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July 2007


Training a New SEO

One of the interesting challenges in managing an SEO company is training new people to be top notch SEOs. I find that this is the easiest way to expand the size of the business. After all, SEOs are in scarce supply, and many of the best have their own SEO companies already. Here are 8 aspects of training an SEO generalist to consider when taking on this training task:

  1. A good SEO has both business / marketing skills and technical skills. SEO inherently involves an understanding of the technical details of a site's implementation, but it's also a marketing activity. Quality SEOs know that they are only a component of the marketing picture for a web site, and they understand that there are compromises that will be made from time to time due to other aspects of the client's needs.
  2. Make sure your SEO in training has an entrepreneurial personality. SEOs are always going to be ask to deal with a wide variety of different problems, and need to be flexible and adaptable.
  3. Pick an initial area of focus. There are hundreds of things to learn in the SEO field. Don't bury the person at the start. Let them focus on and master a specific area.
  4. Start slow. Don't give them 5 clients to work on at once. Get them going on a single client, and help them to be successful with that client.
  5. Realize that your workload on that first client will go up. Training people is hard work, and you still need to make sure that the work gets done correctly for the client (first priority!). So in addition to doing almost the same amount of work, you will also be spending time educating your SEO in training. It might be the 3rd client or so before you get a net gain.
  6. Have all their work on the first 2 or 3 clients go through you. The client comes first. This will also give you the most visibility into what they have learned so far, and that they haven't
  7. Be patient. It's easy to under-appreciate the complexity of SEO. No single aspect of SEO is hard. What makes it hard is that the search engines keep their algorithms secret so knowledge is experience based, there are so many different details to learn, and the nature of search is constantly evolving.
  8. Lastly, in contrast to the title of this post, don't think about creating SEOs, think about creating web marketers. The mission is to increase site traffic for your client, and there is more than one way to do that these days (consider social media for example).

Posted by on July 31, 2007, 2:41 PM | Permalink


Google Analytics Up and Running Again

The Google Analytics blog announced on Monday that many users were subject to a Temporary Reporting Delay. Since this was in place since Saturday night, many of the affected users were already aware that something was up. The post reassures us that no data will be lost in the process.

An update on the situation late on Monday stated that this situation was almost fully rectified. I can confirm that the accounts I am aware of that were affected do seem to have up to date data at this point in time, so this update seems to be in place, for some of us at least. It does look, however, like there is still some data missing from this past Saturday.

Google has not commented on the cause of the down time. Perhaps the growth of new Google Analytics account was faster than they anticipated, but that's pure speculation on my part. In any event, all seems to be on its way back to normal.

Posted by on July 31, 2007, 11:55 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO

In today's au Natural column, "Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO," Mark Jackson explains why no two Web sites are created equal.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 31, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Think You're Done With SEO? Think Again

In today's Big Biz column, "Think You're Done With SEO? Think Again! ," Aaron Shear explains that search engine optimization is never a one-time process; it takes time and constant tuning to stay on top of the rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 31, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 30, 2007, 11:21 PM | Permalink


SES, Local and The Kelsey Group

Today we (SES) announced a partnership with The Kelsey Group (TKG) that will enhance the content at both events by combining our collective focus and expertise.

I am very excited about the possibilities here and having spent a great deal of time with the Kelsey folks over the years, I know the partnership will be successful and will ultimately benefit conference delegates at both events.

For those of you who did not catch the press release, here's a snippet:

Under the agreement, SES will create and lead tactical SEM and SEO sessions for The Kelsey Group's Interactive Local Media 2007 (ILM:07) conference, which takes place Nov. 28-30, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, California. In addition, The Kelsey Group will program local content sessions for SES Chicago, which takes place Dec. 3-6, 2007, at the Chicago Hilton.

What does this mean for potential speakers? Well, you can send in your request to speak through the usual channels shortly. In the mean time, please join me in a very warm welcome for The Kelsey Group.

