had fun with search. I guess Bill can get down with it also.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 14, 2006, 8:50 AM | Permalink


KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google

Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the company will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt will go down in flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities Google has created for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and Pagerank work.

Google Sued Over Site Penalty By KinderStart.com covers the case being filed back in March and provides a link to the actual suit. It was heard in court earlier this month, and you can review the transcript and analysis of that hearing.

Judge dismisses suit over Google ranking from News.com covers yesterday's ruling, where the claims against Google were dismissed. The judge gave leave for KinderStart to revise on some claims, apparently in particular on the idea that KinderStart was defamed by being dropped to a PageRank of zero as reported by the Google Toolbar.

KinderStart now apparently hopes it can enlist other PR0 sites to file a class action lawsuit against Google (info is supposed to be here, but site is currently down). The KinderStart attorney said:

"The decision suggests that, if properly alleged, Google may be defaming a whole class of Web sites sacked with a '0' PageRank," he wrote in a statement. "If plaintiffs show Google manually tampered with even a single Web site's PageRank, Google's entire claim of 'objectivity' of search results and rankings could collapse."

Sure. Fire away with that class action suit. Two class action suits over click fraud, where defendants have real monetary claims arising out of actual contacts with the major search engines, have netted around $60 million for advertisers for over four years worth of advertising activity. Assuming a somewhat nebulous defamation claim won, I can't imagine the settlement would be for much.

Keep in mind that by default, the PageRank meter is still not turned on, to my knowledge. Toolbar users have to specifically enable it. I've never seen any stats or breakdowns on who uses the PR meter, but that seems to be mainly site owners concerned about SEO, rather than typical web surfers.

Still, the case highlights a Google vulnerability. Google has argued in this case that ranking is subjective, an opinion that it offers about web sites. But go to its technology page, and you get this:

PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it receives.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. Important pages receive a higher PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. Google's technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance. There is no human involvement or manipulation of results, which is why users have come to trust Google as a source of objective information untainted by paid placement.

So what is it, objective or subjective, or argue what's most convenient, as John Battelle raised earlier. The answer to me gets confused by Google's outdated information online plus confusion between PageRank and ranking.

Ranking, or keyword ranking, is where a site appears in response to a keyword search. It's supposed to be an objective decision made by using a computer algorithm to sort through factors, though not said is how some of those factors might have subjective decisions made over them.

PageRank is a numeric score that counts how important a page is based on analyzing the links pointing to it. It is one of many factors that Google uses to decide where a page should appear when you do a keyword search. In other words, PageRank is part of what determines keyword ranking, but it's not the only factor, nor is it the same as keyword ranking.

But doesn't Google say that pages with a higher PageRank appear at the top of the search results. Yes, and it says this incorrectly. That's right, Google's statement on this is flat out wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong. WRONG.

Am I clear enough? But how can I say Google's official information is wrong? First, I can demonstrate it, as I've done before. Try this tool. Here's a search for cars. Notice how the movie Cars is ranked second. The home page for the site listed is a PR5, putting it above several pages ranking below it with a higher PR score. Got Firefox? Try Aaron Wall's new tool that makes seeing this type of thing even easier. End Of Demonstration.

Google has tons of things they've said publicly that get outdated like this or aren't explained properly by those charged to write up copy. In particular, Google has allowed PageRank to be a synonymous term to mean how a site ranks. You can see how this makes life confusing by the first paragraph in the News.com story about the case:

KinderStart, a directory and search engine for information related to children, sued Google in March after it fell to a "zero" ranking in the Google index.

Actually, I believe that two different things happened. KinderStart:

  • No longer had good keyword rankings, not in the first page of results, but perhaps still buried further down unless it was banned completely. And if it was banned completely, that's not a "zero" rank but instead just called a ban.
     
  • Probably had a penalty put on it manually that produced a zero score in the PageRank meter.

The judge does not seem to be saying Google defamed the site through a lower keyword ranking. But he does seem to suggest that the PageRank score in the Google Toolbar meter might have that issue. From Eric Goldberg's nice write-up on the case (and he has a copy of the ruling there, as well):

Google?s statement as to whether a particular website is ?worth your time? necessarily reflects its subjective judgment as to what factors make a website important. Viewed in this way, a PageRank reflects Google?s opinion. However, it is possible a PageRank reasonably could be interpreted as a factual statement insofar as it purports to tell a user ?how Google?s algorithms assess the importance of the page you?re viewing.? This interpretation would be bolstered by evidence supporting Google?s alleged representations that PageRank is ?objective,? and that a reasonable person thus might understand Google?s display of a ?0? PageRank for Kinderstart.com to be a statement that ?0? is the (unmodified) output of Google?s algorithm. If it could be shown, as Kinderstart alleges, that Google is changing that output by manual intervention, then such a statement might be provably false.

I'm actually surprised the judge doesn't seem to know that Google does indeed change that output by manual intervention. That's what the entire SearchKing case was about. First some background on that:

The case involved another US District Court judge ruling that yes, Google had manipulated the PageRank score showing for SearchKing and that it had a constitutionally protected right to do so, to offer its opinion this way.

Of course, the ruling confuses PageRank and keyword ranking as I've explained above often happens:

PageRanks are opinions -- opinions of the significance of particular Web sites as they correspond to a search query.

Still, since the case was indeed focused about the PageRank meter, I suspect we're safe in knowing this was about PageRank scores getting protected status. And what the KinderStart case now tells us is that Google (and other search engines) also have the right to do keyword rankings however they like.

We'll see if the PageRank scores get challenged again. Certainly Google could short-circuit this by dropping the scores and the meter altogether (please do it). As explained, few people to my knowledge use them, and plenty of site owners are tired of newbie search marketers obsessing over them. PageRank was mainly a marketing tactic for Google that's long since been blowing up in its face.

If the meter doesn't go away, certainly Google needs to take a harder look at what it says about both the Google Toolbar and keyword rankings if it doesn't want to be vulnerable in future court cases (plus just be consistent with the public).

For example, what's a site owner told about a PR0 score:

A page may be assigned a rank of zero if Google crawls very few sites that link to it. Additionally, pages recently added to the Google index may also show a PageRank score of zero because they haven't been crawled by Googlebot yet and haven't been ranked. A page's PageRank score may increase naturally with subsequent crawls, so this shouldn't be a cause for concern. To learn more about PageRank, please see http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

There's no mention of the fact that you might have a PR0 score because Google has manually intervened to reduce it. And as for what it tells the general public:

Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar's PageRank? display to tell you how Google's algorithms assess the importance of the page you're viewing.

Again, it's more than just the algorithms being involved. Human are making decisions that impact that score, as well.

In short, Google is continuing to make statements that PageRank is objective to the public, but in two court cases now, it has said the scores are subjective. One case as supported its right to make subjective cases. The other has supported a defendants right to challenge if those subjective opinions are fair or defamatory. We'll see what happens next.

Finally, the entire human intervention thing with PageRank scores brings back the issue of Google long saying there's no human intervention in keyword ranking, such as they used to say about censorship:

Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand.

And similar to what they still say here:

Sites' positions in our search results are determined automatically based on a number of factors, which are explained in more detail at http://www.google.com/technology/index.html. We don't manually assign keywords to sites, nor do we manipulate the ranking of any site in our search results.

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. For more information about improving your site's visibility in the Google search results, we recommend reviewing our webmaster guidelines. They outline core concepts for maintaining a Google-friendly website.

As I've written before, Google does indeed hand manipulate results, but not in the sense of trying to reorder them. Instead, it manually intervenes in terms of banning some sites or putting overall ranking penalties on them. There's even been updated attempts to help site owners know when they've been banned through the Google Sitemaps program.

Overall, Google's got plenty of mixed messages out there that don't help on the PR front and potentially leave it vulnerable on the legal front, as this case has shown.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 14, 2006, 8:48 AM | Permalink


Many Advertisers Are Frustrated With Google's New Quality Score & Pricing

On July 7th Jennifer Slegg reported that the new Google AdWords landing page quality score algorithm has been updated. Since then, the effects of the new algorithm have been rippling through AdWords campaigns and digging deep into the pockets of many of Google's advertisers.

Chris Boggs at the Search Engine Roundtable reported many of the discussions taking place at the various webmaster forums on the Internet. But one thread we felt was important to highlight was from WebmasterWorld.

The thread is named Open letter to Google Regarding Changes to The Ad Words Program. Written by Mark A. Libbert, Attorney At Law, explains how even-though he spends over $300,000 per year with Google, his Google representatives are treating him like an unwanted customer. The issue is with the minimum bids rising, after two solid years of high quality ads, with a 26% click through rate on some! He explains that the core of the issue is the bid prices rising but what makes things worse is that, "your [Google] employees have been uninformed and left in the dark about these major changes to your program, and perhaps more importantly your paying customers have been left in the dark as well."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 14, 2006, 8:38 AM | Permalink


Newspapers To Team Up With Yahoo To Create An Online Classifieds Network

Reuters reports on a Business Week article that shows how a "loose consortium of newspaper publishers" are in discussions with Yahoo's HotJobs to build an online classifieds network. For Yahoo, this can help increase the popularity of HotJobs and for the newspapers, it can help them drive more ad dollars, but this time, online ad dollars.

Quote from the Business Week article that shows the importance on the newspaper side;

Newspaper companies would build a network within what is one of the Web's top destinations and win a crucial concession in today's search-engine economy: getting a cut of the ads sold around search results of their content. It's a sore spot for publishers that this doesn't happen now.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 14, 2006, 8:25 AM | Permalink


Specialty Search Roundup #7

Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so.

