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November 26, 2006 - December 2, 2006


SEW on "The Alternative" Webmaster Radio Show with Jim Hedger

Apologies! With everything else going on in the last few days, I didn't get a chance to post that I did an interview with Jim Hedger for Webmaster Radio that aired earlier today. Listen to the mp3 of The Alternative episode, where I talk about some of the future plans for SEW.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on December 1, 2006, 8:48 PM | Permalink


Blog Coverage During SES Chicago 2006

I'm happy to announce that two of our long-time Search Engine Watch forum moderators, Chris Boggs and Frank Watson (aka AussieWebmaster) are stepping up to provide headline and conference coverage on the Search Engine Watch blog during SES Chicago next week. In addition to being SEW forum moderators, both are regular speakers at SES events.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on December 1, 2006, 5:24 PM | Permalink


WWSD? (What Would SEOs Do?) The Future of Search Engine Watch

As I said in my earlier post, we're committed to reshaping the future of SEW with the help of the search engine community, as anyone involved with search marketing has significant potential to make a contribution within the industry itself. It takes a village...

Here's a great example of what I'm talking about -and a little shameless self-promotion, please excuse, but it's Friday after all, and there's a really good point to be made about community shaping outcomes. Those of you that know me well are aware of my passion for skiing and snowboarding. Right now, I would much rather be out in the fresh Utah powder that dropped this week, but I digress... what you may not know, is that I've had a tiny little ownership stake in this start-up ski company, PM Gear.

We were recently featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, putting the spotlight on our unique process for developing a signature line of skis, utilizing the valuable input of a community comprised of serious skiers. For anyone that is interested and contacts me first, I'll send a free copy of the book, Spark: Be More Innovative Through Co-Creation, mentioned in the article, where we were also used as an example of co-creation.

We're excited by the challenge of taking SEW forward, and the prospect of the community having a greater role in this process. The industry is growing up and the site with it but we are still a community offering and want to make sure our plans stay in tune with what you, our readers, value.

I would also like to reiterate Chris Sherman remains Editor till the end of the year, but we do plan to make further editorial announcements during SES Chicago.

We would love to hear your feedback via e-mail - please use newera@searchenginewatch.com to send your thoughts on what SEW should focus on for the future, ranging from editorial influence to site usability, and beyond. We'd also love to hear your suggestions on thought leaders in the SEM community who you would like to see as columnists.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on December 1, 2006, 2:18 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Nov. 30, 2006

And now for my final post (thanks, Elisabeth!), 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...

  • November 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....
  • Google Ordered By Another North Carolina Court To Remove Pages
    Apparently, North Carolina is going to start a trend of people who get court orders to remove material Google has spidered when left out in public view. This week, Google was ordered to remove material by a court in that state. It follows a similar court order in a different case earlier this year....
  • End of an Era… Beginning of a New Chapter
    Today marks Danny Sullivan's last day at Search Engine Watch, 10 years after beginning the industry's leading publication for search engine news. Danny's undeniable passion, knowledge, and dedication to the growth of the search engine industry is well engrained within the archives of Search Engine Watch, and will carry on long after his departure....
  • How The Digg Editorial Process Differs From Search Engine Editorial Process
    Todd Malicoat has a write up called The Search Marketer's Guide to Digg, where he explains the difference between the Digg.com editorial process and search engines editorial process. It all comes down to the "human editorial authority," and I quote; While most the search engines DO have human intervention - they haven't accepted and embraced it. One of the beauties of digg is if there is CRAP in the index - you know exactly who to blame for it. As always, both human and algorithmic methods of intervention have their faults. I am sure Danny will go into a...
  • Yahoo Turns Down Google's Request For Information On Book Search
    The NY Times reports that Yahoo has recently rejected Google's subpoena for help with the Google Book Search project legal woes. Reportedly, Yahoo turned down Google's request for similar reasons mentioned by Amazon when they turned down the same request. If you are interested, I have posted the full court filing at my server as a PDF download....
  • Microsoft On How To Let MSNBot In, Keep Bad Bots Out
    The Live Search Blog described how you can verify if the MSNBot you see crawling your site, is truly the MSNBot from Microsoft or some rogue spider trying to steal your content. Microsoft has added a way to look up the reverse DNS information for the IP of the bot and described what you should see, to ensure that it is the official MSNBot, if it is not, then you may want to block it or report it to Microsoft. A step by step guide is at the Live Search Blog. What about Googlebot? We covered that here....
  • Goodbye Search Engine Watch & Best Wishes!
    Today is my last day with Search Engine Watch, with me heading to my new digs at Search Engine Land tomorrow. I wanted to wish Search Engine Watch all the best going forward, plus help readers understand some of the changes that are happening. To do that best, I thought I'd go all the way back to the beginning, to the birth of Search Engine Watch....
  • Optimizing Search for the Visually Impaired
    Those of us with good eyesight often don't give much thought to the challenges visually impaired users face in reading, much less searching for, content on the web. However, there are some straightforward techniques that can improve usability for these users. And Google has developed an accessible search interface that also helps vision-impaired users. More on the merits and importance of accessibility in today's SearchDay article, Making Search Accessible to Visually Impaired Users....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

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Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 30, 2006, 2:32 PM | Permalink


November 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 November 30, 2006, 2:27 PM | Permalink


Google Ordered By Another North Carolina Court To Remove Pages

Apparently, North Carolina is going to start a trend of people who get court orders to remove material Google has spidered when left out in public view. This week, Google was ordered to remove material by a court in that state. It follows a similar court order in a different case earlier this year.

North Carolina County Gets Restraining Order Against Google from the Associated Press covers how social security numbers, cell phone numbers and other personal information was left online by Johnston County, which means Google (and likely other search engines) spidered the material.

When the country realized this, they sought to have it removed. However, they were told it might take up to five days to remove, prompting the county to go the legal route:

Fearing the possibility of identity theft, Johnston County officials asked Google on Monday to remove the information. It was first posted on the county's Web site by accident six weeks ago and discovered Friday. Mountain View, Calif.-based Google responded that removal could take up to about five days, said county attorney Mark Payne.

"It surprised me that Google didn't immediately recognize that this was something that posed a real danger of real damage to our citizens," Payne said.

Hey, it surprised me that Johnston County didn't immediately recognize that the information shouldn't have been put on the public web in the first place. However, that appears to have happened because of a third party contractor.

What about the automatic URL removal system? I seem to recall that as getting pages out in 48 hours or less (but I might be remembering incorrectly). Checking today, officially it is longer (unofficially, I hear it goes faster):

You may process your URL for removal from Google's search results. URLs will be removed after we've verified your request. Bear in mind that verification can take several days or longer and all pages submitted via the automatic URL removal system will be removed from the Google index temporarily for six months.

Google Blamed For Indexing Student Test Scores & Social Security Numbers and Follow-Up: School Couldn't Reach Google Until Injunction Filed cover how a school authority in North Carolina went to the courts to remove pages from Google in June.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 30, 2006, 1:06 PM | Permalink


End of an Era… Beginning of a New Chapter

Today marks Danny Sullivan's last day at Search Engine Watch, 10 years after beginning the industry's leading publication for search engine news. Danny's undeniable passion, knowledge, and dedication to the growth of the search engine industry is well ingrained within the archives of Search Engine Watch, and will carry on long after his departure.

