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April 2007


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 30, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 30, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


Ebay: Now Portable

TechCrunch reports on eBay's new widgets that let any seller take their listing "to go" and plant it on a blog or website.

The widgets are mostly flash based and have animation that you can't find on eBay's own network. This could represent an effort to test new flash based functionality before the company integrates it throughout its own network. This seems unlikely however, given the very conservative interface evolution path eBay has taken over the past nearly 15 years.

This is also uncharacteristic move of eBay in that it's a usually a closed system that is relatively averse to distribution through new channels and formats. But this seems like a good move which will could push out eBay listings and give them more exposure than they would only on eBay proper.

It's also very similar to the line of widgets recently launched by vFlyer. And like those, eBay could gain significant traction within its very strong autos vertical, where many dealers will likely jump on the opportunity to plant their eBay listings on their own sites in a new and interesting way.

Autos and real estate are verticals generally quick to adopt new technologies because of the margins involved and the traditional pressure to get leads. Leads in fact are highly inelastic in these industries which is why they hold the best upsell opportunities for paid classifieds tools.

This is why vFlyer focuses on these verticals, and eBay can likewise drive business to its own site by further putting itself and its listings "out there" in the marketplace with these free tools that will serve as tentacles into the blogosphere.

Screenshots of the new widgets are at TechCrunch.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 30, 2007, 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Yahoo Is Better: Or That's What They Are Branding

Following their push to build niched portals, Yahoo announced the start of a new campaign: "Be A Better ..."

I like this, mainly because it will constantly group Yahoo and Better, going beyond being a better Fanatic (sports fans), Guru (knowledge from Yahoo Answers), Fashionista, Shutterbug, Traveler and Best Friend.... it constantly reinforces Yahoo with Better... hey if conventional weapons are not working go for subliminal advertising.

The scrolling words that roll like a slot machine suggest other categories to come... or maybe Jetsetter, TailGater and Explorer have positive thoughts and were used for effect.....

Either way I think Yahoo's best chance to make inroads into the Google search numbers are from creating large scalable communities and have the loyalty move to them.

For more about the new branding campaign check the site out. They have cool commericals.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 30, 2007, 5:04 PM | Permalink


Yahoo, Comcast Partner on Display Ads

Yahoo and Comcast announced today that they will partner for displaying advertising on the Comcast website. Interesting when Comcast recently joined FastMedia who is looking to take on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

In a ZDNet article, "FAST claims, optimistically, that within two years the FAST Media Network of sites will surpass Google in search and advertising activity. It is an expression of the long tail of search, according to Perry Solomon, vice president and general manager of FAST's Media Solutions Group. "More and more people are building specialized search, with local ads and moving out the evil empire guys [Google, Yahoo and Microsoft]".

Should be interesting to find out if Comcast is still part of the FastMedia partnership.

The rest of the Comcast, Yahoo press release read:

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSK, CMCSA), the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, today announced that Comcast Interactive Media and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide, have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership for online display and video advertising services on Comcast.net. Comcast.net is a top 10 online site with more than 2.5 billion page views, more than 80 million videos viewed and 15 million unique visitors per month.

“We are delighted with our new long-term strategic partnership with Yahoo!. Their scale, experienced sales force, advertiser relationships and industry leading display advertising capabilities will bring significant new monetization opportunities to Comcast.net.,” said Amy L. Banse, president, Comcast Interactive Media. “As Comcast continues to grow its online presence we will monetize our other online sites while driving innovative cross-platform services and creating new business models.”

Yahoo!'s advertising sales organization will be the primary marketing and sales channel for Comcast.net display and video advertising. Comcast.net will tap into Yahoo!'s extensive network of leading brand advertisers and benefit from Yahoo!'s sophisticated ad-serving, targeting and inventory management capabilities to enable the pricing, targeting, delivery and reporting of display and video advertisements. Comcast Spotlight will continue to bundle Comcast.net in cross-platform and locally-targeted advertising packages to its growing base of local, regional and national advertisers through its existing sales force of over 3,000 sales executives.

“This announcement is consistent with our goal to create the leading advertising marketplace and give our advertisers the ability to connect with their target customers wherever they are on the Internet,” said Hilary Schneider, executive vice president of the Local Markets and Commerce Division and the Yahoo! Publisher Network Division at Yahoo!. " With Comcast's high quality broadband audiences, trusted brands can effectively extend their reach and impact as we continue to deliver our advertisers' most relevant marketing messages to the most highly qualified audiences at the right place and time."

Yahoo! and Comcast Interactive Media will collaborate to create and market new sponsorships and custom advertising packages that are supported by Yahoo!'s platform. Yahoo!'s advertising services will be integrated within the redesigned Comcast.net planned later this year. The redesigned Comcast.net will include enhanced features, user experience and new advertising opportunities across the site. Search services and Comcast Interactive Media's other properties are not part of the partnership.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 30, 2007, 4:53 PM | Permalink


Google News adds button to Google Finance

If you search for a publicly traded company on Google News, you'll find a small button on the lower right of each cluster of results to Google Finance. Last fall, a new link in Google News started significantly increased traffic to Google Blog Search. It appears that this new button is designed to boost traffic to Google Finance, which lags Yahoo Finance by a wide margin according to Hitwise.

070430-GoogFinc.jpg

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 30, 2007, 12:33 PM | Permalink


PBS Content Now Searchable on blinkx

Video search engine blinkx has added PBS streaming
video content to its index. Now blinkx users will find hours of PBS educational, news and public
affairs streaming content online. The searchable content that has been added includes documentaries and other popular PBS programs of high value to consumers and educators. With the addition of this content with its strong public service and educational focus, blinkx adds to the inventory of searchable video content available to and useful for educators. blinkx uses speech recognition technology to deliver results rather than standard metadata-based keyword searches. This approach is quite compatible and complementary to PBS's content-rich documentary and educational content.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 30, 2007, 12:16 PM | Permalink


Adam Lasnik Interview

Last Wednesday I had a chance to speak with Adam Lasnik about paid links, duplicate content, and a few other issues. Adam provided some great insight into Google's thinking on paid links, what their objectives are, and how they view Nofollow.

We also talked about duplicate content problems. One interesting thing is that Adam confirmed my long held notion that one of the big problems with duplicate content pages is that it wastes some of your "crawl budget". The Googlebot comes to your site with an indea about how many pages it is going to crawl.

If it spends some of the time crawling pages that are duplicate, and therefore will be filtered out, you are wasting a portion of your crawl budget. For sites that are not fully indexed, this is really unfortunate, because these duplicated pages got crawled instead of having the bot go deeper into the site and get new pages, and resulting in those pages getting into the index.

We also talked about what is going on when sites are popping in an out of the index. It seems that the algorithm tweaking is a constant process at Google. Sites that pop in and out of the index are simply those that are "on the edge" of some Google criteria. When they tune the algorithm one way, you're in, and then they tune it another way, you're back out.

If this is happening to you, this is a clear sign that the Googlebot has detected something that is a signal of poor quality in your site. Unfortunately, this can be any one of a number of factors, so it leaves you in the position of having to figure that out.

Posted by on April 30, 2007, 11:05 AM | Permalink


Google, Yahoo Respond to Click Quality Council Guidelines

Last week, the Click Quality Council issued a list of 8 Principles of Click Quality that its members feel are necessary to deliver adequate quality in pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

I spoke to Tom Cuthbert, CEO of Click Forensics, the anti-click-fraud firm that created the CQC, who said the list was less a list of the search engines' deficiencies, but rather was intended as a starting point that could be easily agreed upon. According to Cuthbert, many of the items on the list are either already being addressed by search engines, or are expected to be addressed by them soon.

The list was compiled by members of the CQC, which includes advertisers, SEM agencies, and tools providers, he said. The group came up with about 15 principles originally, but pared the list down to those things that could be immediately agreed upon, he said.

"We wanted to make it a reasonable list that we could all agree on," he said. "Some of the items were just not things that could be committed to today."

Google's Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for trust and safety, said he agrees in theory on all of the issues, but has concerns with the possible definitions the CQC is using.

"Overall, depending on how they would define some of these items, it looks like we're already doing most of them. Although some of these requests are not defined in specific terms, we agree with their general spirit, and are always interested in hearing from advertisers. We will continue to work hard to listen and make sure that we're providing great service."

Ghosemajumder published his individual responses to each of the eight principles on his blog, in a post called Advertiser Requests on Invalid Clicks.

Yahoo's Reggie Davis, VP of marketplace quality, also said the principles seem reasonable: "We believe it's essential to listen to input from advertisers, and we think the principles outlined by the Click Quality Council today are an important step in furthering industry dialogue about traffic quality. Yahoo will consider these principles carefully as we develop new features and provide additional transparency to help advertisers better understand the value of their search marketing campaigns."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 30, 2007, 9:46 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Search VP Leaves for VC Firm

Yahoo's VP of consumer Web search Andrew Braccia has left Yahoo for the greener pastures of venture capital, joining Accel Partners this week as a principal, according to Venture Beat. Accel investments include Brightcove, Coremetrics, Facebook, Medio, and Trulia.

Braccia, who had reported to EVP Jeff Weiner, helped launch Yahoo Answers, and integrate its acquisitions of consumer-facing tools like Delicious and Flickr.

He's been replaced by Vish Makhijani, who most recently served as VP of Yahoo Search Marketing International. Makhijani joined Yahoo with Inktomi, where he was VP and GM of Inktomi Web search.

Back in December, Yahoo saw sweeping changes to its management team, creating three operating groups and shuffling top execs.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 30, 2007, 9:03 AM | Permalink


Google Helping State Government Sites Get Indexed

Google has teamed up with four state governments – Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia – to make public information on their Web sites more searchable. The four states have made their public databases more accessible to Google's crawler by using sitemaps to identify the structure of their sites. They have also used Google's Custom Search Engine service to include the Web sites of various state agencies in a site search.

"Connecting citizens with their government by offering the public better access to public sector information and services is consistent with our broader vision – to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "These partnerships are among many that Google is pursuing with government agencies to better serve the public."

Google has a page on its site dedicated to helping public sector groups to use Google services.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 30, 2007, 12:09 AM | Permalink


Yahoo to Acquire Right Media

Yahoo is planning to acquire the remaining 80-percent interest in Right Media, according to a New York Times report. The deal, expected to close by the end of July, will cost Yahoo $680 million in stock and cash.

If Google completes its acquisition of DoubleClick, it will also have an ad exchange for buying and selling display ads on remnant inventory.

Back in October, Yahoo announced that it had acquired a 20-percent stake in the auction-based ad marketplace, and would take a seat on the Right Media Exchange to help monetize its non-premium inventory.

“The acquisition, to us, is a key step toward executing our long-term vision to build the leading advertising and publisher ecosystem both on and off the Yahoo network,” Yahoo CEO Terry Semel told the Times.

Incidentally, this acquisition will apparently bring former Did-It CEO Bill Wise to Yahoo, as he recently joined Right Media to head its Remix Media ad network.

Yahoo has also issued a statement regarding its plans.

UPDATE: While many people are spinning this as a defensive move sparked by Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick, Forrester analyst Charlene Li points out that this is more of an offensive strike:

"The acquisition makes it difficult for Google/Doubleclick to start its own ad exchange, which Doubleclick announced earlier this month. Right Media has been running its ad exchange for over two years, giving it the management and technical experience to run a successful exchange."

"But more importantly, I believe the acquisition puts pressure on Google's AdSense network to be more transparent."

Also, by inserting itself as the broker for both buyers and sellers of ads, Yahoo can outflank Google, with DoubleClick only serving as the delivery mechanism for ads, she said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 30, 2007, 12:01 AM | Permalink


Google and DoubleClick's Integration Hurdles

The New York Times is picking up on the fact that Google's potential DoubleClick acquisition gets more difficult when you consider Performics, DoubleClick's search and affiliate marketing agency. In The Pangs of Two Becoming One, reporter Dan Mitchell notes that the DoubleClick deal is facing antitrust challenges from Microsoft and IBM (oh, the irony), as well as worries from privacy advocates. But the biggest challenge may well be what Google should do with Performics.

There's just no way that a conflict of interest would not arise, or at least the appearance of a conflict, which would be just as bad for Google. Every time a Performics client's site showed up at the top of the SERPs, competitors would cry foul. And every time a Performics client's site did not show up first, it would be assumed that Google is being too tough with those clients, and so those clients would eventually leave to find an agency that actually helped them improve their rank.

As we noted last week, Google appears to already be moving toward the possibility of selling off the division.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 29, 2007, 11:31 PM | Permalink


Utah Legislators Doing Research -- After They Passed the Law

After passing a misguided Trademark Protection Act that will ban advertisers from using the trademarked terms of their competitors to target ads to Utah users, Utah legislators are now apparently talking to the companies involved and realizing they may have made a mistake.

Technology law blogger Eric Goldman points to a report from the Salt Lake Tribune:

Senior executives from Google, eBay, Microsoft, America Online, Yahoo, 1-800 Contacts and Overstock.com met with lawmakers in an impressive show of force. And while nothing was resolved during the 90-minute sit-down, lawmakers seemed to accept the inevitable. "I don't know that we'll repeal it, but we understand we've got some work to do," said Rep. David Clark, House majority leader and co-sponsor of the suddenly controversial legislation. Curtis was a little more circumspect. "It looks like an all-or-nothing proposition to me," he said.

The law is set to go into effect on Monday.

The money quote comes from Clark: "I wish we had had this interaction with industry 60 days ago," Clark said Wednesday. "We would have all been better off."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 29, 2007, 11:01 PM | Permalink


NoFollow, or MightFollow?

Loren Baker has asked Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com to explain just what nofollow really means in a comprehensive post at Search Engine Journal, "How Google, Yahoo & Ask.com Treat the No Follow Link Attribute."

Google is the only one to actually not follow the links, while Ask ignores the attribute, and Yahoo will follow the link but not give attribution to the source. So basically, the anchor text and "link juice" will not pass through a nofollow link in Yahoo, but the linked page will be crawled and indexed.

Microsoft has not yet replied to Baker's request for clarification, but had said when nofollow was introduced 2 years ago, "Any link with this tag will indicate to a crawler it is not necessarily approved by this page and shouldn't be followed nor contribute weight for ranking."

The attribute, which was originally intended to curb blog comment spam, is now a central part of the paid links debate sparked by Google's Matt Cutts.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 29, 2007, 10:55 PM | Permalink


Yes, Virginia, there is a natural and paid search synergy

“Does running a natural search campaign and a paid search campaign together create more value than running them in a non-integrated manner?” In other words, does one plus one equal three?

Back in August 2003, I spoke at Search Engine Strategies San Jose on a panel about “Balancing Organic and Paid Listings.” I presented a case study from the University of the Pacific, which indicated that getting top ranking in both organic and paid listings had tripled our click-through-rates (CTRs). I surmised that finding both an organic and a paid listing from the same site was like getting a second opinion.

This case study quickly became an urban legend and I was frequently asked for a copy of my marketing research. When I explained that the “3X effect” I had seen was based on anecdotal evidence, people would invariably say, “Please let me know if anybody ever does such a study.”

Well, now I can.

iCrossing recently published a Search Synergy Report, which found a “symbiosis” between natural and paid search. The report “conclusively demonstrates that running an integrated natural and paid search campaign leads to improved online performance over running either a natural search or paid search campaign alone.”

iCrossing used a random sample of approximately 200 keywords, including branded and non-branded terms spanning both natural and paid search. According to the digital marketing agency, “These 200 keywords are representative of 2,000 unique keywords, engines and medium (natural, paid, or both) data point combinations used in paid search as well as ranked in the first three pages of natural search results on the major U.S. engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask, MSN, and AOL).”

So, what did they find?

iCrossing found “online performance is dramatically improved if keywords purchased for a paid search campaign are also ranked in natural search.” For example, when the digital marketing agency incorporated natural search into an existing paid search campaign and compared its performance to the performance of the sole paid search campaign:
-- Clicks in creased 91.80%
-- Actions increased by 45.00%
-- Orders increased by 44.92%
-- Page views increased 43.63%
-- Visitors increased 40.69%
-- Time on site increased by 38.91%

Go to http://www.icrossing.com/research/ to download a PDF version of the full report.

Okay, so the “search synergy effect” isn't quite as dramatic as the “3X effect” I reported seeing four years ago. Nevertheless, these results strongly support the theory that a positive synergy exists between natural and paid search.

Yes, Virginia, there is a sanity clause.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 29, 2007, 6:50 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 27, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 27, 2007, 10:12 PM | Permalink


Is Zunch Communications' Bankruptcy a Sign of Things to Come?

Zunch Communications has declared bankruptcy, but Zunch Worldwide lives on. The new entity bought the assets and took on some of the debts of SEM firm Zunch Communications in October 2006, and that company finally filed for bankruptcy last week.

While clients that stayed on with Zunch Worldwide were not affected, any unsecured creditors were basically hung out to dry, left to muddle through a bankruptcy process that is bound to be fruitless, since the Zunch Communications entity has no assets to speak of, other than the payments that Zunch Worldwide will make over a period of time.

Zunch is spinning this bankruptcy as a part of a larger trend coming to the industry, but others say that's not the case.

Zunch Worldwide spokesperson James Sadler said this was a direct result of a slide in business precipitated by the departure of six key executives in October 2005. When they left to start Kinetic Results (now Dexterity Media), Zunch lost some clients, including one spending more than $1 million a year.

"Essentially, Zunch Communications never fully recovered from that split. Zunch Communications fell further behind both in paying its obligations and in servicing its clients," Sadler said.

The other side of that story is that those executives left because they saw that it was headed toward this path. According to Tony Wright, VP of client services at Dexterity Media and one of the six, "We left because we saw the company was doing some things that we didn't agree with. For them to infer that the bankruptcy is the result of us leaving is absurd."

Others left the company before those six, notably Mark Jackson, Zunch's former president, who's now president and CEO of Vizion Interactive. Jackson left Zunch in March 2005, and similarly expressed his differences of opinion with Zunch CEO John Sanchez.

"There were some decisions made with the finances that I did not agree with," Jackson said. "At one point in time, we had a great company, doing great work for great clients."

Sadler said that given the SEM landscape today, more bankruptcies like this should be expected. That could mean consolidation, if there's value to be had. Reprise Media is the latest SEM firm to go that route. But Sadler says he expects the more common fate to be dissolution.

"I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of shakeout over the next couple years," he said. "The trend seems to be that people go to work for an SEM company for a while, then think they've got it all figured out, so they go start their own company. That's a lot of diluted talent chasing after the same ad dollars."

While there is certainly something to the idea of an over-saturated market, that doesn't appear to be the cause of Zunch's problems. Both Vizion Interactive and Dexterity Media are doing well in the same Dallas-Fort Worth market that Zunch is based in, as are many other SEM firms.

"There's a small percentage of companies out there engaging in search marketing, and many of them are using agencies that don't understand how to manage their campaigns to ROI goals," Jackson said. "We continue to add to our team and add clients. It's not been an issue for us."

Dexterity Media is also thriving, according to Wright. "If you look at the growth of the search market overall, there are so many people out there whose Web sites really need help. We don't have any problems finding business," he said.

Disclosure: Jupitermedia, former corporate parent of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies, is an unsecured creditor in the Zunch Communications bankruptcy, as are Wright and Jackson.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 27, 2007, 3:26 PM | Permalink


Google Adding Print Purchasing to AdWords Interface

To improve their sales numbers for print media, Google is adding a Print Tab to AdWords accounts. Scheduled for an extended beta beginning Monday April 30th (the first 100 potential advertisers had access late last year), the intent is to provide access and possibly spark more interest in this product that has been slow catching on.

Google Print Ads is a new way to buy newspaper advertising, bringing innovation to the entire process: planning, buying, billing, reporting, and pricing. You use an AdWords-style interface to find newspapers. Then you extend bids to newspapers for the insertions you want. About 75 top U.S. daily newspapers are in the system now, including papers like the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and LA Times. In the next month Google will more than double the number of papers offered. You can specify insertion date, section, and ad size.