  • Art Museums: A Collection of Searchable Databases This is the first in a series (more soon) of posts that review databases from some of the great art museums around the world. In all cases these databases offer searchable access to part or all of these museums collections while offering you the chance to search using a variety of criteria.
  • UKís Resource Discovery Network Now Known as Intute Yesterday, I posted about the new NOODP tag from Google. While DMOZ/ODP doesn't have the same stature that it once did. However, researchers shouldn't forget the value of non-commercial/searchable/general purpose web directories where quality of the underlying resources trumps overall size. Intute is an excellent example of this. Be ready to spend some time here. Also, make sure to look at the Virtual Training Suite and Internet Detective, two of Intute's many parts.
  • New Look for The Gateway to Educational Materials Database Primarily cosmetic changes but it's a good excuse to make a mention of it. If you're looking for high quality materials for educational purposes this database is a "must" bookmark. It's also worth pointing out that "The Gateway" is powered by faceted search technology from Siderean. Bow, this same technology will soon be available from the Librarians' Internet Index, another essential non-commercial/searchable/general purpose web directory.
  • Database: A Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory "While not comprehensive, this inventory gives the public the best available look at the 200+ nanotechnology-based consumer products currently on the market. Prior to this inventory, the figure most often cited by the U.S. government was that approximately 80 consumer products containing nanomaterials were being sold. Please feel free to explore the inventory by browsing the products, or perform an advanced search."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 14, 2006, 8:07 AM | Permalink


Google Radio

The Internets are alight with speculation about Google radio ads, since Tim at TechToolBlog reported receiving a survey that touched on talent brokering for voice work. Back in May at Google Press Day, CEO Eric Schmidt told me (and other reporters hanging on his every word) that he envisioned a system whereby advertisers could upload audio creative to Google that would be distributed to multiple platforms. The idea that the company would help provision voice talent would be perfectly consistent with this approach, given the lack of resources available to many of Google's small business customers. (As others have mentioned, SpotRunner /A> -- the next logical acquisition for Google -- aims to handle the creative and distribution issue for TV.)

Then again, given Google's fondness for technology, maybe the company could do dynamically-generated audio creative like IHT.com is considering.

Posted by Pamela Parker on July 13, 2006, 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Search Headlines & Links: July 13, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:

  • Daily SearchCast, July 13, 2006: SES Latino; Yahoo's Expansion To US Hispanic Sites; Google Does Radio Ads Survey & More!
    Today's search podcast covers the SES Latino show that just concluded in Miami; a new Yahoo deal to reach Hispanics; Google & radio ad moves; search engine office expansions; Google Force One revisited and more!
  • Google Adds Supports For NOODP Tag To Opt Out Of ODP Titles
    Singing for joy! Google has now added support for the NOODP tag that MSN initiated on May 22nd of this year. Yes, Danny asked for this back in June, and now Google has granted our wish. If you have one of those pesky titles pulled from the ODP (dmoz.org) directory, don't fret it, just add the NOODP tag. How do you do it? Just add <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> to your page source. If you want to just exclude MSN use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP"> if you just want to exclude Google use <META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="NOODP">....
  • Speculation: Google To Begin Selling Radio Ads Through AdWords Soon
    TechToolBlog said he received a survey from Google specifically asking questions about radio ads. Most of the questions in the survey are related to radio ads, see the screen captures here or the close ups Donna Bogatin has done here. He said that last time Google sent out a survey, it was about print ads, and then they ran print ads soon after. Keep in mind, DMarc Broadcasting, currently sells radio ads, but this seems like Google may begin pushing AdWords advertisers into the radio ad game....
  • AdSense Consulting Group Fed Up With Google AdSense
    Wired has a story on AdSense, not Google AdSense, but AdSense Consulting, the company who registered AdSense.com back in 1996....
  • More Details On Google Sitemaps Query Stats
    DaveN at ThreadWatch posted his love/hate for Google Sitemaps, but what I find to be the most interesting part is the discussion taking place in his post at his blog. Vanessa Fox, Google Engineering, from the Inside Google Sitemaps blog posted a comment at Dave's blog explaining why a the Sitemaps query stats may say you come up for a popular term even though you don't mention that term or phrase on your pages of your site....
  • Yahoo Reaches Out To U.S. Hispanics Via Deal With Hispanic Digital Network
    ClickZ reports that Yahoo has reached a deal with Hispanic Digital Network (HDN) to supply web search and sponsored search listings for HDN's 70+ Spanish-language Web sites. Reportedly, this gives Yahoo access to 2.8 million U.S. Hispanic visitors per month. The ads will be both in Spanish and English, not based on geo-location but based on the language used in the query. Yahoo would like to see more Spanish content web sites developed in the future, according to Peter Celeste, regional general manager for the Americas for Yahoo Search and Search Marketing. For more information on the Hispanic market, check...
  • Counting Links At The Search Engines
    Rand has an excellent post on how to get your hands dirty by manually checking your links at the various search engines. He reviews Google's link command and how bad it is. He also reviews MSN's link command and explains how you can add modifiers to the link or linkdomain commands (i.e. exclude site A from the command). Rand then reviews the Yahoo link command, and explains that although Yahoo has Site Explorer, the "most accurate" result set still comes from search.yahoo.com. He recommends you use search.yahoo.com and then append &b=999 to the end of the URL manually. Like MSN,...

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 13, 2006, 3:31 PM | Permalink


Daily SearchCast, July 13, 2006: SES Latino; Yahoo's Expansion To US Hispanic Sites; Google Does Radio Ads Survey & More!

Today's search podcast covers the SES Latino show that just concluded in Miami; a new Yahoo deal to reach Hispanics; Google & radio ad moves; search engine office expansions; Google Force One revisited and more!

Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the Daily SearchCast FAQ.

Below are links to items discussed:

  • Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day One
    Day one of the first ever Search Engine Strategies Latino edition is pretty much complete. The networking cocktail is taking place now, there is a Google party tonight and also some Yahoo boat thing. I have managed to cover the Landscape & Tactics tracks, so here is the roundup. + The Opportunity: Tapping Into US Hispanics & Latin America Via Search + Search Landscape: US Hispanics + Search Landscape: Latin America + The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US Hispanics & Latin Americans I also took pictures of the sessions and outside of the hotel, you can see them here....
  • Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day Two
    The conference has officially ended, it was a really great event. Huge congrats to Nacho for running this. I am writing this quickly, because they are breaking down the room as I type this. Here are the sessions I covered today. + Translate Or Create: Strategies For Those With English-Language Sites + Domain Issues - Latin American Version + Spanish / Portuguese Language Ad Issues + SEO & Spanish / Portuguese Language Issues Again, pictures of the event tagged with seslatino at Flickr....
  • Cartoon Barry Interactive by SitePal, Search Engine Roundtable
  • Yahoo Reaches Out To U.S. Hispanics Via Deal With Hispanic Digital Network
    ClickZ reports that Yahoo has reached a deal with Hispanic Digital Network (HDN) to supply web search and sponsored search listings for HDN's 70+ Spanish-language Web sites. Reportedly, this gives Yahoo access to 2.8 million U.S. Hispanic visitors per month. The ads will be both in Spanish and English, not based on geo-location but based on the language used in the query. Yahoo would like to see more Spanish content web sites developed in the future, according to Peter Celeste, regional general manager for the Americas for Yahoo Search and Search Marketing. For more information on the Hispanic market, check...
  • Speculation: Google To Begin Selling Radio Ads Through AdWords Soon
    TechToolBlog said he received a survey from Google specifically asking questions about radio ads. Most of the questions in the survey are related to radio ads, see the screen captures here or the close ups Donna Bogatin has done here. He said that last time Google sent out a survey, it was about print ads, and then they ran print ads soon after. Keep in mind, DMarc Broadcasting, currently sells radio ads, but this seems like Google may begin pushing AdWords advertisers into the radio ad game....
  • New Landing Page Quality Score Announced for Google AdWords Advertisers
    The Google AdWords blog has announced new changes that will be seen next week that will result in some advertisers faced with higher minimum bids to keep their campaigns running on AdWords, as a result in changes being made to the landing page quality score algorithm. While a small number of advertisers will be affected, AdWords is targeting those landing pages that offer a poor user experience to those who click the ads....
  • Judge Orders Google To Disclose Advertiser's Information
    Out-Law reports that Google was ordered by Justice Rimer to hand over the information on an advertiser to Helen Grant for copyright infringement. Helen Grant "complained that a Google advert led to a service which she claimed violated her copyright in a forthcoming book." A search brought up a site named Realityunlocked.com, "which offered a free download of an earlier draft of the book, and that the site violated the Trust's copyright." Google asked Grant to take the issue to court, this way Google does not have to worry about the privacy issues with handing over the information....
  • Click Packages Draw Local Advertisers Into Search
    The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports on the "bundle of clicks" search distribution packages that all the major yellow pages publishers in the U.S. are now selling to their local advertisers. Here's an amazing quote from Simon Greenman, SVP of digital products at R.H. Donnelly, "Our strategy is to connect our customers with their customers wherever they may be." That's a radical statement for a yellow pages executive to make because he's not asserting that print yellow pages is the best lead generation vehicle "and we also have Internet." He's saying Donnelly is "agnostic."...
  • SuperPages For Sale
    Verizon has formally filed with the SEC to sell its directory unit, which contains the print yellow pages and online yellow pages/local search businesses. A likely sale could bring as much as $15 billion. And because AT&T does not look like it's going to spin off its directory business, SuperPages could fetch a significant premium....
  • SuperPages Upgrades Maps With Microsoft
    I never saw a press release. But today I discovered that SuperPages, which had dynamic mapping almost before anyone else in local (though it was "cludgey"), has upgraded the mapping on its site using the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform. The "new" maps are much nicer and easier to use than the last time I checked, which was admittedly a long time ago. While there is aerial photography, there's no "Birds Eye" view here. YellowPages.com licensed Virtual Earth, including Birds Eye, several months ago....
  • Google Maps Adds Click To Zoom
    Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal points out that Google Maps has added another way to zoom: double clicking. Of course you can still zoom with the mouse rollerball. Here's the official statement from the Google Maps API Blog. Google Earth and Google Maps are now apparently running off the same platform, which should permit more integration of Earth features into Maps over time....
  • Yahoo Buys Land In Santa Clara
    The San Jose Business Journal reports that Yahoo has purchased 42.5 acres in Santa Clara. The price of the land was not disclosed, but we do know they bought it from San Francisco's TMG Partners. Yahoo's CFO, Sue Decker, said: "We see this as an attractive asset that provides attractive additional capacity and flexibility for Yahoo's future. We are planning for future growth and will analyze several different scenarios over the coming year regarding the development of the property."...
  • Google To Set Up Offices In Michigan
    The NY Times reports (also try Reuters) that Google will house up to 1,000 employees in a new facility in Michigan. The office is to reside in downtown Ann Arbor, "the hometown of the University of Michigan, where Larry Page, one of Google?s founders, earned his undergraduate degree in engineering." The Times reports that the majority of the building will be used for "technology and call center, with about 40,000 square feet needed to house the library digitization project."...
  • Google Drive Revealed?
    Yesterday, Cocaman posted a screen capture of what was named Platypus or GDrive. From the looks of the screen capture it seems like an internal tool used at Google is getting ready for prime time. The page is now offline, of course, but the screen capture read;...
  • The Matt Cutts Hard Drive Collection
  • Matt Cutts Of Google Comments On Recent Listings Issues
    Last week we reported that Google may have revealed the spam scores to the world. Well, Matt Cutts came back from vacation and he confirmed the data "was real." He promised not to "comment on what any of it means" but at least we know Google is part of the borg. Just kidding. I doubt we will see a treasure like that again, but if we do, it would be interesting to see if Google does add "extra settings for fun," such as ?initial_time_travel_wormhole=?Wednesday, December 31 1969 11:11 pm."...
  • Weird Results Counts On Google
    I've written before about Google giving strange results counts and why maybe it's time for them to go. Yesterday, I came across the oddest ones ever, when doing some typical searches to gauge the size of the index....
  • MySpace More Popular Than Google Or Yahoo
    Bill Tancer over at his HitWise blog has data that claims MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites. This is incredibly important, MySpace.com is more popular that Yahoo Mail, and MySpace's growth of visits has surpassed Google towards the end of May of this year. But as Bill points out, what is most revealing is that the "top search terms driving traffic to all Internet sites" is MySpace and MySpace.com with 1.28%, compared with last years top search term being eBay at .31%. See all the details at HitWise....
  • AdSense Consulting Group Fed Up With Google AdSense
    Wired has a story on AdSense, not Google AdSense, but AdSense Consulting, the company who registered AdSense.com back in 1996....
  • Google Jet Plane Security Threat? And Testing A Sofa In Mountain View
    Josh Gerstein at the New York sun has an update on the suit over Google Jet disclosure. Basically, Google's founders argue that the information given up by aircraft designer can be could put the lives of those on the plane in danger. Google asked for a court order to keep the designer quiet. Well, the judge declined to hear or rule on the case - go figure. Read more about it from Danny's earlier post. Postscript From Danny: The security concerns voiced in the case made me wonder out details getting out about Google Force One compare to Air Force...
  • Google boys are "sofa king" rich