Danny Sullivan will continue to organize and host several major Search Engine Strategies events for Incisive Media within the upcoming year, including next week's SES Chicago, SES NYC in April, and SES San Jose in August 2007. Chris Sherman, Danny's ‘partner in search crime', will gradually take over Danny's programming work and remains Search Engine Watch Editor until the end of the year.

Danny's final Search Engine Report for Search Engine Watch will be published on December 1. Danny's new editorial venture, Search Engine Land, will launch shortly. In our opinion, we are happy to see any and all enterprises that raise the profile of this growing industry & wish him the best in his new venture.

At Search Engine Watch, our commitment to the search marketing community remains strong, with continued in-depth coverage of search engine technology, search marketing products, industry events and happenings, related news and community discussion. While the underlying mission of Search Engine Watch remains the same, there will be some exciting changes in the coming weeks and months, including the creation of a new reporting staff, bringing fresh perspectives from various search analysts, as well as upgrade in site usability and functionality.

Head over to the Search Engine Watch Forums to share your thoughts, well wishes for Danny Sullivan and support for the remaining SEW staff.

Stay tuned for what's next at Search Engine Watch, and expect some additional announcements during the SES Chicago conference next week, and shortly thereafter.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on November 30, 2006, 10:58 AM | Permalink


How The Digg Editorial Process Differs From Search Engine Editorial Process

Todd Malicoat has a write up called The Search Marketer's Guide to Digg, where he explains the difference between the Digg.com editorial process and search engines editorial process. It all comes down to the "human editorial authority," and I quote;

While most the search engines DO have human intervention - they haven't accepted and embraced it. One of the beauties of digg is if there is CRAP in the index - you know exactly who to blame for it.

As always, both human and algorithmic methods of intervention have their faults. I am sure Danny will go into a bigger write up on the pros and cons of each at a later point.

Postscript From Danny: I may write-up more on this in the future, and I talked about it on a recent Daily SearchCast episode. The short story is that it's been amazing to watch Digg effectively go through the same type of spam fighting evolution that the search engines have done.

Consider from Digg:

Digg is a user driven social content website. Ok, so what the heck does that mean? Well, everything on digg is submitted by the digg user community (that would be you). After you submit content, other digg users read your submission and digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of digg visitors to see.

The overall idea is that the community does everything. In reality, there is a lot of backend editing and changes done by moderators. That's because the community, if left to itself, will have a small number of people who try to manipulate Digg for their own benefit.

It's an old story. Consider from Google:

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

Except it's far more complicated than that. Links have to be weighted, not trusted and entire sites removed because of spam and manipulation.

Both Digg and Google (and the search engines before it) started out in what I'd call "trusted mode," where you are optimistic that a community (people submitting; a collection of pages) can be trusted. Along the way, they shift to "mistrust mode" where you realize you need to be initially dubious about everything that flows in.

If I had more time, I'd go through and do a long compare-and-contrast on how recent Digg changes have exact counterparts in the crawler-based search engine world. Honestly, there are times when I could do a search and replace for the word Google to the word Digg in an article on spam fighting and the description would be the same.

The answer, by the way, is simple. Machines that the search engines depend on are imperfect (in particular, rankings can be manipulated more broadly), as is the human model Digg uses (in particular, humans can miss a lot of things). The combination of the two is much stronger. Some more thoughts on this from me:

And here are a bunch of related stories from across the web that we've included in our headlines recently:

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 30, 2006, 9:19 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Turns Down Google's Request For Information On Book Search

The NY Times reports that Yahoo has recently rejected Google's subpoena for help with the Google Book Search project legal woes. Reportedly, Yahoo turned down Google's request for similar reasons mentioned by Amazon when they turned down the same request. If you are interested, I have posted the full court filing at my server as a PDF download.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 30, 2006, 9:11 AM | Permalink


Microsoft On How To Let MSNBot In, Keep Bad Bots Out

The Live Search Blog described how you can verify if the MSNBot you see crawling your site, is truly the MSNBot from Microsoft or some rogue spider trying to steal your content. Microsoft has added a way to look up the reverse DNS information for the IP of the bot and described what you should see, to ensure that it is the official MSNBot, if it is not, then you may want to block it or report it to Microsoft. A step by step guide is at the Live Search Blog.

What about Googlebot? We covered that here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 30, 2006, 9:01 AM | Permalink


Goodbye Search Engine Watch & Best Wishes!

Search Engine Watch Launch, June 9, 1997

Today is my last day with Search Engine Watch, with me heading to my new digs at Search Engine Land tomorrow. I wanted to wish Search Engine Watch all the best going forward, plus help readers understand some of the changes that are happening. To do that best, I thought I'd go all the way back to the beginning, to the birth of Search Engine Watch.

In case you missed it, My Decade Of Writing About Search Engines from earlier this year covers how I got into reporting on search engines in the first place. Information posted as part of my web development work in 1996 expanded and relaunched as Search Engine Watch on June 9, 1997 (that's it in the image above). It rapidly drew more attention and traffic, in no small part due to Eric Ward's fantastic way of getting news around.

Later that year, I was approached by Meckermedia (then renamed Internet.com, INT Media and Jupitermedia) about buying the site. I decided to sell to them on November 19, 1997. It meant the site could grow and I could stay firmly focused on the editorial development, which is my passion. I stayed on, contracted to be editor.

Two years later, the first companion conference to the site was held, Search Engine Strategies in San Francisco on November 18, 1999. I produced the content for that event as a contractor and have since continued to produce the major shows in the US, as the series has grown.

Last year, both the site and the conference series were sold to the current owner, Incisive Media. For 2007, we didn't agree on contract renewal terms, which resulted in me last August announcing my departure from both SEW and SES.

I'm happy to say that further talks resulted in me staying on to do SES show in the US in 2007. I will chair the SES New York 2007 event, then cochair the San Jose show and take part in Chicago at the end of 2007 as a speaker and moderator.

Search Engine Watch was a different matter. I felt it was better for me to go off on my own, which is what I'm going to do. In some ways, I'm leaving my baby behind. But the baby's pretty grown up now!

I joked with my managing editor Elisabeth Osmeloski that I'll likely become one of the top traffic referral sources to Search Engine Watch, since I'll be mentioning stories I've done in the past over here. But it won't be only past stories that I'll be referring to. If there's good content on Search Engine Watch, I'll be mentioning it and talking about it, just as I've always done for any web site even if it might have been seen as a competitor to SEW by some.

As I said earlier this year:

Whatever I do, I've tried to make it a hallmark to always to be inclusive of content, people, web sites or organizations that will help my readers, even if I might technically be competing with them. Whatever I end up doing, you can expect I'll still be pointing at Search Engine Watch as appropriate and wish those that remain a part of it the very best.

That remains the case!

My goodbye is less tearful because writers I've worked with day-in and day-out are joining me at Search Engine Land. Barry Schwartz (he told me to say goodbye to everyone), Phil Bradley (despite having a name that doesn't end in S), Bill Slawski, Jennifer Slegg, Brian Smith and Greg Sterling will be writing with me from December. Chris Sherman joins us in January. I'm naturally thrilled to continue working with them.