Posted by Kevin Ryan on July 30, 2007, 5:29 PM | Permalink


Wikia Grabs Search Crawler Grub

The open search engine being developed by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has bought the search crawler Grub from LookSmart, according to IDG News.

"The Search Wikia project seeks to create a search engine based on open-source search protocols and human collaboration, drawing from the concept of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, which is written and edited by a community of volunteer collaborators." The IDG News reorted.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 4:58 PM | Permalink


AOL Rumored To Be Changing Name to TMZ

Bill Hartzer is reporting that AOL is moving towards changing its name to TMZ - the large entertainment site.

Though it is noted at this stage the information is only speculation, not doubt people will be scurrying to confirm this one.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 3:17 PM | Permalink


Latest From Google Blogs: Dead Links and Foreign Languages

I went through the various Google blogs and found little added content so far this week. Guess Mondays get a little busy at Google... I know it is the worse day to contact my PPC rep.

So what did I come across? Well at AdSense they have added two more Eastern European languages: Bulgarian and Serbian.

While over at AdWords blog the link offering info on optimization tips seems to be dead... well at least it is just redirecting to the home page.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 3:00 PM | Permalink


Google Finance Canada Launching Tomorrow

Despite a glitch in naming the date of launch on their blog, Google Finance will start in Canada tomorrow.

The finance vertical seems to be the start of Google adding content portals to their approach.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 2:51 PM | Permalink


Alexa Toolbar Accuracy and Uses

Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped posted yesterday about how the accuracy of Alexa data is really poor. The specifics of his post are really a spoof as all the "data" is made up. Philipp is in fact spoofing the Alexa methodology itself as he indicated that the data: "uses gut feeling from a selected sample group (me) as data source". Alexa's accuracy problems are well known.

The underlying problem is that the Alexa data is derived from users who use the Alexa toolbar. At the end of the day, the audience is just not large enough, and the dependency on a willingness to install the toolbar introduces a natural bias into the date. My own experience suggests that these problem become worse and worse as you deal with lower and lower traffic level sites. Have a site that gets 20,000 visitors per day? You are not really on the map with Alexa at that level.

However, I still use Alexa as a tool. It was a blog post by Avinash Kaushik that taught me how to still use it as an effective tool. Quite simply, use the Alexa feature that shows comparative traffic levels to compare your site's traffic to that of your competitors.

Because your competitors are in the same business as you are, the bias problem no longer is a factor to worry about (because the bias will affect all the compares sites equally). For most businesses this will provide a quick way to compare the relative web site traffic levels in their industry. So the accuracy problems are real, but there is still a way to use the tool to extract useful information.

Posted by on July 30, 2007, 1:32 PM | Permalink


Spock, Inc. Launching People Search Engine Not Going to the Dogs

Do a search for boxer on Google and you get a bunch of dog sites - reasonable unless you are looking for people. Do a search on Spock Inc.'s soon to be released engine and you get info on California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Muhammad Ali.

This search engine works the people niche and plans to launch with 100 million people in their database, the AP reported.

The site relies on public records so some of the information may be inaccurate but it seems like a good start.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 1:31 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Mashup Tool PopFly Examined

John Montgomery, group program manager of Popfly - Microsoft's MashUp application - told eWeek that he thought if he did not start the non-prgrammer development tool no-one at Microsoft would have.

Montgomery is interviewed by eWeek and gives some interesting insights into how the product was developed and what it aims to achieve.

Montgomery describes Popfly as a fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages and applications. Popfly consists of two parts: Popfly Creator, which is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups, and Popfly Space, which is an online community of creators who can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 1:15 PM | Permalink


Google Has Fastest Growing Brand

Interbrand, the brand monitoring company, has found Google to have the fastest growing brand of 2007. Google had a 44% increase in brand recognition from the previous year. Overall Google placed 20th for global brand recognition. Coca Cola was one and Microsoft was two.