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 13, 2006, 3:18 PM | Permalink


Google Adds Supports For NOODP Tag To Opt Out Of ODP Titles

Singing for joy! Google has now added support for the NOODP tag that MSN initiated on May 22nd of this year. Yes, Danny asked for this back in June, and now Google has granted our wish. If you have one of those pesky titles pulled from the ODP (dmoz.org) directory, don't fret it, just add the NOODP tag.

How do you do it? Just add <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> to your page source. If you want to just exclude MSN use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP"> if you just want to exclude Google use <META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="NOODP">.

Keep in mind, it takes time for Google to spider your pages and then determine if you do not want to use the ODP title. So if you add the tag today, it may take several weeks to have an impact.

Webmasters, this can have a huge affect on your organic traffic. If you have a poor ODP title and Google uses it in the results, by tweaking your title, your click-through rate from Google can potentially dramatically increase.

More details at Inside Google Sitemaps blog and the help section at Google.

Postscript: There is a bit of confusion that this tag only tells Google not to display the ODP description in the search results. This is not correct, Google will not display both the description and the title from the ODP in the Google search results with the implementation of this tag.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 13, 2006, 1:19 PM | Permalink


Report: Apples are More "Apple-y" than Oranges

OK, OK. I've been getting a lot of flak over my story covering a new Nielsen/NetRatings study on the number of people who download podcasts.

I realize it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to say that more people have downloaded a podcast than have published a blog. It wasn't meant to be a cut on blogging, or to over-hype podcasting, which is how some people are taking it. It was meant more as a benchmark, since most people can get their head around the number of people who blog, or engage in online dating, and so they can better imagine how many people are downloading podcasts.

It would have been better to compare the number of podcast downloads to the number of blog readers, or the number of podcast producers to bloggers.

I got in touch with Nielsen/NetRatings, and found out that 14.4% of the U.S. population, or about 20.2 million people, have read a blog in the past month, compared to the 6.6%, or 9.2 million people, that have downloaded a podcast. How about them apples?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 13, 2006, 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Speculation: Google To Begin Selling Radio Ads Through AdWords Soon

TechToolBlog said he received a survey from Google specifically asking questions about radio ads. Most of the questions in the survey are related to radio ads, see the screen captures here or the close ups Donna Bogatin has done here. He said that last time Google sent out a survey, it was about print ads, and then they ran print ads soon after. Keep in mind, DMarc Broadcasting, currently sells radio ads, but this seems like Google may begin pushing AdWords advertisers into the radio ad game.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 13, 2006, 9:42 AM | Permalink


AdSense Consulting Group Fed Up With Google AdSense

Wired has a story on AdSense, not Google AdSense, but AdSense Consulting, the company who registered AdSense.com back in 1996.

If you visit adsense.com, you will notice Google does not own the site, and they do not provide Google AdSense services.

In fact, they have a message on the site that reads, "If you think you can get rich quick placing other people's ads on your site or blog, please contact Google who has taken and used our business name without permission or compensation."

I find it funny that Google AdSense, which is a contextual ad program, developed to provide relevant sales leads, has done the exact opposite for AdSense Consulting.

AdSense Consulting apparently gets hundreds of irrelevant phone calls and emails to answer Google AdSense customer support related questions, something nothing to do with their business. Sounds incredibly frustrating to me.

The article notes the company has now sold the domain to another company, which has not yet been named. Google declined to purchase it from her, apparently. Google also decided her site didn't qualify to carry AdSense ads, either.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 13, 2006, 9:32 AM | Permalink


More Details On Google Sitemaps Query Stats

DaveN at ThreadWatch posted his love/hate for Google Sitemaps, but what I find to be the most interesting part is the discussion taking place in his post at his blog. Vanessa Fox, Google Engineering, from the Inside Google Sitemaps blog posted a comment at Dave's blog explaining why a the Sitemaps query stats may say you come up for a popular term even though you don't mention that term or phrase on your pages of your site.

I do not want to miss anything from her comment so let me quote them.

(1) Stats are based on three week averages; "They are averaged over a three week period, so any big fluctuations during that period may make the stats seem off."

(2) "They are top overall queries. For instance, say your site isn?t about Britney Spears, but you?ve mentioned her a few times and so your site ranks for her (although likely doesn?t rank well). Your site is actually about purple apples. So, if a million people search for Britney and 10 people search for purple apples, then Britney is going to show as a top query. And you might look at that and say, my site isn?t even about her. How can that query be higher for my site than what my site is actually about? But in sheer number of searches, Britney is a top query for the site."

And to clarify number two, we have this comment;

My early morning, under-caffeinated guess is that you linked to this threadwatch story (http://www.threadwatch.org/node/7076) in your ?industry news? section and at some point, that may have been on the same page as links pointing to this post: http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/archives/2006/03/21/naked-truth-about-shoemony/ and possibly some anchor text pointing to your site includes the word ?nude? (the cached page info seems to indicate so). And when searching for christine dolce naked became a popular thing to do, your site may have been an early one to have all the keywords.

This explains a bit more about how Google Sitemaps query stats data works.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 13, 2006, 9:21 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Reaches Out To U.S. Hispanics Via Deal With Hispanic Digital Network

ClickZ reports that Yahoo has reached a deal with Hispanic Digital Network (HDN) to supply web search and sponsored search listings for HDN's 70+ Spanish-language Web sites. Reportedly, this gives Yahoo access to 2.8 million U.S. Hispanic visitors per month. The ads will be both in Spanish and English, not based on geo-location but based on the language used in the query. Yahoo would like to see more Spanish content web sites developed in the future, according to Peter Celeste, regional general manager for the Americas for Yahoo Search and Search Marketing.

For more information on the Hispanic market, check out our coverage of SES Latino from Monday and Tuesday.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 13, 2006, 9:02 AM | Permalink


Counting Links At The Search Engines

Rand has an excellent post on how to get your hands dirty by manually checking your links at the various search engines. He reviews Google's link command and how bad it is. He also reviews MSN's link command and explains how you can add modifiers to the link or linkdomain commands (i.e. exclude site A from the command). Rand then reviews the Yahoo link command, and explains that although Yahoo has Site Explorer, the "most accurate" result set still comes from search.yahoo.com. He recommends you use search.yahoo.com and then append &b=999 to the end of the URL manually. Like MSN, you can add modifiers to the Yahoo link commands. This is a great post for those who want a refresher on the link commands available to you, plus learn a few new tips on them.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 13, 2006, 8:52 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 12, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted yesterday to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:

From The SEW Blog...

