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July 30, 2006 - August 5, 2006

Google Sitemaps Becomes Google Webmaster Central; Preferred Domain Tool Launched

Google Sitemaps has gained a new name along with new features. Google Webmaster Central is the new name of the former Google Sitemaps service, which now has evolved into a central place for Google to provide help information, statistics, reports and tools to help webmasters.

Google Sitemaps launched last year primarily as a way for site owners to submit lists of URLs to be crawled. Since that time, it has steadily gained features that took it beyond being a submission tool. It has offered the ability to view stats on how people are finding your site, verify robots.txt files and much more.

I've actually just come from Google's office in Kirkland, Washington, which is home to the Google Sitemaps team. Here's a rundown on some of the new features offered within the Google Sitemaps / Webmaster Tools component of Google Webmaster Central.

Preferred domain: Is your site available with and without a www prefix? Until now, the recommendation was to do a 301 permanent redirect of one to the other. But some people can't easily do this. Now sitemaps has a preferred domain tool that lets you pick which you prefer. Make your choice, and Google will list the domain you choose. Behind the scenes, Google will understand the two domains are one and the same for purposes of things like link calculations. Keep in mind that Google says it will take some time before the changes are visible. Also keep in mind that you'll still need to do 301 redirection for other search engines. Still, I'm thrilled to see Google has move ahead with yet another suggestion I've wanted, as have many others.
Crawl Rate: A small percentage of webmasters will see a new alpha feature under the Tools menu called "crawl rate." This will allow site owners to tell Google to crawl them at a particular speed: Fastest, Faster, Normal, Slower, Slowest. Feel like Google is hammering your server and slowing it down? Choose Slower or Slowest. Got a super server and want to help Google? Tell it that it can crawl you faster or fastest. Then it will crawl you more quickly and move on to other sites. And, if you've got so many pages that Google doesn't seem to be getting them all in the usual time it crawls, using a higher setting gives you a chance of getting more pages in. Note that Google says that many sites are already getting comprehensively crawled at a normal setting. "Ninety nine percent of website owners don't need to change this," said Amanda Teal, a software engineer on the Google Webmaster Central team. "This is for the tiny percentage of site owners who contact us with issues."
Summary Page Changes: The summary page has new icons and colors to try and highlight good things and bad things are going on with your site.
Better Crawl Error Reporting: The crawl error reporting feature now shows a full rundown on all errors that have happened over the past two weeks, and you can filter them by date, making it easy to see what errors have happened since your last check.
Manage Site Verification: This is a new tab that shows you all methods that have been used to verify a site you control. Huh? Let's say you manage a site, but others have access to it as well. You verify the site using your own Google Sitemaps account, but two other people in your company who can also insert meta tags or place files on your server as verify the site in their own names. This new page helps you understand that these other people have also verified. There's also a way to reverify all accounts associated with a site, even if you didn't originally do the verification. This is handy to wipe out verifications others may have done, if they are no longer associated with your company or site. For example, say one of those other people has left your company. Do you still want them having access to your stats? Probably not. The reverify feature lets you see exactly how they verified your site in their account. You control the site, so wipe out the verification file or meta tag. Then do a reverify. This will their access to stats from your site immediately, since the file or meta tag originally used can't be found.
Improved Sitemap Error Reporting: If one of your sitemaps has a problem, such as a missing XML tag or formatting problem, these errors are now better explained and reported.

There are a number of other changes and tweaks, as well. Google has a post with more here, and there's further info you'll find when exploring Google Webmaster Central.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 4, 2006, 11:07 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: August 4, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

SES Local Edition Speaking Openings Posted
Interested in speaking at our first SES Local Edition conference in Denver on September 28th? The show focuses exclusively on local search marketing, and we've already got a great lineup of speakers, including representatives of the major local search services and online yellow pages groups, as well as some expert search marketers with lots of experience in local search marketing. Want to join us and share your expertise? Check out the speaking openings, read the guidelines carefully, and send me your pitch. Openings are limited, so act soon to let me know you're interested....
AOL Video Portal Is Live Today
There's lots of news coming out of AOL this week: free email, free phone numbers, layoffs . . . Earlier in the week the new AOL video portal was announced. Today it's live. It contains a mix of free and paid content. Video search is powered by AOL's Truveo and Singing Fish engines. It also claims to allow full-screen viewing without degrading resolution. According to Hitwise, AOL has the sixth most popular video destination online behind YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo! Video Search, MSN Video Search, Google Video. Check it out and see how it compares....
Google Web Category Links Get Overhaul
I just posted over at Search Engine Roundtable and it was posted early at Ogletree, that Google has changed the interface for Google web categories links. Yesterday, a search on a search phrase that brought out the web categories, such as a search on Google for yahoo, you would have seen horizontal listing of the categories, as opposed to the vertical listings you now see. Google began testing this on May 1st and it appears it is now live for all to see. Want to see the before and after? Before here and after here....
Search Forums Roundup: Aug. 4, 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: The Official SES San Jose 2006 Conference Thread - Would You Tell Just One Secret? - AdSense Bad For Your Business - Yahoo! Launches A New Slurp Crawler, and more....
Google Talk WiFi Phone Coming Soon?
Engadget reports that Taiwan's Alpha Networks is creating a WiFi phone that works over the Google Talk network. Alpha Networks told Engadget that they are just waiting for the "clients' product roadmaps." Not sure what that means, but it seems like a WiFi Google Talk phone will be here in the near future....
More Chinese Military Secrets Found With Google Earth
The United Press International reports that another Chinese military secret was found with Google Earth. A German man zoomed into what appeared to be "miniature replica of China's disputed border region with India," and thought he spotted a secret Chinese military base. UPI says what was reported, as military tanks cannot be, since the terrain is not suitable for tanks....
Get Your del.icio.us Network Badge
The Yahoo Search Blog announced a new del.icio.us feature that makes it easier for people to connect and share bookmarks. The feature is named Network Badges, they basically shows others "your user name on del.icio.us with a link to your bookmarks, how many people you have in your network, how many fans you have, as well as a link others can use to easily add you to their own del.icio.us networks."...
Searching For Other Search Engines At Search Engines
Yesterday, I thought I discovered Yahoo stealing searching from Google, but I did not, Rand discovered it. Basically, if you do a search on Yahoo for google, Yahoo puts up a Yahoo Shortcut asking you "Want to search the Web?" with Yahoo? Is this fair? Is this respectable? Who cares... But is this relevant?...
Google Grabs Former "Time" President As Head Of Ad Sales
MarketingVox reports on AdAge scoop where Google has hired Eileen Naughton, former president of Time magazine, to be the "head of ad sales" in the New York office. Her responsibility will be to improve Google's reputation and ties with the Madison Avenue folks. Eileen Naughton will begin working at Google in several months....
Google Provides Warnings Of Potentially Hazardous Search Results
Philipp Lenssen found a Google Systems post that discovered Google now provides an intermediary page, for some search results, informing you that the result you clicked on may "harm your computer." You can see this intermediary page for yourself by clicking here, it looks like Google is calling it an interstitial page. Why even list the site in the search results if they may be harmful to your computer? Well, the key terms are "may be harmful," so let the user decide. I wonder if these potentially risky pages get some sort of downgrade in rankings?...
Gary Price, Former SEW News Editor Gets Engaged!
I am honored to bring you the news that Gary Price has plans to get married to his long time girlfriend, Lisa. Gary Price was the news editor here at Search Engine Watch and left on February 9, 2006 to work at Ask.com. Gary continues to run ResourceShelf and DocuTicker while holding the title Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com. It is worth noting that Gary has worked with Danny and Chris for years. He wrote the The Invisible Web with Chris Sherman. Bottom line, Gary has given so much to our industry, mostly behind the scenes and...

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

AOL Research Launches Site, ResourceShelf
Google's copyright tussles, News.com
Bloglines Proposed Feed Access Standard - Part II, Bloglines
Yahoo! fights back: Jeremy Zawodny on open source at Yahoo!, InfoWorld
Attach more files to your Base items, Googling Google
AOL/AIM users to get 5GB free storage, Techcrunch
Departing Fortune Interactive, Marketing Pilgrim
Search Engine Brand Association Differs in UK and US, Heather Hopkins - Hitwise UK
Yahoo Publisher Network : Three Days of Testing, Search Engine Journal
Mike Grehan Leaves MarketSmart Interactive, Search Engine Roundtable
AOL to Cut 5,000 Jobs in Web Access Business, New York Times
Finding your search buddies, John Battelle's Searchblog
Dazzle Us Again, Del.icio.us, Techcrunch
Donate to Charity Via Google : GDonate, Search Engine Journal

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 3:08 PM | Permalink

SES Local Edition Speaking Openings Posted

Interested in speaking at our first SES Local Edition conference in Denver on September 28th? The show focuses exclusively on local search marketing, and we've already got a great lineup of speakers, including representatives of the major local search services and online yellow pages groups, as well as some expert search marketers with lots of experience in local search marketing. Want to join us and share your expertise? Check out the speaking openings, read the guidelines carefully, and send me your pitch. Openings are limited, so act soon to let me know you're interested.

Posted by Chris Sherman on August 4, 2006, 12:05 PM | Permalink

AOL Video Portal Is Live Today

There's lots of news coming out of AOL this week: free email, free phone numbers, layoffs . . . Earlier in the week the new AOL video portal was announced. Today it's live. It contains a mix of free and paid content. Video search is powered by AOL's Truveo and Singing Fish engines. It also claims to allow full-screen viewing without degrading resolution. According to Hitwise, AOL has the sixth most popular video destination online behind YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo! Video Search, MSN Video Search, Google Video.

Check it out and see how it compares.

Posted by Greg Sterling on August 4, 2006, 11:50 AM | Permalink

Google Web Category Links Get Overhaul

I just posted over at Search Engine Roundtable and it was posted early at Ogletree, that Google has changed the interface for Google web categories links. Yesterday, a search on a search phrase that brought out the web categories, such as a search on Google for yahoo, you would have seen horizontal listing of the categories, as opposed to the vertical listings you now see. Google began testing this on May 1st and it appears it is now live for all to see. Want to see the before and after? Before here and after here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 11:28 AM | Permalink

Search Forums Roundup: Aug. 4, 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: The Official SES San Jose 2006 Conference Thread - Would You Tell Just One Secret? - AdSense Bad For Your Business - Yahoo! Launches A New Slurp Crawler, and more.

Posted by Chris Sherman on August 4, 2006, 11:22 AM | Permalink

Google Talk WiFi Phone Coming Soon?