Elisabeth, who I mentioned already, stays on here at Search Engine Watch as managing editor and is working on plans with Incisive to take the site into its new life without me at the helm, a new generation for Search Engine Watch. She'll be along later with a post of her own on this.

I am saying a sad goodbye to my days administrating and moderating the Search Engine Watch Forums. In just over two years, an incredible community has sprung up over there, with nearly 15,000 members.

Earlier this week, I said a private goodbye and thank you to the hard-working moderators that have nurtured the community over this time. I'll share part of that to underscore what I said earlier about being inclusive:

I have absolutely no intention of going over to the new place with any type of "us versus them" type of attitude. I've always tried to be inclusive of good content and communities regardless if they might be seen as competitive to SEW. At SEL, I plan to continue the same. If there are good discussions here, I'm going to be pointing at them. If there are good opportunities for the mods with SEW, I honestly want the best for you. By no means do I want anyone thinking that staying on here, or perhaps doing other things with SEW, is somehow something I won't like or perhaps "disloyal" in any way. I don't know if anyone was even thinking like that -- but if so, don't!

That's pretty much it. I'm going to finish my last day doing a bit of blogging, do my last monthly newsletter, then I'm giving Elisabeth a virtual hug and dropping my keys off at the virtual door.

Any comments, please feel free to add them to this thread at the Search Engine Watch Forums, Best Wishes, Search Engine Watch!

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 30, 2006, 8:30 AM | Permalink


Optimizing Search for the Visually Impaired

Those of us with good eyesight often don't give much thought to the challenges visually impaired users face in reading, much less searching for, content on the web. However, there are some straightforward techniques that can improve usability for these users. And Google has developed an accessible search interface that also helps vision-impaired users. More on the merits and importance of accessibility in today's SearchDay article, Making Search Accessible to Visually Impaired Users.

Posted by Chris Sherman on November 30, 2006, 2:02 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Nov. 29, 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...

  • IAC To Launch AskCity; Local Info Services Site
    Reuters reports that IAC and Ask.com are launching a new local information services site named AskCity on December 4th. The site will combine IAC's portfolio of Ask.com, CitySearch, Evite and TicketMaster by providing information and services such as Web search, city guides, maps and event listings....
  • Name That Search Marketer Game
    David Wallace at SearchRank.com has a game; SEO/SEM Trivia - How Well Do You Know It's Stars? Basically, he took pictures of well-known SEMs and SEOs and blacked out some features from the pictures. He then asked you to name the person in each picture. I know all but one, I won't say whom. I will give you a hint, I am not in any of those pictures, but I did take one of those pictures....
  • Alexa Ain't So Bad, Says Site Search Comparison
    Alexa has come under plenty of fire recently as not being accurate (old hands have known better for years), as more and more people are using it to "prove" how hot their sites are. Sean Ryan at SLI Systems says lay off the Alexa bashing! SLI provides search services for a variety of web sites. Sean plotted the amount of searches he sees against the relative Alexa traffic rankings of some sites and found there was a correspondence. If you were a high traffic Alexa site, you also had a lot of site searches. Interesting, but I'm afraid it won't...
  • A Superbowl Marriage Proposal?
    Joe Morin thinks he's got the next Million Dollar Home page mixed with romance going. To wit: someone named JP (to stay secret from his girlfriend) wants to make his wedding proposal in a TV commercial during next year's SuperBowl. Joe's hoping that somehow, search and interactive marketers can make it happen. Joe's post with details is here; the proposal site itself is here. Since the ads are all sold already, it's not a matter of raising money now but buzz to perhaps get JP linked up with an existing advertiser that might want to feature him. Good luck, JP...
  • Goodbye Google Answers
    Wow. Google is shutting down its Google Answers service. The company has announced that new questions won't be accepted after the New Year, though the site will continue to let people view the question archives. Killing off the service, which never seemed to catch on much, certainly will help Google seem like it is focusing efforts toward more needed areas. But it still feels like an odd, almost surrendering move in the face of Yahoo Answers being such a success....
  • Google Audio Ads Sign-Up Page Live
    Google Audio Ads now appears to be opening to sign-ups, sort of. Googlaxy.com sent me a heads-up about three new URLS that are (somewhat) active:...

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 29, 2006, 2:15 PM | Permalink


IAC To Launch AskCity; Local Info Services Site

Reuters reports that IAC and Ask.com are launching a new local information services site named AskCity on December 4th. The site will combine IAC's portfolio of Ask.com, CitySearch, Evite and TicketMaster by providing information and services such as Web search, city guides, maps and event listings.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 29, 2006, 8:24 AM | Permalink


Name That Search Marketer Game

se-rank-watch
David Wallace at SearchRank.com has a game; SEO/SEM Trivia - How Well Do You Know It's Stars? Basically, he took pictures of well-known SEMs and SEOs and blacked out some features from the pictures. He then asked you to name the person in each picture. I know all but one, I won't say whom. I will give you a hint, I am not in any of those pictures, but I did take one of those pictures.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 29, 2006, 8:13 AM | Permalink


Alexa Ain't So Bad, Says Site Search Comparison

Alexa has come under plenty of fire recently as not being accurate (old hands have known better for years), as more and more people are using it to "prove" how hot their sites are. Sean Ryan at SLI Systems says lay off the Alexa bashing! SLI provides search services for a variety of web sites. Sean plotted the amount of searches he sees against the relative Alexa traffic rankings of some sites and found there was a correspondence. If you were a high traffic Alexa site, you also had a lot of site searches. Interesting, but I'm afraid it won't make a believer out of me.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 29, 2006, 8:06 AM | Permalink


A Superbowl Marriage Proposal?

Joe Morin thinks he's got the next Million Dollar Home page mixed with romance going. To wit: someone named JP (to stay secret from his girlfriend) wants to make his wedding proposal in a TV commercial during next year's SuperBowl. Joe's hoping that somehow, search and interactive marketers can make it happen. Joe's post with details is here; the proposal site itself is here. Since the ads are all sold already, it's not a matter of raising money now but buzz to perhaps get JP linked up with an existing advertiser that might want to feature him. Good luck, JP -- and she'd better say yes!

I'll throw out a consolation prize that I know search marketers can do. Let's link over to the site with the words "will you" - like this: will you. Perhaps some link love will mean that JP can sit his girlfriend down in front of a computer and have her type that into Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask to find his site ranking tops. And if he sees it getting there, just change the title tag to read something like "Marry Me [INSERT GIRLFRIEND'S NAME]," and that's not a bad way to propose at all. Kind of how Barry did just over a year ago with Ask -- but this time without the search engine having to make it happen.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 29, 2006, 7:01 AM | Permalink


Goodbye Google Answers

answers.png

Wow. Google is shutting down its Google Answers service. The company has announced that new questions won't be accepted after the New Year, though the site will continue to let people view the question archives. Killing off the service, which never seemed to catch on much, certainly will help Google seem like it is focusing efforts toward more needed areas. But it still feels like an odd, almost surrendering move in the face of Yahoo Answers being such a success.

Back in April, I did a long roundup on how answering services in general had never really caught on in terms of popularity. It covered how Google's nearly four year old service generated practically no traffic for Google, plus looked at similar services that came and went.