  • Yahoo's Livesearch Added To Firefox
    Yahoo launched Livesearch on AllTheWeb back in May. Danny has a detailed post about how it is similar to Lookahead and Google Suggest. Anyway, as we suggested on May 16th, Livesearch capabilities from Yahoo has been added to a new version of Firefox 2.0. You can download the new Firefox here and give it a try. Also you can read more at the Yahoo Search Blog, which has links to more methods of downloads....
  • Google Video Launches In UK & Other Countries
    Silicon reports that Google Video has launched a localized version in the UK at http://video.google.co.uk/. There are also localized versions in Canada, Deutschland, España, France, Italia, Nederland, and Polska. Google's Joanna Shields, said in a statement: "By launching Google Video in these new markets we will enable more people in more countries to search for, upload and share video content in more languages."...
  • Interactive Review of SEOMoz's Page Strength Tool
    Rand posted information about a new tool he launched named the Page Strength Tool. It is pretty cool, and why can't it replace PageRank? :) Anyway, here is my interactive review of the tool, you can find more details about what the tool exactly measures here....
  • Google Pages & Yahoo Geocities Phishing Attacks
    We learn from VNUnet.com that there are phishing scams on Google Pages and we also learn from Slashdot that Yahoo's Geocities has a similar issue. A email goes out telling people they can win a "$500 cash prize, and that the money can be paid automatically if they click on the embedded web link."...
  • Martin Child, VP Of Sales & Marketing Leaves Yahoo Search Marketing
    Brand Republic reports that Yahoo Search Marketing's vice-president of sales and marketing, Martin Child is leaving to work at Webloyalty. Child has been with Yahoo, Overture, for four and a half years prior to stepping down....
  • MySpace More Popular Than Google Or Yahoo
    Bill Tancer over at his HitWise blog has data that claims MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites. This is incredibly important, MySpace.com is more popular that Yahoo Mail, and MySpace's growth of visits has surpassed Google towards the end of May of this year. But as Bill points out, what is most revealing is that the "top search terms driving traffic to all Internet sites" is MySpace and MySpace.com with 1.28%, compared with last years top search term being eBay at .31%. See all the details at HitWise....
  • ShopLocal Taps Topix for Geotargeted Ads
    By Greg Sterling, Jul. 12, 2006 | Search Ads: Local , Search Types: Local | Edit
  • This isn't search, but it is local. ShopLocal has partnered with news aggregator Topix.net to offer dynamic banner ads that are targeted by ZIP. The program services national advertisers trying to drive consumers into their local stores. An example dynamic skyscraper ad is visible here. ShopLocal is providing the ad content and Topix provides the local news pages on which the ads appear. Here's the press release. Read a somewhat longer post on my blog....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 13, 2006, 6:53 AM | Permalink


NHL Unveils Social Network Ambitions

nhl_trans_logo.gifContinuing its efforts to jazz up the sport after a strike forced a year hiatus, the National Hockey League next season will offer an online social networking community, NHL Connect. The offering, designed by software firm Five Across Connect, is being trialed in beta and will be open to the public next season. On the site, users will be able to: "create rich, multimedia personal profile pages and share interests and ideas with other users in the NHL community, displaying comments, photos, podcasts and video casts, links to new articles and content, friends or colleagues and RSS feeds." Whew. That's a mouthful.

Posted by Pamela Parker on July 12, 2006, 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Yahoo's Livesearch Added To Firefox

Yahoo launched Livesearch on AllTheWeb back in May. Danny has a detailed post about how it is similar to Lookahead and Google Suggest. Anyway, as we suggested on May 16th, Livesearch capabilities from Yahoo has been added to a new version of Firefox 2.0. You can download the new Firefox here and give it a try. Also you can read more at the Yahoo Search Blog, which has links to more methods of downloads.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 12, 2006, 2:52 PM | Permalink


Google Video Launches In UK & Other Countries

Silicon reports that Google Video has launched a localized version in the UK at http://video.google.co.uk/. There are also localized versions in Canada, Deutschland, España, France, Italia, Nederland, and Polska.

Google's Joanna Shields, said in a statement: "By launching Google Video in these new markets we will enable more people in more countries to search for, upload and share video content in more languages."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 12, 2006, 12:43 PM | Permalink


Interactive Review of SEOMoz's Page Strength Tool

Rand posted information about a new tool he launched named the Page Strength Tool. It is pretty cool, and why can't it replace PageRank? :) Anyway, here is my interactive review of the tool, you can find more details about what the tool exactly measures here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 12, 2006, 12:26 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 11, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted yesterday to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:

From The SEW Blog...

  • Daily SearchCast Programming Note
    The Daily SearchCast didn't happen on Tuesday, July 11 due to me being away in Miami for the SES Latino conference. It also won't happen today, Wednesday, July 12. I expect to be back at it on Thursday, July 13....
  • New Search Patent Applications: July 11, 2006 - Google Patent Filings by the Dozen
    Twelve Google patent applications where published this past week, including seven that focus upon geographical information and local search. (1) How good a match ads may be to the content on pages they are served upon through a program like Adsense. (2) A process for improving the targeting of ads. (3) Real time transportation data for travelers. (4) An exploration of ad layouts. (5) An automated advertising approval process. (6) Reasons for location-based businesses to use local area advertising, including an improved pay-per-call process. (7) How the most authoritative local search results are identified. (8) The use of visual gap...
  • SuperPages Upgrades Maps With Microsoft
    I never saw a press release. But today I discovered that SuperPages, which had dynamic mapping almost before anyone else in local (though it was "cludgey"), has upgraded the mapping on its site using the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform. The "new" maps are much nicer and easier to use than the last time I checked, which was admittedly a long time ago. While there is aerial photography, there's no "Birds Eye" view here. YellowPages.com licensed Virtual Earth, including Birds Eye, several months ago....
  • Gabbing, Gossip & Goings On in the SEW Forums...
    In what should become a regular feature here on the SEW blog, here are some highlights from current discussions on the forums: You may think it's the same old story, but Tonerman has posed an an interesting question to the group, Is SEO on Google worth the effort anymore? With a shift in organic results since Big Daddy, can a solid PPC campaign be your best bet? Frustration continues over Google's choice to show DMOZ listings as titles for certain sites in search results. Threads to Watch: Members also share experiences with optimizing websites that use Yahoo Stores. One member...
  • Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day Two
    The conference has officially ended, it was a really great event. Huge congrats to Nacho for running this. I am writing this quickly, because they are breaking down the room as I type this. Here are the sessions I covered today. + Translate Or Create: Strategies For Those With English-Language Sites + Domain Issues - Latin American Version + Spanish / Portuguese Language Ad Issues + SEO & Spanish / Portuguese Language Issues Again, pictures of the event tagged with seslatino at Flickr....
  • Google Maps Adds Click To Zoom
    Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal points out that Google Maps has added another way to zoom: double clicking. Of course you can still zoom with the mouse rollerball. Here's the official statement from the Google Maps API Blog. Google Earth and Google Maps are now apparently running off the same platform, which should permit more integration of Earth features into Maps over time....
  • Google Jet Plane Security Threat? And Testing A Sofa In Mountain View
    Josh Gerstein at the New York sun has an update on the suit over Google Jet disclosure. Basically, Google's founders argue that the information given up by aircraft designer can be could put the lives of those on the plane in danger. Google asked for a court order to keep the designer quiet. Well, the judge declined to hear or rule on the case - go figure. Read more about it from Danny's earlier post. Postscript From Danny: The security concerns voiced in the case made me wonder out details getting out about Google Force One compare to Air Force...
  • Windows Live Adds Search/Personalized Toggle & 34 New Markets
    Gary Price points to two Windows Live blog posts including, search/personalized toggle and now in 34 new markets. The first describes how you can now toggle between search and personalized experience. Your last selection will be remembered for your next session. The blog says that this "replaces our old 'hide' option, with a much improved experience in 'search only' mode that is faster and includes search filters." Windows Live also entered 34 new markets including;...
  • Google To Set Up Offices In Michigan
    The NY Times reports (also try Reuters) that Google will house up to 1,000 employees in a new facility in Michigan. The office is to reside in downtown Ann Arbor, "the hometown of the University of Michigan, where Larry Page, one of Google?s founders, earned his undergraduate degree in engineering." The Times reports that the majority of the building will be used for "technology and call center, with about 40,000 square feet needed to house the library digitization project."...
  • Weird Results Counts On Google
    I've written before about Google giving strange results counts and why maybe it's time for them to go. Yesterday, I came across the oddest ones ever, when doing some typical searches to gauge the size of the index....
    Google Drive Revealed?
    Yesterday, Cocaman posted a screen capture of what was named Platypus or GDrive. From the looks of the screen capture it seems like an internal tool used at Google is getting ready for prime time. The page is now offline, of course, but the screen capture read;...

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 12, 2006, 12:11 PM | Permalink


Daily SearchCast Programming Note

The Daily SearchCast didn't happen on Tuesday, July 11 due to me being away in Miami for the SES Latino conference. It also won't happen today, Wednesday, July 12. I expect to be back at it on Thursday, July 13.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 12, 2006, 12:03 PM | Permalink


Google Pages & Yahoo Geocities Phishing Attacks

We learn from VNUnet.com that there are phishing scams on Google Pages and we also learn from Slashdot that Yahoo's Geocities has a similar issue. A email goes out telling people they can win a "$500 cash prize, and that the money can be paid automatically if they click on the embedded web link."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 12, 2006, 10:53 AM | Permalink


Martin Child, VP Of Sales & Marketing Leaves Yahoo Search Marketing

Brand Republic reports that Yahoo Search Marketing's vice-president of sales and marketing, Martin Child is leaving to work at Webloyalty. Child has been with Yahoo, Overture, for four and a half years prior to stepping down.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 12, 2006, 10:43 AM | Permalink


TNT Creates Broadband Channel to Promote On-Air Series

S King.jpg TNT just announced it will create an online broadband "channel" to promote its new series "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" From the Stories of Stephen King."