This is the second consecutive year Google has been the fastest growing brand.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 1:08 PM | Permalink


Search marketing to Latinos – Interview with Manny Ruiz of Hispanic PR Wire

hmpr_manny.jpg
Grant Crowell interviews Many Ruiz, President and CEO of Hispanic PR Wire on optimizing news releases for the Latino market.

How does Hispanic PR Wire (HPRW) distinguish itself from other news wire services? How does your company compare with the services these other new wire companies offer for targeting Latinos through search?

There really is no comparison between us and the. We have built a Latino-exclsuive network for almost 4 years now, building alliances with Hispanic news websites, most of which are print publications that are online, but we include other media outlets like radio and TV that will guarantee a news feed to Hispanic's AdWire that we do in exchange. We have almost 100 Hispanic news web sites that give our clients preferred visibility on their websites. In many cases, you will see our clients on the front page of the news websites. In nearly 80 of those alliances, we actually power their news websites. We give them the news websites totally free – we design the website, we host the website, we do an advertising web share with them. We are actually business partners with a lot of the locations where we can immediately place press releases. This is something that other news wire services can't do, nor can any other business. We have exclusive partnerships that prohibit our competitors from having that same advantage.

Tell us about your “Interactivo Release” and how it relates to search

The Interactivo Release has all the components of the Web 2.0 press release – hyperlinks, high res photographs, quote box, photographs, related info, pdfs, and a website preview. In the next month or two, we will also roll out the ability of putting in a video feed.


Your website advertises that you can reach over 2,400 media outlets, with a minimum of 100 guaranteed online placements. Could you name a few sites of particular importance?

We work exclusively with many of the crÚme de la crÚme of the news services. In Miami we have diariolasamericas.com, the second most important Hispanic publication in the Market. In Chicago we have LaRaza.com. Across the country we have many others, and we also have some that are very well known in English, such as Hispanic Business and Yahoo Telemundo. We have the majors, but we also have a lot of publications that may be overlooked, in places that are not the biggest Hispanic market, such as publications in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma. If there are Hispanic media outlets across the country, it is likely that we have online alliances with them. That is one of the things we love about what we have set up, is that we are in a lot of places that are commonly overlooked. We have worked really hard at getting great representation across the country. We have networks with them through our other divisions, like the Hispanic Digital Network, and we do an advertising network. It helps to get some dollars behind the press releases.

Being that the US Hispanic market is still more limited by comparison to the entire U.S. population, how are you helping your both your customers make sure that their press release are going to the right media outlets, and that those media outlets are receiving the most relevant press releases to their own business model?

The Hispanic media numbers is much more limited. There are like 1500 Hispanic media outlets across the country, and we are discovering others every week. Our goal is to reach all media that are interested in Hispanic news, wheatear they are Hispanic or not, English, Spanish, Bilingual. What we have done is identify those media outlets. We have 16 categories of news that ranges from arts and culture, automotive, business and finance, immigration, etc. We have a team of professionals that are media relations experts who contact media outlets and ask them to opt into the news categories that they want to receive. These news categories, some subscribe to one, some subscribe to all 16. We have had a lot of work behind the scenes making sure that you send news that is relevant to the market. We have a system that will filter which stories should go to which media outlets, and we distribute by email, fax, Web and RSS feeds. We are working with evolving formats, so whatever comes down the pipe in the future, we are ready for it. We also have the benefit of having BusinessWire, the world's largest press release distribution service as our partner. We have been able to learn a lot from them, they have shared staff, resources, insight to be able to do Hispanic distribution with a Business wire standard.

You do provide an RSS feed every one of your target news categories. Does that mean if a customer selects a targeted category they want their press release to be featured in, does that mean their press release will show up in the RSS feed as well?