"The ads are just like traditional newspaper ads, but much easier to buy," Google explains.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 27, 2007, 2:06 PM | Permalink


Today's Outsourced Column

In today's experts column, Chris Boggs gives you An Insider's View of what life is like at Avenue A/Razorfish, and breaks down some common roles within agency teams, and explains the approach to working alongside others.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 27, 2007, 1:51 PM | Permalink


6% of Web Sites are Real Estate Related

RISMedia recently published an interesting article about How the Internet is Reshaping Real Estate. The article quotes a February 2007 survey by Netcraft Web Server Survey as saying that there are 108 million web site on the web, and that academics estimate that 6% of these are about real estate. That would mean that there are 6.5 million web sites about real estate out there.

One of the interesting points that article makes is that real estate is an information focused industry, and that the realtors used to be the keepers of that information. But now, that focus is shifting to the web. The big thing now is sharing information and collaboration with other consumers. There are lots of players jumping into the real estate space, including Zillow, Trulia, PropSmart, LiveDeal, Point2, and Oodle.

Consumer demand for this type of information is only going to grow. The modern web consumer expects answers and service, they want it for free, and they want it now. Oh, and don't make them spend more than 10 seconds trying to find it either, or they will be gone. And there are few consumer decisions that are more important, or bigger, than buying a house.

Posted by on April 27, 2007, 1:30 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Ad Revenues Up 23%

Microsoft reported its Q3 earnings yesterday, announcing overall revenue of $14.4 billion, up 32-percent year-to-year. Net income of $4.93 billion, a 65-percent increase over the previous year's quarter.

Revenue from its online services business, which includes its Live Search and MSN businesses, rose 11 percent year-to-year to $623 million. It also saw an operating income loss of $200 million, compared to a $24 million loss the year before.

During a conference call with investors (Transcript available from SeekingAlpha.com), investor relations manager Colleen Healy said advertising revenue grew by 23 percent, and the company is actually ahead of last year's monetization goals for adCenter.

"We are now monetizing more effectively in the U.S. on our own adCenter platform than we had under third-party Overture at this time last year. Our display growth was in line with what is a healthy market, driven by an increase in page views," Healy said.

Search revenue benefited from a higher number of search queries, and increased revenue per search on both a year on year and consequential basis, she said.

According to CFO Chris Liddell, Microsoft is happy with the growth it's seeing in display ads and the relevancy of its search product, though it's not happy with its market share. It also plans to continue to invest in these areas.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 27, 2007, 12:48 PM | Permalink


Genie's Searching For Gamers

While we're all inundated with new vertical searches, the Gaming vertical is an interesting one. This isn't as common as the myriad offerings we all see in health, travel or business.

Now Gaming has become GenieKnows' lead offering, and is even presented as the default search on their site. After entering your search, Genie presents specific drill-down options including articles/reviews, cheats/guides, community, developers, fans, software and blogs.

CEO Barbara Manning thinks it's a natural and wants GenieKnows to become a destination. She's selected several verticals and has focused on spit shining them since last fall.

The verticals are a point of inflection for the company. As she explained to me, Genie isn't just a CPC ad network anymore.

Posted by on April 27, 2007, 11:28 AM | Permalink


Active Athletes In The Lead

Maybe there is a point where verticals can be connected to create critical mass. During this week's Ad-Tech, I learned about a company named Active Athlete. The company unifies advertising opportunities for about 100 sites, ranging from SlowTwitch to LaxPower.

Here's what caught my attention: 10 million unduplicated uniques; 4.5 visits per month; 10 page views per visit; 9.5 minutes per session.

Active Athlete's CEO, Robert Tas, was visiting his favorite triathlon site two years ago and noticed there were no meaningful national advertisers. The light bulb went on, and he created this business and network. He's targeting the endemic advertisers like Nike or Power Bar, the non-endemic advertisers outside sports, and smaller-tier sports advertisers who may have a local bent.

Setting up an ad network takes brute force. He's putting vertical search and search advertising plans into place, and will launch these soon. For display sales, he's begun hiring ad executives who are known in their sports. After all, even the biggest names could stand to make a living after retirement.

Tas explains that Active Athlete's a lifestyle company and that “90% of this is passion.” The other 10% sounds like good effective CPMs, when a critical mass is reached.

Posted by on April 27, 2007, 10:31 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 26, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

  • The Search Neighborhood is Changing
    Greg Jarboe compares the changes in the search industry to gentrification of old neighborhoods, where a working-class area becomes suddenly trendy and all sorts of new folks move in, often pushing out the old inhabitants.
  • DoubleClick Takes Ad Exchange on the Road
    Apparently DoubleClick's new ad exchange is a bit more than vaporware, or a pretty bow to put on the package to entice potential acquirers.
  • Click Quality Council Outlines 8 Principles of Click Quality
    The Click Quality Council, an anti-click fraud group created by PPC auditing firm Click Forensics, has issued a set of eight principles it feels are necessary to produce quality clicks.
  • Superpages.com Revises Ad Algorithm
    Using an algorithm that makes it more closely resemble Google's AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing's Panama platform, Superpages will begin ranking ads based on criteria like relevance and performance, in addition to bids.
  • Images and videos appear at top of Yahoo News results
    Over the past two days, images and videos have started to appear at the top of results pages for relevant queries on Yahoo News.
  • NearbyNow in 100 Cities by the Holidays
    Local search company NearbyNow has built a unique model that helps shopping mall retailers bring in foot traffic by putting their product info and inventory online.
  • The Simpsons on Search
    This YouTube clip shows Marge Simpson googling herself, and engaging in a variety of search-related activities.
  • Meet the Newest Link Love Columnist, Sage Lewis
    In his first contribution, Prevention is the Best Medicine: Don't Let Viral Campaigns Get Sick and Die, Lewis diagnoses problems with the most feverish trend in link building -- viral marketing campaigns.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 26, 2007, 11:50 PM | Permalink


The Simpsons on Search

A quirky item for your Thursday afternoon: This YouTube clip (hurry before it's gone) shows Marge Simpson in a variety of search related activities. It pokes fun at everything from online shopping, to Googling oneself, to banner ads, to Google Earth.

Now if Google Maps can only find Springfield and settle the longstanding debate over what state it's in (rumored to be settled in the upcoming Simpsons movie). My money is on Oregon, near Matt Groening's hometown of Portland.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 26, 2007, 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


The Search Neighborhood is Changing

The search industry is changing at a rapid pace, that's clear. Many people and companies that were relevant just a few years ago are now gone or acquired, and many of the important people and companies of today were not around just a few years ago.

Greg Jarboe compares the changes to gentrification of old neighborhoods, where a working-class area becomes suddenly trendy and all sorts of new folks move in, often pushing out the old inhabitants. In today's SearchDay, The Gentrification of the Search Industry, Greg looks at the many changes in the Search Engine Strategies New York event that have taken place in just the last three years to illustrate that the old neighborhood is indeed changing.

Have you seen similar things going on? What can old-school search residents do to stay relevant amidst their new neighbors? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 26, 2007, 3:47 PM | Permalink


Images and videos appear at top of Yahoo News results

Over the past two days, images and videos have started to appear at the top of results pages for relevant queries on Yahoo News. For example, do a search for news video, and here's what you see:

070426-YNews.jpg

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 26, 2007, 1:54 PM | Permalink


Meet the Newest Link Love Columnist, Sage Lewis

We welcome aboard a new SEW Expert, Sage Lewis, in today's Link Love column, where he will be sharing commentary and expertise on link building from the social aspect. Sage will be splitting time in Link Love with columnist Justilien Gaspard.

In his first contribution, Prevention is the Best Medicine: Don't Let Viral Campaigns Get Sick and Die, Lewis diagnoses problems with the most feverish trend in link building - viral marketing campaigns.

Sage Lewis is President of the consulting firm, SageRock.com and will be speaking on measuring the impact of social media and viral marketing at our next SEW Live in Columbus, Ohio - taking place on May 9th.

Posted by on April 26, 2007, 12:56 PM | Permalink


Superpages.com Revises Ad Algorithm

Idearc's Superpages.com, a local search service based on Verizon's yellow pages directory, is changing the way it displays ads. Using an algorithm that makes it more closely resemble Google's AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing's Panama platform, Superpages will begin ranking ads based on criteria like relevance and performance, in addition to bids.

Idearc has been very busy over the past few months since it spun off from Verizon. Besides revamping its ad offering, it's launched a national TV campaign to court advertisers, and began offering SEM services to small business advertisers earlier this month.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 26, 2007, 12:49 PM | Permalink


DoubleClick Takes Ad Exchange on the Road

Apparently DoubleClick's new ad exchange is a bit more than vaporware, or a pretty bow to put on the package to entice potential acquirers. DoubleClick announced plans for the exchange in April, shortly before Google announced its plans to acquire DoubleClick.

The product is apparently still in the works, as it was trotted out this week at Ad:tech in San Francisco, according to DMNews. According to the report, "DoubleClick would not mention which publishers are using the exchange, but there are 35 combined publishers and advertisers currently using the service."

If the exchange does get built, and Google does acquire DoubleClick, that will make one more way for Google and Yahoo to compete head-to-head. Yahoo put its money behind Right Media, and announced plans to participate in the Right Media Exchange, last October.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 26, 2007, 12:27 PM | Permalink


Click Quality Council Outlines 8 Principles of Click Quality

The Click Quality Council, an anti-click fraud group created by PPC auditing firm Click Forensics, has issued a set of eight principles it feels are necessary to produce quality clicks. The list, issued today at Ad:Tech San Francisco, is the result of a six-month effort by CQC members to identify the key elements needed to deliver adequate quality in pay-per-click advertising campaigns:


  1. Advertisers should never pay for double clicks or repeat clicks from the same session.

  2. Advertisers should never pay for traffic from bots.

  3. Advertisers should have control over where, when and to whom ads are distributed.

  4. Domain and IP exclusion lists from search providers should be easy to use and maintain.

  5. Search providers should provide advertisers detailed referrer information on all traffic that is billed.

  6. Advertisers should never pay for traffic originating outside the specified geo-targeted settings.

  7. Search engines should adopt third-party validation for click quality as other media companies have done for their audience validation.

  8. Search providers should provide an easy mechanism to reconcile paid clicks on a monthly basis.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 26, 2007, 12:16 PM | Permalink


NearbyNow in 100 Cities by the Holidays

Local search company NearbyNow has built a unique model that helps shopping mall retailers bring in foot traffic by putting their product info and inventory online. A longer description of the company's model is in a previous post on The Kelsey Group blog.

Building off of this, the company has developed a mobile (SMS based) tool that lets mall shoppers search for deals while they are in the mall. This not only has the benefits of proximity and captive audience, but it utilizes a mobile medium that is well suited towards the very demographic it is targeting - the mall rat demographic (for lack of a better term).

Surprisingly, this has also proven to catch on among another large demographic of mall shoppers, according to CEO Scott Dunlap: the soccer mom.

"Moms are learning how to text message," he said. "Either American Idol has taught them, or in some cases, It's the only way their kids will talk to them over cell phones, so they've learned how to do it out of necessity."

The company's main offering is a private label local shopping research and inventory search engine that powers mall partners' websites. The gating factor to its expansion has thus partly been the malls that it signs on as partners. It has been able to do this at a steady clip over the past six months with a handful of major shopping center corporations such as Westfield. It is currently present in 20 U.S. cities and it plans to be in 103 cities by November.

It also places kiosks within these malls that let shoppers look up deals or print out coupons. There are also display ads on these terminals for actual products or stores that can be steps away. This proximity factor leads to unusually high CPM rates according to Dunlap

"With a banner ad for a pair of jeans that is 100 yards from the store, I've seen CPMs north of $125," he said. "People understand the value of proximity."

The next steps for the company include building in social and personalization features to its online and mobile products that let users search for and save items they want, and also share them with friends.

"Someone can form a back to school list and send to their parents," said Dunlap. "This summer we'll be experimenting with that."

This could also involve alerts, where a shoppers are notified via text when an item becomes available or a sale happens with a particular item or store. With this type of alert, users explicitly state what they want and implicitly state that they are ready to "pull the trigger" if the item is available. This implies a very strong and clear intent to buy which, combined with the proximity factor, helps Dunlap continue to prove the company's value proposition to mall retailers.

The company is moving in some interesting directions and also raised $5 million earlier this week. It should be able to hit its goal of 100+ cities by the '07 holiday season.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 25, 2007, 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 25, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 25, 2007, 5:06 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Live Search Loses Another Exec

Dane Glasgow, general manager for Live Search, is leaving the company to work for various nonprofits and spend more time with his family, according to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley. Last month, Christopher Payne, VP of Windows Live Search, left to start his own company. He was replaced by Satya Nadella, who had been heading the Microsoft Dynamics team in the Microsoft Business Division.

Foley quotes from an internal memo Nadella sent yesterday which she gained access to:

With the Search team's exit from planning complete, Dane Glasgow has decided to leave Microsoft to pursue non-profit interests and spend time with his family before taking on a new entrepreneurial challenge. Dane has worked in the services business at Microsoft for nearly 8 years, joining the company in 1999 through the acquisition of Jump Networks. During his time at Microsoft, Dane has worked on large scale services like Hotmail and Search as well as clients such as our Toolbar and Gadgets platform. Dane helped launch our Windows Desktop Search offering, worked to deliver our first release of Windows Live, and has been a strong advocate for incubation within the company. I thank Dane for his contributions, and wish him all the best in his future pursuits.

I am working with my leadership team and Dane's existing directs to identify the right successor. During this time, Dane's team will report directly to me. I have asked Ramez Naam to step in as the interim Director to ensure we streamline decision making and making sure that we stay on track with our Fall Release roadmap."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 25, 2007, 4:09 PM | Permalink


Will Blogs Be The Death Of News

Today is National Call In Day for The Freedom Of Choice Act. But I did not learn about it in the newspapers or other mainstream media, it was a blog entry that sparked my interest.

So I did a little research to see how prevalent this shift has become.

First newspaper circulations are at their lowest in nearly 40 years. The number of daily newspapers is also dramatically shrinking.

But blogs with news stories and commentary are flurishing. The coverage of disasters (like the Virginia Tech murders) gets immediacy from blogs that is hard to beat.

I used Google search to get some additional numbers. I chose three news items: Yahoo Panama, the Freedom of Choice Act, and the French elections.

Doing a Google news search they had 1,062, 1,010 and 6,091 stories respectively. But using the blog search these numbers went through the roof. Panama had 34,023, FOCA had 55,836 and the French elections 65,858.

There are caveats obviously. News items are dedupped (not totally but it impacts) while blogs mix news and comments so are all different. Readership of the blogs may not reach the numbers that grab news stories directly from various news sources.

We are becoming even more of a 'global village' and are moving back to a form of oral tradition that may be high tech and interactive but also has alot of the allure of the old village storytellers passing on the history of the community around a fire.

Maybe the web has become the new 'global campfire' and the bloggers are the oral historians of old.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 25, 2007, 11:55 AM | Permalink


Google Builds AdWords Storefront for Intel Resellers

Beginning next week, Intel's channel partners will be able to plan and buy AdWords campaigns via a custom storefront created by Intel and Google. The "online marketing storefront" lets licensed resellers, which are often small businesses, buy AdWords ads by filling out a simple form, which Intel and Google will use to " facilitate the production and execution" of the ad-buying process.

While many of these partners are already buying AdWords ads directly from Google, this program will facilitate the coordination of ads with Intel and other partners, an Intel exec told News.com.

The storefront also includes tools for offline marketing by channel partners, allowing them to place print ads, order merchandise and services, and customize collateral with their company information or logo.

Google has been working with Intel over the past year to create a suite of tools and services for Intel's existing and new small- to mid-size channel partners, according to John Topping, Google's director of the tech/B2B vertical. These tools are designed to provide an intuitive interface to help create and manage brand-compliant AdWords campaigns efficiently, with pre-approved ad templates, he said. Channel partners also get customized AdWords education, training and support.

"In essence, this is Google's first collaboration to help quickly and easily integrate AdWords into distributed marketing programs like Intel Inside," Topping said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 25, 2007, 11:36 AM | Permalink


After a Few Financial Hoops, Blinkx Plans to Go Public

After navigating a series of financial hoops with enterprise search player Autonomy, privately held video search engine Blinkx will wind up as a public company on the London Stock Exchange.

The relationship between the two has always been murky at best. Blinkx, which is led by former Autonomy CTO Suranga Chandratillake, licenses unnamed portions of Autonomy's search technology. Apparently, those license agreements will now allow Autonomy to acquire Blinkx, which it will then spin off into its own public company, along with some R&D related to Autonomy's IDOL technology.

Autonomy's technology should also help Blinkx develop its own ad program, something it has planned for years, but delivered on only through partners like Miva and Eyeblaster.

The Financial Times story doesn't make things any clearer, though an Autonomy press release is a bit better, and Danny Sullivan has further sorted through some of the complexities.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 25, 2007, 10:38 AM | Permalink


Book review of How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders by Catherine Seda

Industry and SES veteran Catherine Seda has authored a new book published by New Riders entitled: How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders. Written for the small to mid-sized business owner or entrepreneur, this book provides a clear roadmap for how these businesses can leverage the Web to boost their business performance. This book goes beyond search into blogs, podcasting, social media, email and affiliate marketing. it covers a broad sprectrum of Internet marketing tactics. The chapters are peppered with case histories and valuable insights from industry veterans. The book is clearly for the business owner audience. It was not written for the professional search engine marketer; however, search pros will want to recommend the book to small and mid-sized business clients struggling with how to navigate the online marketing waters.

An experienced author and columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, Cat knows her audience well. Having read her work for a number of years, I find myself marveling yet again at her breezy can-do writing style. Cat makes tough topics seem easy. The content is very accessible with lots of easy-to-read bulleted lists and highlighted tips. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributing author of this book and Chris Sherman was the technical editor.).

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 25, 2007, 8:03 AM | Permalink


Ask to Launch Contextual Ad Network

Advertisers buying search ads in Ask.com's Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) program will soon have the option of buying contextually-targeted ads on IAC-owned sites and third-party publishers.

The program will launch at the end of May on several IAC-owned properties, such as Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch. Ads will also appear on a few trusted publisher sites, most likely starting with some of the 90 publishers that syndicate Ask.com search results and search ads. Mid-sized publishers are able to sign up for the program now, and a self-service platform for smaller publishers is expected later this year.

Ask.com is trying to differentiate its offering from AdSense by offering more control and transparency to both advertisers and publishers. For example, Ask.com will provide publishers with tools to tweak ads displayed on their sites to find a balance between ad relevance and page yield. On the advertiser side, that comes in the form of separate bids for contextual ads and site blocking capabilities.

"We're trying to solve the full equation for advertisers and publishers. Advertisers can expand their existing Ask Sponsored Listings campaigns with the same features, function, and control when they target the content network. For publishers, we've tried to differentiate it from what's out there," said Paul Vallez, head of Ask.com's search marketing product division. "We're going to offer a lot more levers to let publishers manage the monetization of their sites."

The ASL program launched in 2005, and was expanded last fall. It now includes more than 90 publisher partners showing ads from more than 30,000 advertisers. Ads are distributed in search results for sites like Lycos, Infospace, Mamma, Hakia and Eons.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 25, 2007, 12:01 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 24, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 24, 2007, 11:55 PM | Permalink


Local.com Joins the Webification Trend

Today, online local search destination Local.com launched a free version of its Local Promote. The full version is $39.95, which lets businesses create a landing page and choose between various distribution, pay-per-click and featured placement options.

The new free version will have the basic functionality of posting and updating business name, description and contact info in a basic listing. The key here is that this is a move to make it easier for more small businesses to get online with a simple landing page. Then the upselling can begin.