It has the ring of DVD "extras," only for the Web.

Content will include actor and director interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and even feature films related to the content, which TNT will trot out of its library.

The Web site, built and hosted by Veoh, officially launches today -- as does the series.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on July 12, 2006, 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


MySpace More Popular Than Google Or Yahoo

Bill Tancer over at his HitWise blog has data that claims MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites. This is incredibly important, MySpace.com is more popular that Yahoo Mail, and MySpace's growth of visits has surpassed Google towards the end of May of this year. But as Bill points out, what is most revealing is that the "top search terms driving traffic to all Internet sites" is MySpace and MySpace.com with 1.28%, compared with last years top search term being eBay at .31%. See all the details at HitWise.

Postscript: Yahoo disputes the validity of comparing the MySpace domain to only individual properties in their network, as covered more here, and Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny has some observations as well here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 12, 2006, 10:21 AM | Permalink


ShopLocal Taps Topix for Geotargeted Ads

This isn't search, but it is local. ShopLocal has partnered with news aggregator Topix.net to offer dynamic banner ads that are targeted by ZIP. The program services national advertisers trying to drive consumers into their local stores. An example dynamic skyscraper ad is visible here.

ShopLocal is providing the ad content and Topix provides the local news pages on which the ads appear. Here's the press release. Read a somewhat longer post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling on July 12, 2006, 7:12 AM | Permalink


New Search Patent Applications: July 11, 2006 - Google Patent Filings by the Dozen

Twelve Google patent applications where published this past week, including seven that focus upon geographical information and local search.

(1) How good a match ads may be to the content on pages they are served upon through a program like Adsense. (2) A process for improving the targeting of ads. (3) Real time transportation data for travelers. (4) An exploration of ad layouts. (5) An automated advertising approval process. (6) Reasons for location-based businesses to use local area advertising, including an improved pay-per-call process.

(7) How the most authoritative local search results are identified. (8) The use of visual gap segmentation to separate information on different parts of pages, with implications beyond local search. (9) Ties business locations with regional areas. (10) A method for reducing ambiguity in geographic location. (11) Deciding whether regular or local results might be shown when at least one query term might be geographical in nature. (12) Assigning confidence scores between business identity and location information on a page.

Microsoft adds two more, on the validity of links, and on the validity of anchor text in links. They have very similar names, and cover topics that are related, but the processes involved are very different.

Google

This first patent filing discusses some of the factors that the search engine may look at to determine whether or not an ad served on a page a good match for that page and possibly the category that page may be within, including some user behavior information such as whether or not ads are selected, how long a viewer remains on a page, and if a conversion is made.

Associating features with entities, such as categories of web page documents, and/or weighting such features
Inventors: Ross Koningstein, Stephen Lawrence, and Valentin Spitkovsky
US Patent Application 20060149710
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

Features that may be used to represent relevance information (e.g., properties, characteristics, etc.) of an entity, such as a document or concept for example, may be associated with the document by accepting an identifier that identifies a document; obtaining search query information (and/or other serving parameter information) related to the document using the document identifier, determining features using the obtained query information (and/or other serving parameter information), and associating the features determined with the document. Weights of such features may be similarly determined. The weights may be determined using scores. The scores may be a function of one or more of whether the document was selected, a user dwell time on a selected document, whether or not a conversion occurred with respect to the document, etc. The document may be a Web page. The features may be n-grams. The relevance information of the document may be used to target the serving of advertisements with the document.


The process detailed in the next patent application aims at improving the relevancy of ads, and helping in suggesting targeted terms by allowing an advertiser to submit broad targeting information. While serving ads using that information, the search engine would log and collect search query terms, and possibly concepts and concept keywords, associated with the serving of the ad, and suggest candidate targeting keywords or phrases to the advertiser from those logs.

Suggesting and/or providing targeting information for advertisements
Inventors: Ross Koningstein
US Patent Application 20060149625
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query terms (or some other information, such as concepts, concept keywords, etc.) associated with the serving of the ad, and (iv) generating one or more candidate targeting keywords or phrases for the ad using the logged search query terms. At least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be provided as targeting information for the ad. Alternatively, at least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be presented to the advertiser. Advertiser input with respect to the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) presented may then be accepted. Zero or more of the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) may be provided as targeting information for the ad, in accordance with the accepted advertiser input. Cost information (e.g., average cost per selection, average cost per conversion, total costs, etc.) may be presented in association with the candidate targeting information.

Traffic assistance similar to that provided by Google acquisition Zipdash is the focus of the next document, and Zipdash is named as a service that would use this process. Some integration of local search and advertising is hinted at in the filing.


Transportation routing
Inventors: Henry Rowley, and Shumeet Baluja
US Patent Application 20060149461
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 31, 2004

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of providing personalized route information involves gathering a plurality of past location indicators over time for a wireless client device, determining a future driving objective using the plurality of previously-gathered location indicators, obtaining real-time traffic data for an area proximate to the determined driving objective, and generating a suggested route for the driving objective using the near real-time traffic data.

How are the layouts of ads best optimized? What size fonts are used, and how many ads are displayed on pages? Google explores some of those concepts, and notes that the presentation ideas for ads in the following document also may be used to present news items on search results pages.

Ad rendering parameters, such as size, style, and/or layout, of online ads
Inventors: Shumeet Baluja, Vibhu Mittal, and Mehran Sahami
US Patent Application 20060149622
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for at least one ad from the set of two or more ads using the accepted ad information. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may use accepted ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering constraints may include space available for rendering the ads, a footprint available for rendering the ads, and/or a maximum number of ads permitted to be rendered. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may include maximizing a value associated with serving at least one ad from the set of two or more ads with ad rendering parameters subject to the ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering parameters may include sizes of the served ads, and/or a layout of the served ads.


Automating the approval process for paid ads could benefit Google and advertisers. What would such an approval process entail? The next document identifies a number of issues involved in approving an ad, and in followups on advertisements. It also describes a whitelist for exceptions to some of the policies that may keep ads from being approved.

Advertisement approval
Inventors: Gregory Joseph Badros, Robert J. Stets, and Lucy Zhang
US Patent Application 20060149623
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

An advertisement for use with an online ad serving system may be automatically checked for compliance with one or more policies of the online ad serving system. If the advertisement is approved, then it is allowed by be served by the ad serving system. Follow up checks of the advertisement may be scheduled. One follow up check may be to test a landing page of the advertisement for compliance with policies. If the advertisement is not approved, hints for making the ad comply with one or more violated policies may be provided to an advertiser associated with the ad, and/or an ad serving system customer service representative. Determining whether or not to approve the advertisement may include determining violations of one or more policies by the advertisement, and, for each of the violations, determining whether or not to exempt the violation.

Google Local Patent Applications

The following patent applications primarily look at local search, though some of the processes described within them may have broader reaching implications, such as the one on visual segmentation of information on pages.

Businesses associated with a specific location often don't use paid search as part of their advertising strategy. This first patent application thoughtfully goes into some of the reasons why, and explores ways to make it a more attractive medium, including expanded pay-per-call functionality, as well as providing information such as business hours and types of payment accepted.

Generating and/or serving local area advertisements, such as advertisements for devices with call functionality
Inventors: Shumeet Baluja and Henry A. Rowley
US Patent Application 20060149624
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

Sets of local, (e.g., online) ads may be generated by obtaining sets of information about (e.g., local) establishments, each set including a business address information and/or a telephone number, (b) determining, for each of the sets, a location using at least one of at least a portion of the business address information and at least a portion of the telephone number, and (c) generating, for each of the sets, an ad that includes targeting information that targets the serving of the ad to queries related to the determined location. A query, including information about a location of a client device, may be accepted and at least one of the generated ads that includes targeting information that targets the location of the client device may be determined.

How does a local search determine which document is the most relevant and authoritative one to return at the top of a local search list? A number of factors are considered in this next set of described processes.

Authoritative document identification
Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Geeta Chaudhry
US Patent Application 20060149800
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

A system determines documents that are associated with a location, identifies a group of signals associated with each of the documents, and determines authoritativeness of the documents for the location based on the signals.

If you are familiar with Microsoft's research on VIPS: a VIsion based Page Segmentation Algorithm, some of the ideas in the next document may sound a little familiar. Imagine a page that includes restaurant reviews for a number of restaurants in a city neighborhood. Might the information from that page be segmented, so that reviews for each of the restaurants can be included in results for the right restaurants in a local search? This visual gap approach might be helpful in that endeavor.

The document also notes that this process might be helpful in determining what an image is about, and in indexing them. It also mentions that it could help the search engine understand what the different parts of a page are, and how much value they have (for instance, distinqusihing between content and navigation.)

Document segmentation based on visual gaps
Inventors: Daniel Egnor
US Patent Application 20060149775
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

A document may be segmented based on a visual model of the document. The visual model is determined according to an amount of visual white space or gaps that are in the document. In one implementation, the visual model is used to identify a hierarchical structure of the document, which may then be used to segment the document.

While a search engine may be able to determine where a business related to a page is located, it may want to associate that location with a geographical region. Something like a Hierarchical Triangular Mesh may be used to help in making that association.

Indexing documents according to geographical relevance
Inventors: Daniel Egnor
US Patent Application 20060149774
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

A local search engine efficiently indexes documents relevant to a geographical area by indexing, for each document, multiple location identifiers that collectively define an aggregate geographic region. When creating the index, the search engine may determine a set of geographical areas surrounding a geographical area relevant to a document and associate references to the set of geographical areas with the document index.


It's not always clear what the geographic location of a webpage is, based upon information presented on individual pages, though sometimes that type of information exists on the pages. The process displayed in this next filing tries to take information that may be spread out on a page, and tie it together to identify a location.