But in June, I had to admit that my being dubious in terms of Yahoo Answers was off the mark. The service kept notching up tons of traffic, and Yahoo continues to put its weight behind it, to the point of even more integration last week of Yahoo Answers material into regular results.

Look Out Wikipedia, Here Comes Yahoo Answers! from me is my long look at the service and some of the factors in its success. Unlike Google Answers, it doesn't charge. And unlike Google Answers, there are a lot of "answers" that are more discussions happening rather than searches being fulfilled.

Even if there's a lot of chatting going on, I think there's no denying that Yahoo Answers turned into the social success that Yahoo hoped its 360 service or My Web would be. There's a entire active community taking part in Yahoo Answers, and some of those are going to translate into Yahoo searchers.

That action's not lost on Microsoft, which kicked off its Windows Live QnA service in August. I haven't seen a ton of buzz like with Yahoo coming out of it, so maybe lighting only strikes once, in this case. I'm sure Hitwise will run some stats for everyone later today to update us on the space, so watch the blog over there (note: numbers now up). But you can't help but feel Google may have missed out on what Yahoo managed to tap into.

Then again, killing off Google Answers might ultimately be a way for Google to relaunch with something fresh and radically different. We'll see. Killing it off remains far better than leaving things like Google Voice Search still up with a note to "check back in a little while," when it hasn't run for years. I suspect we'll see Google Catalogs get retired as well -- the last Ikea catalog over there seem to be from 2002. I'd say retiring experiments and services that haven't caught on is less embarrassing than leaving them out there doing badly, so Google making the right choice.

Postscript: Gary Price reminds me that Marissa Mayer of Google said not too long ago that 60 to 80 percent of Google products may "crash and burn," so at least Google can say they already said this might happen :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 29, 2006, 5:08 AM | Permalink


Google Audio Ads Sign-Up Page Live

Google Audio Ads now appears to be opening to sign-ups, sort of. Googlaxy.com sent me a heads-up about three new URLS that are (somewhat) active:

I can't get the overview page to load, at the moment. The sign-up page takes you to a page that says "Create a Google Account - Audio Ads" at the top. These seems designed for those who don't already have some type of account with Google.

Since I do have a Google Account, I followed the sign-in link rather than try to create a new account. This sent me back to the Google Audio Ads home page, which -- of course -- wasn't loading.

However, if I went to my main Google Accounts page, then in the My Services section, I could see Audio Ads having been added. Clicking on that link took me -- yes, back to the non-functional Google Audio Ads home page.

Others might have more luck -- perhaps this is just rolling out. Information for advertisers already leaked out earlier today. Or possibly, someone's stumbled onto the sign-up that's only open (and working) for preapproved account holders.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 28, 2006, 11:13 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Nov. 28, 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...

  • Advertiser Details On Google Audio Ads
    Donna Bogatin over at Digital Micro-Markets has posted what look to be PowerPoint slides designed to explain how Google Audio Ads will work for advertisers. The PowerPoint slides show how Google plans to bridge the advertisers with the consumers, how they deliver the ads to the radio and how many people Google thinks they can reach with the ads. As we reported earlier, we are expecting Google Audio Ads To Be Tested By End Of Year....
  • Google Quality Raters Leaving Traces When They Visit Sites
    This morning I reported at SER that Google's EWOQ Search Referral String are being found in webmasters web analytics tools. For example, some people are recently noticing the URL https://www.google.com/evaluation/search/rating/task-edit?task=XXXXXX coming up in their referrals analytics. When I try to go to that URL, it tells me I do not have sufficient privileges to access that area. This EWOQ is the place for Google quality raters to leave feedback to Google on relevancy and search quality of the results....
  • Linkbombing Against Anti-Martin Luther King Jr Site
    In case you missed it, there's a new link bombing campaign underway to try and reduce the rankings of an anti-Martin Luther King Jr. web site. The campaign raises all sorts of issues, ranging from those who disagree with the nature of that site and want it gone to those who might want all viewpoints represented in results, even if they disagree with them. Dropping Google Bombs Against Hate from Nicholas Carlson at InternetNews.com is a good overview of the situation with quotes from the major search engines. Doing down Martin Luther King from Phil Bradley gets into the issue...
  • Live's Erik Selberg On Microsoft's Tough Search Challenge
    Talk about the echo chamber coming full circle. The stats on Microsoft's search share decline that I posted last week were commented on by Erik Selberg of Microsoft's Live.com search team in his General disarray at The Big 3 post. He provides a fresh, honest assessment of Microsoft's search challenge ahead from someone in the rank-and-file:...
  • Ask.com Challenges You To Stop The Fat Naked Man From Dancing
    Phil Bradley spotted an ad in the London Metro today, asking you to take the Ask.com Challenge and win prizes by searching. ChallengeAsk.com has more details. There's a YouTube video with a fat, hairy man doing a striptease (also shown above, if you don't want to click over). The joke challenge is to stop Sam (the man in the video) from dancing by searching at Ask.com. The real challenge is that by searching, you can win prizes if you get a congratulations message appearing in your search results....
  • Google: Not TV Network But TV Adjunct
    Via Threadwatch, a transcript of a conversation between ABC reporter Alan Kohler and Richard Kimber, managing director of sales and operations for South East Asia of Google. In the conversation, Kohler asks: "But do you see Google eventually becoming a sort of a free-pay TV network, showing, effectively, TV channels on Google?" Kimber responds that at Google, "we don't see it as cannibalising the TV, but more as an adjunct to it." So services like Google will provide will enable on-demand viewing, as an "adjunct" to TV viewing....
  • Google Tells Mobile Internet Providers To Stop Blocking Them
    ZDNet reports that Google's Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, spoke at Oxford University and said mobile operators are trying to block Google's applications, specifically Google's Mobile Maps. "We've been getting notes from some of the telco carriers who are saying 'look, you need to stop our customers from downloading this thing'."...
  • Yahoo China's President Xie Wen Resigns After Six Weeks
    PC Advisor reports that Xie Wen, president of Yahoo China, has resigned after only six weeks on the job. Zeng Ming, senior vice-president of Alibaba, will replace Xie, who is resigning for "personal reasons." Xie will stay on as a consultant for Yahoo for an undisclosed time period. This follows on Google China's president apparently announcing he would be resigning earlier this month, though I can't find a more detailed story about that....
  • Exalead CEO Warns Of "Google Monster" & Closed Yahoo & Microsoft
    The Multilingual Search Blog covers Exalead CEO Francois Bourdoncle taking a big stick and swinging at Google in a keynote talk at SES Paris. He positions his own service as potentially the savior for those in Europe worried about the "Google monster." Beyond Google, he also criticizes Yahoo and Microsoft for collaborating on a "closed" sitemaps protocol. I'd say the Cold War against American-based search engines is going up a notch....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 28, 2006, 2:07 PM | Permalink


Advertiser Details On Google Audio Ads

Donna Bogatin over at Digital Micro-Markets has posted what look to be PowerPoint slides designed to explain how Google Audio Ads will work for advertisers. The PowerPoint slides show how Google plans to bridge the advertisers with the consumers, how they deliver the ads to the radio and how many people Google thinks they can reach with the ads. As we reported earlier, we are expecting Google Audio Ads To Be Tested By End Of Year.