This is very much in line with a growing trend in the local search marketplace which we've explored in a past SearchDay article, known as the webification of SMBs. This is based on the premise that a majority small businesses don't currently have a web presence. A growing number of those are coming around, but for the many borderline cases, a free offering can sway them to start a basic landing page or micro site.

Once they're on board, they are hoped to evolve into paid marketers. That could involve subscription services like Local Promote, featured placement, or paid search (in the case of Google's and Yahoo!'s free landing page services among others).

I was able to sit down with Local.com VP of Marketing Jennifer Black and COO Bruce Crair during SES New York, who both endorsed this strategy as central to Local Promote and relevant to Local.com's general direction. Local.com is, in fact, going in many interesting directions coming off of its $8 million investment from Hearst.

This will include development on a number of Web 2.0 fronts including (undisclosed) mobile integration, as well as social media.

“We're excited about the opportunities with ratings and reviews,” says Crair. “We will start to partner to bring in content from sites such as Judy's Book and Insider Pages, and will eventually generate our own content.”

We'll keep an eye on all of these developments.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 24, 2007, 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Microsoft Accused Of Patent Violation In .Net Methodology

Computing.co.uk reported that Microsoft is being sued by Vertical Computer Systems for patent infringement of their SiteFlash product.

According to the suit, Microsoft's .Net framework uses many of the elements of VCS's patented system.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 24, 2007, 5:08 PM | Permalink


Google Buys Web Conferencing Software

Google tried something different the other day. Instead of buying the company - Google bought the software the company makes. They purchased Marratech's web conferencing software - used by Microsoft among others.

"Privately held and based in Sweden, Marratech develops downloadable conferencing software for Microsoft and Apple platforms, including chat, document-sharing, and online videoconferencing", according to the Motley Fool.

The Google blog distinguishes the fact that Google did not buy the company this time.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 24, 2007, 4:30 PM | Permalink


Yahoo, Gracenote Provide Lyrics For 100,000s of Songs

Yahoo and Gracenote annouced a joint venture that will provide hundreds of thousands of song lyrics through Yahoo Music.

Yahoo! Music (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Gracenote(R) today announced a new licensing deal allowing Yahoo! Music to offer the largest catalog of legal, licensed song lyrics from Gracenote to Yahoo! Music's consumers. Beginning today, song lyrics for hundreds of thousands of songs from all five major publishers will be incorporated into Yahoo! Music through Gracenote's growing database. The agreement with Gracenote makes Yahoo! Music the first mass-market Web service to make licensed song lyrics available to consumers.
- the press release stated.

Through the agreement, consumers can search for song lyrics from the Yahoo! Music Search bar, simply by entering even a partial lyric from the song. Consumers will have viewing access to lyrics from nearly 100 music publishers, including the top five: BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, and dozens of prominent independent publishers. The addition of a comprehensive lyrics library complements existing Yahoo! Music products and services such as radio, music videos and on-demand music offerings, while reaffirming Yahoo! Music's reputation for providing its consumers with the most innovative, robust and complete music experience on the Web.

"You mean Bob Dylan isn't actually saying 'The ants, my friend, are in a bowling pin?'" asks Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo! Music. "Finally, a free, legal and definitive way to settle a bet with the guy sitting next to you at the bar who is certain the Ramones' most famous anthem declares, 'I wanna piece of bacon.'"

Gracenote began developing its Lyrics program more than two years ago, with the goal of building the first and most comprehensive database of legal, accurate song lyrics for consumers. The deal between Yahoo! Music and Gracenote is an important step toward enhancing the digital music experience of the consumer while protecting the legal and artistic rights of songwriters and music publishers.

"Song lyrics are continually among the top 10 searches performed on major search engines, though the results often provide consumers a frustrating experience filled with inconsistent and incomplete lyrics, and annoying pop-ups," said Craig Palmer, president and chief executive officer of Gracenote. "With Gracenote and Yahoo!, consumers will have access to the largest database of high quality lyrics linked directly to the rich album and artist content available throughout Yahoo! Music."

Gracenote Lyrics are integrated into Yahoo! Music in three unique ways:

-- Yahoo! Music Search - Consumers can search for lyrics from the Yahoo! Music Search box and receive highlighted links that take them directly to Yahoo! Music and the lyrics they want.

-- Yahoo! Music Artist Pages - Each Artist section within Yahoo! Music offers a lyrics page, allowing users to easily browse all song lyrics for that artist.

-- Yahoo! Music Top Songs - Consumers can quickly find lyrics for the most popular music today.

-- Yahoo! Search - Yahoo! will be adding lyrics to its index, allowing users to search for and find lyrics from any Yahoo! Search box.

-- Yahoo! Audio Search - Yahoo! users will soon be able to find links to lyrics pages through Yahoo! Audio Search, which helps consumers find music from a wide range of services, as well as non-music audio files from across the web. Audio Search will also provide the technology that will allow users to search for songs by typing in snippets of lyrics to find matching song titles.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 24, 2007, 4:10 PM | Permalink


Want Your Site Featured on Search Engine Watch?

I write a weekly column for Search Engine Watch known as "By The Numbers", which is published every Wednesday (you can always see the latest article on the home page).

And I need data.

I want to publish a series of great case studies that demonstrate success stories in SEO, web marketing, social media, or analytics. Good case studies would be something that includes this type of information:

  1. A before "picture", detailing the state of a site before any changes were made to the site.
  2. A summary of what was done.
  3. An after "picture", detailing the state of a site after the changes were made to the site.
  4. Hard core numbers that show how this grew traffic, indexed pages, revenue, margin, or whatever data seems most relevant.

If you think you have a case study that qualifies, please use the following form to contact me.

The site featured in the case study will receive a link in the process!

Posted by on April 24, 2007, 1:30 PM | Permalink


Ad Age Digital Fact Pack full of news nuggets

Abbey Klaassen of Advertising Age reports that Ad Age's Digital Fact Pack is available to download for free. Among the highlights in the second annual Digital Fact Pack are these gems:

-- The top 10 online properties took in 99% of 2006 gross online ad revenue. Or, as Klaassen puts it, "the Long Tail of the web has a big, fat head."

-- MySpace and Facebook continue to defy gravity, growing 72.5% and 59.2% (Feb. '07 vs. Feb. '06), respectively.

-- The top US Search engines are Google (51.83%), Yahoo Search (15.94%), MSN Search (9.13%), Google Image Search (6.02%), and Ask.com (2.15%), according to Hitwise. That's right, Google Image Search has a higher market share than Ask.com!

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 24, 2007, 11:42 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: On Paid Links and Keyword Management

Today's Search Engine Watch Experts columns tackle the topics of paid links and keyword management.

In his au Natural column, "Should Paid Links Influence Organic Rankings?" Mark Jackson asks the question that's being debated around the industry.

In his Big Biz column, "Mission Possible: Managing Millions of Keywords," Aaron Shear offers advice on managing large PPC campaigns.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 24, 2007, 11:15 AM | Permalink


IAC Launches Its Own Incubator

IAC/InterActiveCorp, parent to Ask.com and Citysearch, among others, has launched an internal incubator project to find and develop business opportunities for IAC. The as-yet-unnamed unit will be based in San Francisco, and led by Match.com CEO Jim Safka. IAC will replace Safka at Match.com with Thomas Enraght-Moony, who had been Match.com's COO.

Yahoo recently took a similar tack when it launched "Brickhouse" late last year. That unit is led by Flickr founder Caterina Fake and serial entrepreneur Salim Ismail.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 24, 2007, 10:35 AM | Permalink


iProspect Opens Office in Spain

SEM agency iProspect recently began accelerating its global expansion plans by moving founder and former CEO Fredrick Marckini over to parent Isobar to become its global search officer. His new job is to expand Isobar's existing search marketing practices and set up new ones, bringing to them the tools and best practices iProspect has built in the U.S.

The first fruits of that strategy come in the form of a new iProspect office in Madrid, where the agency formerly known as NTB has rebranded as iProspect Spain. This is the third global agency, following iProspect Netherlands (2005) and iProspect Sweden (2006).

The global offices serve both local clients in each country, as well as global clients looking to expand into those regions.

“Search engine marketing is now recognized as a global opportunity. Marketers around the globe want continuity of service with local expertise, and this expansion offers exactly that,” Marckini said. “iProspect's worldwide expansion answers global marketers' demand for the same excellence, technology and results that iProspect is known to deliver in the United States.”

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 24, 2007, 10:08 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 23, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 23, 2007, 11:39 PM | Permalink


David Naylor Launches Robots.txt File Builder

I was actually outside the Hilton discussing this project less than two weeks ago with David Naylor and he has already delivered the first part of his idea.

Many people screw up their robots.txt file and deny the search engine spiders access to their sites. Dave thought it would be a great idea to create a central site that acts autonomously where people can have their robots.txt file created and stored to insure good interaction with the spiders.

His initial offering allows people to create the file and then copy and paste it into a page they can upload to their own site. Eventually Dave wants to host the pages himself and make sure the spiders correctly spider them. The site would be the central location for all spiders to get the right written file for any website.

The subtle differences between the spiders can be adapted, but Dave felt it would also be a way to get uniformity from the engines once they saw people using the site in sizable numbers.

The other ancilary benefits he was discussing was the ability to determine load times for a given site and get the spiders to visit at low traffic times so as to not overload the client's site capabilities.

I am impressed how quickly he got started on this. But then again he did share it at SES NYC with other fast to market players.... maybe he correctly guessed he better move on it quick before someone else did.

Great job so far Dave... now don't forget the rest!

Posted by Frank Watson on April 23, 2007, 2:22 PM | Permalink


Google Changing Tune on Performics?

Since Google announced its intention to acquire DoubleClick, the industry has been buzzing with speculation about what would happen to Performics, the search and affiliate marketing agency side of DoubleClick.

In a FAQ issued when it announced the news last week, Google had said, "Performics is part of DoubleClick, and we are acquiring it as part of the transaction. We have no plans to dispose of it at this time."

A check of that same FAQ today reveals a different statement on Performics:

What will Google do with Performics?
A. They have built a strong business that is valued by their clients, and we will be evaluating all strategic alternatives for this business. We are committed to continuing to meet the needs of Performics clients, and we expect no interruption in service during this transition. Google has many important agency, SEM, and other partner relationships, and we continue to value those relationships.

That's a bit more realistic, as the idea of Google owning a large SEM firm raises several issues around potential conflicts of interest. It looks like the document was updated on Friday afternoon.

Some people had been speculating that Google would simply shut Performics down, which doesn't seem to make sense, on the face of it. Performics' president Stuart Frankel has been busy debunking these rumors, issuing a statement to Pepperjam blog and others saying the company has no plans to shut down.

Let me make this absolutely clear. We are not dissolving or shutting down or significantly altering the Performics business. To the contrary, we continue to actively build our core affiliate and search business units. In fact, we are currently recruiting for 25 open positions across all areas of Performics.

His statement doesn't mention any potential sale of Performics by Google, which doesn't really say much, since the acquisition has not gone through yet, so there would be no way he could talk about those plans.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 23, 2007, 1:12 PM | Permalink


Charlie Rose To Host First Live Online Presidential Debates

Yahoo along with the Huffington Post and Slate will host two presidential debates during the 2008 campaign. Hosted by Charlie Rose, these interactive debates will be available on the three websites and allow voters an opportunity to ask questions, as well as evaluate the candidates for their performances.

The internet has been used by politicians in the past with grassroots campaigns and even MySpace pages for previous Senate and Congress candidates. This next stage really shows the depth of the integration of the web into our lives.

There was even an online e-debate as far back as 2000, but the debate was from comments made by candidates on the campaign trail and not a live debate for the online community.

The companies issued this joint press release:


Yahoo!, The Huffington Post and Slate announced today plans to host two online-only presidential debates during the 2008 campaign. These first-of-their kind debates will be hosted on all three Web sites and give voters the opportunity to ask questions directly to the candidates, participate in the debate in real-time, and even determine which candidate is giving the best performance. The debates, scheduled to take place after Labor Day, will be hosted by PBS' Charlie Rose. The Democratic debate will feature opening remarks by DNC chair Howard Dean.

"We intend for these debates to be a groundbreaking mix of old and new traditions in politics," said Charlie Rose. "2008 will be a momentous year for the electoral process in America, thanks in large part to technology and politics connecting like never before. I am proud to host the first ever online only debate, which will reach and engage the voting audience in a whole new way."

"With presidential candidates announcing online and with campaign ads and fundraising increasingly online, presidential campaigns are moving to the Internet at breakneck speed. Online debates are the inevitable next step," said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. "We are thrilled to be joining with Internet pioneers Yahoo! and Slate to host the first online presidential debates, and to have Charlie Rose as our moderator. These debates represent a further merging of new media technology and politics, and are a great opportunity to bring more people into the political process, and engage the new generation of young voters who spend so much of their time -- and get so much of their information -- online."

There will be two online-only debates, one for Democrats and one for Republicans, with invitations extended to candidates who have formally announced their candidacies. These online debates will allow the candidates to participate from whatever location they choose, brought together live via the Internet, and will feature real-time questions sent in by the online audience, as well as viewer questions uploaded on video.

"The 2008 campaign is going to unfold on the Web in a way no previous election ever has," said Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate. "We hope these first online debates will be a breakthrough, both in terms of technology and political communication. The candidates will be able to have a real discussion in real time -- but without having to be in the same place. We think the Internet can bring the same kind of immediacy to presidential debates that it has to other aspects of the political process."

"We're opening the doors of democracy for American voters to participate in the Presidential debates like never before," said Scott Moore, head of news and information, Yahoo!. "Armchair politics will take on new meaning this election season, as we're offering voters the opportunity to ask the candidates what's on their mind."

About Yahoo! Elections 2008

Yahoo! Elections (http://elections.yahoo.com) is a destination for voters to connect with the people, candidates and communities most important to them this election season. The site is made up of key Yahoo! social media properties, including Answers, Groups, Flickr, News, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Video and Upcoming.org. The site also features a comprehensive election news offering, including breaking news, opinion and commentary, and video reports from the nation's leading news providers. Yahoo! Elections is working with the campaigns for all officially announced candidates on ways they can interact with voters on the Yahoo! Town Hall platform, offering a valuable platform for reaching millions of voters on a daily basis.

About The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post has become, according to The New York Times, "a well-known, oft-cited news media brand in the blink of an eye." The Web site has over 3 million unique users and over 70 million page views. Later this spring, the site will expand its original political reporting. Also, in conjunction with newassignment.net, The Huffington Post will be adding an entirely new dimension to coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, deploying hundreds of volunteers to report and blog on the race and add their unique perspectives on American politics. The Huffington Post continues to provide breaking news and opinion from more than 900 contributors from the worlds of politics, entertainment and media.

About Slate

Slate Magazine is an award-winning Web site that offers fresh angles on stories in the news and innovative entertainment coverage. Slate won the 2006 and 2005 EPpy awards for Best Internet News Service (over 1 million monthly visitors) and the 2005 EPpy award for Best Internet Entertainment Service (over 1 million monthly visitors). Slate can be found on the Web at www.slate.com and is owned by The Washington Post Company. Slate attracts over five million unique visitors each month.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 23, 2007, 11:30 AM | Permalink


Unica's Steve O'Brien on Cross Channel Integration

Steve O'Brien is Unica's VP of Internet Solutions Marketing, and I had a chance to talk to him about cross channel integration. This is an area of great focus for Unica, and Steve made some great observations as to why cross channel integration is important.

For example, if you have someone who is a loyal customer at your brick and mortar store, and you are also in email contact with them, you want to tailor your messaging to them based on the knowledge you have of their behavior. If they are frequent online customers, you want to tailor your message to that as well. Or, if they are frequent buyers of one type of product, you can target promotional activity towards their preferences.

All of this is subject to the privacy preferences of the individual, of course, but many people are willing to share that type of information in order to get better service. Once they have decided that they are willing to share that data, it is important to make effective use of it with marketing messages tailored to their preferences.

Another great application for cross channel integration is the implementation of programs to move people from using your call center for support to using online support. The cost differences are dramatic. Doing this well requires a strong understanding of which users are using the call center a lot, and not using the online support center.

Then you can selectively mail the right people to tell them about the advantages of online support, such as no call wait time. In addition, you can not annoy those people who are using your online support with a message the don't want pitching them on something they already use.

Posted by on April 23, 2007, 10:30 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 20, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 20, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


Google's Long March Towards Taking Over the Advertising Universe

Kevin Newcomb reported earlier on Google's earnings announcement, adding to the never ending string of news from the Googleverse - most recently including the massive DoubleClick acquisition, and the Clear Channel radio ad distribution deal.

It's interesting to note how Google continues to invest in extending its advertising reach to include more formats and mediums. It clearly wants to become a one stop shop for advertisers of all sizes and in all mediums.

The vast majority of its revenues still come from search and the company has received some scrutiny for its forays into these other media, as Kevin Newcomb pointed out (not to mention the antitrust scrutiny it is starting to face for its level of control in the advertising world).

Another way to look at this is a diversification move. Google's bread and butter paid search market is maturing. And like any maturing industry where overall revenue growth begins to slow, it increasingly becomes a zero sum game where growth must come from shifting market share amongst competitors. This effect is compounded in the SEM world by competition from the newly launched and quickly developing Microsoft AdCenter and Yahoo! Panama.

Add to this, rising SEM prices across the industry that will arguably drive many advertisers away from PPC, and towards investment SEO and organic traffic generation. Citysearch's acquisition of InsiderPages is an example of this trend, and data from The Kelsey Group's annual forecast further support it.

So diversification is arguably necessary for Google to appeal to new segments of advertisers and maintain double-digit revenue growth to, in turn, maintain and justify its stratospheric valuation. The display ad capability brought by DoubleClick will allow it to reach this end and, interestingly, enter Yahoo!'s territory (a possible countershot for Panama entering the SEM arena). Beyond diversification, capability across all ad formats and mediums will create synergies, cross selling opportunities and economies of scale.

There is currently no end in sight for Google's continued moves into various ad formats, across various media. CEO (and now chairman) Eric Schmidt confirmed this in the earnings announcement reported by ClickZ's Kate Kaye today;

"Our core business is driving our success," said Schmidt. The prowess of its search ad business, he added, "continues to let us take calculated risks in new markets...and extend our business to new platforms and formats."

A deeper look at these moves is in the works for a possible SearchDay article next week. Stay tuned.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 20, 2007, 1:52 PM | Permalink


Google ranks The Colbert Nation #1 for "giant brass balls"

Stephen Colbert's viewers, who have already been banned by Wikipedia, have now mastered the art of googlebombing. If you conduct a search on Google for giant brass balls, The Colbert Nation ranks #1. If you search for the greatest living American, ColbertNation.com ranks #1. And if you search for truthiness, Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia ranks #5.

How did this happen?

It all started at Search Engine Strategies last week, when Jonah Stein of The Alchemy of Search attended a taping of The Colbert Report hosted by Stephen Colbert. "During the Q&A period before the show, Stephen said he would like to rank first on Google for Giant Brass Ball, Stein said on Monday of this week. He added, "A quick check on Google shows he doesn't even rank for Truthiness, a word he invented. So, Colbert Nation, we are not -ahem- suggesting a Google Bombing campaign… but isn't it time to start linking to the Greatest Living American?"

That prompted my post, Is Stephen Colbert the Greatest Living American? A day later, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz posted an item entitled, Help Make Stephen Colbert the "Greatest Living American". His post was dugg by the Digg community, who gave it 217 diggs as of this afternoon.

On Wednesday, April 18, Frank Watson of the Search Engine Watch Blog, Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim, Todd Malicoat of Stuntdubl, and other bloggers started covering the story.

The "smart googlebombing campaign" then generated a counter-revolution by Brandon Wirtz of XYHD.tv, who claimed that he was "the Greatest Living American.” The Wirtz effort won the backing of Jake Ludington's Digital Lifestyle.

Meanwhile, over at the No Fact Zone.Net, DB reported, "THE BLOGOSPHERE ERUPTS! - Googlebombing campaign for “Greatest Living American” (and “Giant Brass Balls”)."