Classification of ambiguous geographic references
Inventors: Daniel Egnor
US Patent Application 20060149742
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

A location classifier generates location information based on textual strings in input text. The location information defines potential geographical relevance of the input text. In determining the location information, the location classifier may receive at least one geo-relevance profile associated with at least one string in the input text, obtain a combined geo-relevance profile for the document from the at least one geo-relevance profile, and determine geographical relevance of the input text based on the combined geo-relevance profile.


Imagine if a search engine could serve either regular web search results or local results. Some search queries could be ambiguous, and may make it difficult to determine whether to serve local search information or general web search results. The inventors of the next document provide some ideas that may reduce some of that ambiguity a little.

Location extraction
Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Lawrence Elias Greenfield
US Patent Application 20060149734
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

A system receives a search query that includes a set of search terms, determines whether at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of a geographic area, and determines whether the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area when at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of the geographic area. The system performs a local search, based on one or more of the search terms, to identify documents associated with the geographic area when the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area.

The title of this patent application, and the previous one are so similar, that I was concerned they might be duplicates when I uncovered them. The one above attempts to "extract" location information from a query. This next one attempts to "extract" location information from pages being indexed, with confidence scores indicating how likely it is that business information on a page is associated with an address on the same page.

Local item extraction
Inventors: Michael Dennis Riley
US Patent Application 20060149565
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

A system identifies a document that includes an address and locates business information in the document. The system assigns a confidence score to the business information, where the confidence score relates to a probability that the business information is associated with the address. The system determines whether to associate the business information with the address based on the assigned confidence score.

Microsoft

The titles of two Microsoft patent applications are very similar, but the processes described aren't. The first one looks at anchor text in links, and the titles to pages those links point to, to see if the anchor text is accurate. The second one looks at links on pages, using the Document Object Model, and tries to determine if they are valid links while simulating the experience of a user of the page viewing it with a browser. This may help a search engine understand dynamic html menus, and view links that may otherwise be unavailable to a search engine crawler.

Methods and apparatus for the evaluation of aspects of a web page
Inventors: Michael A. Starbird
Assigned to Microsoft
US Patent Application 20060150076
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

Methods and apparatus are provided for evaluating the extent to which link text, representing a hypertext link on a web page, corresponds to a web page referenced by the link. In one embodiment, the link text may be compared to the title of a web page referenced by the link, such as by parsing the link text and page title into individual tokens and comparing the tokens. The extent to which the link text and the page title correspond may be expressed as a percentage of tokens which match. A graphical user interface (GUI) may be provided which presents a visual indication when a minimum percentage of tokens do not match.


Methods and apparatus for evaluating aspects of a web page
Inventors: Ryan Farber
Assigned to Microsoft
US Patent Application 20060150111
Published July 6, 2006
Filed on December 30, 2004

Abstract

An automated method is provided for evaluating the validity of links included in a web page. The web page may contain commands, such as dynamic HTML or other embedded commands, which are configured for execution upon the occurrence of an event, such as a provision of input by a user. According to one embodiment, the method includes causing the links to be generated by simulating the occurrence of the event. Upon the generation of the links, their validity may be determined, and a report may be produced which indicates whether the links are valid.


My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)

There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski on July 11, 2006, 8:55 PM | Permalink


SuperPages Upgrades Maps With Microsoft

I never saw a press release. But today I discovered that SuperPages, which had dynamic mapping almost before anyone else in local (though it was "cludgey"), has upgraded the mapping on its site using the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform. The "new" maps are much nicer and easier to use than the last time I checked, which was admittedly a long time ago.

While there is aerial photography, there's no "Birds Eye" view here. YellowPages.com licensed Virtual Earth, including Birds Eye, several months ago.

Posted by Greg Sterling on July 11, 2006, 5:44 PM | Permalink


Gabbing, Gossip & Goings On in the SEW Forums...

In what should become a regular feature here on the SEW blog, here are some highlights from current discussions on the forums:

You may think it's the same old story, but Tonerman has posed an an interesting question to the group, Is SEO on Google worth the effort anymore? With a shift in organic results since Big Daddy, can a solid PPC campaign be your best bet?

Frustration continues over Google's choice to show DMOZ listings as titles for certain sites in search results.

Threads to Watch:
Members also share experiences with optimizing websites that use Yahoo Stores.

One member asks, is Yahoo Filtering Internal Pages from a large site?

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on July 11, 2006, 4:40 PM | Permalink


Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day Two

The conference has officially ended, it was a really great event. Huge congrats to Nacho for running this. I am writing this quickly, because they are breaking down the room as I type this. Here are the sessions I covered today.

+ Translate Or Create: Strategies For Those With English-Language Sites
+ Domain Issues - Latin American Version
+ Spanish / Portuguese Language Ad Issues
+ SEO & Spanish / Portuguese Language Issues

Again, pictures of the event tagged with seslatino at Flickr.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 11, 2006, 4:11 PM | Permalink


Google Maps Adds Click To Zoom

Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal points out that Google Maps has added another way to zoom: double clicking. Of course you can still zoom with the mouse rollerball. Here's the official statement from the Google Maps API Blog.

Google Earth and Google Maps are now apparently running off the same platform, which should permit more integration of Earth features into Maps over time.

Posted by Greg Sterling on July 11, 2006, 4:05 PM | Permalink


Google Jet Plane Security Threat? And Testing A Sofa In Mountain View

Josh Gerstein at the New York sun has an update on the suit over Google Jet disclosure. Basically, Google's founders argue that the information given up by aircraft designer can be could put the lives of those on the plane in danger. Google asked for a court order to keep the designer quiet. Well, the judge declined to hear or rule on the case - go figure. Read more about it from Danny's earlier post.

Postscript From Danny: The security concerns voiced in the case made me wonder out details getting out about Google Force One compare to Air Force One. Was there an Air Force One floorplan I could easily find? A search on Google quickly led me to this one from How Stuff Works. However, it turns out that this might not be entirely accurate and there are some areas of Air Force One, which often carries many guests and reporters, that people are never allowed to go. That means to protect the privacy of Google "party plane," as it has been described, those going aboard might have to face NDAs and restrictions on photos, to be as secure as suggested is needed in the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle recently came across very detailed floorplans left out on a public Air Force web site. The article details how certain details could allow someone trying to blow up the plant to know key vulnerabilities. The Guardian also had an article complete with a less detailed floorplan here (PDF file). FYI, some have suggested what was revealed wasn't that sensitive. The actual document has been removed, but part of it were found and replicated in other areas. Meanwhile, the cached version (which isn't showing floorplans but does have other data) remains in Google three months after being taken off the web (I've dropped them a note about this).

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 11, 2006, 12:44 PM | Permalink


MySpace Beats E-mail

myspace.jpg Wow. This just in from Hitwise:

"MySpace.com is the number one ranked website in the U.S. based on market share of visits. The MySpace website accounted for 4.46 percent of all Internet visits in the U.S. for the week ending July 8, 2006. MySpace.com has received a larger market share of visits for the past two weeks propelling the website past Yahoo! Mail."

So it finally happened. Social networking beat e-mail. But why? There's been a ton of mainstream media buzz about social networks in general, and MySpace in particular.

Does this mean now there's nowhere to go but down?

A more detailed story has been posted in ClickZ Stats.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on July 11, 2006, 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


A Podcasting Paradigm

Japanpod.jpgLast time I learned a new language, there wasn't an Internet. Now that I've started Japanese, I'm finding a wealth of online resources.

One of the best is JapanesePod101.com, a daily podcast. The sponsor is a Tokyo-based translation service, which makes perfect sense. Loyal subscribers -- a very targeted audience -- receive daily brand reinforcement.

I also just discovered the dialogue of each daily lesson is spelled out in the "lyrics" section of each podcast's metatag information. This will vastly supplement the already considerable time spent with the podcast.

This could well be a podcasting paradigm: loyal listeners, a relevant sponsor, high engagement, plus a value add feature that enhances an already very immersive experience.

Omedeto!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on July 11, 2006, 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Windows Live Adds Search/Personalized Toggle & 34 New Markets

Gary Price points to two Windows Live blog posts including, search/personalized toggle and now in 34 new markets. The first describes how you can now toggle between search and personalized experience. Your last selection will be remembered for your next session. The blog says that this "replaces our old 'hide' option, with a much improved experience in 'search only' mode that is faster and includes search filters." Windows Live also entered 34 new markets including;

  • China ? Simplified Chinese
  • Netherlands ? Dutch
  • Belgium ? French
  • Belgium ? Dutch
  • Brazil ? Brazilian Portuguese
  • Denmark ? Danish
  • India ? English
  • Russia ? Russian
  • Sweden ? Swedish
  • Taiwan ? Traditional Chinese
  • Arabia ? English
  • Argentina ? Spanish
  • Austria ? German
  • Chile ? Spanish
  • Finland ? Finnish
  • Greece ? Greek
  • Hong Kong SAR ? Traditional Chinese
  • Hungary ? Hungarian
  • Indonesia ? English
  • Ireland ? English
  • Malaysia ? English
  • New Zealand ? English
  • Philippines ? English
  • Poland ? Polish
  • Portugal ? Brazilian Portuguese
  • Singapore ? English
  • South Africa ? English
  • Switzerland ? German
  • Switzerland ? French
  • Turkey ? Turkish
  • Czech Republic ? Czech
  • Slovakia ? Slovak
  • Slovenia ? Slovenian
  • Latin America ? Spanish

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 11, 2006, 8:22 AM | Permalink


Google To Set Up Offices In Michigan

The NY Times reports (also try Reuters) that Google will house up to 1,000 employees in a new facility in Michigan. The office is to reside in downtown Ann Arbor, "the hometown of the University of Michigan, where Larry Page, one of Google’s founders, earned his undergraduate degree in engineering." The Times reports that the majority of the building will be used for "technology and call center, with about 40,000 square feet needed to house the library digitization project."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 11, 2006, 8:13 AM | Permalink


Weird Results Counts On Google

I've written before about Google giving strange results counts and why maybe it's time for them to go. Yesterday, I came across the oddest ones ever, when doing some typical searches to gauge the size of the index.