Yes. We do filter out some of the information in the feed, like contact information. This is because there are people out there who will try to use our system to try and get leads and call our clients, and we want to prevent that. There are very specific things we do and don't do through RSS feeds. You have to be a certified, bonafide media outlet to receive the full unfiltered version of the story that our clients want us to push out.

What are the services and features that allow for a press release to be optimized for the search engines, and better able to reach Hispanic markets through the search engines?

When we launched our service in 2000, we never intended for the audience that would be visiting our web site to be anything other than media and Marketing. That is who we had focused on for most of our trajectory. Then about two years ago we noticed a huge spike in our traffic. We would get calls from just anybody, we were getting a lot of regular people who were not reading the whole press release, and they would contact us not realizing there was another contact. What we discovered was that search engines, especially Google, were leading a lot of people to our site. Our web site is embracing that. With Web 2.0, no longer are our press releases just a vehicle for marketing to the media, we want to make the press release appear in all its glory for the regular visitors. We are uploading PDFs, we are hyper linking, and we just began doing this last year. If you have a Google alert, you can pick up our stories for free, every day. We ourselves have a SEO expert that works with us.


Do you also target Latin America?

Our focus at HPRW is in providing our clients with U.S. Hispanic distribution. Whenever we do work in Latin America, we work with Business Wire Latin America, and they have a way of guaranteeing placement on websites of many leading Latin American Web pages and Portals. They have partnerships with all the major wire services, and major publications in Latin America as well. They also have partnerships with major publications in Mexico, Argentina, etc.

How would someone submit a release for Hispanic PR wire?

It is a little different than other services. They would submit a word document with an order form, through an email. The process takes about 5 minutes. We will get it out to the media outlets, usually within about 2 hours. There is a little more of a process than for traditional wire services, because we have to review it, and sometimes we'll have an English version and a Spanish version. It takes twice the work to send a release through us than with a normal service because of the two languages.

Posted by Grant Crowell on July 30, 2007, 1:01 PM | Permalink


Google Adding Copyright Filters To YouTube

Friday during a copyright-infringement lawsuit hearing involving Viacom and Google, a Google attorney told the judge the company was working "very intensely" on a video recognition technology, the AP reported. The technology, that could be used to filter for copyright infringements, could be added to YouTube as early as September, it was reported.

Viacom sued Google in March in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement from YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages.

Using the recognition programming, copyright owners can provide a digital fingerprint that within a minute or two will trigger a block from YouTube whenever someone tries to upload a copyright video without permission, the AP reported.

"We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by some time in the fall, but this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken, and as always with cutting-edge technologies, it's difficult to forecast specific launch dates," a YouTube spokesperson told IDG News.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 12:40 PM | Permalink


Large Scale Bulk Spam Uploaded to Google Maps

Mike Blumenthal has uncovered a case where a computer repair company is using mass uploads to Google Maps to generate national business. While the methodology can be seen as spam, the company is offering national repair services - though it is questionable if they have offices or employees everywhere.

It is difficult to reach the company directly - their phones are manned by a service at all times, the contact info when you do a domain lookup is buffered by Domains By Proxy - who incidentally proclaim they are protectors from spammers.

As is pointed out in the Google Groups covering Google Maps the local nature of this app seems to be diverted. The listing of an 800 number and a post office box address should be two things Google blocks in the Map API.

This is starting to get some press and should be interesting to see what happens.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 30, 2007, 11:41 AM | Permalink


Metacrawler Obovo.com Goes Mobile

Obovo.com, a metacrawler search portal, which searches and returns results from MSN Live Search™, Gigablast™, LookSmart™, and Alexa™ is now available through mobile devices. The just released mobile version of Obovo.com provides users Web search capabilities, image search capabilities and local business search capabilities from their mobile phone or PDA. Obovo's mobile Web search automatically provides users misspelling suggestions, along with indented sublistings. After searching for an image on their mobile device, Obovo users have the ability to choose whether to go to the website hosting the image or directly to the image itself. Obovo's mobile image search also makes it possible for users to download images directly to their phone or PDA.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on July 30, 2007, 10:32 AM | Permalink


Microsoft to acquire Social Media Sites?