On Thursday, April 19, CNET News.com's Caroline McCarthy reported in her news blog, "Stephen Colbert finally drops a Google bomb."

By this afternoon, The Colbert Nation had won (two out of three). So, let's hope that this little blogstorm has run its course. The folks over at Comedy Central should follow former Senator George Aiken's advice during the Vietnam War. "Declare victory and bring the boys home."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 20, 2007, 1:51 PM | Permalink


In House Issues: When You Can't Afford an SEO Rockstar

This was a hot topic of conversation at last week's SES - companies are having extreme difficulties finding an hiring qualified SEO talent, and paying higher premiums for an experienced SEO is intimidating to many businesses.

Our resident in-house expert, Jessica Bowman, offers tips on how to go about hiring the right SEO people for your organization in her latest column: You Can't Afford Michael Jordan, But You Can Get a Strong SEO Leader.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 20, 2007, 1:22 PM | Permalink


Video Interview with Avinash Kaushik of Google Analytics

Sage Lewis of SageRock has posted a video interview with Avinash Kaushik of Google Analytics, as part of a series of interviews he did at SES New York. You can see it here:

Sage Lewis also does daily how-to web marketing video that is geared toward the traditional marketer that is doing web marketing.

Sage will be speaking on measuring social media marketing at our upcoming SEW Live! in Columbus, Ohio on May 9th.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 20, 2007, 1:01 PM | Permalink


Where Content's Not Free

In a world where content's not free, there are many professional publishers who meet niche needs. These publishers create private network effects and make enough money to continue serving their online markets for years.

While falling below the radar for consumers, publishers like Thomson and Reed are well known by business readers. Many niches they serve might not be large enough to ever switch from paid to ad-based models.

At this week's SIIA meeting, the publishers were discussing all kinds of interactive capabilities like mashups. Why now? Because they want current subscribers to use their proprietary data in the best ways possible. They also want to find new subscribers as well.

Generally, publishers are still focused on driving demand to their own destinations. During the discussions, some admitted that their small footprints won't ever draw a meaningful crowd.

While nothing new for SEW readers, the publishers were learning how to participate in aggregated sites and get more authoritative rankings. They heard examples about licensing content -- and that it's okay for your destination to show up among external sites in GYMA search results.

At least the traditional publishers are upgrading their online experiences. They know that more interactive elements will help create loyalty. And they know it's a traffic game, even when ultimately selling online subscriptions.

Posted by on April 20, 2007, 4:58 AM | Permalink


Addressing the Rights Holders

At the recent SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) conference, many traditional publishers heard Yahoo! appeal directly to their interests. Yahoo's Scott Moore explained that more than 80-90% of their content comes from licensing. He touted visitor access to great branded content, and the benefits for publishers.

While Moore was aiming to please, there's no mistaking that Yahoo competes with publishers. Yahoo's top priority is to improve site engagement, by encouraging visitors to stick around before heading to publisher sites and resources. Yahoo can draw on some of its own editorial and user-generated functionality too.

By contrast, these SIIA publishers are off-line powerhouses who often struggle to attract their own site visitors. They have cut licensing deals with Yahoo (and others) to expose their content elsewhere, via these portals.

Yahoo's success with social tools creates a wider gap that's not going to close soon. John Blossom stated this best: “The ability to aggregate both content and communities gives [Yahoo] a powerful edge over most traditional media brands.”

Since Yahoo! has long-standing deals with many SIIA-member companies, Moore seemed to know a lot of people he addressed. Thus I'm not sure why he spent time touting Yahoo's content and capabilities, in a way that was making publishers green with envy. Is this how you treat your friends?

Posted by on April 20, 2007, 3:24 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 19, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

  • Google Income, Profits Up
    Google reported its first-quarter financial results today, with profits up 69 percent to $1 billion, or $3.18 a share, on revenues of $3.66 billion, up 63 percent year-to-year.
  • Google Adds Link Tools, Renames Froogle
    Google made separate announcements today upgrading its recently released anchor text reporting tools, and renaming Froogle to Google Product Search.
  • MySpace to take on Google News and Digg
    MySpace is going into the news search business with a new service that will scour the internet for stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure.
  • Blogging to Gain Back Links
    Beginning a blog as a way to attract links and new traffic is hard work, but your site can reap huge rewards from the effort.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 19, 2007, 11:39 PM | Permalink


Google Income, Profits Up

Google reported its first-quarter financial results today, with profits up 69 percent to $1 billion, or $3.18 a share, on revenues of $3.66 billion, up 63 percent year-to-year.

Google execs spent much of the earnings call emphasizing the importance of its core businesses, search and search advertising. The company has been criticized of late for its apparent lack of focus, exhibited by its dabblings in offline media, intended acquisition of display ad network DoubleClick, and other non-search activities. More details are available from ClickZ News.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 19, 2007, 10:22 PM | Permalink


Google Adds Link Tools, Renames Froogle

Google made separate announcements today upgrading its recently released anchor text reporting tools, and renaming Froogle to Google Product Search.

The new anchor text tools feature the return of the report on most common individual words in anchor text, an expansion of the number of phrases to 200 and of common words in anchor text to 100. It's also made the feature available to more webmasters.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 19, 2007, 10:19 PM | Permalink


Google Ad VP Spamming Google On The Side?

Threadwatch has outed Tim Armstrong, Google Ad VP, for his involvement with Associated Content, that seems to be a content generating company making money from AdSense on dubious keyword rich content.

ClickZ ran an article about Associated Content earlier this month.

Guess he is not Matt Cutts' favorite Googler given the fact Associated Content was found to be buying links.

Have any comments? Let's add them to the discussion on link buying.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 19, 2007, 11:03 AM | Permalink


Virginia Tech news story increases traffic to Yahoo News

Hitwise has released some new data about online traffic figures surrounding the Virginia Tech news story. Traffic to Yahoo News increased 62% on Monday, April 16, versus traffic on Sunday, April 15. By comparison, online traffic to Google News increased only 6% over the same period.

* Online traffic to the Virginia Tech Facebook website increased 555% on Monday, April 16 versus traffic on Sunday, April 15. Compared to the previous Monday, April 9, traffic was up 407%.
* Online traffic to News and Media websites increased 16% on Monday, April 16 versus traffic on Sunday, April 15. Compared to the previous Monday, April 9, traffic was up 27%.
* Yahoo News was the most visited News and Media website on April 16 receiving 8.69% of all visits to the Hitwise News and Media category.
* The TV Network websites saw big gains as well - ABCNews.com visits increased 245%, MSNBC.com increased 161%, and FOXNews.com increased 64% and CNN.com increased 59%.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 19, 2007, 8:27 AM | Permalink


MySpace to take on Google News and Digg

The Times Online and AP report that MySpace is going into the news search business with a new service that will scour the internet for stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure. This approach combines elements of Google News and Digg. It also indicates that the social networking site has ambitions to become a portal like Yahoo.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 19, 2007, 8:08 AM | Permalink


Blogging to Gain Back Links

In Link Love columnist Justilien Gaspard's latest article, he points out the difficulties of beginning a blog as a way to attract links and new traffic is hard work, but your site can reap huge rewards from the effort.

Posted by on April 19, 2007, 2:15 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 18, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 18, 2007, 11:54 PM | Permalink


SEOMoz Declares Stephen Colbert "Greatest Living American"

Rand Fishkin, founder and CEO of SEOMoz, is attempting to brand Stephen Colbert as the greatest living American. It's an exercise in link building and a test of Google bombing.

Greatest Living American is a fun way of tipping your hat to a great political and cultural comedian.

So grab the link and have some fun.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2007, 2:18 PM | Permalink


Interview with blinkx CTO & Founder on blinkx remote

I recently did an exclusive interview with Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CTO on blinkx, on their new technology tool for watching television online – blinkx remote. Here are some excerpts of that interview, and why Suranga is betting that his company's new tool will revolutionize people's viewing habits on the web.

Grant: In your press release, you meantion that blinkx's search technologies are better than keyword-only searches, claiming that they not only listen and decipher audio, but that they "see" - the Web, "helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere." Can you explain how blinkx's search techologies “see” the Web, and mix that in with the speech recognition experience?

Suranga: We use visual analysis to have software actually watch the video and infer meaning from its visual as well as aural properties.

Grant: Will blinkx be able to provide a directory of, or search by, networks and entertainment companies featuring television shows?

Suranga: Yes. To see a directory of the currently shows available, one can go right to the blinkx site and click on the icon in the upper right corner of their site – "Watch TV Online." The search function for TV shows is available in our advanced search page.

Grant: How are the short clips derived? Does blinkx use its own criteria, and what would that be? Or are they chosen by the actual content providers?

Suranga: All previews are auto-generated by blinkx.

Grant: Will there be free a well as paid downloads of these long-form shows?

Suranga: Yes, assuming they are available on the Web.

Grant: Will these shows be accessible on all major media players? Even including the new MacTV?

Suranga: Yes, they should run on any standard web device. content is generally in windows media, mpg4 or flash, depending on the source.

Grant: Can the shows be downloaded directly to portable media players with WiFi or Bluetooth capability?

Suranga: Yes.


Coming tomorrow: Testing the technology

Posted by Grant Crowell on April 18, 2007, 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Does Ask Need Soul - Launching 'Black' Online Community

First an ad featuring Jesus, now Ask (IAC Interactive) has announced it will launch a 'Black' online community in January 2008.

The community, and the initiative IAC is making into this specific ethnic niche, will be headed by Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. and headquartered in Charlotte, NC., the company press release detailed.

The press release is an interesting read and continues Ask's controversial branding campaigns. It cites 40 million AfroAmericans as its target audience and 20 million 'Blacks' from the rest of the world. No citation or mention of where these numbers came from and how and what they represent.

The press release states:


IAC announced today that it will launch an online destination for the Black community featuring topical content, relevant services and a platform for community interaction. Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. has been appointed CEO of the initiative, which is scheduled to launch in January 2008 and will be based in Charlotte, NC.

The yet-to-be-named site aims to bring the best the Web has to offer to the U.S. Black population, specifically catering to the community's distinct needs and interests. It will be part of IAC Programming, created in 2006 to grow branded online content properties that engage passionate communities.

"There exists enormous opportunity in today's online landscape to provide Blacks with an experience that engages their unique communities through a collective voice," said Mr. Taylor. "There are 40 million African Americans in the U.S., and we estimate an additional 20 million Blacks from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. IAC - with its superior technology, operational expertise and more than 60 brands - is poised to provide exceptional content and services for this growing and underserved population."

Michael Jackson, President of IAC Programming, said, "Johnny has superb experience in talent acquisition and an exceptional track record in business strategy and execution. He is also a passionate advocate and leader for the Black community. With his intelligence, business acumen, and people skills, Johnny is the best person to launch this important Programming initiative - the first ethnically focused property in the IAC family of brands."

For the past year, Mr. Taylor has served as IAC's SVP of Human Resources in New York. Previously he was SVP of Human Resources at LendingTree, an operating company of IAC. Before joining LendingTree, Mr. Taylor was President of McGuireWoods HR Strategies LLC, and served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Compass Group
USA, Inc. Mr. Taylor also spent more than eight years in senior executive human resources and legal positions with Viacom subsidiaries Blockbuster Entertainment and Paramount Pictures.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2007, 11:53 AM | Permalink


TV Fans Can Now Reach for blinkx Remote

Video search engine blinkx has just introduced a tool, blinkx Remote that will let TV users find full-length TV programming available on the Web. The tools uses blinkx's speech to text recognition algorithm to identify TV shows by season and episode. The results are supplemented with information from several online sources including the Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database.

With television networks rushing to make their programs available to Internet audiences, this is a timely launch. The tool makes it easier for viewers to go beyond the clips currently available by giving preference in the results to the full-length versions. If a user specifies an episode from a specific season, blinkx Remote can retrieve it. The searcher then has the option to watch the episode online or download it, if it is available, from sites such as Amazon and iTunes. It is even possible for the user to send it to their TiVo. Since blinkx has indexed over seven million hours of video and audio content, TV fans should be able to sit back and use the blinkx Remote to look for their favorite shows.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 18, 2007, 10:04 AM | Permalink


The “Bon Mots” of Social Search

Check out these well-chosen words about Social Search, from experts and attendees at the SES-NY show last week:

- Social search is about people creating trust with each other.
- No, it's not about trustability.
- We can detect junk through social knowledge.
- If we had to create accountability, then results would improve.
- Most tools encourage anonymous participation, where anything goes.
- Money eliminates anonymity.
- We praise content unmotivated by commerce.
- There are hundreds of ways to game.
- The web will mature and spam will go away.

Admittedly there's some poetic license taken with these bon mots, which were part of longer expert perspectives. Still it's clear we're wrestling with how to define and then motivate effective participation in socially-driven search.

Posted by on April 18, 2007, 12:06 AM | Permalink


Ask CEO Explains "The Algorithm"

Ask.com's CEO Jim Lanzone issued a statement explaining the new campaign that includes the intriguing ad copy:
The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus.

“Ask.com has launched an advertising campaign focused on ‘The Algorithm.' The goal is to incite a consumer conversation around the importance of a search engine's algorithm and its integral role in making one engine different from another, Lanzone said.

‘The Algorithm' is the single most important ingredient that determines the relevance of search results, yet its impact on the overall search experience is taken for granted by most consumers. At Ask.com, we feel that in order to drive consumer awareness and use of our engine, it is important to highlight the uniqueness of our algorithm, which takes a different approach to ranking than our competitors. The Ask.com algorithm's relevance methodology goes beyond the popularity focus of Google, Yahoo and MSN's, and is the only one to break the Web down into topic clusters and determine community-based relevance in real time.”

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 10:53 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 17, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 17, 2007, 10:34 PM | Permalink


Yahoo and PayPal Join To Challenge Google Checkout

As part of their earnings call today, Yahoo announced a new partnership with EBay. Joining with PayPal, Yahoo will offer an express check system that can be seen as a solid challenge to the Google alternative.

The press release stated:

As an extension of the strategic relationship between Yahoo! and eBay, the two companies are partnering to improve the online shopping experience for consumers. Beginning today, April 17, Yahoo! Sponsored Search results will feature a blue shopping cart icon linking to merchants that accept PayPal Express Checkout as a method of payment. The program enables a streamlined purchase process for the more than 100 million PayPal customers on the Internet, and helps extends the value of Yahoo!'s new search marketing platform (Project Panama).

"

This is great news for online shoppers and for merchants. Both want the online shopping and buying process to go smoothly and quickly, and connecting Yahoo! Search with PayPal Express accomplishes that," said Rich Riley, Sr. Vice President, Online Channel & Small Business Services, Yahoo! Inc. "Yahoo!'s new search marketing platform delivers consumers more relevant search results, and now, with the shopping cart icon, a clear and simple path to making purchases."


Yahoo! and PayPal are launching this new program with a series of special offers for merchants, including:
· PayPal Express Checkout merchants will receive nine months of free processing from PayPal
1 Yahoo! Merchant Solutions customers using PayPal Express will receive six months of free processing
2 a $100 credit toward ad campaigns using Yahoo! Search Marketing

In addition, participating merchants' search listings on Yahoo! will be enhanced with the shopping cart icon, pointing consumers to a bright orange button on the merchants' checkout page, which links the consumer to the clear, simplified path to complete purchases using PayPal Express.

For more information. visit: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/paypal

"Offering the PayPal's shopping cart icon in Yahoo's sponsored search listings is one example of how Yahoo!'s new advertising system was designed to launch new features on an ongoing basis," said Riley.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 10:21 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Profits Up, Search Percentage Down

March was a bad month for Yahoo though their stock price is not being effected by it. They were the only one of the top tiered engines whose search usage percentage dropped last month, according to comScore reports.

Google picked up 0.2%, as did Ask, while Microsoft picked up 0.4%. Time Warner (AOL) grabbed 0.1% more than the previous month. Yahoo dropped 0.6%.

Interestingly Yahoo just released their financials for Q1 2007 and they actually increased revenues by 7% compared to the same quarter last year.

The interesting part of this is that virtually all of the increase in profits came from International revenues. There was a 22% increase from the same quarter last year. Great job Yahoo International.

The fact international was responsible for the increased profits also reflects the importance that people should be placing on international traffic.

Another coincidental fact - Yahoo revenues for the quarter were a little more than what Google paid for YouTube.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 5:21 PM | Permalink


Yahoo, United Online Renew Contracts

Yahoo and United Online announced they have extended their contract today. Yahoo will provide sponsored search and web search results for NetZero, Juno and BlueLight (United Online properties).

The joint press release stated:


"United Online has been a trusted partner for many years and provides a highly engaged user base providing an excellent source of quality traffic for our advertisers," said Sue Decker, executive vice president, head of Advertiser and Publisher Group and acting chief financial officer, Yahoo!, Inc. "Extending this relationship is a testament to Yahoo! and United Online's shared commitment to offering the best online experience to users and advertisers worldwide."

"Being able to conduct a search and receive meaningful results is extremely important to our users," said Mark R. Goldston, chairman and chief executive officer of United Online. "After exploring several options, we decided that Yahoo's new search marketing system was the best platform for us to provide our ISP users with enhanced, even more relevant search capabilities. We strive to provide our NetZero, Juno and Bluelight members with a high-quality experience and we are confident that this agreement with Yahoo! has helped us to achieve that goal."

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 5:20 PM | Permalink


The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus

No I have not been born again. Apparently the Ask crew knows something the rest of us don't.

They are running that statement on billboards across the country. Another is "The Algorithm Killed Jeeves" - and I thought he was safely encased in carbonite - I was at the event where it happened. Guess the old butler's heart could not hold up to the process.

This is either going to be the best viral marketing effort for a search engine since GMail or Barry Diller is going to have a lot of problems.

The ads have only been running for a few weeks. I noticed "The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus" billboard as I was driving into Manhattan from Brooklyn today. The "killed Jeeves" one I was told is at 23rd and 10th in the city.

I also found a blogger that caught it on the west coast.

The campaign comes from Crispin Porter + Bogusky - of the truth commercials (the effective and shocking youth antismoking ads) - and seem to be pushing the envelope.

The funny part of this is when you look at the recent advertising Ask has done. Remember those monkeys on the TV commercials - where Ask was laying claim to making you more human?

Was this new campaign a response to the backlash about their support of evolution? And are we now to think that Ask is a Christian search engine?

The problem with pushing the envelope is the fringes always take things the wrong way. I expect tthis one to blow up very soon.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 4:02 PM | Permalink


Pizza Search Engine Slow To Deliver

A new niched search engine announced its launch today: Pizza.net - the pizza search engine.

Artistically it looks decent, but as far as giving you what you need fast and clean, lets just say, in the old days you would be getting the free pizza.

The homepage uses the colors of the ingredients for pizzas. Tomato reds, pepper greens etc - clever and hunger eliciting.

One big problem is the initial search is a little slow and then the results do not give you a phone number or if they deliver until you click on the individual result.

Come on guys I really love the concept but like pizza delivery - we always look for fast and fresh. Fine tune this and I am sure you will be the number one site of college kids across the country who are tired of the obligatory Dominoes.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 2:58 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Announces Changes To adCenter

The changes were announced at the adCenter blog.

The most intriguing part of their announcement is that they are basing the changes on "user's likely intent". How you measure intent is one I will have to get the Microsoft people to explain to me. I would love to apply that to my exwife!

A copy of the announcement is below:

On the 16th April we improved how we establish the quality and relevance of ads and landing pages in relation to the search user's likely intent. This improvement will ensure that we maintain a high quality of ads and relevance to the Live Search user and is not a radical change, but an enhancement to our existing guidelines around relevance and quality. To ensure that we are delivering maximum benefit to the search user, we are doing the following:

* Assessing the content of the ad and landing page in relation to the user's likely intent.
* Assessing the keywords that an advertiser selects in relation to the advertiser's landing page content, to confirm that they are substantially relevant to both the landing page and the user's search query.
* Trying to ensure that there is substantive content on the landing page to fulfill the user's query.
* Assessing the duplicative nature of content in overall search results. In cases where there may be content that is duplicated within search results (including landing pages) Microsoft reserves the right to limit advertising of the duplicate content when it lessens the user experience.