Engadget reports that Taiwan's Alpha Networks is creating a WiFi phone that works over the Google Talk network. Alpha Networks told Engadget that they are just waiting for the "clients' product roadmaps." Not sure what that means, but it seems like a WiFi Google Talk phone will be here in the near future.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 10:37 AM | Permalink

More Chinese Military Secrets Found With Google Earth

The United Press International reports that another Chinese military secret was found with Google Earth. A German man zoomed into what appeared to be "miniature replica of China's disputed border region with India," and thought he spotted a secret Chinese military base. UPI says what was reported, as military tanks cannot be, since the terrain is not suitable for tanks.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 10:27 AM | Permalink

Get Your del.icio.us Network Badge

The Yahoo Search Blog announced a new del.icio.us feature that makes it easier for people to connect and share bookmarks. The feature is named Network Badges, they basically shows others "your user name on del.icio.us with a link to your bookmarks, how many people you have in your network, how many fans you have, as well as a link others can use to easily add you to their own del.icio.us networks."

If you are interested, here is my network badge, keep in mind, I personally don't use del.icio.us all that much.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 10:19 AM | Permalink

Searching For Other Search Engines At Search Engines

Yesterday, I thought I discovered Yahoo stealing searching from Google, but I did not, Rand discovered it. Basically, if you do a search on Yahoo for google, Yahoo puts up a Yahoo Shortcut asking you "Want to search the Web?" with Yahoo? Is this fair? Is this respectable? Who cares... But is this relevant?

Navigational searches are important. Does Google throw up a OneBox result doing the same? No, they do not. Yahoo doesn't do it for MSN or Ask.com, only for Google. When I asked GoodROI to ask Tim Converse of Yahoo on his WebmasterRadio show last night, Tim replied that he was unaware of that result but it is possible that it may be a joke. Meaning, sometimes the search engines play jokes with each other.

When I went over to Ask.com to do a search on Google, I got this Smart Answer that is incredibly useful and relevant (IMO) to this search.

When I went over to MSN yesterday I did not get anything special. But today, it seems MSN is playing the joke on Google & Yahoo but not on Ask. They ask "Want to search the Web? Try MSN Search" with the search box to MSN.

So now we have Yahoo and MSN both playing this game. Google doesn't do anything much special for these navigation searches. And Ask.com shows a detailed Smart Answer with details of each search company.

Why does Yahoo and MSN do this? Well, as I said it is most likely because Yahoo and MSN are portals. They attract less web savvy individuals and when they search at Yahoo or MSN, they may not understand that they are actually searching. Sounds kind stupid, but this is the case.

Matt Cutts of Google commented in the SEOMoz post saying;

Yahoo: "Want to search the Web?"
User: "Yes, but not with you."
Too funny. I wish I had a T-shirt with that on it. :)

So Chris Boggs decided to play artist and make a Did you mean? result in Google for good search engine, it does not really work, but he wanted to have fun.

I doubt this is just a joke between search engines. For a high volume keyword, trust me, it is high volume, like "Google," search engines typically play jokes with each other.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 9:51 AM | Permalink

Google Grabs Former "Time" President As Head Of Ad Sales

MarketingVox reports on AdAge scoop where Google has hired Eileen Naughton, former president of Time magazine, to be the "head of ad sales" in the New York office. Her responsibility will be to improve Google's reputation and ties with the Madison Avenue folks. Eileen Naughton will begin working at Google in several months.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 9:45 AM | Permalink

Google Provides Warnings Of Potentially Hazardous Search Results

Philipp Lenssen found a Google Systems post that discovered Google now provides an intermediary page, for some search results, informing you that the result you clicked on may "harm your computer." You can see this intermediary page for yourself by clicking here, it looks like Google is calling it an interstitial page. Why even list the site in the search results if they may be harmful to your computer? Well, the key terms are "may be harmful," so let the user decide. I wonder if these potentially risky pages get some sort of downgrade in rankings?

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 9:35 AM | Permalink

Gary Price, Former SEW News Editor Gets Engaged!

I am honored to bring you the news that Gary Price has plans to get married to his long time girlfriend, Lisa. Gary Price was the news editor here at Search Engine Watch and left on February 9, 2006 to work at Ask.com. Gary continues to run ResourceShelf and DocuTicker while holding the title Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com.

It is worth noting that Gary has worked with Danny and Chris for years. He wrote the The Invisible Web with Chris Sherman. Bottom line, Gary has given so much to our industry, mostly behind the scenes and he deserves so much.

Mazol Tov Gary & Lisa! Join the discussion at our Search Engine Watch Forums thread named Gary Price to Get Married!!!

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 4, 2006, 8:57 AM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: August 3, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

Find 'Nearby Stores' With Become
There's lots of data from many sources that reflects the dominant consumer shopping paradigm involving the Internet: research online, buy locally. Even though e-commerce, excluding Travel, will approach $150 billion this year, according to Forrester Research, that's a small fraction of offline spending. But more and more of that offline buying is influenced in one way or another by the Internet. Among the shopping engines, ShopLocal and Froogle offer local buying information. CNET also has some local inventory information (via Channel Intelligence). Now Become.com has joined that illustrious group with a new "nearby stores" feature....
A Multimedia Search Marketing Course
Want to learn search marketing through a guided, professionally produced CD ROM based course? A new offering from respected search marketer and SES speaker Catherine Seda might be right for you. I've got more information on Cat's new offering in today's SearchDay article, Learning Search Marketing via Multimedia....
Rollyo Adds More Functionality
The roll your own search resource Rollyo adds more functionality to its services. If Rollyo has slipped under your radar it's a resource that allows you to create your own personalized search engine (hence 'roll your own') that will search up to 25 sites that you specify. They've improved layout, added blog search, added the ability to take an existing Searchroll and edit it to your own taste and added a 'Rollbar'. The latter allows searchers to incorporate Rollyo into the browser to search any site, add sites to existing Searchrolls on the fly and create new ones based on...
Eric Schmidt Asks Photos Of Him & Wife To Be Kept Private
The Boston Herald reports that while Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, was at the Circus Flora in Nantucket, he asked reporters not to take or distribute pictures of him and his wife. Marie-Claire Rochat sent an email to "the island media" stating; "One couple has requested that no photographs of them be published - Wendy and Eric Schmidt. It is, of course, important that we respect their wishes." The article then mocks Eric Schmidt for this request being that he was so upset with News.com for publishing Schmidt's personal info that was found on Google. Schmidt was so upset, that Google...
Daily SearchCast, August 2, 2006: Google To Put Advertisers On XM Radio; Bloglines Develops Feed Exclusion Tag; More Matt Cutts SEO Tips Videos & More!
Today's search podcast covers Google to put radio ads from advertisers on XM Radio; Bloglines develops a way to block RSS feeds from being indexed; Google's Matt Cutts does more video blogging to answer webmaster ranking and indexing questions and more! SearchReturn editor Detlev Johnson sat in for Danny Sullivan, who is away this week. 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...
The Concept Of A "Perfectly Optimized Page"
Aaron Wall at SEO Book has an excellent and thought provoking write up named The Myth of a Perfectly Optimized Page. He discusses how he gets request from folks for him to review a page or two and to let the person know how "perfectly optimized" that page is. Aaron then explains how optimization is not just about keyword density or links, but that each page has a goal. Based on that goal, optimization tactics and strategies will change....
Google Reaches 60% Search Market Share
Bill Tancer posted over at his Hitwise blog data that shows Google has broke the 60% market share as of 7/29/06. Google has 60.2% search volume market share up from 59.3% in June, Yahoo has 22.5% share up from 22.0% and MSN has 11.8% share down from 12.1%. Bill will be on the Search Engine Landscape Panel at SES San Jose this Monday with more stats for us....
Use Frequency Of Google Products Survey
Philipp Lenssen is conducting an online survey asking you How Often Do You Use These Google Products? The products range from Google Web Search to Google Video, from Froogle Mobile to Google Mars and from Google Writely to Google Ride Finder. You can rate your frequency of use for each product on a six-point scale; hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, never but I know it, never and never heard of it. I completed the survey, afterward; it shows you a graphical, real time representation of all the responses. I assume Philipp will be providing a final roundup of numbers when the...
Reminder: AdWords Claim in Click Fraud Settlement Due Tomorrow
The approved click fraud settlement requires that you submit your claim at https://www.clicksettlement.com/ before the end of the day tomorrow, August 4th, 2006. So this is your chance, if, I repeat, IF, you want to be a part of this settlement. I have reported on the discussion forum coverage of this settlement, where AdWords advertisers have questions about the settlement, but you can also get more details at the FAQs page....
Lycos Revamps Email Offering
Lycos mail has been revamped. Storage has been increased to 3 gigabytes (up from 5 megabytes) and file attachments of any size are now allowed. The company is keen to encourage users to swop and move large media files around to support moves to focus a comeback (it's currently the 24th most popular website network in the US) on broadband entertainment content. The free version is ad sponsored, but Lycos is also offering two other commercial options to provide users with account preservation and advert removal. I can't help but think they're a bit late into the game, and feel...
Industry Groups, Search Engines To Develop Click Fraud Guidelines
Google, Yahoo and others team up against click fraud from News.com covers The Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Media Rating Council partnering with Ask, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others to form the @Click Measurement Working Group.@ Says News.com: The group's mission is to establish guidelines for what constitutes valid clicks and invalid clicks on ads. Guidelines can help the industry measure how prevalent click fraud really is. Third-parties who sell click-fraud combating services to advertisers claim that click fraud rates are as high as 30 percent. Google and Yahoo counter that click fraud rates are minimal. Postscript: Google has a...
Google Negotiating With University Of California On Book Search
UC May Join Google's Library Project from the Los Angeles Times covers news that Google may enter into an agreement with the University of California to scan library content for the Google Book Search service....
Google-AP Deal Not Pay-Per-Click & Some Further Details
As it happens, I was at Google yesterday when the story came out about the financial agreement between Google and the Associated Press over the use of AP content. That story raised a number of questions, and here are some answers I can share so far from Google....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Publishers vs. the Censorbot, East Bay Express
Former Time Exec Heads Google's New York Sales, MediaPost
Is a .edu or .gov link just another link?, Link Building Blog
The Ask Search Engine Robot - Is It Depressed?, The SEO Blog
Does Google AdWords PPC Prices Affect Yahoo! Search Marketing's Prices?, Search Engine Roundtable
It's all about the photos...on a Mac, Official Google Blog
Google Web Toolkit Poker, InsideGoogle

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 3, 2006, 4:46 PM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, August 3, 2006: Google-AP Deal Not Pay-Per-Click; Google Gains 60% US Search Share; Get Your Click Fraud Settlement Requests In Now & More!