Dave Naylor speculated late last week that Digg will be bought by Microsoft. This is based on a statement by Kevin Rose that Digg had "signed on Microsoft as our new partner to sell and serve the ads on Digg". Dave admits that it's pure speculation and also observes that Microsoft has a similar deal with Facebook, and then speculates that Microsoft might buy Facebook too.

Having spoken with Robert Scoble recently, Microsoft's former technical evangelist, I am not sure that either of these are too likely. Don't get me wrong, I think both would be fabulous moves for Microsoft, which needs to look past short term revenue potential when looking at acquisitions, and start looking at the bigger picture of getting a strong foothold on the web, which they currently sorely lack.

It was Robert who pointed out to me the problem. Microsoft management has trouble understanding how to deal with these types of companies that are highly under-commercialized. He tried to persuade Bill Gates to buy Flickr at a time it did not have a set value yet (Yahoo! later bought it for $30M), but was soundly rejected. Robert pointed out that businesses to Microsoft generate $4B in revenue, not a few million with lots of upside potential.

That aside, it would be a very smart move for Microsoft to acquire Facebook, and potentially Digg as well. It would give them a strong foothold in the social media space, which, as Dave points out, they just don't have right now. You can see why it might make sense for Digg to sell, because it's no longer climbing like a rocketship. It's still a very important site, but it's peaked.

Facebook is another matter. Facebook is one of the hottest things in the valley right now, and this is likely to make the Facebook management team very patient in terms of selling out. That adds up to even higher pricing expectations. That makes it even less likely that Microsoft will step up to the plate with the more than $5B that such an acquisition is likely to require to get such a deal done.

As for Digg, this could be a step in the right direction for Microsoft too. They just need to do a lot more than acquire one company right now to establish themselves as a serious long term player on the web.

Posted by on July 30, 2007, 9:41 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: PR Pros Make Great Search Marketers

In today's Search Ads column, "PR Pros Make Great Search Marketers," Tony Wright tells you why public relations pros make the best search marketers and wants to convince more of them to participate in "The Search."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 30, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Sun Microsystems to release news first on the Web

Sun Microsystems says it will start to release important corporate news first over the Internet, in what is thought to be the first time a US company will use the Web as its main channel for sensitive information. According to the Financial Times, the move could point to a day when companies stop issuing press releases.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 29, 2007, 10:43 AM | Permalink


BBC launches Internet TV service

On Friday, the BBC launched its online television service iPlayer, which allows viewers to download programs from the previous seven days. BBC head Mark Thompson described the launch as big a milestone as the arrival of color TV. UK online TV services are forecast to "explode."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 29, 2007, 10:38 AM | Permalink


Deloitte media-consumption study finds user-generated content spans generations

According to a new study by Deloitte, about 51% of US consumers are interested in watching and reading content created by others, not just stuff crafted by the big Hollywood companies and TV networks. And Baby Boomers (42 to 60) and older Matures (61 to 75) are also taking part in the user-generated-content phenomenon, not just the under-25 crowd, Deloitte found. You can read more about the study at Advertising Age.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 29, 2007, 10:25 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 27, 2007, 4:48 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Committed to Advertising Success

At its annual Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond yesterday, Microsoft laid out its plans to succeed on multiple fronts. Notably, CEO Steve Ballmer said the company needs to do five things to succeed:

  1. Hire and keep the right people
  2. Drive innovation in the company
  3. Embrace disruption
  4. Build and maintain multiple competencies
  5. Take a long-term approach

Going forward, Microsoft will continue to focus on advertising and devices:

We're investing today in two new capabilities. We are going to be an advertising company, and we are going to be a devices company. Being an advertising company means learning about online and operational efficiency. Advertising is a new business model. Now we don't just talk about ISVs, we talk about publishers. What's a publisher? It's an ISV in the modern world who also wants to accept advertising. That's kind of the definition. Different business model, different concern. We need to embrace that. We need to be world-class at that.