How does Google deliver radio ads?

Step 1) Station inventory management system and studio log.

Step 2) Google links electronically with stations to search for inventory that fits advertiser criteria.

Step 3) Inventory is paired with advertiser requests.

Step 4) Google delivers automated order to radio station and reserves inventory.

Google Audio's Current Footprint:

* 800+ stations
* 4200 stations targeted
* Coverage in 19 of the top 25 markets

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 28, 2006, 10:34 AM | Permalink


Google Quality Raters Leaving Traces When They Visit Sites

This morning I reported at SER that Google's EWOQ Search Referral String are being found in webmasters web analytics tools. For example, some people are recently noticing the URL https://www.google.com/evaluation/search/rating/task-edit?task=XXXXXX coming up in their referrals analytics. When I try to go to that URL, it tells me I do not have sufficient privileges to access that area. This EWOQ is the place for Google quality raters to leave feedback to Google on relevancy and search quality of the results.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 28, 2006, 10:27 AM | Permalink


Linkbombing Against Anti-Martin Luther King Jr Site

In case you missed it, there's a new link bombing campaign underway to try and reduce the rankings of an anti-Martin Luther King Jr. web site. The campaign raises all sorts of issues, ranging from those who disagree with the nature of that site and want it gone to those who might want all viewpoints represented in results, even if they disagree with them. Dropping Google Bombs Against Hate from Nicholas Carlson at InternetNews.com is a good overview of the situation with quotes from the major search engines. Doing down Martin Luther King from Phil Bradley gets into the issue of whether a campaign is bad despite the good intentions. Threatening librarians is a follow up from him on how failure to change some links might get a site entered into the "Skinhead Enablers Hall Of Shame." Do your campaign, hope people join with it -- but threatening librarians that fail to link the way you want that they'll be skinheads? That's overboard.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 28, 2006, 9:31 AM | Permalink


Live's Erik Selberg On Microsoft's Tough Search Challenge

Live Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Talk about the echo chamber coming full circle. The stats on Microsoft's search share decline that I posted last week were commented on by Erik Selberg of Microsoft's Live.com search team in his General disarray at The Big 3 post. He provides a fresh, honest assessment of Microsoft's search challenge ahead from someone in the rank-and-file:

Microsoft will continue to lose share until it can make Live.com something people chose versus just the IE default. That will happen when the average person starts to see Live.com as a bit better than Google. Right now, Google wins on brand (people like them a lot) and quality, so it's to be expected that existing Yahoo / Live customers will migrate to Google than vice-versa and new customers will pick Google more than Live or Yahoo.

If that sounds dismal, it gets worse:

Google is making people focus on features, which should tell people that they're worried about how we're catching up, and are going to put more people on their core products to keep and extend their lead. So it's going to be a tough, tough battle for Microsoft to get there

And how long a battle? We've had Microsoft execs say it would take months to overtake Google in quality to years, with the spin that we're still in the early days. Erik's in the realistic years camp:

While our management set the goal of having relevance that beat Google after 2 years (then 3, and I believe 4 now…) it's not realistic to think that it can be done quickly. If you ask Google, Yahoo, or the fine SEOs at WebMasterWorld or other such places, they'll all say that Live Search has increased in quality over the years so that it's much closer to Yahoo and Google. Not yet better, but no longer laughable. And yeah, we've done our own share of copying feature parity, and we're starting to do a few things that cause Google and Yahoo to do the same (ok, noODP is a small feature, but it's a start!).

How about some optimism? Erik sees Google's stability working against it in some ways, making it stagnant (see my Why Search Sucks & You Won't Fix It The Way You Think post for more on that concept). Potentially, this is true. But realistically, I think the fact that Google has changed slowly is reassuring to the searching audience.

Microsoft has changed four or five times in radical ways over the past two years, including an entire brand change. The last service to change so much like this was AltaVista, which I joked could give Madonna a run for her money in the image change department. None of those changes helped AltaVista. For Microsoft, I think it would actually benefit from really locking down the overall look-and-feel for an extended period. The good news is, I suspect that's actually going to be the case. New features seem likely to be added, but yet another redesign doesn't seem in the works.

I actually think Google's weakness is the same as the weakness Erik sees with Yahoo:

Yahoo is just in a rough place. They've got Google dominating, and they've got us coming up from behind. So they're trying to do everything to avoid getting squeezed everywhere… and the result is too many people doing too many things in a mediocre way (the buzz-speak is “not enough critical mass in several areas”). Nothing surprising here either.

On the upside for Google and Yahoo lovers, both companies themselves understand this. The now famous Yahoo "Peanut Butter" memo covers some at Yahoo internally understanding the issue, while in October, it came out that Google was supposedly refocusing on core product and cutting new releases -- and that all the frenetic activity had been hurting core search there.

Fully recognizing the challenge ahead, Erik's still optimistic

Hopefully the chaos that starts out with a new Senior VP turns into increased efficiency sooner versus later. I know I'm working as hard as I can to make this happen sooner versus later, but nevertheless, it's gonna be a stand-up fight against someone who has reach over us. Time to be smart.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 28, 2006, 9:18 AM | Permalink


Ask.com Challenges You To Stop The Fat Naked Man From Dancing

Phil Bradley spotted an ad in the London Metro today, asking you to take the Ask.com Challenge and win prizes by searching. ChallengeAsk.com has more details.

There's a YouTube video with a fat, hairy man doing a striptease (also shown above, if you don't want to click over). The joke challenge is to stop Sam (the man in the video) from dancing by searching at Ask.com.

The real challenge is that by searching, you can win prizes if you get a congratulations message appearing in your search results.

Smart Answers for this contest include; ask challenge and stop sam.

Ask.com is not the first to give out prizes or money for searching, Microsoft has done it (and see here), as have others like Blingo and recently, Zotspot.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 28, 2006, 8:36 AM | Permalink


Google: Not TV Network But TV Adjunct

Via Threadwatch, a transcript of a conversation between ABC reporter Alan Kohler and Richard Kimber, managing director of sales and operations for South East Asia of Google. In the conversation, Kohler asks: "But do you see Google eventually becoming a sort of a free-pay TV network, showing, effectively, TV channels on Google?" Kimber responds that at Google, "we don't see it as cannibalising the TV, but more as an adjunct to it." So services like Google will provide will enable on-demand viewing, as an "adjunct" to TV viewing.

Here is the quote pulled out of the transcript:

ALAN KOHLER: But do you see Google eventually becoming a sort of a free-pay TV network, showing, effectively, TV channels on Google?
RICHARD KIMBER: There could be that sort of evolution. I think really what will happen is that the media lends itself to short bursts of content, so rather than being a full TV channel it generally will be used for teasers. Typically, people are watching shorter clips and then they will still go to TV to watch the full show. We're seeing that in the US, with shows like the Letterman Show using it as a way of promoting activity on the TV channel. So for us we don't see it as cannibalising the TV, but more as an adjunct to it.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 28, 2006, 8:26 AM | Permalink


Google Tells Mobile Internet Providers To Stop Blocking Them

ZDNet reports that Google's Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, spoke at Oxford University and said mobile operators are trying to block Google's applications, specifically Google's Mobile Maps.