Today's search podcast covers more details on the deal between Google and the Associated Press for news content; Google hits 60 percent of the US search market share, says Hitwise; tomorrow's the deadline to file for a click fraud settlement from Google and more! SearchReturn editor Detlev Johnson sat in for Danny Sullivan, who is away this week.

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:

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 3, 2006, 4:36 PM | Permalink

Find 'Nearby Stores' With Become

There's lots of data from many sources that reflects the dominant consumer shopping paradigm involving the Internet: research online, buy locally. Even though e-commerce, excluding Travel, will approach $150 billion this year, according to Forrester Research, that's a small fraction of offline spending. But more and more of that offline buying is influenced in one way or another by the Internet.

Among the shopping engines, ShopLocal and Froogle offer local buying information. CNET also has some local inventory information (via Channel Intelligence). Now Become.com has joined that illustrious group with a new "nearby stores" feature.

According to the company:

Launched with over 30,000 retail locations, “Nearby Stores” listings include dynamic Yahoo! Maps™ so shoppers can visually locate the closest merchants . . . To find local merchants, Become.com visitors simply choose the item they want to purchase such as “digital camera,” click on the “compare prices” button and input their zip code. Nearby Stores are indicated on the far right column with a link to detailed store information, including addresses, telephone numbers, hours of operation and maps.

Here's an example details page (thanks to Gary Price). Become will be demonstrating the new feature at the company's booth next week at SES.

Local buying/inventory information will need to be integrated by all the shopping engines over time for them to remain competitive.

Posted by Greg Sterling on August 3, 2006, 3:49 PM | Permalink

A Multimedia Search Marketing Course

Want to learn search marketing through a guided, professionally produced CD ROM based course? A new offering from respected search marketer and SES speaker Catherine Seda might be right for you. I've got more information on Cat's new offering in today's SearchDay article, Learning Search Marketing via Multimedia.

Posted by Chris Sherman on August 3, 2006, 11:35 AM | Permalink

Rollyo Adds More Functionality

The roll your own search resource Rollyo adds more functionality to its services. If Rollyo has slipped under your radar it's a resource that allows you to create your own personalized search engine (hence 'roll your own') that will search up to 25 sites that you specify. They've improved layout, added blog search, added the ability to take an existing Searchroll and edit it to your own taste and added a 'Rollbar'. The latter allows searchers to incorporate Rollyo into the browser to search any site, add sites to existing Searchrolls on the fly and create new ones based on the site you're on at that point.

Lots of improvements - particularly with the Rollbar, since my use of Rollyo was always limited in inverse proportion to my laziness - I simply couldn't get around to editing my Searchrolls often enough to make them useful. This looks like it should overcome that particular problem. Looking good!

Posted by Phil Bradley on August 3, 2006, 10:40 AM | Permalink

Eric Schmidt Asks Photos Of Him & Wife To Be Kept Private

The Boston Herald reports that while Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, was at the Circus Flora in Nantucket, he asked reporters not to take or distribute pictures of him and his wife. Marie-Claire Rochat sent an email to "the island media" stating; "One couple has requested that no photographs of them be published - Wendy and Eric Schmidt. It is, of course, important that we respect their wishes."

The article then mocks Eric Schmidt for this request being that he was so upset with News.com for publishing Schmidt's personal info that was found on Google. Schmidt was so upset, that Google blacklisted News.com for a period of time.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 3, 2006, 10:12 AM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, August 2, 2006: Google To Put Advertisers On XM Radio; Bloglines Develops Feed Exclusion Tag; More Matt Cutts SEO Tips Videos & More!

Today's search podcast covers Google to put radio ads from advertisers on XM Radio; Bloglines develops a way to block RSS feeds from being indexed; Google's Matt Cutts does more video blogging to answer webmaster ranking and indexing questions and more! SearchReturn editor Detlev Johnson sat in for Danny Sullivan, who is away this week.

Below are links to items discussed:

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 3, 2006, 10:08 AM | Permalink

The Concept Of A "Perfectly Optimized Page"

Aaron Wall at SEO Book has an excellent and thought provoking write up named The Myth of a Perfectly Optimized Page. He discusses how he gets request from folks for him to review a page or two and to let the person know how "perfectly optimized" that page is. Aaron then explains how optimization is not just about keyword density or links, but that each page has a goal. Based on that goal, optimization tactics and strategies will change.

At this point, when writing this summary, I think Aaron make be discussing "optimization" as a whole, and not just search engine optimization. But when you think of it, I understood his post to apply to the 'new wave' of search engine optimization. Optimization of the page, as a whole, applies today to your search engine optimization strategy. What type of content should I write? What types of links should I get? How hard will it be for me to get natural links? You see, all these things come into play for usability, conversion testing and search engine optimization.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 3, 2006, 10:06 AM | Permalink

Google Reaches 60% Search Market Share

Bill Tancer posted over at his Hitwise blog data that shows Google has broke the 60% market share as of 7/29/06. Google has 60.2% search volume market share up from 59.3% in June, Yahoo has 22.5% share up from 22.0% and MSN has 11.8% share down from 12.1%.

Bill will be on the Search Engine Landscape Panel at SES San Jose this Monday with more stats for us.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 3, 2006, 10:03 AM | Permalink

Use Frequency Of Google Products Survey

Philipp Lenssen is conducting an online survey asking you How Often Do You Use These Google Products? The products range from Google Web Search to Google Video, from Froogle Mobile to Google Mars and from Google Writely to Google Ride Finder. You can rate your frequency of use for each product on a six-point scale; hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, never but I know it, never and never heard of it. I completed the survey, afterward; it shows you a graphical, real time representation of all the responses. I assume Philipp will be providing a final roundup of numbers when the survey is complete.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 3, 2006, 9:21 AM | Permalink

Reminder: AdWords Claim in Click Fraud Settlement Due Tomorrow

The approved click fraud settlement requires that you submit your claim at https://www.clicksettlement.com/ before the end of the day tomorrow, August 4th, 2006. So this is your chance, if, I repeat, IF, you want to be a part of this settlement. I have reported on the discussion forum coverage of this settlement, where AdWords advertisers have questions about the settlement, but you can also get more details at the FAQs page.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 3, 2006, 9:10 AM | Permalink

Lycos Revamps Email Offering

Lycos mail has been revamped. Storage has been increased to 3 gigabytes (up from 5 megabytes) and file attachments of any size are now allowed. The company is keen to encourage users to swop and move large media files around to support moves to focus a comeback (it's currently the 24th most popular website network in the US) on broadband entertainment content. The free version is ad sponsored, but Lycos is also offering two other commercial options to provide users with account preservation and advert removal.

I can't help but think they're a bit late into the game, and feel that they're going to be disappointed if they are hoping this is going to radically increase their user base. Having an account that self destructs in a month if a user doesn't log in also doesn't lead to confidence; old hands are used to this idea, but since Lycos is trying to attract new internet users they're not going to be familiar with this concept and there may be tears before bedtime.

Posted by Phil Bradley on August 3, 2006, 5:07 AM | Permalink

Industry Groups, Search Engines To Develop Click Fraud Guidelines

Google, Yahoo and others team up against click fraud from News.com covers The Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Media Rating Council partnering with Ask, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others to form the @Click Measurement Working Group.@ Says News.com:

The group's mission is to establish guidelines for what constitutes valid clicks and invalid clicks on ads. Guidelines can help the industry measure how prevalent click fraud really is. Third-parties who sell click-fraud combating services to advertisers claim that click fraud rates are as high as 30 percent. Google and Yahoo counter that click fraud rates are minimal.

Postscript: Google has a short comment here

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 2, 2006, 11:04 PM | Permalink

Google Negotiating With University Of California On Book Search

UC May Join Google's Library Project from the Los Angeles Times covers news that Google may enter into an agreement with the University of California to scan library content for the Google Book Search service.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 2, 2006, 10:58 PM | Permalink

Google-AP Deal Not Pay-Per-Click & Some Further Details

As it happens, I was at Google yesterday when the story came out about the financial agreement between Google and the Associated Press over the use of AP content. That story raised a number of questions, and here are some answers I can share so far from Google.

First, this is not a pay per click deal. Yesterday's Mercury News article talks about some agreements in general being this way:

It's a common perception, but it's false. Google and Yahoo, along with dozens of other Internet companies, have been quietly agreeing to deals that compensate some of the country's top news organizations for their content and help drive more traffic to their Web sites.

Recently completed deals, which include arrangements in which media organizations such as the Associated Press will be compensated on a pay-per-click basis, could herald a major shift in the relationship between the old media and new Internet gatekeepers.

The article doesn't say that the Google deal specifically is pay per click, but some people might wonder if that's the case. Google now clarifies that it is not.

Is this an agreement to keep Google from being sued by the AP, as it is by the AFP? Google wouldn't answer directly but said:

Google News is fully consistent with fair use and always has been.

Note that paidContent has reported how the AP only a few months ago said:

Let me say more clearly: we're not suing them.

So I tend to think it's safe to say this wasn't being driven out of legal fears.

What's the agreement cover? No more real details than you've already read before:

The license in this agreement provides for new uses of original AP content for features and products we will introduce in the future. We are very excited about the innovative new products we will build with full access to this content.

But note that this specifically talks about new uses -- not current uses. IE, I read this as Google saying again that what it has been doing to index AP content is not something it feels it needed an agreement to do.

Also this tidbit:

This is not the first time we've had a financial arrangement with a news organization.

Coincidentally, I'm at news search site Topix today, literally borrowing a conference room to do some email and blogging catch-up. I had a catch-up meeting with them earlier, and the issue of deals with the AP and newspapers in general came up.

Topix noted they signed an agreement with the AP earlier this year, which is part of an overall trend where they've seen news organizations eager to come up with new ways to work with news search sites.

Was this prompted by a legal fear? No. It was part of figuring out a way of dealing with syndicated news content that helps treat the AP's member publications fairly online.

AP stories can originate from one of thousands of member publications. Any of those thousands of member publications might also republish an AP story. Which story is the originating one? That's useful for a search engine to know, if you don't want your results to get overwhelmed by having duplicates of all the same content.

In terms of fairness, Topix uses the agreement to get a rich data feed of content from the AP (along with many other things). This helps them better understand if an AP story originated from a particular member publication and, if so, to link over to the publication that deserves the credit.

The agreement also allows Topix to put AP-originated national and international stories on its own site, rather than having to guess at which of many different news sites to point at.