He later added:

We are hell-bent and determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, the innovation, to absolutely become a powerhouse in the ad business.
The good news is, we're the number three seller of Internet advertising today. We sell primarily on our own sites, but we also sell Facebook, we now signed a deal to sell Digg, and a variety of other people. But we're number three; number three is better than number four, but not as good as number two or number one. And yet I think we'll bring this kind of tenacity that will enable us to, let's just say, make great strides.

Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, went into further detail in his presentation. Speaking about the adCenter platform, Johnson said:

The ad platform is really about four key things: It's about the buy-sell process, connecting buyers with sellers, sellers that have inventory with buyers who are looking to buy ads. It's about the ad serving, having the data and having the algorithm to do the appropriate ad serving to meet those particular needs. It's about tools for publishers and advertisers to help improve workflow and help improve their planning and their entire workflow. And it's about doing this across multiple IP-based devices.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 27, 2007, 4:29 PM | Permalink


Google Now Implementing "unavailable_after" Meta Tag

Today at the Google Blog, product manager Dan Crow formally introduced the "unavailable_after" meta tag, which can be used to identify a temporary page with a set shelf life.

In "Robots Exclusion Protocol: now with even more flexibility," Crow explains:

For example, to specify that an HTML page should be removed from the search results after 3pm Eastern Standard Time on 25th August 2007, simply add the following tag to the first section of the page: <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="unavailable_after: 25-Aug-2007 15:00:00 EST">

Use of this tag will be treated by Google as a removal request, which should take effect the day after the removal date passes.

Crow first spoke publicly about the new tag earlier this month at an Getting Into Google — Best Turnout So Far!">SEMNE event, which SEMNE co-founder Jill Whalen wrote about in the High Rankings Advisor.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 27, 2007, 3:49 PM | Permalink


Search Wikia Launches Open Source, Distributed Crawler

Wikia, the commercial site led by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is taking the next step toward launching its open source, human-assisted Web search tool, Search Wikia.

Speaking at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), Wales announced that Wikia has acquired Grub, the distributed search spidering technology previously owned by LookSmart, and will begin using it to build an index for the Search Wikia project.

Grub, which LookSmart bought in January 2003 for $1.4 million, is a distributed crawling service that LookSmart had implemented as a screensaver that would use idle CPU time on a user's PC to crawl the Web. The data was used to supplement its own centralized crawler's indexing efforts.

Wikia will immediately release Grub to the open source community, and make both the crawler and source code available at Grub.org. Users who download the application can run it either as a screensaver or a background process while other applications are running.

Specifics of the deal were not revealed, though it is part of a larger advertising deal between Wikia and LookSmart which was announced last week.

Under the deal, LookSmart will provide text and display ads in Wikia's freely hosted wiki communities, and eventually on the Search Wikia site, Wales said. Ads will be sold by Wikia on either a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) model. Inventory not sold by Wikia will be back-filled by ads from LookSmart's distributed ad network.

Share your thoughts on Search Wikia in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 27, 2007, 12:30 PM | Permalink


Business.com sold for $345 Million

Did you ever wonder how Business.com was doing? Well enough evidently. According to Forbes, the company just sold to R.H. Donnelley (NYSE: RHD) for $345 million. The company was put up for auction last month, and other bidders included Dow Jones, IAC, New York Times, and News Corp (NYSE: NWS). Here is a copy of the official news release on the acquisition.

This is a fascinating outcome for the business that first became famous for its $7.5 million dollar purchase of its domain name. Conventional SEO wisdom has considered Business.com to be one of those directories in which you should attempt to get listed. This is because it is believed that the editorial policies of the directory are strong enough that search engines place value on their links.