"We've been getting notes from some of the telco carriers who are saying 'look, you need to stop our customers from downloading this thing'."

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 28, 2006, 8:09 AM | Permalink


Yahoo China's President Xie Wen Resigns After Six Weeks

PC Advisor reports that Xie Wen, president of Yahoo China, has resigned after only six weeks on the job. Zeng Ming, senior vice-president of Alibaba, will replace Xie, who is resigning for "personal reasons." Xie will stay on as a consultant for Yahoo for an undisclosed time period. This follows on Google China's president apparently announcing he would be resigning earlier this month, though I can't find a more detailed story about that.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 28, 2006, 8:00 AM | Permalink


Exalead CEO Warns Of "Google Monster" & Closed Yahoo & Microsoft

The Multilingual Search Blog covers Exalead CEO Francois Bourdoncle taking a big stick and swinging at Google in a keynote talk at SES Paris. He positions his own service as potentially the savior for those in Europe worried about the "Google monster." Beyond Google, he also criticizes Yahoo and Microsoft for collaborating on a "closed" sitemaps protocol. I'd say the Cold War against American-based search engines is going up a notch.

Let's deal with the Google Monster idea first:

The press in particular should be worried about becoming sub-contractors of Google, he said. Whilst at present Google News brings plenty of traffic to sites under the brand names of the press outlets, this would change to Google's brand in the future.

Actually, Google News has always operated under the Google brand. So much for that secret Google master plan, I guess. In fact, despite using the Google brand, I just covered some stats yesterday showing how Google sends upwards of 22 percent of traffic to newspapers sites.

Of course, Bourdoncle may have meant that in the future, Google will actually host content on Google itself, saving people from making a click through to news sites. Possible. And if so, ironically the newspapers may have themselves to blame. Go back to my write-up about the AP deal with Google. How exactly Google will make more use of AP content remains to be seen. But I explained that there's good reason that Google might host AP content on Google itself, similar to what Topix does.

Google's largely seen to have cut the AP deal in part because the AP may have been threatening legal action. Do a deal, the issue over spidering goes away -- and Google can host news content on its own site. As more companies clamor for deals (such as in Belgium this week), Google might transform into a content hosting service rather than pointing to content elsewhere.

By the way, Yahoo News already operates this way, hosting plenty of news content of its own. So even if Google goes that route, why haven't news organizations been complaining about the Yahoo monster? My guess would be that once you cut deals to host content, you seem less monstrous. And that works again against what Bourdoncle warns. If Google does host content, the news organization should be happy given they will have done the partnering to make that happen.

Bourdoncle isn't the only search engine to swing a torch around to rally the villagers against the Frankenstein's monster of Google. Microsoft just did this last month. CEO Steve Ballmer positioned Google as "transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders." Microsoft, of course, does much of the crawling and content gathering that Google does. It's hard to see how it is somehow more altruistic.

Such statements make good headlines, and I'd say they're going to play even better in Europe, which has watched the search industry rise into generating billions of dollars for America, rather than euros for Europe. There are also some serious cultural and political issues to consider. Many people may simply be more comfortable using a service that grew natively from their own country. I don't discount these worries and have great respect for them. I just dislike much of the scare mongering I also see that often feels like politicians and private companies hoping to position their own agendas, rather than a common good.

Such worries are one reason the Quaero project emerged, a planned multimedia search engine that will get government funds. I've likened this to being a Boeing versus Airbus challenge in the search world -- and also covered how Europe has had no lack of native technology already that grew without government subsidies.

Exalead is part of the Quaero project, though I remain confused about how to find more about it and what exactly it is doing. There used to be a site here that brings up nothing but a logon page. I've also seen the Quaero.org site referred to as the home of the project. That's entirely in French and German, and my German remains pretty bad. But I'm pretty sure I don't even see the word Quaero mentioned there.

Anyway, it's long been on my list to catch-up on the project. Chris Sherman's out in France today, and I think he's actually planning to talk with Exalead about Quaero more. So stay tuned.

Finally, Google wasn't alone for criticism:

He also criticised the new sitemaps collaboration announced by Google, Yahoo and MSN at Pubcon in Las Vegas. He said, “The sitemaps specification is not nice and open and it not nice and closed”. He believes the initiative aims to close the door to new entrants to the market place.

Frankly, I disagree. Google's had a sitemaps system out for over a year. In that time, I heard not one word out of Exalead that it thought it made sense that this should be expanded to be supported by other search engines. Now Google, Yahoo and Microsoft agreed to a common specification. Exalead could jump into supporting that now, if they wanted. They could also produce a rival format, if they wanted (and what joy that would be). But instead, what they support is a single page-by-page submission feature. Criticizing a bulk submission feature of your rivals when you offer none of your own doesn't win points in my book.

Instead, I'd say the real issue is that Exalead didn't get to sit at the big table in working out the agreement along with the other three. That is unfortunate, just as I felt Ask should have been included as well. Exalead is an excellent search engine that deserves the attention of both searchers and the search engine industry alike -- as is Ask.

Not being included from the start was unfortunate, but forgivable, as long as we see a working group expand going forward. I'm all for that, though I don't want expansion to slow things down. It also makes sense that the market leaders -- the services with the most queries and thus the most attention from site owners -- are going to take the lead in these things.

Postscript: Quest for a Euro-Google from the BBC earlier this year provides a longer look at Quaero and Exalead's involvement.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 28, 2006, 7:23 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Nov. 27, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today and since last Wednesday to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately. Note that the recap of our stories and headlines around the web are longer than normal due to us being largely off over the Thanksgiving holiday. There was a lot of catch-up to do!

From The SEW Blog...