In addition to this blog post, to ensure that our advertisers are aware of this upcoming change, we have contacted customers who we think may be affected by this update. However, even if you have not been contacted, we recommend using the following resources to ensure that ads you submit in the future are of the highest quality.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 2:51 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Analytics Getting Attention

Though they have owned Keylime - an early analytics and bid management company - since buying Overture, Yahoo has not really pushed this product until now.

Jennifer Leclair, a writer in the search space who seems to be everywhere lately, has summarized the Google Yahoo analytics situation at NewsFactor.

"Our Web analytics program," Paul Apodaca, director of program management for Yahoo Search Marketing explained, "was developed from the standpoint of someone trying to understand their Web site's performance, whether that be a marketer or an IT person. But our Full Analytics program doesn't show all of those reports. We have tailored the display to suit the specific needs of search engine marketers."

"The way we deliver information to search engine marketers is different from Google," Apodaca said. "We aren't reporting on natural searches. We only report on campaign-related activity. We have the ability to provide something similar to Google Analytics but our philosophy is to arm advertisers with appropriate campaign information."

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 2:27 PM | Permalink


AdSense Adds Greek and Romanian

Just received the annoucement that AdSense is now being offered in Greek and Romanian.

We're happy to announce that we've just expanded our product offerings for two long-awaited languages: Greek and Romanian. Starting today, Greek and Romanian publishers can monetize their content by displaying targeted AdSense for content ads on their pages. As an added bonus, Romanian publishers can now implement AdSense for search as well.If you're ready to get started with these languages, just log in to your AdSense account and follow the wizard located under the AdSense Setup tab. You can also contact the Greek team at adsense-el@google.com and the Romanian team at adsense-ro@google.com with additional questions.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 17, 2007, 2:11 PM | Permalink


RightDot Awarded US Patent for Web site Verification Process

A U.S. Patent (#7,191,210) was recently awarded to RightDot, a “computer implemented system and method for registering websites and for displaying registration indicia in a search results list”. The new technology would allow search engines to clearly distinguish between official and non-official Web sites through visual, audio or embedded identification on Internet search page site descriptions.

This could potentially impact search results, should the major search engines decide to use the technology as a method to compare valid or official sites with sites consistenting of autogenerated or questionable content, in an effort to protect consumers and provide greater relevancy.

Among the patent's most significant claims are:


  • Web-Site Search Result Identification and Validation – On search page result site descriptions, Web sites of legitimate, official validated organizations or individuals are identified in any of a variety of visual, audio or other methods.

  • Inclusion of Immediately Actionable Information Within Search Results – Either through verifiable seal display, visual scroll over or other techniques, useful information about a verified Web site is made instantly available on the search page site description itself. This could include specific product or retail location information, third party recognition, affiliated Web site identification, immediate email contact/response links and additional branding and marketing tools to facilitate the immediate exchange of information.

“Search engines have failed to provide Internet users with a way to verify that they've really found what they're looking for when conducting a search,” said James Grossman, RightDot inventor. “In addition to clearly indicating legitimate, “official” sites, RightDot enables verifiable, faster, actionable and more useful searches, providing new tools that improve the experience for users, businesses and the search engines themselves,” Grossman added.

A key component of RighDot is the visual, audio or other representation on a Web site search result description that a Web site has completed a registration process and been designated as an “official” site. As outlined in the RightDot patent, this may include distinctive markings consisting of a:


  • Seal
  • Color
  • Symbol
  • Embedded Data
  • Hyperlink
  • Highlighting
  • Biometric Data
  • Type Font
  • Type Size
  • Graphical Layout
  • Graphical Data
  • Audio Data
  • Video Data
  • Product Identification
  • Product Model
  • Logo
  • Slogan
  • Combinations of above

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 17, 2007, 12:33 PM | Permalink


AdWords Announces Preferred Bidding Feature

A new feature at Google AdWords has just been released globally, and will be known as 'preferred cost bidding' or 'preferred CPC bids'. This new feature allows advertisers to specify the average cost per click or CPM (cost per thousand impressions) they want to pay within their AdWords campaigns.

Google says the feature was added in response to "advertiser demand for greater control over how they manage their bids and costs", and expects that advertisers will be better able to maximize ROI.

The AdWords algorithm will work constantly to achieve the target price set by the advertiser. The average price model is designed as an alternative to the existing maximum bid system, which often forces advertisers to pay more up front, based on the competition, and aim for an average cost per conversion instead.

By agreeing to an average cost per click or impression, advertisers should be able to feel more confident in their CPA targets. However, this could potentially mean advertisers will have slightly less control over positioning, which may also affect conversion rates.

Only time and testing will tell for many advertisers.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 17, 2007, 12:00 PM | Permalink


Will Filtering Solve YouTube Copyright Problems?

Eric Schmidt in an interview with John Seigenthaler, a former reporter with NBC's Nightly News, at National Association of Broadcasters conference noted that Google is close implementing a filtering service that would prevent copyright content from being uploaded to YouTube. According to Schmidt, the new system called Claim Your Content, will automatically flag copyright material so that it can be removed. The system was supposed to have launched last year. Google is surely feeling a certain urgency in getting effective filtering in place given the $1 billion lawsuit against filed by Viacom against Google last month that accused Google of wholesale intentional copyright infringement. It remains to be seen if this new system does in fact weed out copyright materials.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 17, 2007, 10:43 AM | Permalink


Today's Featured Expert Columns

In case any of you missed it, we recently launched a new series of daily columns, with expert writers covering several topics in search marketing. You can sign up to receive the latest SEW Experts headlines via XML/RSS feeds, or subscribe to each column individually to receive email newsletters. We will send these as each column publishes, beginning May 1.

Today's featured columns are:

Organic Search by Mark Jackson of Vizion Interactive
Compliance Continued: Creating Internal Links for Organic Success
Considering internal link structure and keyword rich anchor text makes your Web site more accessible to users and search engines, and lead to strong rankings naturally.

Little Biz by Carrie Hill of Blizzard Internet Marketing
Branding Isn't Just for Big Businesses
Search advertising can be intimidating to small businesses, but buying your company name in PPC ad programs can be both affordable and profitable.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 17, 2007, 2:28 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 16, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 16, 2007, 9:05 PM | Permalink


Is Stephen Colbert the Greatest Living American?

Jonah Stein at the Alchemy of Search blog is wondering if Stephen Colbert is the Greatest Living American. Stein says this is not -ahem- a googlebombing campaign -- and, according to Google, pranks like this aren't supposed to work anymore.

So, can a group of bloggers with a lot of authority get The Colbert Nation a higher ranking for Giant Brass Balls, a term that Colbert would like to rank #1 on Google, or Truthiness, a term that Colbert coined?

This will be interesting test case to follow. Stein thinks that Stephen Colbert is the Greatest Living American. And many of his viewers would agree.

A new survey of 1,502 adults released on Sunday, April 15, by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that those who scored the highest in "knowledgeability" (correct answers) were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind. Close to the bottom of the heap were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly.

So, the users with the highest "knowledgeability" should be able to judge for themselves if Stephen Colbert is the Greatest Living American, shouldn't they? Who knows, maybe -- just maybe -- googlebombing can still work if it is used to reward truthiness instead of to punish miserable failure.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 16, 2007, 5:01 PM | Permalink


PR.com adds Yahoo News to press release distribution

PR.com has announced several upgrades and enhancements to its press release distribution service. This includes distribution to Yahoo News, social bookmarking, enhanced distribution via industry regional distribution channels, file attachments, and a PDF version of the press release.

While other press release distribution services offer similar features, the pricing for PR.com ranges from free to $199 a year for its high visibility option and $499 a year for its maximum visibility option.

Here are some of the enhancements and upgrades now available at PR.com:

? Yahoo News
PR.com already distributed press releases to Google News, Topix.com, and other smaller news search engines. Now, it has added Yahoo News, the #1 visited news site, for those selecting the enhanced visibility level for their release.

? Social Bookmarking
PR.com now provides the ability for people to add a press release to social bookmarking sites, such as Digg and Del.icio.us. While the Digg community rarely promotes press releases and tends to bury them, most of the other press release distribution services offer this feature. So, PR.com has jumped on the bandwagon.

? Industry Distribution Channels and Regional Distribution Channels
By default, each press release is distributed globally. However, for those seeking industry focused news, each press release may now be additionally distributed to “Industry Distribution Channels” selected for the release. And, for those seeking relevant local news, each press release may now be additionally distributed to “Regional Distribution Channels” selected for the release. Of course, if you really want to reach targeted online media, there's no substitute for pitching them personally by email or phone. No online press release distribution newswire can replace the art of the schmooze.

? File Attachments
You can now attach .gif, .jpg, .pdf, audio or video files, or Word documents to a press release. Again, other press release distribution services offer this feature -- but, generally, at higher prices.

? PDF Version of the Press Release
A PDF version of the press release is automatically generated and made available for use for readers to download. While this creates duplicate content for the regular search engines, some people who want to forward an press release to others like this option.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 16, 2007, 12:51 PM | Permalink


Yahoo! and Newspaper Consortium Expand Ad Partnership

Today,Yahoo! and 12 leading U.S. newspaper companies announced a formal agreement to use Yahoo! as their exclusive paid search partner, and bring local newspaper content to 150 MM U.S. visitors per month.

The latest addition to the consortium is the McClatchy Company, making it the 12th member of the newspaper publishing group. This group represents more than 264 newspapers across 44 states.

The McClatchy Company is among the latest newspaper groups to join the consortium, currently participating in all aspects except the HotJobs component. Other new members since November 2006 include Calkins Media, Inc.; Media General, Inc.; Morris Communications Company, LLC; and Paddock Publications, Inc.

Consortium members announced last November include: Belo Corp.; Cox Newspapers; The E.W. Scripps Company; Hearst Newspapers; Journal Register Company; Lee Enterprises; and MediaNews Group, Inc.

The newspapers in this consortium include major market dailies such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, The Florida Times-Union, Houston Chronicle, The Miami Herald, New Haven Register, Rocky Mountain News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury-News and The Tampa Tribune.

Key points of the partnership from the official release:

-- Enhancing newspaper online advertising revenue using Yahoo!'s graphical advertising technology. For more than a decade, Yahoo! has been a leader in online graphical advertising. Advertisers and newspapers will be using Yahoo!'s sophisticated ad-serving, targeting and inventory management capabilities. This strategic alliance creates the newspaper industry's most comprehensive and integrated online advertising network.

-- Leveraging leading local and national online sales forces. This relationship creates an all-in-one buying opportunity for local advertisers, allowing newspaper sales representatives to offer the combined aggregated reach of local newspaper and local Yahoo! online audiences. Yahoo!'s sales force may sell newspaper inventory to their portfolio of national advertisers and newspapers' sales forces can sell Yahoo!'s local online inventory to local advertisers.

-- Integrating Yahoo!'s paid search technology across newspaper sites. Yahoo!'s search functionality will be deployed across hundreds of newspaper Web sites and exposed to more than 50 million users on a monthly basis. Additionally, users will benefit from having access to a customized Yahoo! toolbar which will be distributed on local newspaper Web sites, providing newspaper Web site users with easy access to the most comprehensive Internet search.

-- Distributing high-quality newspaper content broadly across the Yahoo! Network. Newspaper content will be fully integrated within local news modules and delivered to Yahoo! users interested in local news, sports, finance and other content in Yahoo! vertical areas. This will give readers superior local content developed by credible news professionals and community contributors across the country. Additionally, this strategic partnership paves the way for mobile distribution of newspaper content.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 16, 2007, 10:55 AM | Permalink


Google Audio, Clear Channel Ink Deal

Getting buried under the DoubleClick deal, Google and Clear Channel Communications Inc. also announced a long-term agreement Sunday to place advertising for its online customers on more than 675 Clear Channel radio stations. The financial terms of the deal are not available at this time.

''This radio partnership with Clear Channel is a pretty big statement that Google is in the radio industry to stay and have a big impact,'' said Drew Hilles, Google Audio's national sales director.

Google Audio advertisers will have the ability to access Clear Channel's national distribution system within a simple interface, which would offer access to 1,600 stations though the Audio Ads service. Targeting options will include location and specific time slots, as well as provide feedback on the campaigns.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 16, 2007, 10:22 AM | Permalink


Google Goes to War on Paid Text Links

Google engineer Matt Cutts posted a series of blog posts on Saturday, attacking hidden links, links in Wordpress themes, and paid links. I'm sure his intention is noble: to remove irrelevant links from the serps. But has he gone too far? Judging by the firestorm of protest in the blogosphere, that may be the case.

There are certainly paid links that affect search result quality, and Google has every right to deal with those. But to say that human-reviewed, relevant paid links will be punished is another situation entirely. That makes it look like Google is flexing its muscles as the dominant search engine to take out competitors of its own text ad program.

The call for submissions of paid links is also fraught with problems, most obviously that of competitors sabotaging each other by buying ads for them and reporting them to Google, and secondly of just how Google expects to be able to detect paid links without access to a webmaster's bank account.

Many are irked by Cutts' framing of the paid links argument within the context of hidden, deceptive links to porn sites. His post segueways immediately from a description of such deceptive behavior, and then discusses the practice of paid links, a legitimate advertising model.

As long as we're talking about links, this seems like a pretty good opportunity to talk about a simple litmus test for paid links and how to tell if a paid link violates search engines' quality guidelines. If you want to sell a link, you should at least provide machine-readable disclosure for paid links by making your link in a way that doesn't affect search engines. There's a ton of ways to do that. For example, you could make a paid link go through a redirect where the redirect url is robot'ed out using robots.txt. You could also use the rel=nofollow attribute. I've said as much many times before, but I wanted to give a heads-up because Google is going to be looking at paid links more closely in the future.

The other best practice I'd advise is to provide human readable disclosure that a link/review/article is paid. You could put a badge on your site to disclose that some links, posts, or reviews are paid, but including the disclosure on a per-post level would better. Even something as simple as “This is a paid review” fulfills the human-readable aspect of disclosing a paid article...To make sure that you're in good shape, go with both human-readable disclosure and machine-readable disclosure, using any of the methods I mentioned above.

One of the major concerns with this is the basic idea of whether it's really Google's problem, for having an algorithm that relies on links for ranking. Should webmasters be forced to change the way they do business to adjust for a shortcoming in Google's relevance algorithm? Outside of Google's algo, there's nothing inherently evil about selling links as ads. Even within the algo, many people argue that people that go the the trouble to buy links are likely selling a relevant product related to that link, so it should count just as much to Google as an unpaid link would.

There are, of course, plenty of sites that sell irrelevant links, that perhaps are the ones Cutts is really targeting. But he is not saying that relevant paid links are OK either, and that is where Google is crossing a line, dictating that certain kinds of advertising (outside of its own paid text links) will lead to punishment of the publisher's site. Is it really fair for Google to say that an advertising program that reviews links for quality is bad?

Another issue entirely is Cutts solicitation of reports of sites using paid links.

Google may provide a special form for paid link reports at some point, but in the mean time, here's a couple of ways that anyone can use to report paid links:
- Sign in to Google's webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form, then include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report. If you use the authenticated form, you'll need to sign in with a Google Account, but your report will carry more weight.
- Use the unauthenticated spam report form and make sure to include the word “paidlink” (all one word) in the text area of the spam report.

As far as the details, it can be pretty short. Something like “Example.com is selling links; here's a page on example.com that demonstrates that” or “www.shadyseo.com is buying links. You can see the paid links on www.example.com/path/page.html” is all you need to mention. That will be enough for Google to start testing out some new techniques we've got — thanks!

That seems like an accident waiting to happen. Already, several bloggers have joked that they've followed his advice, and to be helpful, have reported everyone above them in the serps. Others say they'll plan to buy ads for their competitors and report those. I doubt it's a joke, in many cases. And how is Google going to determine which links are paid or not? Will Google become judge, jury, and executioner, deciding that a link is paid without really knowing for sure, and punishing a site accordingly?

I'm hoping that Matt will clarify his position after reviewing some of the feedback, and reach a position that makes more sense and accomplishes the goal of improving search result quality, without making the reporting process easy to game, or making it look like Google is trying to crush its advertising competitors by punishing their customers in its search engine.

Here's a partial list of responses to Matt Cutts' posts:

I've also started a thread on the SEW Forums, Matt Cutts Goes After Paid Links. Please share your thoughts on this topic there.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 16, 2007, 2:07 AM | Permalink


Google/DoubleClick Deal Shakes Things Up

As has been widely reported, Google has announced plans to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. Details from Google can be found in the official press release, on the Official Google Blog, or in a five-page FAQ Google created.

Google also held a brief press conference on Friday, which paidContent has available as an MP3 for download.

Besides the display ad-serving side of DoubleClick, the deal also includes Performics, a search and affiliate marketing agency. There's also the idea of an ad exchange that DoubleClick recently announced, though there's nothing concrete there to speak of.

The deal is being lauded by some as a strategic imperative, while apparently already facing pressure on the anti-trust and privacy fronts.

A few more interesting viewpoints:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 16, 2007, 1:48 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: April 13, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 13, 2007, 11:42 PM | Permalink


Google to Buy DoubleClick

$3.1 billion -- ClickZ has the story.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on April 13, 2007, 8:09 PM | Permalink


Ruminations at the Close of SES

A Successful SES New York has come to a close. After catching our breath, there will be lots to write about from the array of meetings and sessions that kept us all busy over the past few days. For those that weren't there, this will hopefully provide a glimpse.

For many, this was a significant event, because it was the last SES show that Danny Sullivan will run. Last night, Danny hosted his evening seminar, a bittersweet event that was essentially his swan song for SES. It ended in a loud applause for a smiling Sullivan, prompted by a "thank you" from audience member and SEW blogger Greg Jarboe.

True to his personality, Danny brought friends from the audience into the discussion, playfully "talking trash", and moving throughout the audience while passing the mic around.

The discussion was driven by audience questions, and hit on many important areas including Google's personalized search, a variety of SEO related topics, and local. One audience member asked "who will win local?" to which Sullivan quickly responded with a smirk "no one". More of the local discussion is at the Kelsey Group Blog.

There was also a nice walk down memory lane, prompted by an audience question about the most embarrassing moments from past SES shows. Danny reminisced on the first few shows nearly ten years ago in which he and only a few others filled the single stage, while crickets filled the audience (compared to today's attendance). Google wasn't invited back the second year because it wasn't "relevant enough", and Yahoo! PR wouldn't give Sullivan the time of day.

This has all changed considerably which is interesting to see, and makes you wonder - extrapolating forward - what degree of innovation and market shifting is in store for us over the next 10 years. Before letting my mind wander too far, it was off to the bar.

Overall it was a great show and there are many more to come for SES. Congrats to Danny on a great run.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 13, 2007, 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


An Interview with a Google Custom Search Engineer

Over at his Stone Temple Consulting site, Eric Enge has published an interview with Google's Rajat Mukherjee, project lead for the Google Custom Search Engines group.

One interesting point Mukherjee made was that more than 100,000 Custom Search Engines have been created since the service launched in October. He is also a big believer that search will become highly distributed, with search occurring at the "point of inspiration." That means search will more often occur at the web site you are on when the idea to perform a search strikes you.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 13, 2007, 8:18 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: April 12, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

  • Enhancements to Sitemaps Announced At SES New York
    Ask is now supporting the Sitemaps protocol; and support for auto-discovery has been added.
  • Moaning at the Bar
    As the conferences have grown larger and the parties have become smaller, moaning has been heard at the bar as to where everyone is.
  • Interpublic Group Acquires Reprise Media
    Search marketing agency Reprise Media was acquired by the Interpublic Group, and rolled into its large stable of advertising and marketing services agencies.
  • Utah's Misguided Trademark Protection Act
    Over at ClickZ, Kate Kaye has done some digging, and provides a fantastic run-down of the events leading up to the law's passage, the motives of Sen. Dan Eastman, who proposed it, and the current state of the similarly misguided child protection registry Utah created in 2005 and Spyware Control Act of 2004.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 12, 2007, 11:56 PM | Permalink


Utah's Misguided Trademark Protection Act

Last week, technology law blogger Eric Goldman reported on a new law banning keyword advertising in Utah. The law bans advertisers from using the trademarked terms of their competitors to target ads to Utah users, and particularly affects search marketers.