For example, if the AP runs some international story that an AP reporter has written, how should Topix decide which newspaper to point at? Just pick some random newspaper that had nothing to do with creating it? And if so, what about registration or payment issues that might be in place at that random paper.

Hosting AP national and international stories helps solve this problem. Of course, hosting AP stories that come from the AP directly also means Topix -- and indirectly the AP -- can earn from ad revenue.

Understanding what Topix does with the AP shed sheds some light on possible Google motivations in working with the AP. Perhaps we'll see hosted stories as Topix is doing -- and as Yahoo also does -- for some of the reasons explained above. And perhaps the deal also is to give Google better news search capabilities as I've also outlined, something that's hard to do without a deeper relationship.

Postscript: Google, AP Disclose News Payment Deal from, ironically, the Associated Press suggests that a legal dispute was behind the deal. From the lead:

Google Inc. is paying The Associated Press for stories and photographs, settling a dispute with a major provider of the copyright news that the online search engine finds and displays on its popular Web site.

But further into the story, I don't see anything explicitly supporting that statement. There's this:

While AFP sued to protect its rights, the AP chose to negotiate terms with Google, which, after just seven years of existence, is nearly 10 times larger than the 160-year-old news cooperative in terms of revenue. The AP, a not-for-profit organization owned by U.S. news companies, had revenues of $654 million in 2005. Google, a publicly owned company, reported $6.1 billion in revenue last year and is on a pace to exceed $9 billion this year.

By agreeing to pay AP for content, Google falls in line with the owners of other popular news sites like Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, which have been anteing up for years.

"We are happy to be dealing with Google as we are with all the major superpowers on the Internet," Seagrave [Jane Seagrave, the AP's vice president of new media markets] .said. "We are always looking for new ways to innovate."

But there's no one from the AP explicitly attributed in the story as saying that the AP was going to sue unless this agreement was reached. Still, I know the story author Michael Liedtke well, and I can't see him saying there was a dispute unless someone was saying that was what this about. I assume that would have been Jane Seagrave.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 2, 2006, 8:46 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: August 2, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

Search Marketers Often Don't Track All Referring Conversions
ClickZ reports on a 360i and SearchIgnite study that shows that search marketers do not look at all "assists," instead they primarily look at the last referring click that lead to the conversion. Here are some highlights of the report:...
What Is 'Photosynth'?
The first official project/product from Microsoft's Live Labs is called "Photosynth." What is it? It's hard to describe succinctly. It appears to be kind of mashup of things: photo sharing, visual search, mapping and 3-D. To me, at least conceptually, it's pretty exciting. Here's a video overview from Microsoft. (The video is something of a commercial for Live Labs, but also showcases Photosynth as a very provocative product.)...
Starts Google Videos At A Specific Point In Time
The Google Video blog announced a new feature that allows you to start your Google videos at a specific point in time. This comes in handy when you want to break out your large video into specific chapters or like a FAQs page. More details on the "how do I implement this feature" at the Google Video Blog....
USA Today Gets A Hold Of Danny Sullivan
Want to take a look at the past, present and future of our admired Founder and editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch, Danny Sullivan? Well, today, USA Today released a little write up named Got a search engine question? Ask Mr. Sullivan. The article goes a bit into Danny's reputation in this industry, it reviews how he got into Search Engine Watch, discusses any regrets (none) selling Search Engine Watch and possibly offers some insight into the future of Danny and Search Engine Watch. Read the article at USA Today....
More Matt Google SEO Videos: Google Terminology & More
Matt Cutts from Google released two more videos, as part of his SEO questions on video collection. These two new videos are:...
Ask.com & Bloglines Proposes Blog Search Exclusion Tag
TechCrunch reports that Ask.com & Bloglines has released a new tag that can be added to your feeds named access:restriction. The tag will tell Ask.com and Bloglines that this content is private and you do not want it included in the Ask.com or Bloglines blog search engines. The goal is for other rss search engines, from blogs, news, pictures, movies and so on, do make this a standard. More details at Bloglines....
Ask.com Releases ISBN Number Smart Answers
Gary Price notes that Ask.com has added support for ISBN number searches. For example, conduct a search on 091096551X, which is the book Gary Price and Chris Sherman wrote, you should notice an image of the book and a link to compare prices. This is a neat feature, but I should note that entering in the same ISBN number at Yahoo Search gives you a Yahoo Shortcut that takes you to comparison shopping in the Yahoo Network. It was a nice feature for Ask.com to add....
July 2006 Search News Recap Posted
The latest edition of my monthly Search Engine Report newsletter is now online, recapping top stories in search from the past month. You can read it online or receive it via email for free by signing up here. If you're a Search Engine Watch member, the latest edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has also been posted. That newsletter carries more items than the Search Engine Report newsletter and goes out twice per month....
MSN Search Hires Media Analytics Executive
ClickZ reports that Microsoft has hired Harrison Magun away from Avenue A/Razorfish Search to be the new director of media analytics. Harrison Magun direct role at Microsoft is not exactly known, "Microsoft spokesperson was able to confirm the hire, but could not provide any details on what Magun's new position will entail."...
Daily SearchCast, August 1, 2006: Search & Top Global Brands, NASDQ Error Drops Google Price By Over $300 Temporarily; Google's Matt Cutts Does Video Answers & More!
Today's search podcast covers top search brands and how they do in the BusinessWeek top 100 global brands; a NASDAQ area sends Google's stock price tumbling by over $300 in after hours trading, due to a glitch; Google's Matt Cutts tries video blogging to answer webmaster ranking and indexing questions and more! SearchReturn editor Detlev Johnson sat in for Danny Sullivan, who is away this week. 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...
Google Signs Deal With XM Radios To Distribute Ads In Satellite Radio Spots
Reuters reports that Google is in an ad deal with XM Radio. The deal was reached today, which will allow Google's "advertisers to automatically insert ads on the radio company's nonmusic channels." They expect the functionality of this deal to come to AdWords customers in the 4th quarter of this year....
Travelers Aid for Air Warriors
I spend a ton of time flying around the world, and I've learned a number of tricks and techniques to make air travel, if not exactly more glamorous, at least more bearable. In today's SearchDay article, Search Tools for Air Travellers, I take a look at some of my favorite web sites that provide useful help before and after hitting the online travel search engines....
New Search Patent Applications: August 1, 2006 - Microsoft Answers?
There are a number of new patent applications from Yahoo, including one that utilizes concept networks to understand the intention behind a user's query; another describing an addition to a user interface that lets a searcher define the context of a search; an API approach to retrieve information from fast changing dynamic sites such as job listing sites, news site personals, or online auction sites; a way to use the contents of a first set of results from the search engine to find relevant pages from a second set of results, including both paid and organic results; a process of...

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Creating standards for clicks, Inside AdWords
The Google Revolution is Knocking. . . Should Radio Let It In?, Media Post
Free webmail from Lycos revamped, PC Advisor
Windows Live Spaces launches, Niall Kennedy
Search Boosts IAC Revenue, Media Post
Responses to Ads on Web Search vs. Maps, NOODP Hurting Rankings & Indented Google Results, Search Engine Roundtable
Web Start-Ups Lure Executives At eBay, Yahoo, WSJ.com
Yahoo, Canaan invest $8.65 mln in Indian portal, Reuters.com
Google Manhattan Office Space: It's Rather Big, V7N Blog
AOL business model in transition, News.com
You are high profile, Google Analytics Blog
Rallying Behind SEO Industry Moderator, Cre8PC
Google Earth impacts science, United Press International
Learn more about AdWords at SES in San Jose, Inside AdWords
Firefox is Coming! Firefox is Coming!, adCenter Blog
University of California May Join Google's Library Project, Los Angeles Times
The LinkSpiel Link Building Blog, Debra Mastaler
Yodel Anecdotal - The Yahoo Corporate Blog, Techcrunch
MySpace Outage: The Post Mortem, Bill Tancer - Hitwise US
'Tis the season to "Augtomize", Inside AdSense
A Thousand Hall Monitors, Yahoo! Publisher Network

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 3:00 PM | Permalink

Search Marketers Often Don't Track All Referring Conversions

ClickZ reports on a 360i and SearchIgnite study that shows that search marketers do not look at all "assists," instead they primarily look at the last referring click that lead to the conversion. Here are some highlights of the report:

+ 37.3% of conversions come from consumers clicking on more than one of a marketer's natural or paid listings; it's in these multiple-click scenarios where the clicks' credit can often be misapplied
+ Over two-thirds (66%) of clicks are from consumers clicking a marketer's listing multiple times
+ 12.6% of conversions credited to natural search results were preceded by clicks on a marketer's paid listings, nearly twice as many as occur in the converse scenario

The full report can be downloaded by registration here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 11:03 AM | Permalink

What Is 'Photosynth'? Microsofts's 3D Photo Mapping Tool

The first official project/product from Microsoft's Live Labs is called "Photosynth." What is it? It's hard to describe succinctly. It appears to be kind of mashup of things: photo sharing, visual search, mapping and 3-D.

To me, at least conceptually, it's pretty exciting. Here's a video overview from Microsoft. (The video is something of a commercial for Live Labs, but also showcases Photosynth as a very provocative product.)

Earlier this year I did a longish post on Google Earth as an alternative search/browsing paradigm: the "Geobrowser." Google and Microsoft are now in something of a mapping arms race that has little to do with consumer or advertiser demand. And Microsoft, notwithstanding Google Earth's impressive features and developer community, believes it has the edge.

To see what's really interesting about Photosynth and its implications one needs to step back. The Internet began as a text-based medium and is now becoming more and more visually rich. The growth of image search and the meteoric rise of online video are just two examples of this. Online, multiplayer gaming and virtual worlds like Second Life are other examples of emerging, visually immersive online environments.

People have difficulty imagining what search will look like five years from now. But it may in fact be that we collectively look back in a decade or so and see today's text-based search as a quaint precursor to a much more engaging and multi-dimensional search paradigm – literally in 3-D.

According to the video Photosynth was a collaboration among groups at Microsoft, including the Virtual Earth team. The crew at Virtual Earth wants to build a rich, "immersive" visual environment that ties the real and the online worlds together. (I blogged about Microsoft's vision for mapping here.)

Photosynth represents the merger of photosharing, community, search and 3-D mapping, with just a touch of gaming thrown in. Effectively it's an alternative web-search paradigm based on visual imagery. This type of approach doesn't replace the need for text-based search entirely but it could substitute for today's search in a substantial number of cases (especially for anything local or travel).