  • Q&A On Google's Belgium News Agreements
    This week, news emerged about an agreement between Google and two Belgian author groups that were suing it over copyright issues. Below, a short Q&A on what this means for Google. Highlights: The case goes on with three other groups taking part, but large damages seem unlikely. The new deal gives especially seems to give Google photo rights. Google says it is not doing an about-face on opt-out in Denmark. More about these an other issues covered below, based on a talk with Google spokesperson Jessica Powell. Plus, some bonus stats on how much traffic newspapers get from search engines....
  • Matt Cutts On Site Problems & Mistakes To Avoid
    Ever wonder what is going through the head of a Matt Cutts (Googler) while he is sitting on a site reviews panel reviewing sites? Matt Cutts posted his detailed notes of the panel he did in Vegas at PubCon. He explains some on site problems and mistakes a webmaster should avoid. It is worth a read, because Matt totally kicked my coverage of that session....
  • The Complete Google Master Plan
    Google Operating Systems located and posted the Full Google Master Plan 1.0. Remember about a month and a half ago, the Google Master Plan was erased? Well, according to Google OS, said it was erased because it was getting a bit "crufty." The image was taken by Chris diBona, here it is:...
  • Search Forums Roundup: Nov. 27, 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: Hack Your Competition Out of Organic Search - MSN And Yahoo Join Google With Sitemaps - How Local Search And SEM Relates - What to Look for When Purchasing Links? - What Tools Does An SEO Guru Use? and more....
  • Google Settles With Some Belgian Publishers Over Belgium News Inclusion
    Via Techmeme, news that Google has settled with two Belgian publishing groups involved in a lawsuit against it over content included in Google News Belgium. This comes a day after Google's legal case was reheard in an appeal. The settlement, following what seems a similar settlement with AP earlier this year, seems to open the door that Google is going to continue making such appeasements rather than fight cases in court....
  • Google Sending Out AdSense Holiday Gifts
    It is that time of the year again. We have our first report of a Google Adsense holiday gift from WebmasterWorld. The gift appears to be a 3.6 inch TFT digital photo frame. No pictures of the frame yet, but I hope someone emails one to me....
  • Google Video France Sued For Copyright Infringement
    Reuters reports Google France was sued by Flach Film, a French film producer, for copyright infringement. They claim their video, "The World According to Bush," was published on Google Video France, and viewed more 50,000 times, before Google removed the video. The French film producer estimates $648,700 in prejudice but Google said "our terms and conditions specify that users (Internet surfers) don't have permission to use videos which they don't own the rights to." Google has put away $200M for copyright case legal issues with the YouTube acquisition....
  • Google To Go To Belgium Court Finally
    The AP reports that Google is finally going to show up in court to present their side of the case in the Belgium copyright suit. Google has never showed up to fight the publishers and papers in Belgium the first time the case was heard....
  • Google Blog Results Search Creep
    Andy Boyd found Google testing blog search results at the bottom of the Google search results. He posted a screen capture here, as you can see, it is fairly similar to how they have integrated news archive results into Google search....
  • Yahoo Image Search Bug Showed Sex Images For Innocent Search
    Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, The Register reported that a search at Yahoo Images for franchise returned very offensive and disturbing images. I will not describe the images, but I saw them myself and as soon as I saw it, I emailed my contacts at Yahoo. Soon after the images were pulled from the search results. It seems to me that someone figured out a way to easily insert pornographic images into Yahoo images for a search term even with safe search on. The Register has blurred and censored screen captures of the first line of results....
  • Extended Indented Google Results Bug?
    Philipp Lenssen spotted listings with more than one indented results for a search on get fuzzy. The first two results were from comics.com and the two other indented results were from Yahoo News. All these results were under the first listing, so we had three indented results showing under the top listing. Typically, there is only one indented result and no more. I cannot replicate this, it seems like a weird bug that may have been fixed. Philipp has a screen capture of it in action....
  • Google Book Search Catches Victorian Plagiarists
    We tend to assume that plagiarism is a reasonably modern day phenomena but a fascinating article from Paul Collins "Dead Plagiarists Society" illustrates that is not always the case. In fact it would appear that Victorian authors stole work from earlier authors who in turn had stolen it from even earlier ones, and the article gives some nice examples of this. More importantly, it provides a fascinating use for Google Book Search, which I'd certainly not considered before, and it's actually a rather interesting experiment - take a partial sentence, plug it into book search and add words onto the...
  • SEM Certification & Training Courses
    The move toward offering certification and training in search marketing is accelerating. Here's a rundown on some new courses and developments I've heard of recently....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 27, 2006, 5:04 PM | Permalink


Q&A On Google's Belgium News Agreements

This week, news emerged about an agreement between Google and two Belgian author groups that were suing it over copyright issues. Below, a short Q&A on what this means for Google. Highlights: The case goes on with three other groups taking part, but large damages seem unlikely. The new deal gives especially seems to give Google photo rights. Google says it is not doing an about-face on opt-out in Denmark. More about these an other issues covered below, based on a talk with Google spokesperson Jessica Powell. Plus, some bonus stats on how much traffic newspapers get from search engines.

Q. The case was originally filed against Google by Copiepresse. What are the other groups that joined and when did they come on?

A. In mid-October, Sofam, Scam, SAJ  and Assucopie all joined the case after Google posted the Belgian court ruling in late September.

Q. Who remains as part of the case?

A. Copiepresse, SAJ and Assucopie.

Q. Has Google paid any fines in the case so far?

A. Despite rumors, Google reiterated again today that it has not been asked to pay any fines.

Q. If Google loses the case, will it have to pay any damages?

A. Google says it hasn't been asked to pay any fines.

Q. What do the new agreements with the author groups Sofam and Scam allow?

A. Sofam represents Belgian photographers while SCAM covers mainly audio/video content. Exact uses are being worked out. As with the AP deal, Google highlighted this as providing new uses rather than a solution to the legal challenges over spidering and thumbnail image use. "It's a way for us to use their content in new ways beyond what copyright law currently allows us without the permission of the authors," said Powell said.

Q. Was there a financial aspect to the agreement?

A. Google's not commenting. Google is definitely paying the Associated Press to use some of its content, as the AP itself has reported. However, the exact terms, mechanisms or amounts have never been disclosed. Google wouldn't get into specifics on the financial details on the two Belgian deals other than to say these were deals that will allow the search engine to use the content in new ways.

Q. Is Google talking with the other parties to the suit?

A. Google said it won't comment on discussions but that it's always open to dialogue.

Q. Did Google reverse course and go opt-in for Google News Denmark?

A. Google says it chose to only launch in Sweden and Norway and that going forward it is not planning on an opt-in model in Denmark or elsewhere. The reason, says Powell, is that the company believes Google News complies with copyright law. "If publishers don't want their websites to appear in search engines, robots.txt enables them to automatically prevent their content from being indexed. And we even go beyond that: if a newspaper doesn't want to be a part of Google News, they only need to ask, and we remove them."

Between The Lines Time

The use of news images is one of the touchiest areas for Google to deal with, as I covered more in my Search Engines, Permissions & Moving Forward In Copyright Battles article.

The Sofam deal might help solve some of Google's legal issues in Belgium. The group represents the rights of nearly 4,000 photographers in Belgium, Google said. Google did NOT say how this might translate into usage at Google News. However, potentially this means Google can have photos in Google News even from publication that it had to remove from Google Belgium by court order. The Sofam deal might provide legal cover there. Of course, if those publications are the only source of certain photos -- and they block use through systems like robots.txt -- that would still keep the content out of Google. I'm also following up more on this particular issue.

The deals do not restore access for Google to list textual news stories it finds. That means it has to remain hopeful that the legal case will go its way, if it wants to prevent some type of negotiations with the publishers that have opted-out.

If the case goes against Google, it doesn't appear to be facing in major damages. If these were to be levied, that should have happened when it lost the first time. Instead, the publishers will remain out of Google, making Google News Belgium less useful than it would be. However, they also deny themselves traffic from Google. Possibly Google might negotiate a payment-based system to include them. Equally possible, it might also decide to hold its ground and focus attention on other countries, to see if it can wait the publishers out.

If the case goes for Google, then it regain content that will help enhance Google News Belgium, unless those publisher decide to specifically block spidering, which Google would almost certainly honor.

Overall, the action in Belgium -- as with Denmark -- underscore that in smaller markets, Google (and other search engines) may come under increasing pressure to negotiate deals to list material. The players are fewer and have more power concentrated among them. Whether these will be lucrative deals remains to be seen. In smaller markets, Google might decide it's simply not worth figuring out some type of financial arrangement -- especially for Google News which carries no ads, so generates no direct revenue. That might bring about more non-financial arrangements where the publishers cooperate for the benefit of getting traffic and also being dealt with personally by Google, rather than impersonally through automated permissions systems like robots.txt

Traffic To Search Engines

As an aside, I got a request from another reporter trying to understand how much traffic newspapers get from search engines. My response:

There's no specific answer to this. It will vary from paper to paper. Places like the New York Times will likely get a lot, because they specifically work to generate search traffic. Papers such as those suing Google in Belgium are getting probably nil, since they were removed by court order from Google.