The law appears highly likely to be overturned, according to Goldman, who wrote "I'm reasonably confident that the law ultimately will be struck down on some basis when challenged, although plenty of resources will be needlessly spent in the process. Irrespective of the legal analysis, I'd be remiss if I didn't say what we're all thinking: this law is terrible policy created by a legislature out of control."

Over at ClickZ, Kate Kaye has done some digging, and provides a fantastic run-down of the events leading up to the law's passage, the motives of Sen. Dan Eastman, who proposed it, and the current state of the similarly misguided child protection registry Utah created in 2005, as well as its Spyware Control Act of 2004. The Lobbyist, the Congressmen and the Utah Search Ad Law is definitely worth a read.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 12, 2007, 1:42 PM | Permalink


Interpublic Group Acquires Reprise Media

Search marketing agency Reprise Media was acquired by the Interpublic Group, and rolled into its large stable of advertising and marketing services agencies. Reprise had been one of a handful of large, independent search marketing agencies that had not been picked up by a larger agency.

Reprise will remain independent and serve as a resource to the various IPG agencies, helping when their resources don't allow, joining pitches for new clients, and otherwise contributing to IPG's search marketing needs. Reprise will live in a newly formed "Futures Marketing Group," which houses IPG's Emerging Media Lab, and will also manage IPG's investments in sites like Facebook and Spot Runner.

Matthew Nelson has more details at ClickZ News.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 12, 2007, 1:06 PM | Permalink


Moaning at the Bar

As any attendee at SES will vouch, one of the reasons to attend is to gather and chat with others who understand the peril of a 302 redirect, how to construct a good Title, and that a quality score isn't related to a sporting event. In the past, large numbers of attendees would gather in the hotel bars and move in crowds to a series of very large parties and then return like a herd to the watering hole of choice – host hotel bar.

As the conferences have grown larger and the parties have become smaller, moaning has been heard at the bar as to where is everyone. It seems that crowds are less predictable as start and close times at parties have shifted, but there is no shortage of people, however, who just want to get together and “talk search.”

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 12, 2007, 10:29 AM | Permalink


Enhancements to Sitemaps Announced At SES New York

In November Google, MSN and Yahoo! announced that they were all going to support a unified protocol whereby webmasters could notify the search engines of the URLs on their site that they wanted crawled. As expected, enhancements have been made and were announced yesterday at SES. First, Ask is now supporting the Sitemaps protocol. Second, support for auto-discovery has been added. All it takes is a simple line of code added to the robot.txt file. Here is an example:

Sitemap: http://www.mysitename.com/sitemap.xml

Since crawlers check the robots.txt file when they initially visit a site, this directive will provide immediate notice of where the crawler should look to find the sitemap. Webmasters can also use an HTTP request to submit their sitemap. For more information on this, readers are urged to check Sitemaps.org for the most current information.

During the SES session, Sitemaps and URL Submission, a show of hands indicated that there are still quite a number of webmasters who are not submitting xml versions of their sitemaps and rely on the alternative text versions. It will be interesting to see if a year from now the adoption rate has changed as webmasters discover how useful this protocol is for submitting their sites.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 12, 2007, 10:25 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: April 11, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 11, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


Miva Usurps Google in the Publishing Industry

Here at SES New York, I had the chance to sit down with Alex Vlasto, head of global communications for Miva. The company recently won a contextual ad deal (against Google) with Conde Nast. It is now positioned to be the exclusive contextual ad provider across the publisher's network of magazine websites.

Miva's focus on certain verticals and web publishers allows it to make better contextual matches, which was a big selling point for Conde Nast. This is compared to more broadly applied publisher networks. Specifically its contextual placement works well with dynamic content, such as magazines, because it has rules and filters in place that are integrated with rotating content.

“There is contextual advertising and there is content advertising,” clarified Vlasto, characterizing the latter as the more considered ad placement around magazine and newspaper content.

So what did Miva do to win Conde Nast? It took screenshots of the AdSense placements across the publisher's websites over the course of a few weeks in order to demonstrate where contextual placements weren't as contextual as it might hope. The Vanity Fair website, for example, had contextual ads for brands that were of a “lower class” than those the magazine wished to associate with. This comes down to a difference in a contextual match and a cultural match. Contextual advertising can accommodate the latter to the degree that rules and filters are applied.

On the advertiser side, Miva's Precision Network will reflect this approach by being more attuned to certain verticals that advertisers can buy into. This brings more relevant traffic to vertical websites, according to Vlasto – a concept given more weigh in the online advertising space lately, as echoed in yesterday's social networking session. In Miva's case, this is also an attempt to provide a different price point that's a higher margin, lower volume spend than more widely distributed contextual ad networks, which it also provides.

This strategy isn't anything new though. Marchex has been working this angle for some time and has brought in a who's who list of publisher partners including Business Week, USA Today and Forbes. Marchex's Mark Peterson points out that this is in fact a strategy that was born at Industry Brains, a contextual ad outfit the company acquired in 2005.

Miva's Precision network, taking this strategy to heart, will continue to take a vertical approach to winning publisher partners, while pursuing in parallel its sweet spot of dynamic content. More appropriate than magazines, in this sense, are newspapers. Though newspapers are traditionally slow to develop online models (and form partnerships in order to do so), their dynamic content make them appropriate subjects for more considered contextual ad placement.

“If there is a newspaper story about a train crash, you don't want to have contextual ads for train tickets,” said Vlasto, "And this type of thing happens more than most publishers realize."

Posted by Mike Boland on April 11, 2007, 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Jupiter Research Report Says Most Search Marketers Happy with ROI

A majority of search marketers are planning on spending more on search this year, and are mostly satisfied with the return on investment (ROI) they are seeing from search. Those are two of the findings from a new JupiterResearch report, "US SEM Executive Survey, 2007: Understanding the Increasingly Sophisticated Search Marketer," released Tuesday afternoon at Search Engine Strategies New York. You'll find all the details from the report in today's SearchDay.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 11, 2007, 12:11 PM | Permalink


MSN adCenter Update Coming Soon

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be briefed on Microsoft's upcoming adCenter plans. A new release is planned for 4 to 6 weeks, but you can play with it today at the adCenter Beta site. And there is some cool stuff in it.

Here is a summary of some of the things I saw:

  1. Cross campaign keyword search: This is a cool feature where you can search for a phrase at a global level, and adCenter will return all the keywords that use that phrase on a single screen. You can then work on and edit those keywords without having to go in an out of the different individual campaigns.
  2. Pop-up help: Pop-up help will appear next to any item you have questions you have on a topic by hovering over a question mark icon on the screen.
  3. adCenter now supports Firefox: A great improvement for those of us who use Firefox almost exclusively.
  4. Expanded Bulk Upload Capabilities: Bulk uploads can now be done at an individual campaign level.
  5. Tagging and Favorites: If you have a campaign or a set of keywords that need more management than others, these can be tagged so they will automatically show up and be accisble from your initial login screen.
  6. Breadcrumbing: This is a neat new feature that allows you to hover over the breadcrum bar, and then see a list of peer web pages in a drop down list right there. So if you are in a particular campaign, and want to navigate directly to another campaign, you can do that quite easily.
  7. New negative keyword management options: Negative keywords can now be specified at the campaign level

Overall some good improvements in adCenter's usability and functionality.

Posted by on April 11, 2007, 9:31 AM | Permalink


Ready To Advertise In Social Networks?

We're fascinated by the decisions advertisers make when entering the social network fray. Gone are the days of merely buying clicks or impressions efficiently, via ads that are neatly segregated from content. To reach more engaged prospects, advertisers also must create content and actively communicate with consumers too.

Advertisers should not participate in social sites just because they're the latest channel opportunity. Your company's reputation is at stake, so consider product and branding attributes before leaping. If it's possible to cede messaging control to your users, then by all means participate in mainstream social sites.

Here's a quick summary of the latest landscape:

“Brands don't yet have credibility or community” on social networks, explained Marc Schiller, CEO of ElectricArtists. Thus you should “inject concepts in everything that you do.” This sounds nice in theory.

At YouTube, the biggest brands don't inject anything. Instead, visitors are inevitably finding and sharing well-worn messages. Check out any TV ads you can recall, for a trip down memory lane. With user generated video, there can be spoofs (ex. Dove ad we saw about a slovenly guy.) At least the promotion is gratis.

Advertisers do initiate their presence on MySpace, coming up with clever ways to create personas and messages that attract friends. Of course, the corporate fakes are not tolerated anymore. There are many promotional success stories, especially in entertainment and music.

In newer venues like Second Life, “benevolence has to come through” per Schiller. From a brand perspective, it's an environment where you can prototype projects, learn collaboratively and innovate brands. It's still new and takes a lot of creativity to determine where to belong on this network.

Another way to create brand awareness is more familiar turf, as a sponsor. Bill Flitter, from Pheedo, says he has received requests from marketers to associate with non-profits like cancer.org. So you can pay for sponsorships of non-profits, which participate on social sites.

You can always pursue more traditional ad opportunities within a social channel. Buying ads on blogs or within feeds are options where the brands are still front and center. That seems to be the path of least resistance, especially if you already have ads elsewhere on the web.

Although advertisers do lose message control in social networks, you likely won't be flamed out. According to Chad Stoller, from Organic, advertisers can actual garner some respect. The tough crowd apparently mellows out when representatives from major brands participate online, at sites like Slashdot. “People get a lot more polite when they know you're listening.”

Bottom line? Unless you're in some regulated industry, it seems like you should try a test or two.

More from SEW here: Why Are Search Marketers Getting Social and Blending Advertising and Social Networking.

Posted by on April 11, 2007, 5:55 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: April 10, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 10:46 PM | Permalink


SES Coverage: Blending Advertising and Social Networking

SES New York has kicked off with lots of interesting sessions, most notably in the conference's new ClickZ track led by Rebecca Lieb. Within this track there was an interesting session this morning on social networks and advertising, which Debborah Richman and I are tag teaming on. This follows nicely behind the Jupiter report on the viability of social media as an ad medium, reported earlier by Kevin Newcomb (and in today's SearchDay article).

One of the perennial challenges of tying together marketing and social networking is the lack of control involved in viral distribution and the realization that marketers need to “go in with”. Debborah will dig deeper into this aspect.

This challenge relates to local advertising as there can be ways to combine the viral aspects of social media and local. This has been shown through small businesses that have built MySpace profiles, among other developing venues.

Chad Stoller, Executive Director of Emerging Platforms at digital marketing agency Organic sat on the panel and had some interesting thoughts on local. Verticalization is an important strategy, he asserted, to reach qualified audiences. Reaching specific verticals in a social networking context can allow marketers to create a richer message that is better received than in the general MySpace environment. In this way "local" itself can be looked at as its own vertical.

"MySpace has proved to be great for launching movies. But an engaged consumer can be reached in a vertical network that meets a specific interest," said Stoller. MeetUp was cited as example of an online community that can reach a qualified audience – in this case, small businesses whose presence in the network has self selected their needs to engage in B2B commerce on a local level.

"I know I can get 60,000 small businesses that need new services. They will be more likely to want new banking services or be looking for vendors," said Stoller. "It's the ability to create a richer message, richer engagement in a smaller community, they're pre-qualified. You always want a pre-qualified audience."

Another important question raised was, How do you decide which social networks are the best places for you to advertise? Timing emerged as the key factor in answering this question. Marc Schiller, CEO of interactive ad firm ElectricArtists cited an example of his client Aloft (division of W Hotels), which was among the first brands to launch an interactive campaign on Second Life. He submitted that the company will get more value out of its decision to position itself in the game than the many companies that could participate in the Second Life land grab that many are projecting.

These companies could get what I like to call the Second Life sloppy seconds. A great deal is still uncertain about Second Life, given negative press and reports about how overblown its value and experience have become. But on the other hand, there could still be potential for valuable national branding and local marketing as the experience evolves.

"Monetization is very early in Second Life," said Schiller. "Can they make users go into a virtual hotel to make a reservation at a real one? It's too early to tell, but now it's about strategically looking at what can be done and what kinds of experiences are possible."

The key in beating the trends and planting a stake in the next hot social networking environment is – easier said than done – to spot trends before they happen. Schiller asserts that this is best done by looking at your own company, your own message, and the social networks that you “like” for their conduciveness to your product culture

"Everyone is talking about Twitter," said Schiller as an example. "There will be a brand that gets great attention by figuring out how to do something cool with Twitter that fits who they are. When, How, and Who will that be is the question."

Posted by Mike Boland on April 10, 2007, 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)


Is Search to Social Media a Natural Progression?

"Search marketing is becoming more about marketing, and less about search," said Rob Murray, president and CEO of iProspect. That's a pretty common theme these days, as search takes its spot at the big kids' marketing table.

The definition of what is and isn't search marketing is expanding to include other related disciplines. It began with Web developers moving into SEO. A few years ago, SEOs expanded into paid search. Today, one area that more and more search marketers are moving into is social media marketing. We explore that move in today's SearchDay, "Why Are Search Marketers Getting Social?."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 10:43 AM | Permalink


AdGooroo Names Power Users

Competitive search intelligence provider, AdGooroo revealed some of their "power users" today. Agencies that have demonstrated a high level of proficiency in using AdGooroo's competitive intelligence tools include:

  • iCrossing
  • 24/7 Real Media
  • Coremetrics
  • Point It!
  • Resolution Media

AdGooroo's competitive intelligence product offers the capability to see what keywords your competitor is bidding on, to compare your campaign side by side with your competitor, and helping you identify the best ad copy in your market space. In addition, AdGooroo offers Natural Rankings Monitoring which offers a comprehensive set of tools for monitoring your organic search campaigns. AdGooroo also offers a tool that helps companies monitor potential trademark infringement.

Posted by on April 10, 2007, 10:20 AM | Permalink


Wordtracker Launches Wordtracker Academy

Wordtracker announced today the launch of Wordtracker Academy. This new initiative is designed to offer webmasters expert articles, tips and tricks, and case studies to help them make better use of keyword research.

One example piece of content you can find in Wortracker University is titled "Using Keywords - an eight point plan". This plan details the 8 basic opportunities for leveraging keyword data.

This is a good move for Wordtracker, as they get to generate some publicity, create some goodwill by providing the free tools, and, of course, use their own tools and advice in generating the new pages for their site!

Posted by on April 10, 2007, 10:15 AM | Permalink


SES NY 2007 is Underway!

Search Engine Strategies New York is officially underway. We'll be doing our best to bring you highlights from the sessions, exhibit floor, and after-hours parties. If you're here at the show and plan on blogging or taking pictures, be sure to tag them with "sesny2007," so everyone can find them on Technorati and Flickr.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 7:00 AM | Permalink


Report: Social Media More Than a Fad

This will come as no surprise to Search Engine Watch readers, but a new study from iProspect shows that social media sites are growing into a viable marketing channel, and are more than just a fad among teens.

The iProspect Social Networking User Behavior Study, conducted by Jupiter Research, finds that 1 in 4 adult Internet users regularly visited the most popular social networking sites in the past year, and 1 in 3 Internet users report that their purchase decisions have been influenced by sites with social content.

"People tend to talk about a new technology well ahead of its actual adoption. And for sure, you can still reach two or three times as many people through Google, Yahoo, or MSN. But there is more to life than Google, Yahoo and MSN," said Rob Murray, president and CEO of iProspect. "Social media is about engagement with the audience. It's not a reach game."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 5:53 AM | Permalink


Yahoo China Launches Social Networking Service

Yahoo China has launched a social networking service called Yahoo Space, according to a Reuters report.

The move is part of Yahoo China's plan to focus on its online community this year in cooperation with Alibaba, which provides an online trading platform, according to Reuters. Alibaba took over Yahoo China in November 2005.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 5:46 AM | Permalink


24/7 Adds Mobile Search Ad Management

24/7 Real Media has added mobile search ad management to its Decide DNA Platform. With the latest version of the platform, marketers can now manage mobile search campaigns in the same interface as Web-based paid search, search engine optimization (SEO), and feed management.

As Enid Burns notes in her ClickZ News story, this upgrade comes one week after the digital marketing firm implemented mobile within its Open AdStream platform for managing display ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 5:44 AM | Permalink


Efficient Frontier Offers Agency Program

Search engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier has revamped its offerings to create a set of tools and services designed for non-search agency partners. The services come in three flavors: Enterprise, Partner Agency, and Express Agency. All three can be co-branded or white-labeled for the agency's clients.

The Enterprise level is for large advertisers who want full-time client services and a fully outsourced approach. Efficient Frontier manages the agency's clients with a dedicated client team, as it does with its own direct clients. Partner Agency services are for medium to large advertisers who want to use Efficient Frontier's campaign management platform themselves and let Efficient Frontier handle the data and reporting. Express Agency is a self-service tool for small to mid-sized agencies interested in reselling a co-branded or white-label version of Efficient Frontier's platform to their clients.

"Both small and large agencies are struggling with how to bring a real search offering to their clients. They don't want to have to send their clients elsewhere for biddable ad services, but they also don't necessarily want to invest in the infrastructure necessary to build a search practice themselves," Michelle Schofield, VP of marketing at Efficient Frontier, told SEW.

The Enterprise offering has been available to direct clients, but has a new interface and new reporting tools for agencies. The Partner Agency and Express Agency levels are new offerings built on Efficient Frontier's existing platform, she said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 10, 2007, 5:34 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: April 9, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 9, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


Idearc to Add-on SEM Services

Idearc Media, parent of Superpages.com, will begin offering search marketing services to its Internet Yellow Pages advertising customers. Services include pay-per-click campaign design and management, search engine optimization reviews and recommendations, search engine paid inclusion, price comparison and shopping engine feed optimization and management, as well as multi-dimensional pay-per-click analytics and reporting.

Idearc, formerly a division of Verizon, acquired SEM firm Inceptor last year, and Inceptor's team is now the basis of Idearc's SEM consultancy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 9, 2007, 1:54 PM | Permalink


Discussion with Gary Price about Vertical Search Engines

In my latest interview, I had the chance to speak with Gary Price of Ask.com about vertical search. Gary became well known in the search community because of the time he spent working at Search Engine Watch, but he is also a very visible and highly respected librarian. This plays into his role at Ask, which includes helping making search better at Ask, and being a resource to Ask.com users.

Gary has an encyclopedic knowledge of available specialty databases. Want a music database? Gary can tell you where to go. Want to find a national wedding registry? Gary can tell you where to go to find that too. A key part of what Gary does at Ask is help to get these specialty databases integrated into the Ask search results. You can think of this at integrating vertical search components into a horizontal search engine, with the goal of helping users find the answers they want in as few steps as possible.

Looking towards the future, Gary sees a continued move towards federated search, such as Kayak which aggregates and dedupes travel information from sites like Expedia and Orbitz, or Indeed.com, which aggregates data for job information.

Just under a month ago, I published here on Search Engine Watch my first interview with Gary Price. In this earlier interview we talked quite a bit about the integration of specialty data bases into Ask.

Posted by on April 9, 2007, 11:09 AM | Permalink


AOL Launches Google-Powered Search Marketplace

As they said they would when they expanded their alliance back in December 2005, AOL and Google are now offering advertisers the ability to buy search ads that will only be seen on AOL Search, using a white-label version of the AdWords platform.