The vision of creating a "photorealistic" virtual world online is extremely ambitious. But ultimately I believe it's possible – and very exciting. The application will reportedly be available for download later this year.

Posted by Greg Sterling on August 2, 2006, 11:02 AM | Permalink

Start Google Videos At A Specific Point In Time

The Google Video blog announced a new feature that allows you to start your Google videos at a specific point in time. This comes in handy when you want to break out your large video into specific chapters or like a FAQs page. More details on the "how do I implement this feature" at the Google Video Blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 10:50 AM | Permalink

USA Today Gets A Hold Of Danny Sullivan

Want to take a look at the past, present and future of our admired founder and editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch, Danny Sullivan? Well, today, USA Today released a little write up named Got a search engine question? Ask Mr. Sullivan. The article goes a bit into Danny's reputation in this industry, it reviews how he got into Search Engine Watch, discusses any regrets (none) selling Search Engine Watch and possibly offers some insight into the future of Danny and Search Engine Watch. Read the article at USA Today.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 10:40 AM | Permalink

Ask.com & Bloglines Proposes Blog Search Exclusion Tag

TechCrunch reports that Ask.com & Bloglines has released a new tag that can be added to your feeds named access:restriction. The tag will tell Ask.com and Bloglines that this content is private and you do not want it included in the Ask.com or Bloglines blog search engines. The goal is for other rss search engines, from blogs, news, pictures, movies and so on, do make this a standard. More details at Bloglines.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 10:28 AM | Permalink

Ask.com Releases ISBN Number Smart Answers

Gary Price notes that Ask.com has added support for ISBN number searches. For example, conduct a search on 091096551X, which is the book Gary Price and Chris Sherman wrote, you should notice an image of the book and a link to compare prices. This is a neat feature, but I should note that entering in the same ISBN number at Yahoo Search gives you a Yahoo Shortcut that takes you to comparison shopping in the Yahoo Network. It was a nice feature for Ask.com to add.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 10:14 AM | Permalink

July 2006 Search News Recap Posted

The latest edition of my monthly Search Engine Report newsletter is now online, recapping top stories in search from the past month. You can read it online or receive it via email for free by signing up here.

If you're a Search Engine Watch member, the latest edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has also been posted. That newsletter carries more items than the Search Engine Report newsletter and goes out twice per month.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 2, 2006, 9:46 AM | Permalink

MSN Search Hires Media Analytics Executive

ClickZ reports that Microsoft has hired Harrison Magun away from Avenue A/Razorfish Search to be the new director of media analytics. Harrison Magun direct role at Microsoft is not exactly known, "Microsoft spokesperson was able to confirm the hire, but could not provide any details on what Magun's new position will entail."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 9:41 AM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, August 1, 2006: Search & Top Global Brands, NASDQ Error Drops Google Price By Over $300 Temporarily; Google's Matt Cutts Does Video Answers & More!

Today's search podcast covers top search brands and how they do in the BusinessWeek top 100 global brands; a NASDAQ area sends Google's stock price tumbling by over $300 in after hours trading, due to a glitch; Google's Matt Cutts tries video blogging to answer webmaster ranking and indexing questions and more! SearchReturn editor Detlev Johnson sat in for Danny Sullivan, who is away this week.

Below are links to items discussed:

Posted by Danny Sullivan on August 2, 2006, 9:11 AM | Permalink

Google Signs Deal With XM Radios To Distribute Ads In Satellite Radio Spots

Reuters reports that Google is in an ad deal with XM Radio. The deal was reached today, which will allow Google's "advertisers to automatically insert ads on the radio company's nonmusic channels." They expect the functionality of this deal to come to AdWords customers in the 4th quarter of this year.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 2, 2006, 8:49 AM | Permalink

Travelers Aid for Air Warriors

I spend a ton of time flying around the world, and I've learned a number of tricks and techniques to make air travel, if not exactly more glamorous, at least more bearable. In today's SearchDay article, Search Tools for Air Travellers, I take a look at some of my favorite web sites that provide useful help before and after hitting the online travel search engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman on August 2, 2006, 8:13 AM | Permalink

New Search Patent Applications: August 1, 2006 - Microsoft Answers?

There are a number of new patent applications from Yahoo, including one that utilizes concept networks to understand the intention behind a user's query; another describing an addition to a user interface that lets a searcher define the context of a search; an API approach to retrieve information from fast changing dynamic sites such as job listing sites, news site personals, or online auction sites; a way to use the contents of a first set of results from the search engine to find relevant pages from a second set of results, including both paid and organic results; a process of dynamically modifying the layout of a page so that the most important content is likely to be seen by a visitor; and a remote filtering system for filtering spam for client-based email programs.

Microsoft unveils a patent application that could be the inspiration for Windows Live QnA, a process for removing unlinked documents from a search engine's index, an approach for presenting relevant snippets with search results, a means of using cached search results for queries with relevant advertising results, and a query refinement process based upon past user behavior.

IBM provides a linguistic approach to identifying the main body text of a page, and they present that approach as an improvement upon methods such as a VIPS or a Visual Gap Segmentation process.

Yahoo

Systems and methods for managing and using multiple concept networks for assisted search processing
Inventors: Shyam Kapur, Jignashu Parikh, and Deepa Joshi
Assigned to Yahoo
US Patent Application 20060167896
Published July 27, 2006
Filed on December 5, 2005

Abstract

Multiple concept networks are generated from subsets of received queries. These concept networks can be used in various ways to enhance response to subsequent queries. In one embodiment, concept networks can be merged into a larger concept network that can be used to infer a user's likely intent given a query. In another embodiment, suggestions for related searches obtained using different concept networks can be merged or aggregated. Other users for concept networks in query processing, including assisted search, are also described.

Systems and methods for contextual transaction proposals
Inventors: Reiner Kraft, Andreas Hartmann, Farzin Maghoul
Assigned to Yahoo
US Patent Application 20060167857
Published July 27, 2006
Filed on May 12, 2005

Abstract

Context-specific transaction proposals are automatically generated and presented to a user who expresses interest in a particular topic. A user viewing a World Wide Web page or other content item activates an interface to indicate that he or she is interested in additional information related to the subject of the page. A context vector or other representation of the content of the page being viewed is transmitted to an information server, which identifies possible transactions related to the content and proposes one or more of these transactions to the user. Transaction proposals can be presented together with a contextual search interface that allows the user to submit zero or more search terms together with the context vector as a search query.

System and method for improving online search engine results

Inventors: Daniel Patrick Dissett, Arkady Borkovsky, Charles Converse Carson, JR.
Assigned to Yahoo! Inc.
US Patent Application 20060167852
Published July 27, 2006
Filed on January 28, 2005

Search Headlines & Links: August 1, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

Forum Fodder: SES San Jose Party Update, Secrets Spilled, and 301 Redirects Galore
Hot topics & discussions going on in the Search Engine Watch Forums right now: The official party list for SES San Jose networking events has been updated as of today with a new pub crawl sponsored by Trexy.com - find more details in this thread. Whoa! Who opened the floodgates? SEO's are sharing trade secrets left and right. Take your turn and share just one of your favorite search marketing secrets. Recommendations on implementing 301 redirects are popping up in several discussions, as solutions for duplicate content issues, and closing an old site. On a related redirect topic, a new...
Microsoft adCenter Upgrades Include Firefox Support
Microsoft adCenter has a new release launching Saturday, August 5th, and one of the upgrades includes the long awaited Firefox browser support....
AdSense Testing New Ad Unit Styles
Google AdSense has recently added a couple of new ad unit styles for regular publishers, although neither of them can be controlled by the publisher. First, AdSense is testing an unbranded ad unit where they have removed all Google branding from the ad unit, which virtually makes it impossible to identify the ad unit as advertising....
Google Toolbar Bug Warns Against Use Of Other Search Engines
Philipp Lenssen reports that a bug in the Google Toolbar warns users when they select other search engines to use. If you enable in the toolbar that you want to keep Google as your main search engine, and you install a toolbar from say MSN, it will pop up warnings at you. The warning reads, "Google has blocked an attempt by another program to change your default search settings." Benjamin Lewis from Google said there is a bug with the program, "The fact that GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe remains in memory after disabling the feature is a bug – thank you for reporting...
AOL Video To Launch New Video Portal
I received a press release yesterday from AOL, announcing the soon to launch new AOL Video portal at www.aolvideo.com, August 4th. What can you expect? More than "45 new video-on-demand content channels with thousands of hours of video programming from popular entertainment brands, organized and accessible via video search, browse or an interactive programming guide; free streaming content as well as the ability to purchase and download full-length content that can be viewed on multiple devices and PCs, online or offline; and access to millions of music videos, news clips, movie trailers, full length TV shows, and more." Gary Price...
Site Geolocation Tool Sorts Backlinks By Top Level Domain
SEO Scoop reports on a new tool named Domain Localization. This tool uses the Yahoo link command to bring back a sorted list of your backlinks by linking TLD (top level domain). There are several factors that tell a search engine if you are a country specific web site; your TLD, meta geo tags, language on site, contact us page, the links pointing to your pages and a few other factors. This tool enables you to easily see the percentage of links pointing to you by TLD....
Enquisite: New Free Analytics Tool Launches
Enquisite is a new free analytics tool that is launching today. I'm not an analytics guru and so others will need to kick the tires. But one of the things that impresses me about it is that you're able to see locally where your traffic is coming from. In other words, if you've got concentrations of users in Los Angeles or Des Moines or Seattle this tool will expose that and what they're searching for. Thus it can help coordinate online and offline marketing. It also tracks and compares organic vs. PPC placement. It also appears to have many additional...
MSN Assigns Names To Vertical Search Crawlers
I covered news at my blog this morning that MSN has assigned names to all their robots or crawlers. When MSN Search first launched, they had one robot named, msnbot. MSNbot did the work of all, from normal web search to image search to news and images. Now, MSN has clarified the roles and assigned names to each robot. The MSN Shopping bot is msnbot-products, the MSN News bot is msnbot-news, the MSN Image Search bot is msnbot-media and the MSN Search bot is still msnbot. This is important for SEOs, now you can define in your robots.txt file if...
Google Paying News Sites For Google News Syndication?
Philipp Lenssen has some details on Google paying some news sources, such as the Associated Press, for syndicating their content in Google News. Philipp initially posted the story based on a Mercury News article that was foggy on the details of such relationships. But then Philipp received a statement from Google that read:...
Google's Matt Cutts Answers Questions On Google Video
Matt Cutts has released six video sessions so far, over the past two days at his blog. They all answers questions sent to him on the topic of search engine optimization. Most of the videos are about five minutes long, you don't have to necessarily watch Matt talk, you can just listen (there is not much going on in the background). Here is a break down of the video SEO sessions:...
A Financial Analyst's View of the Search Industry
Jordan Rohan is a financial analyst who specializes in internet stocks. He's been covering the industry since 1998, and has developed a reputation as a penetrating thinker who's not afraid to tell it like he sees it. Rohan was one of the keynote speakers at the Media Post Search Insider Summit held in Keystone Colorado last week. His talk was wide-ranging, covering competitive trends, the importance of international markets, and of course, Google's dominance—and whether anyone has a chance of knocking them off the search throne. More on Rohan's views of the search world in today's SearchDay article, Rohan: "The...