Revenues for Business.com are projected to be $50M in 2007 with an EBITDA of $15M. About 6000 customers list their web sites with Business.com.

Posted by on July 27, 2007, 10:17 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Names Former Microsoft SVP To Board of Directors

Maggie Wilderotter, former senior vice president at Microsoft, was named to the Yahoo Board of Directors. She is currently the CEO of Citizens Communications Company - the second largest local exchange telephone company in the United States and has worked extensively in the communications and media industries.

The Yahoo press release on the event states:

Yahoo! Inc., today announced the appointment of Maggie Wilderotter to the company's Board of Directors. Wilderotter brings extensive experience in technology, communications and business operations to Yahoo!. Currently she is chairman and chief executive officer of Citizens Communications Company, a full-service communications provider and the second-largest local exchange telephone company in the country. Wilderotter oversees all functional areas of Citizens Communications and is responsible for its overall corporate strategy and execution of its vision, mission and business priorities.

"With more than 25 years of experience in telephone, wireless, cable television, computers and interactive media, Maggie's broad range of leadership qualifications and proven track record make her an extremely valuable addition to our team," said Jerry Yang, chief executive officer, Yahoo!. "Her unique and in-depth understanding of consumers, business, and technology will make her instrumental in helping to provide valuable insight for Yahoo!'s key initiatives across the entire organization. We're excited to welcome her to the Board."

Wilderotter remarked, "Yahoo! has the technology, talent and resources to make every customer experience a great one. I believe that the company is committed to specific, strategic, customer-focused actions that will enable it to build on its position as one of the most powerful and influential companies on the Internet. I look forward to working with Jerry Yang and the rest of the team at Yahoo!."

Previously Wilderotter served as senior vice president of the worldwide public sector division at Microsoft Corporation, where she was responsible for strengthening customer and partner outreach in the government and education markets, as well as working across Microsoft's business divisions to develop and coordinate forward-looking strategies.

Prior to Microsoft, Wilderotter was president and chief executive officer of Wink Communications Inc., executive vice president of national operations for AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and chief executive officer of AT&T's Aviation Communications Division. She also served as senior vice president of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. and was a regional president managing the company's California, Nevada, and Hawaii regions.

Wilderotter has received national recognition for her contributions to the communications industry. She was twice honored with the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership awarded by the National Cable Television Association, the 1999 Outstanding Mentor Award from the Women in Cable and Telecommunications Foundation and its Top 10 Women in Cable & Telecommunications Award.

She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Xerox Corporation and holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and Business Administration from the College of the Holy Cross.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 27, 2007, 10:01 AM | Permalink


Can the Search Marketing Industry Grow Up Fast Enough?

The search marketing industry is immature, both in the sense that nearly all the players are under 10 years old, and in the way partnerships are created and maintained. That's the argument presented by Did-It chairman Kevin Lee in his ClickZ column today, "SEM Immaturity Threatens Industry Future."

The fault lies on both the client and SEM/agency sides, Lee says. Clients should leave their "serial dater" mentality behind, and own up to a history of poor agency choices, unreasonable expectations, unwillingness to pay an equitable price, a "dating mentality," and an unwillingness to communicate.

SEMs should be sure they're providing competitive service levels, especially by addressing their labor shortages and dedicating the appropriate resources to clients. Making time to foster the relationship is just as important as planning and implementing an SEM strategy for the client.

Do you agree with Lee's argument? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 27, 2007, 8:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Look After Your Brand and Your Brand Will Look After You

In today's In-House column, "Look After Your Brand and Your Brand Will Look After You," Rob Kerry explains that an in-house SEO's work doesn't stop with optimizing page elements. He tells you how to put out fires before they spread by defending your brand.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 27, 2007, 1:02 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Pimp My Vertical Search

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Pimp My Vertical Search," Michael Boland tells you about the future of local search in a verticalized world. See how Vehix uses the strength of video advertising and online search to give consumers local search on steroids and advertisers better direct response.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 27, 2007, 1:01 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 26, 2007, 11:33 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Wants an Ad Exchange Too

Not to be left out of the ad exchange party, Microsoft plans to acquire AdECN, an online ad exchange similar to Right Media (acquired by Yahoo) and DoubleClick's (soon to be acquired by Google).