Here's an example. Search for xxkjdiuenmnmd8i, which when I just did it came back with no results. Now search for -xxkjdiuenmnmd8i. In theory, that should show the size of the Google index, all the pages it has.

In reality, that type of search hasn't often worked. It was only last September that this type index estimation technique gave any results at all. Even then, I didn't trust that the numbers were accurate. Still, they seemed better than what's coming up now. Look at the screenshot below:

Ten results? Only ten results, for a search technique that last month would have come up with more than 25 billion? Something funky is going on.

Finding it odd, I tried a search for the, often useful as a fast way to get a sense of how big Google might be, at least for the number of English language pages it has. The query came back with 23 billion matches. So how about -the, I tried, just out of curiosity. Ten matches:

060711-2.jpg

Ten? Ten?!!! And more strangeness. A search for -and, -cars, -movies all did the same thing. The results were different in various ways, but the count was always only 10 matches, when it should be much more.

Note that the results all have additional information that make them appear to come out of Google Base. It all suggests that Google has disabled counting for queries involving a single word, but that somehow, Google Base integration is still happening to throw things off. It might be that Google is still doing a call to Google Base, asking for the top 10 results that it has, in order to integrate those results into a regular web search listing. But because it also has disabled display of regular web search results for a single negative word query, it's only Google Base that shows.

Going back to my post from last month, Google, Kill The Web Search Counts!, I explained how Google had stated that the counts reported for a spam site that were removed were much inflated by a counting glitch. I talked with Google about this and some other issues last week just before leaving for my trip to SES Latino in Miami, where I am now.

Some of what I talked about with Google's Matt Cutts and other engineers at Google has already addressed in a recent blog post. The issue of counts came up, and I'll do a longer post on what Google said after I get back from this trip and clear what I can discuss. The short answer is that they are aware of the issues and are looking to correct things. These strange results counts might be part of that.

More later when I'm back from my current trip, or watch Matt's blog, in case he posts before me.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 11, 2006, 8:12 AM | Permalink


Google Drive Revealed?

Yesterday, Cocaman posted a screen capture of what was named Platypus or GDrive. From the looks of the screen capture it seems like an internal tool used at Google is getting ready for prime time. The page is now offline, of course, but the screen capture read;

+ Backup. If you lose your computer, grab a new one and reinstall Platypus. Your files will be on your new machine in minutes.
+ Sync. Keep all your machines synchronized, even if they run different operating systems.
+ VPN-less acecss. Not at a Google computer? View your files on the web at http://troutboard.com/p
+ Collaborate. Create shared spaces to which multiple Googlers can write
+ Disconnected access. On the plane? VPN broken? All your files are still accessible.

More details at Philipp Lenssen who seems to have more evidence of Gdrive and also at Garett Rogers.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 11, 2006, 7:58 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 10, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted yesterday to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:

From The SEW Blog...

  • Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day One
    Day one of the first ever Search Engine Strategies Latino edition is pretty much complete. The networking cocktail is taking place now, there is a Google party tonight and also some Yahoo boat thing. I have managed to cover the Landscape & Tactics tracks, so here is the roundup. + The Opportunity: Tapping Into US Hispanics & Latin America Via Search + Search Landscape: US Hispanics + Search Landscape: Latin America + The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US Hispanics & Latin Americans I also took pictures of the sessions and outside of the hotel, you can see them here....
  • Kayak Launches $10m Ad Campaign - Includes TV
    Kayak, the travel search engine, today launched a $10m advertising campaign with a HUGE offline component. The TV commercials are fun, creative, and potentially viral. It's no coincidence that the spots can also be found on Kayak.com and YouTube. This is either a brilliant move by the company or a sign that Bubble 2.0 is here. You decide after checking out the commercials and then reading my interview with Kayak CMO Dean Harris and my thoughts on the campaign. Kayak is also running a contest encouraging the creation of user generated ads in the same style as the official Kayak...
  • Yahoo Buys Land In Santa Clara
    The San Jose Business Journal reports that Yahoo has purchased 42.5 acres in Santa Clara. The price of the land was not disclosed, but we do know they bought it from San Francisco's TMG Partners. Yahoo's CFO, Sue Decker, said: "We see this as an attractive asset that provides attractive additional capacity and flexibility for Yahoo's future. We are planning for future growth and will analyze several different scenarios over the coming year regarding the development of the property."...
  • Judge Orders Google To Disclose Advertiser's Information
    Out-Law reports that Google was ordered by Justice Rimer to hand over the information on an advertiser to Helen Grant for copyright infringement. Helen Grant "complained that a Google advert led to a service which she claimed violated her copyright in a forthcoming book." A search brought up a site named Realityunlocked.com, "which offered a free download of an earlier draft of the book, and that the site violated the Trust's copyright." Google asked Grant to take the issue to court, this way Google does not have to worry about the privacy issues with handing over the information....
  • Matt Cutts Of Google Comments On Recent Listings Issues
    Last week we reported that Google may have revealed the spam scores to the world. Well, Matt Cutts came back from vacation and he confirmed the data "was real." He promised not to "comment on what any of it means" but at least we know Google is part of the borg. Just kidding. I doubt we will see a treasure like that again, but if we do, it would be interesting to see if Google does add "extra settings for fun," such as ?initial_time_travel_wormhole=?Wednesday, December 31 1969 11:11 pm."...
  • Google Binary Search Not Only Finds Malware But Also Shows Signs Of More
    PCWorld reports that Google's binary search feature came in handy to locate "thousands of malicious Web sites, as well as several legitimate sites that have been hacked." The feature reads executable files and can locate some malicious code within those files. It was used to help find malicious sites and programs by a security vendor named Websense. The article also explains that binary search may be a sign that "Google may be thinking about becoming a file searching service."...
  • Eric Schmidt Claims The PPC Model is "Self-Correcting" In Terms Of Click Fraud
    Donna Bogatin reports that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt claims that click fraud is "self-correcting." Meaning, Eventually, the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the conversion will decline, because the advertiser will realize that these are bad clicks, in other words, the value of the ad declines, so over some amount of time, the system is in-fact, self-correcting. In fact, there is a perfect economic solution which is to let it happen. So the "let it happen" quote, in terms of Eric Schmidt saying let click fraud happen, has been buzzing through the blogging community. Schmidt writes off...
  • Yahoo Trip Planner Released From Beta
    Yahoo is taking is community-travel site Trip Planner out of beta. The site has reached a kind of content critical mass and Yahoo has added some cool features in this general release:Trip Journals (blogging; photos can be imported from Flickr) Map-Based Search (You can drag the map and zoom to areas within countries for more specific options) Yahoo! Search Integration There are also a travel recommendations engine based on travel search history, as well as clipping and tagging functionality In addition to being a useful travel site, with rich user-generated content, in many ways it?s the most impressive expression to...
  • Click Packages Draw Local Advertisers Into Search
    The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports on the "bundle of clicks" search distribution packages that all the major yellow pages publishers in the U.S. are now selling to their local advertisers. Here's an amazing quote from Simon Greenman, SVP of digital products at R.H. Donnelly, "Our strategy is to connect our customers with their customers wherever they may be." That's a radical statement for a yellow pages executive to make because he's not asserting that print yellow pages is the best lead generation vehicle "and we also have Internet." He's saying Donnelly is "agnostic."...
  • The Changing Face of Local
    This ClickZ article discusses a new JupiterResearch report called "Local Advertising: Blending Categories to Compete Effectively." The article doesn't go into great detail about the findings or conclusions from the report. But based solely on my reading of coverage in the article it appears to make two relatively straightforward observations about local: Search engines/portals could steal traffic and potential ad revenues from yellow pages and other stand-alone local sites that seek to cater to traditional directory advertisers The local product definition is changing and categories are merging as the distinctions between classifieds, service listings, local retail and user-generated content and...
  • New Landing Page Quality Score Announced for Google AdWords Advertisers
    The Google AdWords blog has announced new changes that will be seen next week that will result in some advertisers faced with higher minimum bids to keep their campaigns running on AdWords, as a result in changes being made to the landing page quality score algorithm. While a small number of advertisers will be affected, AdWords is targeting those landing pages that offer a poor user experience to those who click the ads....
  • SuperPages For Sale
    Verizon has formally filed with the SEC to sell its directory unit, which contains the print yellow pages and online yellow pages/local search businesses. A likely sale could bring as much as $15 billion. And because AT&T does not look like it's going to spin off its directory business, SuperPages could fetch a significant premium....
  • Specialty Search Roundup #6
    Another week and another set of specialty databases and "research" news for your review. These items have been posted to ResourceShelf during the past week or so. They have also tossed in non-searchable but useful (and fun) reference newsletter and a link to a new mobile version of Reuters for the U.S. Finally, don't forget that The World eBook Fair is now underway offering free, full text and downloadable access (PDF files) to more than 300,000 titles. Why now? This summer Project Gutenberg celebrates its 35th anniversary. The World eBook Fair lasts through August 4th....

Other Things We Read, Didn't Blog But You Might Want To Read...

Posted by Danny Sullivan on July 11, 2006, 7:30 AM | Permalink


Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day One

Day one of the first ever Search Engine Strategies Latino edition is pretty much complete. The networking cocktail is taking place now, there is a Google party tonight and also some Yahoo boat thing. I have managed to cover the Landscape & Tactics tracks, so here is the roundup.

+ The Opportunity: Tapping Into US Hispanics & Latin America Via Search
+ Search Landscape: US Hispanics
+ Search Landscape: Latin America
+ The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US Hispanics & Latin Americans

I also took pictures of the sessions and outside of the hotel, you can see them here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 10, 2006, 5:44 PM | Permalink


Kayak Launches $10m Ad Campaign - Includes TV

Kayak, the travel search engine, today launched a $10m advertising campaign with a HUGE offline component. The TV commercials are fun, creative, and potentially viral. It's no coincidence that the spots can also be found on Kayak.com and YouTube.