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Your Employees Are Just Not That into You, BruceClay
Arabic Support for Google AdSense Search, Inside AdSense Blog
August 4th is Your Google Click Fraud Settlement Claim Deadline, Search Engine Lowdown
YouTube overtakes MySpace?, Guardian Unlimited
More New Domain Names, This Time From Yahoo, ResourceShelf
Search Campaigns Forego Automation, ClickZ
Can Adding the NOODP Tag Hurt Your Google Rankings?, Search Engine Roundtable
Yahoo! Upgraded On Search Strength, Forbes.com
AdSense on Google Page Creator, Inside AdSense Blog
Photo Of Google Data Center, V7N Blog
Yahoo faces antitrust probe in Taiwan, News.com
IAC/InterActive 2Q Net Income Plunges, MSN Money

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 3:49 PM | Permalink

Forum Fodder: SES San Jose Party Update, Secrets Spilled, and 301 Redirects Galore

Hot topics & discussions going on in the Search Engine Watch Forums right now:

The official party list for SES San Jose networking events has been updated as of today with a new pub crawl sponsored by Trexy.com - find more details in this thread.

Whoa! Who opened the floodgates? SEO's are sharing trade secrets left and right. Take your turn and share just one of your favorite search marketing secrets.

Recommendations on implementing 301 redirects are popping up in several discussions, as solutions for duplicate content issues, and closing an old site. On a related redirect topic, a new case of a 302 Hijack has popped up in Google.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on August 1, 2006, 2:15 PM | Permalink

Microsoft adCenter Upgrades Include Firefox Support

Microsoft adCenter has a new release launching Saturday, August 5th, and one of the upgrades includes the long awaited Firefox browser support.

Microsoft sent out an email to their premium adCenter customers, which included the following:

Now, use Microsoft adCenter with the Firefox 1.5 browser!
Daily, weekly and monthly data will be updated every hour to help you view results and optimize campaigns in real-time.
Select the time frame for which you want your campaign and order summaries to show, instead of viewing them in the life-to-date format.
User-interface changes to the reporting tab will make usability simpler.
API customers will now have access to more procedure calls. Detailed API communications will be sent to API customers.

For more details, there is also an adCenter Pre-SES community briefing being held Wednesday, August 2nd on all the changes.

And join the forum discussion on the new changes on the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg on August 1, 2006, 12:53 PM | Permalink

AdSense Testing New Ad Unit Styles

Google AdSense has recently added a couple of new ad unit styles for regular publishers, although neither of them can be controlled by the publisher. First, AdSense is testing an unbranded ad unit where they have removed all Google branding from the ad unit, which virtually makes it impossible to identify the ad unit as advertising.

The second is a style that has been tested for a month or so, although new variations of it are popping up. In the ad unit, which is showing up in multiple ad unit sizes, one of the ads within the unit is replaced with a relevant image. Then the image links to an Ad Links results page. The newer variation of this has "See more sponsored links > >" underneath the image.

Publishers are unable to control if or when these ad unit styles appear on their sites. The unbranded ad unit does not seem to be used very often at all, however the image within the ad unit style is showing up frequently on many publisher sites.

It is always interesting to see what AdSense is testing, and what eventually makes its way to being a regular part of the program instead of limited testing.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg on August 1, 2006, 12:27 PM | Permalink

Google Toolbar Bug Warns Against Use Of Other Search Engines

Philipp Lenssen reports that a bug in the Google Toolbar warns users when they select other search engines to use. If you enable in the toolbar that you want to keep Google as your main search engine, and you install a toolbar from say MSN, it will pop up warnings at you. The warning reads, "Google has blocked an attempt by another program to change your default search settings."

Benjamin Lewis from Google said there is a bug with the program, "The fact that GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe remains in memory after disabling the feature is a bug – thank you for reporting it. We're working on it right now and should have it fixed shortly. As long as the feature is disabled the .exe doesn't actually do anything, it just remains in memory (not that this makes it less of a problem)." More details at Google System blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 10:15 AM | Permalink

AOL Video To Launch New Video Portal

I received a press release yesterday from AOL, announcing the soon to launch new AOL Video portal at www.aolvideo.com, August 4th. What can you expect? More than "45 new video-on-demand content channels with thousands of hours of video programming from popular entertainment brands, organized and accessible via video search, browse or an interactive programming guide; free streaming content as well as the ability to purchase and download full-length content that can be viewed on multiple devices and PCs, online or offline; and access to millions of music videos, news clips, movie trailers, full length TV shows, and more."

Gary Price has a historical write up of AOL Video, check it out here.

Full Release:

AOL TO LAUNCH NEW VIDEO PORTAL

Includes More than 45 New Video Channels With Content >From Leading Entertainment Brands Including A&E Television Networks, MTV Networks, Turner Networks, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Many More

One-Stop Video Portal Has Innovative Programming Guide, Integrated Video Search and Browse, Easy Video Uploading and Sharing, Video Store and More

Open Platform Will Let AOL Extend AOL Video and Video Search to Multiple Platforms and Across the Web

DULLES, VA - July 31, 2006 - AOL, a leader in live and on-demand entertainment video programming and video search, today announced that it will preview a beta version of its new AOL Video portal later this week. Available for free to anyone on the Web at http://www.aolvideo.com, the new AOL Video is an all-in-one, high-quality entertainment destination to find, watch and share millions of the best videos across the Web.

New features on the AOL® Video portal include: over 45 new video-on-demand content channels with thousands of hours of video programming from popular entertainment brands, organized and accessible via video search, browse or an interactive programming guide; free streaming content as well as the ability to purchase and download full-length content that can be viewed on multiple devices and PCs, online or offline; and access to millions of music videos, news clips, movie trailers, full length TV shows, and more.

AOL Video also includes AOL® Video Search, which is based on industry leading video search technology from Truveo™ and Singingfish, and a video player that can go full screen without losing picture quality and that supports AOL's exclusive Hi-Q™ video format to watch DVD-quality videos online.

In addition, the portal includes AOL's new UnCut Video offering, which makes it easy to upload and share videos online by providing full device support, letting consumers upload and share videos directly from their camcorder, Webcam, video-enabled mobile phone, as well as their PC.

"AOL has long been a leader in online video and with the new AOL Video portal we have created the best and easiest place online for anyone on the Web to find, watch and share the videos they're looking for," said Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President of AOL. "From originally produced and licensed programming to branded online video-on-demand channels to user-created videos that people create, upload and share on the Web themselves, AOL Video is truly the first one-stop source that brings the best videos on the Web together in one place and gives consumers more choice. If a video is out there, you'll find it here on AOL Video.com."

New Video-On-Demand Content Channels and Programming Guide

At the center of the AOL Video portal's main page will be one of the Web's first online interactive programming guides (IPG) that brings together free and download-to-own video content from across broadcast and cable television and the Web and organizes it into new, branded video-on-demand channels.

At launch, the AOL Video IPG will feature more than 45 video-on-demand channels, including many programmed by new video content partners, including: A&E Television Networks (including A&E® Network, The History Channel® and The Biography Channel®), Comedy Time, Endemol USA, Expo TV, LIME, MTV Networks (including COMEDY CENTRAL, Logo, MTV, MTV2, The N, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Spike TV and VH1), National Lampoon, Procter & Gamble Productions, Inc., ¡SORPRESA!, South Coast Golf, TBS, TNT, TotalVid, TV Guide, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Wild America and WNBA.

In addition, AOL and its joint venture partners program a variety of additional channels including: In2TV™, TMZ.com™, Lat34.com, AOL Uncut Video, AOL Music, AOL News, AOL Coaches, AOL Television, AOL Viral Videos, KOL and Moviefone. New video channels and programming from additional partners will be added on an ongoing basis. A complete list and descriptions of channels available at launch is included at the end of the press release.

Powerful Video Search

AOL's video search engine will be prominently featured on the new portal. AOL Video Search returns results from all of the most active video sources on the Internet, including YouTube, Yahoo! (Yahoo Music, Yahoo News, Yahoo Movies, etc.), Google Video, iFilm, AtomFilms and more. Powered by AOL's Truveo and Singingfish technologies, the AOL Video Search engine is also able to crawl and index high-quality videos on the Web that traditional search engines are unable to find. AOL's unique "Visual Crawling" capability automatically discovers video files and related information on complex, dynamic web pages - a task that is a challenge for conventional crawling technologies.

AOL Video Search also has significantly greater reach than any other video search engine on the Web. Through its network of search properties - which includes AOL Search, InfoSpace, Real, and others - AOL Video Search, branded and white-labeled, is available to more users than any other video search product.

Multi-Faceted Distribution Strategy Extends the AOL Video Experience

AOL Video is built on an open technology platform and architecture that will enable AOL to extend the AOL Video experience across platforms and devices to make it easy for users to watch it on multiple screens, including desktops, laptops, large screens (plasma), and handheld devices.

Earlier this year AOL and Intel Corporation announced a joint effort to extend a tailored version of the AOL Video experience to consumers' living rooms via Intel Viiv technology-based PCs. The companies plan to launch this new "10-foot" experience in the coming weeks, making the content easily viewable on large screen TVs and other devices.

This fall, AOL plans to make available Open APIs that will enable developers to incorporate AOL's leading Video Search results into third-party user experiences, as well as other tools that will enable developers and consumers to incorporate features from the AOL Video portal for other websites. In addition, AOL is working with PC OEMs and broadband service providers to develop co-branded versions of the AOL Video portal.