The AOL Search Marketplace will allow marketers to target ads specifically to AOL Search users, and to coordinate search campaigns with other kinds of ads on the AOL Network. The move is an extension of the strategy AOL embarked on last summer, in which it began moving away from its roots as a dial-up service provider to become an ad-supported media network.

AOL's own research, as well as multiple third party reports, have noted a boost in performance when advertisers buy both search and display ads.

AOL will continue to share revenue from ads on its network with Google, though it's not clear whether the arrangement changed with this new implementation. This is the first time Google has offered a white-label version of the AdWords platform.

AOL has also made some changes to its shopping search and local search products. At shopping.aol.com, comparison shopping results previously supplied by Shopzilla have been replaced by results from new partner Pricegrabber. A new AOL Local Search beta has also been launched, sporting a combination of results from AOL-owned MapQuest, AOL CityGuide, and Yellow Pages business listings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 7, 2007, 11:12 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 6, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 6, 2007, 4:36 PM | Permalink


Google Settles Copyright Suit Over Google News

Google has settled a copyright suit filed by French news agency Agence France-Presse over Google News' use of its content, according to a AP report. The suit, first filed two years ago, accused Google of posting news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.

Google has apparently paid an undisclosed sum to license AFP's articles. According to Eric Scherer, AFP's director for strategic planning and partnerships, "With the other major Internet players like AOL, Yahoo or MSN, we have been licensing our content to them for years and years," he said. "And now Google has agreed to do the same thing, so we are very happy."

A similar deal was reached with the Associated Press last August.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 6, 2007, 4:04 PM | Permalink


Is Google's Armstrong Promoting Search Spam?

Kate Kaye at ClickZ uncovers an interesting connection between Google's VP of Ad Sales Tim Armstrong and potential search spam. In "Bottom Slurping for Google Juice," Kaye points out that Associated Content, a content production house theoretically aimed at creating a marketplace for aspiring writers, seems to be responsible for creating some made-for-AdSense type of content.

The "content producers" are taught to write keyword-heavy content, and they're paid according to the amount of traffic their creations will drive. Surprise, surprise -- Associated employs an algorithm that estimates the number of unique visitors that will be driven to that content in coming months, and pays writers upfront accordingly.

A few examples from an Associated Content customer that Kaye looked at were very low-quality, keyword-stuffed pages, though she admits those pages are not necessarily products of AC writers. Even if those specific examples are not, the argument remains as to whether the service is about creating quality content or adding keywords to a page to better target ads, such as those sold by Google.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 6, 2007, 3:57 PM | Permalink


Clicktracks Releases Click Fraud Detection for Smaller Businesses

Clicktracks Web Analytics announced on April 4, 2007 that they will launch a new product for SMBs which will be known as Clicktracks Pro Small-medium Business Version. The new product features Click Fraud Detection, and is priced at $2995.

This makes click fraud detection capabilities more accessible to small and medium businesses. This is a good step by Clicktracks to expand the reach of their analytics software, and the unique click fraud detection tools that they provide.

Posted by on April 6, 2007, 2:49 PM | Permalink


Convera Focusing on Vertical Search for Publishers

As Kevin Newcomb recently posted here Convera has sold it's RetrievalWare enterprise search business to FAST Search & Transfer of Norway. What this means is that Convera is getting out of the business of supplying it's solutions to government agencies, a business it has been in for more than 2 decades.

According to an article yesterday in InformationWeek, Graham Charlesworth, Convera's senior VP of sales and marketing, said "We are a 27-year-old company, and now we are virtually in a startup situation." The company is going to focus its resources on providing vertical search technologies for publishers. The company already has several major publishers as customers, and is looking to grow that business.

The InformationWeek article also indicates that Charlesworth believes that Convera can be a "Google killer", because of its ability to tune its search results more than Google can. The company published a survey last December that showed that horizontal search often fails to deliver the goods that professionals are looking for. For example, one finding from the survey was:

A commanding 95 percent of professionals find Internet search engines an aid for conducting work, yet only 40 percent say they are very satisfied with the results.

What remains to be see is whether or not Convera based solutions can do any better, and whether or not they will scale over time. But one thing is clear, Convera is aiming to do just that.

Posted by on April 6, 2007, 10:20 AM | Permalink


Google Wins in Court

In a click fraud case filed against Google in Pennsylvania by one of the 556 plaintiffs that opted out of the July 2006 class-action settlement, Google won a victory not on any click fraud-related grounds, but on the strength of its AdWords contract. As legal blogger Eric Goldman reports on his Technology and Marketing Law blog, the case was brought in the wrong venue, and now must be re-filed in Google's home court in California.

According to Goldman:

This case is a nice win for Google for two reasons. First, by upholding the mandatory venue clause, it should inhibit AdWords advertisers from suing Google all over the country. Therefore, all lawsuits will have to be in Google's home court, which raises the costs of lawsuits for most plaintiffs and gives Google some other home-court advantages.

Second, by holding that this plaintiff is bound by the AdWords contract and those terms aren't substantively unconscionable, Google can now invoke its risk management clauses (like the warranty disclaimers, limits of liability, etc.) to cut the economic heart out of the click fraud claim.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 6, 2007, 10:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 5, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 11:54 PM | Permalink


Yahoo to Require Short Descriptions

Beginning in May, Yahoo will require advertisers to provide a short, 70-character description for all ad descriptions, while making the current 190-character description an option that will only be shown in certain formats, according to the Yahoo Search Marketing blog.

Beginning in June, Yahoo will begin cutting off ads at 70 characters, or the nearest complete word to 70 characters. Long descriptions will continue to be shown on some external distribution partner sites. The space limit for titles will remain at 40 characters, while display URLs will be reduced to a maximum of 35 characters.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 11:02 PM | Permalink


Google Updates Display of Top AdWords Ads

AdWords ads appearing above search results on Google.com now have a new look, according to the Inside AdWords blog. The sponsored links that appear above organic search results will now have a yellow background, instead of the previous blue background.

To lessen unintentional clicks on ads, Google has also changed the way it processes clicks on those ads, from allowing a click anywhere in the box to count as a click to requiring the user to click on the link in the top line, as in other ads.

Google has been testing the changes for a few weeks now. The moves are expected to lower clickthrough rates, but should improve ROI, as users that do click through are more likely to have done so intentionally.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 10:38 PM | Permalink


Get Social With Your Browser

This week, Mozilla Labs announced a new project to develop social functionality within the Firefox browser. The Coop aims to “create a fun and easy way to share links with your friends, and to browse the set of links that friends have shared with you. We also want to make it easy to ‘subscribe' to a friend.”

Firefox could become the place where you keep up with everything online. The main interface consists of boxes representing friends whom you select. Their faces are supposed to light up when they have something to share. More practically, you're able to sort by friends, their content, or content type. There are more specs in the The Coop's wiki.

What's Appealing:

At first glance, this social browser should appeal to users who already spend their days actively tagging and sharing. There are many who use tagging tools like del.icio.us and furl.net, and are accustomed to using their browsers already. For them, the transition seems natural.

The Coop also might attract people who actively participate on social sites. It's a slightly different mindset, since you make your primary social connections on the browser first rather than the domain-based social site. However once you select your friends, it's a convenient option.

For just about anyone, having ready access and links to all forms of media is a nice feature. You could start to consider browsers as mini-portals, if set up according to your specific interests. Take a quick look at this video mock, where the latest video finds among friends are easily shared.

What's Not Appealing:

First, the social browser is "set" to the same channels of friends and content. When your interests change, that means you'll want to re-tune to other people. Otherwise, you'll see things that aren't interesting -- literally every time you open your browser.

Also, the Coop doesn't fully consider the vast amount of people you reach occasionally online. You might have some interests in common, but aren't going to sign up to see everything these people want to share. It makes me wonder where social search fits in this picture.

The most basic pitfall? Browsers aren't portable and many people have separate work and home computers. While both can be set up, it may not be desirable and synchronization could be a hassle. Not everyone is tethered to their own machines either, so they lose access to their social connections.

The Bigger Picture:

From a traffic perspective, patterns would obviously shift because the social browser creates a noisier environment surrounding websites. What people visit online is disconnected from what's shared in the browser. I'm not sure who comes out ahead, but there should be new traffic driven by the browser-based links shared by friends.

Also, there isn't any monetization path. On social sites, there are active CPM and CPC advertising efforts, but The Coop spec stays ad-free. However this browser will expose ads attached to external feeds, which is how some feed providers make money. Any incremental revenue opportunities on Firefox aren't likely.

The Coop is freshly hatched, and defined as a communication and sharing mechanism, which depends on the interests of active users and their crowds. It follows the paths set by other social sites, only without the site. When it develops in coming months, let's see what happens with adoption rates and business opportunities.

Posted by on April 5, 2007, 9:14 PM | Permalink


BuzzLogic: Finding the Buzz

Today I had the chance to speak with the executive team at BuzzLogic, an early stage tech company that tracks "buzz" around topics or companies. Buzz is defined by the company as any chatter throughout the blogosphere that can have influence on consumer behavior.

The idea is that pinpointing the thought leaders or influencers around a given topic allows marketers to home in on those sources in their marketing strategies. Think of it sort of like a form of BuzzMetrics that has been productized as a software license.

The product itself is a web based application and service layer that targets PR firms and brands of all sizes that wish to pinpoint where these conversations are happening. The resulting activity can involve joining a blog comment thread or positioning paid advertisements near the conversations or top “influencers” in a given area.

There were some interesting tools shown in the demo I was given, such as a graphical representation of all of the inbound and outbound links to the top blog posts on a given subject. This is meant to show marketers from an "overhead" view, where conversations are happening and where they should position themselves.

This could have some nice tie-ins to the work flow of existing SEM products. Given the geographical and site targeting options available in with many SEM platforms like Yahoo! panama, BuzzLogic could supplement them as a first step to determine where targeting should occur. A future version of BuzzLogic's product will in fact be able to drill down (via IP address) to see where conversations are originating geographically in addition to their web domain. It's early days to see what kind of value this could add to search marketing, but the possibilities can begin to be extrapolated.

Posted by Mike Boland on April 5, 2007, 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Jupiter Research Solo Again

Jupiter Research, which was sold by Jupitermedia to Kagan Research for $10.1 million a year ago to create JupiterKagan, is now on its own once more. Kagan Research was acquired this week by financial business intelligence firm SNL Financial to create a new media and communications practice. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jupiter will continue offering its existing technology and online marketing research services, including its coverage of search engine marketing.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 1:43 PM | Permalink


iProspect to Accelerate Global Expansion

Aegis Group's Isobar, which acquired PPC search agency iProspect for $50 million two years ago, is expanding the iProspect brand globally, beginning with Isobar's digital agencies in 36 locales worldwide.

To accomplish this ambitious plan, Isobar has named iProspect founder and former CEO Fredrick Marckini to be its chief global search officer. Taking the reins from Marckini will be Rob Murray, who has served as iProspect's president for the past eight years. Both Marckini and Murray had the option of leaving in December when the two-year earn-out was completed, but both chose to stay on, in expanded roles.

While Murray takes over iProspect's U.S. operations, Marckini's job will be to expand Isobar's existing search marketing practices and set up new ones, bringing to them the tools and best practices iProspect has built in the U.S. over the past 11 years.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 11:32 AM | Permalink


9 Step Process for Getting Authoritative Links

There are many types of authoritative links, and different sites require different approaches for getting the link. This post will talk about the process for getting a link from site by using a relationship building process. Certainly there are other sites you may be able to reach without using a process as labor intensive as the one shown below.

But the approach below works, and if your objective is to build your site into a stable authoritative domain, it's a great approach to use to help you get there. Without further ado, here is a 9 step process to getting authoritative links through relationship building:

  1. Build a list of authoritative sites that you would really like to get a link from
  2. Review the content and tools you currently have, or can easily develop. Find the places where you have a good match between your content/tools and authoritative domains. Now you know how to prioritize your campaigns.
  3. Take your highest priority targets and do some research. Really understand what the site is about. If there is one key individual behind the domain, see if you can find out what their personal passions related to their site are. The best of all world is if they have stated a need or desire for something.
  4. Make your first contact totally focused on helping them somehow, such as solving that stated need from the prior point. Or point out a broken link on their site. Or point them at someone else's site on the web that has great resources related to their site. But at the end of it all, simply help them, and ask for nothing in return.
  5. Do it again, or perhaps even several more times.
  6. Along the way make sure that they are aware that you have a related site (perhaps the site name is in your signature, for example).
  7. After you have established a dialog with them, and they are really responding to you, send them an email that introduces your site, and the killer content and/or tools you think they may be interested in. Don't ask for a link, ask for an opinion, and ask for suggestions.
  8. Respond to their suggestions. It's absolute gold if you can get them to suggest some tweaks that are easy to make. After you have made the changes they begin to feel some ownership in what you have.
  9. The stage is now set, and the exact timing of the link request (if they have not linked to your site already) is a judgement call. But now you are in a good position to make the request.

Posted by on April 5, 2007, 10:45 AM | Permalink


Google Maps Now Mashable

Google has made it easier to create customized maps with a new MyMaps feature. Similar to features recently added by Ask.com in its AskCity offering, and by Microsoft in its "collections" for Windows Live Local.

Google employees tested out the service with a contest, creating mashups for the Googleplex, and a red state/blue state breakdown of the 2004 Presidential election, for example.

MyMaps also supports Google Earth features, as maps can be saved in that application's KML format, according to Google Earth Blog.

Perhaps more useful for SEW readers this week is one that Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling made using the service, "Bars and Sushi Near SES Hotel."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 10:32 AM | Permalink


Introducing: Weekly Columns by Search Marketing Experts

This week, you will see a new navigation scheme here on Search Engine Watch. Not only is it an effort to help readers to find critical content more easily, but you will see a new section labeled "SEW Experts". All this week, we're launching a new series of weekly columns, written by several familiar names in the search industry, and a few fresh faces offering new perspectives.

Today's featured column is Link Love, with starting with Engaging Customers to Say I Love You Back, by Justilien Gaspard, who discusses ways to use current customers to gain valuable inbound links and market your Web site at the same time.

You can now sign up for the daily feed of all Experts articles!
Click the link or the images below to subscribe to the Search Engine Watch Experts Feed

You may also opt-in to each column individually by updating your subscription options via our Newsletters & Feeds management page.

Wednesday's Article:
When Clicks Don't Get Credit for the Sale
Analytics & ROI expert Eric Enge explains the common problems associated with tracking pay per click campaigns through to the final conversion points. Get tips on how to investigate conversion tracking problems on your Web site and within your online marketing campaigns, and find methods to get more accurate data.

Every Tuesday will feature two new stories: au Natural - focusing on organic search issues. Two columns will publish on alternate Tuesdays: Little Biz and Big Biz , will cover SEM issues for both small businesses and large enterprises.

Tuesday's featured columnists:

Mark Jackson, of Vizion Interactive, with: A Plea to Stop Treating SEO as an Afterthought

Carrie Hill, of Blizzard Internet Marketing, with: Time and Money: Small Businesses Have Little of Each

Monday, we started out with our Paid Search columnist, Tony Wright of Dexterity Media. Tony is a long-time speaker at Search Engine Strategies conferences on paid search advertising, and has written several articles for Search Day. The Search Ads column will publish every Monday, and you will also be able to subscribe to our experts columns via email and RSS feeds shortly.

Read Tony's first article, Desperately Seeking Stats to Prove the Value of Branded Keywords, a rebuttal of sorts to recent commentary on the incremental value of bidding on brand names and branded search terms in paid campaigns.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski on April 5, 2007, 10:27 AM | Permalink


New Look for AdSense Ads

A new, streamlined look for Google's AdSense ads, which have been spotted in tests recently, have now been widely released, according to the Google AdSense Blog.

The new formats remove the heavy top border with "Ads by Google," moving that text to a tab on the bottom corner. Borders between ads in a unit are also gone. A publisher's previously selected customized fonts and colors should not be affected, according to Google.

070405-AdSense.PNG

Early responses to the ads at Digital Point Forums is positive, though many publishers are reserving judgment until the effect the new ads have on CTR are evident.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 5, 2007, 10:03 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 4, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

  • Google Website Optimizer Now Widely Available
    Google Website Optimizer, which was launched in beta in October, is now being made widely available. The A/B and multivariate page testing tool is being billed by Google as the "third leg" of a "three-legged stool" that is comprised of AdWords to drive traffic, Google Analytics to measure that traffic, and Website Optimizer to convert that traffic into customers.
  • Yahoo Alpha (beta) Tested Down Under
    Yahoo is testing a new search interface called alpha, which meta-searches several Yahoo properties, and also allow users to add their own search service via OpenSearch RSS.
  • Need Help Planning Your SES Schedule?
    If you're a first-time attendee, you may be feeling a bit daunted by the 4-day, multiple-track agenda. Fear not, seasoned pro Greg Jarboe has stepped in to help.
  • Search Retargeting Worth a Second Look?
    Want to combine some of the benefits of search marketing with display ads? Search retargeting may be just what you're looking for.
  • Troogle?
    Fresh speculation has emerged about whether or not Google will launch a vertical search capability focused on travel.
  • Pay-Per-Digg Black Market Manipulation?
    Another pay-per-digg scheme claims it won't get users banned from popular social network promotion tool Digg.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 4, 2007, 11:51 PM | Permalink


Search Retargeting Worth a Second Look?

Want to combine some of the benefits of search marketing with display ads? Search retargeting may be just what you're looking for, according to NetPlus Marketing's Robin Neifield. Search retargeting is a behavioral targeting technique used by providers like Advertising.com, Blue Lithium, and Revenue Science (and soon DRIVEpm) that serves relevant display ads to a user on one site based on a search query made earlier on another partner site. While early efforts in retargeting were spotty, these offerings have matured to a point where they're worth a second look, Neifield says.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 4, 2007, 11:49 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Alpha (beta) Tested Down Under

Yahoo is testing a new search interface called alpha, which meta-searches several Yahoo properties, and also allow users to add their own search service via OpenSearch RSS. Alpha, spotted this week by tech blogger Amit Agarwal, is the product of a Yahoo Australia Hack Day, according to the Alpha blog.

The search results page on Alpha are reminiscent of AskX. For example, a search for [New York Mets] on Alpha and the same search on AskX will show the main search results in the left column, with results from additional properties on the right. For Alpha, this means, Flickr, Yahoo Answers, YouTube, News Search, and Wikipedia by default. It also includes Yahoo's sponsored links results. For AskX, the answers come from Citysearch, Pricegrabber, blinkx, blog and news search.

It's also an expansion of the idea of a Google OneBox or Ask Smart Answer, both of which surface additional content from the search engine or its partners at the top of a page.

If users add their own search services, it becomes a meta-search engine, such as Vivisimo's Clusty, Rollyo, Google's Custom Search Engine, or Yahoo Search Builder. Its RSS remixing abilities are also reminiscent of Yahoo Pipes.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 4, 2007, 11:36 PM | Permalink


Need Help Planning Your SES Schedule?

Search Engine Strategies New York is coming up next week, as you know. If you're a first-time attendee, you may be feeling a bit daunted by the 4-day, multiple-track agenda. Fear not, seasoned pro Greg Jarboe has stepped in to help design an optimized schedule for three types of attendees: an executive who wants to understand the fundamentals of search, a director who is focused on pay-per-click advertising, and a manager who is focused on organic listings.

In today's SearchDay, "Optimize Your Schedule for SES NY," Greg has scoured the agenda and given his recommendations on which sessions each of these people might want to choose to get the most out of their week.

If you need more help, head on over to the SEW Forums and ask the crew there for more advice specific to your situation.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 4, 2007, 6:27 PM | Permalink


Pay-Per-Digg Black Market Manipulation?

Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal has uncovered another pay-per-digg scheme Subvert and Profit that claims that it won't get users banned from popular social network promotion tool Digg. This home page of this “service” notes:

We are a new kind of black market. We allow advertisers to purchase actions on social networks, and we pay social network users to perform those actions.