This is either a brilliant move by the company or a sign that Bubble 2.0 is here. You decide after checking out the commercials and then reading my interview with Kayak CMO Dean Harris and my thoughts on the campaign.

Kayak is also running a contest encouraging the creation of user generated ads in the same style as the official Kayak ads. "The 'winning creative director' will win a three-night trip to New York with a friend to see his/her ad produced in the studio. Then, Kayak.com will show your ad on TV!"

Posted by Brian Smith on July 10, 2006, 12:34 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Buys Land In Santa Clara

The San Jose Business Journal reports that Yahoo has purchased 42.5 acres in Santa Clara. The price of the land was not disclosed, but we do know they bought it from San Francisco's TMG Partners. Yahoo's CFO, Sue Decker, said: "We see this as an attractive asset that provides attractive additional capacity and flexibility for Yahoo's future. We are planning for future growth and will analyze several different scenarios over the coming year regarding the development of the property."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 10, 2006, 8:39 AM | Permalink


Judge Orders Google To Disclose Advertiser's Information

Out-Law reports that Google was ordered by Justice Rimer to hand over the information on an advertiser to Helen Grant for copyright infringement. Helen Grant "complained that a Google advert led to a service which she claimed violated her copyright in a forthcoming book." A search brought up a site named Realityunlocked.com, "which offered a free download of an earlier draft of the book, and that the site violated the Trust's copyright." Google asked Grant to take the issue to court, this way Google does not have to worry about the privacy issues with handing over the information.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 10, 2006, 8:33 AM | Permalink


Matt Cutts Of Google Comments On Recent Listings Issues

Last week we reported that Google may have revealed the spam scores to the world. Well, Matt Cutts came back from vacation and he confirmed the data "was real." He promised not to "comment on what any of it means" but at least we know Google is part of the borg. Just kidding. I doubt we will see a treasure like that again, but if we do, it would be interesting to see if Google does add "extra settings for fun," such as –initial_time_travel_wormhole=”Wednesday, December 31 1969 11:11 pm."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 10, 2006, 8:23 AM | Permalink


Google Binary Search Not Only Finds Malware But Also Shows Signs Of More

PCWorld reports that Google's binary search feature came in handy to locate "thousands of malicious Web sites, as well as several legitimate sites that have been hacked." The feature reads executable files and can locate some malicious code within those files. It was used to help find malicious sites and programs by a security vendor named Websense. The article also explains that binary search may be a sign that "Google may be thinking about becoming a file searching service."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 10, 2006, 8:15 AM | Permalink


Eric Schmidt Claims The PPC Model is "Self-Correcting" In Terms Of Click Fraud

Donna Bogatin reports that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt claims that click fraud is "self-correcting." Meaning,

Eventually, the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the conversion will decline, because the advertiser will realize that these are bad clicks, in other words, the value of the ad declines, so over some amount of time, the system is in-fact, self-correcting. In fact, there is a perfect economic solution which is to let it happen.

So the "let it happen" quote, in terms of Eric Schmidt saying let click fraud happen, has been buzzing through the blogging community. Schmidt writes off click-fraud as the "cost of doing business." Maybe he is just very confident of the new AdWords quality scoring?

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 10, 2006, 8:07 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Trip Planner Released From Beta

Yahoo is taking is community-travel site Trip Planner out of beta. The site has reached a kind of content critical mass and Yahoo has added some cool features in this general release:

  • Trip Journals (blogging; photos can be imported from Flickr)
  • Map-Based Search (You can drag the map and zoom to areas within countries for more specific options)
  • Yahoo! Search Integration
  • There are also a travel recommendations engine based on travel search history, as well as clipping and tagging functionality

In addition to being a useful travel site, with rich user-generated content, in many ways it’s the most impressive expression to date of Yahoo!’s social media strategy. Yahoo! Answers has received a great deal of attention recently (there’s an Answers integration with Travel) but the new Trip Planner is more fully realized as a product.

You can read a more detailed post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling on July 10, 2006, 8:01 AM | Permalink


Click Packages Draw Local Advertisers Into Search

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports on the "bundle of clicks" search distribution packages that all the major yellow pages publishers in the U.S. are now selling to their local advertisers. Here's an amazing quote from Simon Greenman, SVP of digital products at R.H. Donnelly, "Our strategy is to connect our customers with their customers wherever they may be."

That's a radical statement for a yellow pages executive to make because he's not asserting that print yellow pages is the best lead generation vehicle "and we also have Internet." He's saying Donnelly is "agnostic."

Some will read that and be skeptical. But to the extent that Greenman can make that kind of statement to the Journal on behalf of Donnelly it reflects a culture shift.

All these products (click packages) are not created equal; some are budget based and some are pure arbitrage. The former will survive, the latter won't. Some involve SEO and SEM, some only involve paid search. Most have been in the market for more than a year now, with fairly high renewal rates according to anecdotal reports I've heard.

These click packages radically simplify the process of buying search for local advertisers. There's no setup and no campaign management; it's all outsourced. It's yellow pages as SEM firm. And the demand, based on interviews I've done with executives, has been significant. Fulfillment in some cases is a challenge, however. (Local traffic is fragmented and not all aggregated at Google and Yahoo! by any means.)

Almost all of these packages include phone tracking to substantiate the clicks, making the whole proposition feel more like delivery of "leads" or "customers" rather than anonymous clicks. But clicks and calls are not 1:1 and there is some sloppy language in some areas being used by the yellow pages sales force ? referring to clicks as "leads" ? according to some folks I've spoken with.

In addition to yellow pages, there are verticals (e.g., ServiceMagic, HomeGain), webhosts (MarketHardware, Affinity, Web.com) and newspapers (McClatchy, Hearst) that offer a version of this same product to the market today. But get ready for local cable companies, local TV affiliates and potentially radio to do the same tomorrow. Everyone that has local advertiser relationships and/or a local sales force will eventually be selling Google and Yahoo! (and MSN).

For search engines that's both good and bad. For now, however, it's good because they wouldn't get these advertiser revenues in the absence of this type of program.

If you want more information on who's making these products available to the market and on how they work, read a longer post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling on July 10, 2006, 7:02 AM | Permalink


The Changing Face of Local

This ClickZ article discusses a new JupiterResearch report called "Local Advertising: Blending Categories to Compete Effectively." The article doesn't go into great detail about the findings or conclusions from the report. But based solely on my reading of coverage in the article it appears to make two relatively straightforward observations about local:

  • Search engines/portals could steal traffic and potential ad revenues from yellow pages and other stand-alone local sites that seek to cater to traditional directory advertisers

  • The local product definition is changing and categories are merging as the distinctions between classifieds, service listings, local retail and user-generated content and community are starting to blur.

The first conclusion above is something that has been true and fairly obvious for at least three years. Here's Chris Sherman's coverage of an early report from 2003 I wrote on essentially the same subject when I was at The Kelsey Group. The only difference now is that there are many more local competitors, beyond yellow pages and search/portal sites.

However, the Jupiter report doesn't appear (based on the article) to get into discussion of the sales channel issues and some of the "structural" barriers to local advertiser acquisition by portals and search engines. I go into that complex set of relationships in some detail in this post.

The report's apparent other main observation, referenced above, is much more interesting and part of a larger evolution of local online. It goes to the question: What is the right mix of content and features in local? No one yet really knows what that is. Indeed, there's probably no single, definitive answer.

Offline the differences between trade publications, newspapers, yellow pages directories, local TV, direct mail/coupons, etc. are structural/organizational and very clear. Online those distinctions, basically the legacy of these offline publications, start to break down. There's no necessary reason that classifieds, retail content, service listings and video, for example, shouldn't be featured in the same online product. And there's momentum toward a more comprehensive product that offers a broader use case. (See my post on SuperPages as one example.)

On one end of the spectrum are Google, Yahoo or MSN search, offering conceivably everything available online. On the other end is a very specialized niche directory that provides narrow but deep information about a single subject. The ideal local product is somewhere in the vast expanse in-between.

Yellow pages publishers (and to a lesser degree newspapers) are alert to the threats the report identifies and are actively engaged in the product definition question. In addition to SuperPages, Canada's Yellow Pages Group and Australia's Sensis, both publishers of yellow pages, have integrated classifieds among other local content into their online offerings.

The report cites Microsoft's Windows Live Expo as example of a hybrid marketplace that includes local classifieds, display ads and service listings. Here's my February post on the same general themes.

I tend to believe that what one might call an "integrated local marketplace" is what consumers ultimately want -- the convenience and efficiency of getting their local needs met in one place. If I'm right this gives the search engines/portals an advantage "on paper" because of their more comprehensive content. But, to date, they've failed to fully leverage that opportunity in their local offerings, although they are improving under the intensifying pressure of competition.

It's very easy to discount the assets of traditional media publishers in the competition for local online traffic and ad revenues. But it would be wrong to do so. By the same token, the search engines' technology, faster product development cycles and brands make them quite formidable as local competitors.

It's by no means clear that five years from now (when mobile local search is more prevalent) the local market will be any less fragmented or chaotic. One can hope, but reality always turns out to be more complex and "messy" than the predictions suggest.

What's very clear today is that online consumers want local content. What's also clear is that local advertisers want to be found online. But unlike traditional local media, which more or less "owned" the entire value chain (sales, content, distribution/usage), it remains unlikely in the near term that any single player or segment will duplicate that online. The many moving parts make local a lot more complicated than it would appear from "30,000 feet."

That's what's so interesting and vexing about this space.

Posted by Greg Sterling on July 9, 2006, 12:46 PM | Permalink

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