The launch of the new AOL Video.com is another example of how AOL has been building upon its online video and video search strategy, including making key acquisitions. Over the last year, these initiatives have included:

- The record-breaking global broadcast online of the "Live 8" concerts;
- Last year's launch of its innovative Video Hub destination on AOL.com;
- The launch of high-quality video playback through AOL's exclusive Hi-Q™ video format -- AOL.com was the first major portal to offer high-/DVD-quality videos;
- Landmark content and original programming agreements that exemplify how AOL is creating a new model for television distribution, such as the Warner Bros. "In2TV" offering, the first on-demand Broadband Television Network with the largest collection of free TV programming anywhere on the Web;
- The launch of TMZ.com, the AOL-Telepictures new, on-demand entertainment news network;
- AOL's acquisition of the two foremost video search companies; Truveo in December 2005, a complement to the acquisition of Singingfish in 2003;
- A growing index of several million videos, including the most comprehensive coverage of some of the highest quality and most popular video on the Web;
- AOL's investment in and partnership with Brightcove, a Web video distribution pioneer; and
- AOL's acquisition of Lightningcast, a broadband video advertising innovator.

Availability

The enhanced AOL Video portal (http://www.aolvideo.com) will be available for beta testing starting later this week. For more information on the beta test and to sign up for an alert to be automatically notified when the beta test is available, please visit http://www.aolvideo.com, or AOL Beta Central at http://beta.aol.com.

About AOL

AOL and its subsidiaries operate a leading network of Web brands and the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States. Web brands include the AOL.com® website, AIM®, MapQuest® and Netscape®. AOL offers a range of digital services in the areas of education, safety and security, communications and music. The company also has operations in Europe and Canada. AOL LLC is a majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. and is based in Dulles, Virginia.

Contact Information

Jaymelina Esmele
AOL
(703) 265-7831

Note: For free video and additional information regarding AOL Video, please log onto www.thenewsmarket.com/aol to make requests. You can receive broadcast-standard video digitally or by tape from this site. Registration and video is free to the media.

=======================

AOLVideo.com
New Content Partners & Video-On-Demand Channel Line-Up
As of July 31, 2006, in alphabetical order

The AOL Video portal will bring together free and download-to-own video programming from content partners across broadcast and cable television and the Web, organized it into new, branded video-on-demand channels

Channels Programmed by Leading Partners:

- A&E Television Networks - From A&E Television Networks' bouquet of channels, programming from A&E Network, The Biography Channel and The History Channel.

- A&E Network - Popular, full length programs real-life and lifestyle series such as “Inked,” “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” “Criss Angel Mindfreak” and “Flip This House.”

- The Biography Channel - Programs that showcase compelling stories about the world's most interesting people in categories including American Icons, Pop Culture & Entertainment, Notorious, Real West and Mysteries of the Bible.

- The History Channel - Documentaries, series and specials about everything from ancient history to military history, technology and more, including “Digging for the Truth,” “Modern Marvels” and “Decoding the Past.”
- Comedy Time - Everything from stand-up comedy and man on the street segments to original, short-form programs. Stand-up categories include Urban, Latino, Observational, Relationship, Family and Alternative.

- Expo TV - Product reviews and demonstrations from experts and viewers on a variety of topics including cars, electronics, home and kitchen appliances, parenting gear and much more.

- LIME - Videos for those seeking a healthier, greener, more balanced lifestyle including videos from popular Lime television series and documentaries as well as extensive online content from lime.com.

- MTV Networks - MTV Networks' full array of entertainment, comedy and music programming from its COMEDY CENTRAL, Logo, MTV, MTV2, The N, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Spike TV and VH1 brands is available for paid download, including:

- COMEDY CENTRAL – Cutting-edge comedy including full-length episodes of “Chappelle's Show,” the Emmy-award winning “South Park,” “Reno 911!,” “Crank Yankers” and “Mind of Mencia.”

- Logo – Original shows and specials for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) audience including “Noah's Arc,” and “Open Bar,” as well as “Real Momentum” documentaries

- The N –Award-winning and original TV shows reflecting the real-life issues teens face every day, including “Degrassi,” “South of Nowhere,” “O'Grady,” “Beyond the Break and Whistler.”

- Nickelodeon – A vast library of shows from the number-one entertainment brand for kids including “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Zoey 101,” “The Fairly OddParents,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius” and many more.

- Nick Jr. – Full-length episodes of preschoolers' favorites including “Dora the Explorer,” and “Blue's Clues.”

- Nick at Nite – “Fatherhood,” the animated comedy series based on Bill Cosby's best-selling book of the same name, and “Hi-Jinks,” hit hidden-camera series where adults play good-natured pranks on kids of all ages.

- MTV: MUSIC TELEVISION – Hundreds of episodes including the hit series “Laguna Beach,” “Punk'd,” “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” “Viva La Bam,” “Wildboyz,” “Pimp My Ride,” “The Real World,” and many others.

- MTV2 – Compelling and irreverent series such as “Andy Milonakis,” “Chico & Guapo,” “Celebrity Death Match” and “WonderShowzen.”

- Spike TV – Series geared to helping men Get More Action, such as “Disorderly Conduct,” “TNA: iMPACT!” “Muscle Car” and others.

- TV Land – “Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg,” hosted by legendary comedian, producer and director David Steinberg, is a one-on-one comedy forum where celebrated performers including Larry David, Martin Short, Bob Newhart, Jon Lovitz and George Lopez open up about their personal lives.

- VH1 – A wide array of VH1's hit Celebreality series such as “Flavor of Love,” “Hogan Knows Best,” “The Surreal Life,” “Breaking Bonaduce,” “My Fair Brady” and others.

- National Lampoon – An all-new Internet video channel from the biggest name in comedy. It's everything you expect from National Lampoon (AMEX:NLN) -- smart, edgy, funny, irreverent, impolite and definitely NOT PC -- and more! All original, all new and all created for the digital world.

- Procter & Gamble Productions, Inc. - The company that put the “soap” in soap operas presents the P&G Classic Soaps channel, featuring episodes from “Another World,” “The Edge of Night,” “Search for Tomorrow” and “Texas,” including some available for the first time since they ended their successful runs. In addition, this channel offers original companion content for the contemporary classics “As The World Turns” and “Guiding Light.”

- ¡SORPRESA! - Spanish-language children's programming including "Tienda MÃ¡gica," "Cachureos," and "El Planeta de Remi."

- South Coast Golf - Golf lessons from "Hall of Fame" PGA Tour professionals including Dave Stockton, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite and many others.

- TBS – A collection of clips from TBS's top-notch line-up of comedy series, stand-up comedy from the Laugh Factory and the Aspen Comedy Festival, award-winning Department of Humor Analysis shorts and much more.

- TNT – TNT original movies, plus special behind-the-scenes extras and interviews from TNT's hit original series "The Closer," "Saved" and "Nightmares and Dreamscapes: >From the Stories of Stephen King."

- TotalVid.com – Video clips covering a variety of enthusiast, educational, and instructional categories, including alternative sports, cooking, home improvement, martial arts, outdoors, self defense, sports instruction and travel.

- TV Guide for Broadband – Videos that offer the inside track on entertainment information including celebrity interviews, music videos, and original programs like “InFANity,” which offers behind the scenes footage from TV's top shows, and “Square Off,” an inside look at the TV industry with hosts Brian Lowry (Variety) and Andy Wallenstein (The Hollywood Reporter).

- Warner Bros. Entertainment - Full length episodes of "Dukes of Hazzard," "Babylon 5," sketches from "MADtv" and animated shows including "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons."

- Wild America - The world's largest film library covering the wildlife and nature of North America.

- WNBA - Coverage of the WNBA's best and brightest games and moments.

Channels Programmed by AOL:

- AOL UnCut Video - Home videos, comedic clips and other footage created by consumers.

- AOL Music - Thousands of music videos, exclusive intimate performances, live concerts and hours of artist interviews.

- AOL News - Hundreds of stories and live breaking news from the AP, Reuters, Extra, ABC, CNN and CBS.

- AOL Coaches - A digest of the best advice, tips, and tools from the leading experts in diet, fitness, wellness, romance, family and money.

- AOL Viral Videos - A collection of the funniest and most popular clips that everyone is sending around the Web.

- KOL - Original animated shows including "Princess Natasha" and "Pilar's Adventures" as well as "KOL's Saturday Morning Secret Slumber Party on CBS" show clips, Radio KOL videos and KOL Celebrity Videos.

- Moviefone - Thousands of movie trailers, extended film clips, and "Unscripted," Moviefone.com's original Web series in which today's biggest stars and filmmakers interview each other using their own questions and those submitted by fans.

Channels Programmed by AOL and Its Joint Venture Partners:

- In2TV - The following In2TV channels feature hundreds of full length episodes of popular television series including:

- Dramarama TV - Great dramatic series like "Eight is Enough," "Falcon Crest," "Sisters," "Spenser: for Hire," and "Scarecrow and Mrs. King."

- Get Real TV - Favorite game show, courtroom and relationship shows such as "Elimidate," "Change of Heart," "The People's Court," "The Moral Court," and "The Will."

- Gone But Not Forgotten TV - Critically acclaimed, but prematurely canceled series like "Against the Grain," "Presidio Med," "Wanda at Large," "The George Carlin Show," "Max Headroom," and "Jesse."

- Heroes & Horror TV - Sci-fi and horror series including "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," "Babylon 5," "Freddy's Nightmares" and "The Adventures of Wonder Woman."

- In2TV en Espanol - This Spanish language version of In2TV features over two dozen popular television series in Spanish that have previously only been seen in their original English broadcast format.

- LOL TV - Laugh out loud with comedy favorites like "Welcome Back Kotter," "Chico and the Man," "Perfect Strangers," "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper," and "Head of the Class."

- Superman TV - The Man of Steel soars throughout this channel in a documentary film, comic book animation, and television series including the original "The Adventures of Superman," "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," and "Superboy."

- Toontopia TV - Top-rated animation comes to life with "Pinky and the Brain," "Beetlejuice," "Freakazoid," "Histeria!," and "The New Adventures of Batman."

- Vintage TV - Classics like "Growing Pains," "Alice," "F Troop," "Maverick," and "The F.B.I."

- What a Rush TV - Action-adventure favorites such as "Kung Fu," "La Femme Nikita," "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.," "The Fugitive," "Dark Justice," and more.
- Lat34.com - Dynamic and timely video coverage of action sports wherever they occur.

- TMZ.com - Exclusive breaking news and video from the world of entertainment and celebrities.

# # #

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 10:10 AM | Permalink

Site Geolocation Tool Sorts Backlinks By Top Level Domain

SEO Scoop reports on a new tool named Domain Localization. This tool uses the Yahoo link command to bring back a sorted list of your backlinks by linking TLD (top level domain). There are several factors that tell a search engine if you are a country specific web site; your TLD, meta geo tags, language on site, contact us page, the links pointing to your pages and a few other factors. This tool enables you to easily see the percentage of links pointing to you by TLD.