In general, surveys have found sites getting anywhere from 8 to 13 percent of traffic from search engines. That might not sound like much, but often the first visit leads to repeat visits.

I also included two people on my response who I thought might have some better stats. Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist for the New York Times Company, came back with this:

The one stat I can report is the NYT gets approximately 22% of its traffic from search engines. This number is very actively growing.

Bill Tancer, over at Hitwise, reported this:

Hitwise tracks 800,000 sites divided into 170 industry categories. One of those categories is our News & Media – Print category which covers Newspaper and Magazine websites (3,180 sites total). For the week ending 11/18/06 (based on our U.S. sample), Google was the #1 site sending traffic to the category at 13.66%, Search Engines as a whole were responsible for 22.44% of traffic for that same week.

That's a lot of traffic, however you slice it. There's no doubt things like Google News help build Google up as a company. But at the same time, Google News drives a ton of traffic to newspapers that are seeing the web as a new revenue source that might save them as print subscriptions dry up.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 27, 2006, 12:35 PM | Permalink


Matt Cutts On Site Problems & Mistakes To Avoid

Ever wonder what is going through the head of a Matt Cutts (Googler) while he is sitting on a site reviews panel reviewing sites? Matt Cutts posted his detailed notes of the panel he did in Vegas at PubCon. He explains some on site problems and mistakes a webmaster should avoid. It is worth a read, because Matt totally kicked my coverage of that session.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 27, 2006, 10:19 AM | Permalink


The Complete Google Master Plan

Google Operating Systems located and posted the Full Google Master Plan 1.0. Remember about a month and a half ago, the Google Master Plan was erased? Well, according to Google OS, said it was erased because it was getting a bit "crufty." The image was taken by Chris diBona, here it is:

Google Master Plan

diBona said,

We erased the Google master plan from the lobby whiteboard september 28th, 2006. It was getting kind of crufty. All pictures are released under the CC-ShareAlike-Attribution license.

Posted by Barry Schwartz on November 27, 2006, 9:28 AM | Permalink


Search Forums Roundup: Nov. 27, 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: Hack Your Competition Out of Organic Search - MSN And Yahoo Join Google With Sitemaps - How Local Search And SEM Relates - What to Look for When Purchasing Links? - What Tools Does An SEO Guru Use? and more.

Posted by Chris Sherman on November 27, 2006, 4:23 AM | Permalink


Google Settles With Some Belgian Publishers Over Belgium News Inclusion

Via Techmeme, news that Google has settled with two Belgian publishing groups involved in a lawsuit against it over content included in Google News Belgium. This comes a day after Google's legal case was reheard in an appeal. The settlement, following what seems a similar settlement with AP earlier this year, seems to open the door that Google is going to continue making such appeasements rather than fight cases in court.

Bloomberg reports that Google struck an agreement with Sofam -- which represents Belgian photographers -- and Scam, which represents Belgian journalists. The agreement allows for Google to use content from these groups (or from their members). Whether they are being paid for this, what content or how it will be used is not explained:

"We reached an agreement with Sofam and Scam that will help us make extensive use of their content," Jessica Powell, a spokeswoman for Google, said in a phone interview yesterday. She declined to give details of the agreement or say whether it involved paying the groups for the content, and declined to say whether Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., was considering similar accords with the newspapers.

In September, Google lost a copyright case filed against it by another Belgian publishing group, Copiepresse. Google later had to post the ruling against it on Google Belgium. However, Google was granted an appeal for the case to be reheard, as it hadn't been represented in court the first time. The stories below provide more background on all of this:

At some point, Sofam and Scam joined in the case. I see one reference to this back in October. Two other groups also apparently joined, since the Bloomberg report speaks to the settlement being with two of five total parties to the suit.

Those parties, led by Copiepresse, continue on in their action against Google. That action, as I've covered in my Google's Belgium Fight: Show Me The Money, Not The Opt-Out, Say Publishers article, is far more about trying to pressure Google into a financial arrangement to use Belgian news content than keeping that content out of Google itself. If it was just to keep content out of Google, the publishers could have easily done this through methods such as using robots.txt files.

Copiepresse seems confident of a legal victory:

Speaking on the phone from Brussels after the hearing, Margaret Boribon, the Copiepresse secretary-general, said she felt very happy with how things proceeded today. "I can't see how the judge could change his opinion,'' she said, certain that the court will uphold the September ruling.

Perhaps that legal victory will come, when the ruling is issued in late December or January, when expected. If so, it may not help Copiepresse in the real aim of a financial deal. Google may have enough content to make Google Belgium viable without the participation of the papers Copiepresse represents. They'd then be left in a situation of asking Google for reinclusion or going without the substantial traffic Google News can send web sites.

On the other hand, Google's settlement with the groups following on an agreement earlier this year with the Associated Press seems likely to fuel further publishing groups pushing for such arrangements, especially in smaller markets where key content is put out by a small set of publishers. Banding together and sticking with exclusion, they can severely hamper a news search service.

Norway Upset With Google News Over Copyright Laws covers how Google is being challenged in Norway. That hasn't developed into a legal case yet, but it's hard to see how Google's going to be able to say no to some type of agreement there. Pandia also covers how in Denmark, publisher opposition apparently created the unprecedented case of Google asking for permission to index news sites, rather than the normal case of spidering and requesting an opt-out.

Search Engines, Permissions & Moving Forward In Copyright Battles from me covers how in particular, Google's use of images for its news area is complicates issues and is making it harder for search engines in general to defend opt-out spidering, which I support. That article calls on Google to stop the inclusion of news images, as well as a pullback on showing cached pages and scanning of in copyright works without permission.

However, asking for permission to spider textual content for news search is likely to be as slippery a slope as cutting deals with publishers. It weakens the core legal position Google has argued over gather textual content from the web, most recently against suggested copyright changes in Australia that it said might make search engines unworkable.

As a reminder, Microsoft was also challenged in Belgium. Microsoft Removes Belgian Content Without Court Order covers this more and how Microsoft's reaction was to drop those publications. So far, it hasn't apparently cut a deal for reincluding them and perhaps may not feel a market need to do so.

Judge Gives AFP Case Against Google More Time covers how a copyright case against Google but Agence France Press over news inclusion is still ongoing.

I plan to follow up with Google Monday and see what further details I can gather on the case. I don't expect terms to be disclosed, but it would be good to know if a financial arrangement of some type was reached. That happened in the AP case, though Google was adamant the agreement there was not to allow it to solve a legal problem with spidering.

Many saw this as spin. There are other things the agreement would give Google aside from the right to spider, as my Google-AP Deal Not Pay-Per-Click & Some Further Details covers in more detail. However, it also conveniently solved the spidering issues for Google.

Postscript: See Q&A On Google's Belgium News Agreements for more on this story since it was written.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 26, 2006, 5:04 PM | Permalink

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