Clearly admitting that the service it provides is in violation of the Terms of Use of the social network, Subvert and Profit claims that they have an algorithm that selects users to Digg a story based on how unrelated they are in terms of their Digging history and that the traffic they provide is cheaper than ppc.

In commenting on this service, Technical Bliss notes that the two blog posts in the Subvert and Profit blog were written almost undoubtedly under names assumed from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and a famed KGB master strategist. All of this begs the questions – “just how shady is this?”

Would you really want to trust your site's reputation to a firm that answers the question in their faq “who are you?” with: “We are whomever you want us to be. We come from nowhere and we are everywhere?” How soon will it be before they go back where they came from?

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 4, 2007, 11:05 AM | Permalink


Paid Search Webcast Today

Can't wait a moment longer to quench your thirst for search marketing knowledge? Search Engine Strategies New York is less than a week away, but if you want to get started early, you can listen in on a free SES Webcast today at 2 p.m. EST.

"Overcoming Common Barriers To Successful Paid Campaigns," hosted by Mike Sack, Idearc Media's director of SEM technology & development, is intended to help attendees learn to prepare a Web site for a search advertising campaign, identify conversion points, target the right keywords and phrases, plan bidding strategies and track the campaign.

More details and registration info are available on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 4, 2007, 10:42 AM | Permalink


Troogle?

It appears that fresh speculation has emerged about whether or not Google will launch a vertical search capability focused on travel. This is another one of those vertical spaces where there is a lot of money.

The speculation initially began about a year ago, and seemed to die down for a while. The name people have been giving this concept is "Troogle". According to the above referenced article at 4Hoteliers.com, there are those that estimate that 70% of all travel searches originate at Google already. So as the T2 Impact Blog points, out, Google is already in the travel space.

However, there are such huge dollars in the space, that it may well make sense for Google to focus on this space and protect its already impressive market share, by providing more and more value added services for travel related searches. As a public company, their stock price is based on growth projections, and over time, these expectations will get harder and harder to meet.

But so far, Google is denying any plans to do anything beyond what they have already in the travel space.

Posted by on April 4, 2007, 10:26 AM | Permalink


Google Website Optimizer Now Widely Available

Google Website Optimizer, which was launched in beta in October, is now being made widely available. The A/B and multivariate page testing tool is being billed by Google as the "third leg" of a "three-legged stool" that is comprised of AdWords to drive traffic, Google Analytics to measure that traffic, and Website Optimizer to convert that traffic into customers.

Zachary Rodgers has the details in his ClickZ News story, Google Unwraps Multi-Variate Site Testing, Anoints Partners:

"The main problem we're trying to solve is to get people out of the dark ages in terms of how they develop pages," Tom Leung, Google's product manager for Website Optimizer, told ClickZ News. "All too often, they'll just put a page together and maybe the designer will do a few mock-ups, and they'll point to the one they feel is going to be the best one."

Google has also teamed with five consulting firms that specialize in conversion marketing to provide options for users that would rather not do it themselves, or who want additional professional services layered in. Those partners are FutureNow, Optimost, EpikOne, ROI Revolution, and SiteTuners.com.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 4, 2007, 8:01 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 3, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

  • Google Tests TV Advertising
    Google's rumored foray into managing television ads with its AdWords platform has entered the next phase with a limited trial program over EchoStar's Dish Network across the U.S. and Astound Cable, a local cable system in the Bay Area.
  • Compete Develops Attention-Based Metrics
    With the interactive Web, the value of the page view as a metric is debatable since the user can in fact change the page without leaving it. What begs for meaningful measurement is engagement. To address this Compete, an online consumer market research firm, has developed and launched attention-based Web metrics.
  • E-consultancy publishes online PR briefing
    E-consultancy has published an Online PR Briefing, which includes a summary of a recent roundtable discussion on this topic, plus other information about market trends, search statistics and useful resources.
  • Medical Vertical Search Being Chased by Microsoft and Google
    Both Google and Microsoft are making serious investments in the healthcare vertical search space.
  • FAST Acquires Convera's Retrievalware Technology
    Norwegian search technology provider FAST Search & Transfer has picked up Virginia-based Convera's RetrievalWare enterprise search business for $23 million in cash.
  • fisssh!, a meta search engine, is launched
    HGi Media Systems has announced the launch of fisssh!, a new meta search engine that aggregates search results for queries across different types of search and presents them in a more "editorial" format.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 3, 2007, 11:58 PM | Permalink


Mobile, Video Star at Kelsey's Local Search Show

At The Kelsey Group's recent Drilling Down on Local conference, the local search buzz was all about video and mobile. SEW blogger and Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland breaks down some of the highlights from the recent conference in today's SearchDay, "Video and Mobile Search Take Center Stage," including voice-enabled search from Tellme, mobile mapping from Nokia, and local video ad plans from several companies.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 3, 2007, 6:05 PM | Permalink


FAST Acquires Convera's Retrievalware Technology

Norwegian search technology provider FAST Search & Transfer has picked up Virginia-based Convera's RetrievalWare enterprise search business for $23 million in cash. Convera will continue its recent focus on vertical search technology and services for specialist publishers, and will license FAST's Ad Momentum technology as well, according to Information World Review. The move gives FAST a foothold in the lucrative U.S. government market.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 3, 2007, 12:28 PM | Permalink


Compete Develops Attention-Based Metrics

With the interactive Web, the value of the page view as a metric is debatable since the user can in fact change the page without leaving it. What begs for meaningful measurement is engagement. To address this Compete, an online consumer market research firm, has developed and launched attention-based web metrics. Now the new metrics fuse engagement (measured by time) and traffic (measured by unique visitors).

Updated daily, Compete's new attention metrics, available for free through the Compete site include:

-- Attention: The total time spent on a site as a percentage of the total time spent online by all U.S. internet users;
-- Velocity: The relative change in daily Attention; velocity is used to determine the relative growth of a website compared to other sites.

The challenges of measuring new media and the flexible Web are the focus a major research initiative underway through the Web Analytics Association's Research Committee. The preliminary results of this research, which focuses on the evolving best practices in measuring new media are being released in podcast form.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on April 3, 2007, 9:52 AM | Permalink


Medical Vertical Search Being Chased by Microsoft and Google

A recent post on the business | bytes | genes | molecules blog talks about the investments being made by Google and Microsoft in Healthcare. Both companies are making serious investments in the healthcare vertical search space.

For example, as I wrote here not to long ago, Microsoft has agreed to acquire Medscape, a company that provides vertical search solutions for the health care space. In addition, Google VP Adam Bosworth put up a post on the official Google blog titled: How do you know you're getting the best care possible?

This post focused on the uncertainty in the quality of healthcare information out there. Because the information we seek online about health care can easily be about life and death decisions, accuracy is a big issue. He goes on to say that Google does not have all the answers, but they want to hear from users.

Watch for a lot more in this space. Health care search is a vertical space that is so large that it's worth the big boys chasing.

Posted by on April 3, 2007, 9:01 AM | Permalink


Google Tests TV Advertising

Google's rumored foray into managing television ads with its AdWords platform has entered the next phase with a limited trial program over EchoStar's Dish Network across the U.S. and Astound Cable, a local cable system in the Bay Area.

The tests, which were spotted last month, were announced last night by Google and EchoStar. A small group of advertisers are participating in the test, and more will be added as it progresses, expected to be in a "relatively short time" according to Keval Desai, director of product management, Google TV advertising.

Google has been testing ways to extend its AdWords ad management platform beyond the search and contextual ads that are its bread and butter. Recent moves offline into print and radio have had limited success, while online tests include online video and in-game ads.

Desai said that Google sees a move to manage TV ads as a natural extension of its platform, especially as television becomes more interactive, and advertisers begin to demand from TV more of the qualities that make Google successful online.

"TV is becoming like the Web. You have audience segmentation; users care about relevant messaging; advertisers care about aggregating an audience efficiently and getting measurements on how they're messaging with you; and inventory owners like to monetize their viewership, even if it's a small viewership," Desai said. "We're able to have some positive impact on those problems on the Internet side, so we expect to have a similar impact on the television side."

Under the system, EchoStar and Astound will make available to Google advertisers inventory across all channels and dayparts. If the inventory is sold out, the operators will make more available as needed, Desai said. Pricing will be by CPM, under the usual AdWords auction model, with inventory from each provider available in the same marketplace. Ads can be scheduled to appear as early as a day after uploading, he said.

Targeting can be done by network, daypart, region or demographic of the network. No targeting will be done to individuals or households, so users should not worry about the security of security of their account or usage data collected by the provider, Desai said.

Advertisers must supply their own video file to upload, though Google can recommend partners to assist in creating the ad. Any standard format the network accepts can be used, though most typically the :30 spot will be the standard. The file is uploaded to the "head end" TV service providers, who will insert the ads via their usual process, he said.

Tracking will be done via set-top boxes, with reporting to include aggregate impressions (again, with no individual- or household-specific data), as well as data on how long an ad was viewed.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 3, 2007, 8:59 AM | Permalink


E-consultancy publishes online PR briefing

E-consultancy has just published an Online PR Briefing. You can download the 12-page report for free. It includes a summary of a recent roundtable discussion on this topic, plus other information about market trends, search statistics and useful resources.

Katy Howell of immediate future, who spoke at Search Engine Strategies in London back in February, provides a useful overview of where Online PR is in 2007. There is also a debate about the similarities and differences between Online PR and Search Engine Optimization. If you are interested in the crossover between these marketing disciplines, you should also read the blog post by Ken McGaffin of Wordtracker.com.

It is clear from the roundtable discussion that there are still plenty of organizations struggling to grasp how Online PR fits into the bigger picture. One of the reasons for this is that is hard to know which department or agency should own it. Is it part of online marketing or is it something which traditional PR agencies should be doing as part of their job? Part of the issue seems to be that Online PR covers a range of areas from "defensive" reputation monitoring to proactive attempts to drive website traffic which can deliver a clear ROI.

There is plenty more about this in the briefing, including some new statistics about corporate blogs. According to the E-Consultancy Customer Engagement Report, published in November 2006, 35% of companies are planning to use corporate blogs in the next 12 months, and 17% are using them already.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 3, 2007, 8:36 AM | Permalink


fisssh!, a meta search engine, is launched

HGi Media Systems has announced the launch of fisssh!, a new meta search engine. fisssh! aggregates search results for queries across different types of search -- web, news, blogs, videos, podcasts, info, jobs, social and shopping. It then presents the results in a more "editorial" format.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 3, 2007, 7:18 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 2, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 2, 2007, 11:49 PM | Permalink


SES NY is Coming -- Plan Your Party Schedule Now

Search Engine Strategies New York is next week, and while I'm greatly looking forward to catching up with people and meeting many more, I'd like to be able to stop time so I can catch up on everything I hope to have done before the show. Alas, that's not going to happen, so I'll just have to make the best of it, and take some delight in planning my party schedule for the week.

As always, Joe Morin has taken up the task of keeping track of all the various events in a post to the Search Engine Watch forums, "*OFFICIAL* SES NYC 2007 Party & Events Schedule."

Aside from the various vendor-sponsored events, which are always interesting, there are a few events I wanted to point out, as they may appeal to some special interest groups among our readers.

The first event of note is the pre-show charity event on Monday night being put together by the Internet Marketers of New York, which is important for the cause it will serve.

Another interesting event, which should prove valuable for in-house SEMs, is the SEMPO In-House SEM Networking event on Wednesday night. It's been held for the past couple of years at various SES events to provide a vendor-free environment where in-house marketers can share their pains and secrets without fear of giving up proprietary info to ad networks or others who may profit from it, or without being mobbed by agency folks offering to solve their problems for them. Not being an in-house SEM, I've not attended one of these in the past, but I've been assured they are very useful for in-house marketers.

On Thursday, there's the Women In Internet Marketing Luncheon, which will provide an opportunity for women in our industry to meet.

If you've got any events that Joe hasn't added to the schedule, let him know in the Party Schedule thread.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 2, 2007, 4:49 PM | Permalink


ZoomInfo Retools Its Business Info Search

Business information search engine ZoomInfo has retooled its offering to create a single user interface for its various products. The new search engine gives one view of data on companies, people and jobs, which are crawled by ZoomInfo and organized semantically based on the relationship the data has to a company or person.

ZoomInfo offers a free company information and people search, supported by Google AdSense ads. The free search now incorporates job search from Indeed.com as well. The company also plans to sell its own contextually and behaviorally targeted ads later this year. A subscription-based ZoomExec search service provides more detail on people searches for company executives. A PowerSearch subscription offers ZoomInfo's entire package of search tools, with detailed company and personal profiles. The PowerSearch technology was launched in January, during the AlwaysOn conference in New York.

ZoomInfo claims its semantic technology sets it apart from commodity business information providers like Hoovers or OneSource, and that its data quality exceeds user-generated networks like LinkedIn or Ryze.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 2, 2007, 4:39 PM | Permalink


Is Yahoo Underground an April Fool's Joke?

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch takes a look at Yahoo Underground, presented by Yahoo News. The site was launched on April 1, and Arrington speculates on whether or not it is an elaborate hoax. "If this is an April Fools joke it sure was a lot of work to throw away on April 2nd," he observes.

Yahoo Underground "explores America's fringe cultures with reporting brought to life with original songs and music.“ The new initiative is run by Brad Miskell, who writes for the New York Times and appears to be an actual person who is into fringe culture. The site is integrated into Yahoo News and readers are invited to submit their own content via blog posts, flickr photos and Yahoo Video.

Is is for real? We report. You decide.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 2, 2007, 12:18 PM | Permalink


Search-Related April Fools' Round-Up

I've never been a fan of April Fools' jokes. Some people can pull them off and make them funny. Other people don't pick a topic that's obviously ridiculous, so it's hard to tell if it's a joke, and then it's not funny. I won't begrudge you if you enjoy these types of things, though. I was planning on collecting them all in a post for you, but Barry Schwartz has already done the April Fools' Round-Up at Search Engine Land. Feel free to go check them out, if you're into that sort of thing.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 2, 2007, 12:04 PM | Permalink


Who's Buying DoubleClick?

Last week, Microsoft was the rumored acquirer of DoubleClick's remaining businesses, which include the DART ad serving system and Performics search and affiliate marketing platform. This week, The Wall Street Journal (subscriber link) is pointing toward Google as the likely acquirer, citing "people familiar with the situation."

The unnamed source(s) tell WSJ that Microsoft has appeared less likely to win the bidding as the potential price for the company surpassed $2 billion, though Microsoft may still counter Google's offer. Yahoo and AOL are also named as suitors, according to the source.

If this kind of sourceless, baseless reporting didn't happen so often, I'd be tempted to think this was an April Fool's joke. But alas, the WSJ says it's so, but can't back it up with any real proof, and everyone is convinced that Google has already signed the check.

Here's the thing. Somebody -- or more likely multiple somebodies -- are bound to buy DoubleClick's remaining assets. The private equity firm that bought it two years ago, Hellman & Friedman, has made no secret that everything's for sale.

But for $2 billion plus? As Kate Kaye points out, H&F have already made $90 million from selling DoubleClick's e-mail business and $435 million selling off Abacus. So, if they do sell the rest for $2 billion, they'll have made about 2.5 times the $1.1 billion they paid. I'm not sure DoubleClick is worth that much, but if H&F makes that much, it will be a happy day for its investors.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 2, 2007, 11:54 AM | Permalink


MSNBC takes on Yahoo News

Emily Steel of The Wall Street Journal Online reports that "MSNBC.com, the No. 2-ranked news Web site behind Yahoo News, is starting its first branding ad campaign this week." Instead of positioning itself as a "breaking news" destination, as it once did, MSNBC.com is trying to highlight that it offers "a fuller spectrum of news."

The news battle is well worth fighting. Steel's article cites comScore Media Metrix data, which shows that almost 100 million people visited online news sites in February, up 12% from the year-earlier period. However, the chart at the bottom of her article also shows MSNBC.com's traffic fell 3% in February, while Yahoo News, CNN.com, FoxNews.com and AOL News each posted double-digit percentage gains. So, MSNBC.com has to overcome a big lead by Yahoo News as well as a lack of recent momentum.

As for the "fuller spectrum" claim, Google News now indexes 10,000 sources while Yahoo News indexes 7,000. While much of MSNBC.com's content comes from other outlets, the site plans to focus on increasing original video and reporting for the Web and its partnerships with news outlets such as NBC, Newsweek and the Washington Post. MSNBC.com's editorial staff of about 80 people will also be relocating from New Jersey to NBC News headquarters in New York to encourage more integration between the two organizations.

Will this help MSNBC.com give its brand name a clearer definition for consumers and draw more direct traffic to the site? As they say on TV, don't touch that dial. Film at 11.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 2, 2007, 11:53 AM | Permalink


Topix Relaunches as Citizen Journalism Site

Topix is repositioning and relaunching its local news aggregation site as a citizen journalism network. It's also dropped the ".net" and will begin branding itself using the newly acquired ".com" version of its name, Topix CEO Rich Skrenta announced on the Topix blog, and further opined about on his Skrentablog in a post tellingly titled, "What do you do when your success ... sucks?"

"We took a hard look at ourselves at Topix last year. We had built up a strong local audience on the site, but a lot of it was SEO, and while users were clearly getting some value out of our product, we hadn't made something that people really cared about. As cool a technical trick as our aggregated geolocalized news pages were, they actually pretty much sucked.

Thus began a six-month self-examination of why, exactly, our product sucked, and what we could do to un-suckify it."

Skrenta and Topix rejected the idea of reinventing the site as a MySpace or Digg clone, and decided the best way to take advantage of the existing strengths of Topix's hyper-local network with aggregation and AI technology was to build something more like community-edited blogs.

The new Topix will be a human-edited system, which accepts submissions from all users. A "roboblogger" will post news in areas that do not have human editors, which is basically the software the runs the previous version of Topix. More than 100 journalists from Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy (which all partner with Topix for news distribution) will also act as editors for their local cities.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on April 2, 2007, 11:15 AM | Permalink


Rich Skrenta, Google, Vertical Search

Rich Skrenta, the CEO of Topix, recently offered up some thoughts about Strategies for Beating Google. One thing he states clearly is that going head to head with Google is not the way to go. Too much reputation, lead time, and money.

In this light, it's interesting to think about Yahoo, and it's strength in providing destination sites. In this context, even though being #1 would obviously better, being a solid #2 may well be an OK place to be (my thoughts, not Rich's).

Rich also offers up the thought that going vertical may be the answer. It's a decades old strategy for dealing with markets that have a single dominant player. No one can be all things to all people. You need to find those soft spots in the behemoth and take advantage of those.

Here is a quote from Rich:


"You need to position your product to sub-segment the market and carve out a new niche. Or better, define an entirely new category. See Ries on how to launch a new brand into a market owned by a competitor. If it can be done in Ketchup or Shampoo, it can be done in search."

Lots of people are trying, and the forecasts for revenues from vertical search are very impressive, with a forecast of One Billion Dollars for 2009, we are talking about real money.

The next question you need to ask yourself then is, will this be divided among a hundred small companies? Or will a new large player emerge from all this potential revenue. One of the things that is trick about this opportunity is that many of the vertical search engine players that are emerging are highly vertical.

They perform custom crawls of custom data sets, including data not open to the web, apply custom algorithms to the data from their crawls, and then offer up a custom presentation of the data to their users. They are truly vertical. However, too vertical means "not scalable". This fits these start ups because they only need to get to a certain size to provide the management team and the investors the exit they are looking for.

That will make it tough to scale a collection of such search engines into a Google killer. On the other hand, for the same reasons, it is difficult for Google to pursue these types of opportunities. This type of business may not meet their margin expecations and scalability requirements. Of course Google does have it's Custom Search Engine initiative.

But this is based on adding a human editorial layer on top of the current Google index, which is a very cool thing, but it can't go as far as custom crawls, custom indexing, and custom presentation of the results. All in all, I agree with Rich, there is plenty of gold in them thar hills, we will just have to see how it all comes together.

Posted by on April 2, 2007, 9:56 AM | Permalink

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