While Search Engine Watch is now hosted in the United Kingdom, the majority of its links are from .com TLDs (72%), 9% from .orgs, 6.6% from .nets, 5.8% from .edu and then 1.5% from .uks. My blog, the Search Engine Roundtable is hosted in the United States, and has 81% of their links from .coms, 5.65% from .orgs, 4.6% from .nets, and only 1.4% from .UK.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 10:00 AM | Permalink

Enquisite: New Free Analytics Tool Launches

Enquisite is a new free analytics tool that is launching today. I'm not an analytics guru and so others will need to kick the tires. But one of the things that impresses me about it is that you're able to see locally where your traffic is coming from. In other words, if you've got concentrations of users in Los Angeles or Des Moines or Seattle this tool will expose that and what they're searching for. Thus it can help coordinate online and offline marketing. It also tracks and compares organic vs. PPC placement.

It also appears to have many additional features that are worth checking out.

Posted by Greg Sterling on August 1, 2006, 9:59 AM | Permalink

MSN Assigns Names To Vertical Search Crawlers

I covered news at my blog this morning that MSN has assigned names to all their robots or crawlers. When MSN Search first launched, they had one robot named, msnbot. MSNbot did the work of all, from normal web search to image search to news and images. Now, MSN has clarified the roles and assigned names to each robot.

The MSN Shopping bot is msnbot-products, the MSN News bot is msnbot-news, the MSN Image Search bot is msnbot-media and the MSN Search bot is still msnbot. This is important for SEOs, now you can define in your robots.txt file if you want msnbot-media to index your images or not.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 9:53 AM | Permalink

Google Paying News Sites For Google News Syndication?

Philipp Lenssen has some details on Google paying some news sources, such as the Associated Press, for syndicating their content in Google News. Philipp initially posted the story based on a Mercury News article that was foggy on the details of such relationships. But then Philipp received a statement from Google that read:

Google has always believed that content providers and publishers should be fairly compensated for their work so they can continue producing high quality information. We are always working on new ways to help users find the information they are looking for, and our business agreement with the Associated Press is one example of that.

Now, it is hard to know what this exactly means. Is Google paying the AP for allowing them to crawl and include their content in the Google News index? Will Google be creating a news portal, similar to Yahoo News (Yahoo has long paid to host some news content, though the story suggests Yahoo might be doing more of this). It is still unclear. How does Google determine who to pay and how much to pay? Can you pay Google to be included in Google News? Very interesting discovery by Philipp and I look forward to understanding this in more detail soon.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 9:45 AM | Permalink

Google's Matt Cutts Answers Questions On Google Video

Matt Cutts has released six video sessions so far, over the past two days at his blog. They all answers questions sent to him on the topic of search engine optimization. Most of the videos are about five minutes long, you don't have to necessarily watch Matt talk, you can just listen (there is not much going on in the background). Here is a break down of the video SEO sessions:

Session 1: Quality of a Good Site, 5 minutes and 40 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Does Sitemaps depend on pageviews? - What are the top things to do in SEO? - Should I use bold or strong tags?"

Session 2: Myths, Large Site Launches, and Google Images, 4 minutes 10 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Myths: 1) sites on the same server, 2) IP, or 2) including off-domain JavaScript - Launching sites with millions of pages: how should I do it best? - Google images: updates on the horizon, and current Google Images technology."

Session 3: Optimize for Search Engines or Users?, 4 minutes and 25 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Which is more important: search engine optimization (SEO) or end user optimization? - What spam detection tools would you recommend? - Does cleanliness of code (W3C) help at all?"

Session 4: Static vs. Dynamic urls, 4 minutes and 30 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Static vs. Dynamic urls: does PageRank flow the same to both? What pitfalls should I avoid with dynamic urls? - Can Sitemaps alert webmasters when their site has been hacked? - Can I do geotargetting within Google's Quality Guidelines?"

Session 5: How to structure a site?, 4 minutes and 46 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Merging acquired domains with 301s? - How to create a site architecture with themes and keywords? - My urls have too many parameters--can I serve up static HTML to Googlebot instead? - How to do split A/B testing?"

Session 6: Supplemental Results, 4 minutes and 12 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Supplemental Results - Should I worry about results estimates for 1) supplemental results 2) using the site: operator 3) with negated terms and 4) special syntax such as intitle: ? Answer: No. That's pretty far off the beaten path. - Why do 301s take so long to be reflected in supplemental results? It's been months. - I started appearing in the supplemental results in May--should I be worried?"

Great job Matt, really appreciated by the SEOs and SEMs here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on August 1, 2006, 9:28 AM | Permalink

A Financial Analyst's View of the Search Industry

Jordan Rohan is a financial analyst who specializes in internet stocks. He's been covering the industry since 1998, and has developed a reputation as a penetrating thinker who's not afraid to tell it like he sees it. Rohan was one of the keynote speakers at the Media Post Search Insider Summit held in Keystone Colorado last week. His talk was wide-ranging, covering competitive trends, the importance of international markets, and of course, Google's dominance—and whether anyone has a chance of knocking them off the search throne. More on Rohan's views of the search world in today's SearchDay article, Rohan: "The Job of an Analyst is not Easy".

Posted by Chris Sherman on August 1, 2006, 12:01 AM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: July 31, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

Microsoft, Google & Yahoo Make Business Week's Top 100 Best Global Brands
ResourceShelf reports on the Business Week Top 100 Global Brands release from this week. You can see from the interactive table that Microsoft remained in the number two slot, Google moved up to number 24 from the 38th position in 2005, and Yahoo also moved up to 55 from the 58th position in 2005....
NASDAQ Error Sends Google's Stock Price Down To $38
The New York Sun reports that on Thursday, during after hours trading, Google's stock price fell accidentally by $350 to about $38, due to some glitch. Reportedly, "someone from a Nasdaq member firm punched in an erroneous figure to commence a trade," which caused the error. Thursday, between 4:10 p.m. and 4:12 p.m., prices for Google stock were as low as $38. At 5:01 p.m. NASDAQ disclosed their decision to "cancel all after-hours trades in Google that were at or below $352.07." So for those of you that thought you made it big, I am sorry. And for those that...
Yahoo Finance Hacked & Defaced
Zone-H reports that earlier today, Yahoo's Finance section at biz.yahoo.com was hacked into and defaced. I have not seen any official confirmation or report from Yahoo on this story. They have mirrored the defacement here and here....
Google Trends Launched In China
Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Labs just posted a link to Google Trends China. Google Trends was launched on May 10th and gives users the ability to look at search volume over time by keyword and broken down by other variables, such as regions and language. I would suspect Google Trends in China applies the same or similar filters and censorship that Google China web search applies....
Google To Change Arabic Translation Of "Gay"
PinkNews reports that Google has agreed to change the Arabic translation of the word "gay" within Google's translation tool. Now, I don't know Arabic, but reportedly, the translation Google provides is equivalent to the word sodomite, which is derogatory. PinkNews says Google has "vowed to ameliorate the issue shortly."...
Google News Search Engine Explained
Philipp Lenssen has an excellent write up on How Google News Indexes. He goes through how news sources get included, how news stories are clustered together, which sources get found on the Google News home page, and then some other tips. Philipp also explains how the news breaking source normally gets the top spot in the results and how to create content specifically for Google News. This can make a very useful and interesting read for anyone interested in Google News....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Google & Webmaster Communications, Search Engine Roundtable
White Hat/Black Hat: Dead, V7N?Blog
Google Warns AdSense Publishers of Disabling Accounts Due to Invalid Clicks But Gives No Advice, Search Engine Roundtable
Gadgets, Google, and SEO » SEO Answers on Google Video, Matt Cutts
Inside Google's Hiring Process: The AdWords Worksheet, Google Watch
Digg Profile For Sale on eBay, Techcrunch
Microsoft Poses Long-Term Web Threat To Google, Yahoo: Report, Forbes.com
Google's Domain Name Registration Spree Continues, ResourceShelf
LC Union Warns About Google, Restates Core Mission, Library Journal
Baidu.com Has an Expectations Gap, Business Week
Google CEO on content partnerships: owners to get majority of ad revenues, ZDNet.com

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 5:46 PM | Permalink

Microsoft, Google & Yahoo Make Business Week's Top 100 Best Global Brands

ResourceShelf reports on the Business Week Top 100 Global Brands release from this week. You can see from the interactive table that Microsoft remained in the number two slot, Google moved up to number 24 from the 38th position in 2005, and Yahoo also moved up to 55 from the 58th position in 2005.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 10:42 AM | Permalink

NASDAQ Error Sends Google's Stock Price Down To $38

The New York Sun reports that on Thursday, during after hours trading, Google's stock price fell accidentally by $350 to about $38, due to some glitch. Reportedly, "someone from a Nasdaq member firm punched in an erroneous figure to commence a trade," which caused the error. Thursday, between 4:10 p.m. and 4:12 p.m., prices for Google stock were as low as $38. At 5:01 p.m. NASDAQ disclosed their decision to "cancel all after-hours trades in Google that were at or below $352.07." So for those of you that thought you made it big, I am sorry. And for those that you that thought you lost your shirts, I am happy for you.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 10:35 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Finance Hacked & Defaced

Zone-H reports that earlier today, Yahoo's Finance section at biz.yahoo.com was hacked into and defaced. I have not seen any official confirmation or report from Yahoo on this story. They have mirrored the defacement here and here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 10:19 AM | Permalink

Google Trends Launched In China

Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Labs just posted a link to Google Trends China. Google Trends was launched on May 10th and gives users the ability to look at search volume over time by keyword and broken down by other variables, such as regions and language. I would suspect Google Trends in China applies the same or similar filters and censorship that Google China web search applies.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 10:12 AM | Permalink

Google To Change Arabic Translation Of "Gay"

PinkNews reports that Google has agreed to change the Arabic translation of the word "gay" within Google's translation tool. Now, I don't know Arabic, but reportedly, the translation Google provides is equivalent to the word sodomite, which is derogatory. PinkNews says Google has "vowed to ameliorate the issue shortly."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 9:54 AM | Permalink

Google News Search Engine Explained

Philipp Lenssen has an excellent write up on How Google News Indexes. He goes through how news sources get included, how news stories are clustered together, which sources get found on the Google News home page, and then some other tips. Philipp also explains how the news breaking source normally gets the top spot in the results and how to create content specifically for Google News. This can make a very useful and interesting read for anyone interested in Google News.

I also wrote about Submitting Your News Site To Google News back in June.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 31, 2006, 9:42 AM | Permalink

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