The idea of an ad exchange is similar to a stock exchange, where buyers and sellers work through a broker. Similarly, AdECN does not do business directly with advertisers or publishers; it works instead with ad networks, ad brokers, and a few ad agencies that maintain relationships with buyers and sellers, acting as a network themselves.

If you're keeping score, that leaves newcomer ContextWeb and its ADSDAQ exchange as the last independent player standing in the ad exchange space.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 26, 2007, 5:01 PM | Permalink


AdSense Offers Help For Forum Marketing

Inside AdSense, the Google blog dedicated to information about their publishing advertising product, posted an article "Getting your forum site to perform well with AdSense" today.

Though it offers only three suggestions (four counting the bonus tip), it is a great start. The three areas covered are the Welcome box ad, the forum post ad and blending colors and borders. While the bonus is about improving ad relevance through sectioning.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 26, 2007, 2:56 PM | Permalink


Internet TV Startup Veoh Networks Names ex-Yahoo Mitgang as CEO

Veoh Networks, an Internet TV startup that launched in February, has named former Yahoo SVP Steve Mitgang as CEO. He replaces founding CEO Dmitry Shapiro, who will assume the role of "chief innovation officer," with an active role in the business.

Mitgang joins other ex-Yahoos at Veoh: Ted Meisel, former president of Overture and Yahoo Search Marketing, is Veoh Networks' chairman; and Josh Metzger, former SVP of business affairs at Overture, is Veoh's SVP of corporate development. Veoh has also named former VP of interactive at Sirius Satellite Radio Jennifer Betka as SVP of marketing.

Veoh reported 14.3 million unique users in June, more than triple the 4.4 million it had in February. Its VeohTV product, currently in beta, "acts as a specialized video browser and DVR (digital video recorder) for discovering, viewing and managing online video." It includes a personalized recommendation engine to help users discover new online video

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 26, 2007, 12:52 PM | Permalink


Business.com Acquired by Yellow Pages Publisher

Print and online Yellow Pages publisher R.H. Donnelley Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Business.com for $345 million in cash and deferred payouts. Donnelley reportedly beat out Dow Jones and the New York Times, according to the Wall Street Journal.

RHD will add Business.com's business search engine and directory and pay-per-click advertising network to its interactive unit, RHDi, which will now include DexKnows.com, LocalLaunch search engine marketing company, Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network.

Business.com founder and CEO Jake Winebaum will lead RHDi from Santa Monica, Calif., and will report directly to Swanson. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2007.

Kate Kaye at ClickZ has more details from RHD and Kelsey Group analyst Neal Polachek.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 26, 2007, 11:42 AM | Permalink


Web Analytics Shootout: Unica's Affinium NetInsight

Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting (and SEW Expert and blogger), continues his 2007 Web Analytics Shootout series with a review of Unica's Affinium NetInsight Web analytics package.

As with the other packages he's reviewed, Eric came up with a list of "cool things" that can be done with it:

  1. Creating custom dashboards
  2. Ad-Hoc Analysis
  3. Drag, Drop, and Drill, Drill, Drill Down
  4. Correlate Data
  5. A/B Analysis mode
  6. Integrate Offline Customer Data
  7. Examine Individual Click streams
  8. Robot/Spider analysis
  9. Remarketing
  10. Ask NetInsight Wizard
  11. Heat Map Overlay
  12. Date Comparison Reporting

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 26, 2007, 11:05 AM | Permalink


Nominate Now - ClickZ's Decade of Achievement Awards

czmea07_nominations.jpgJust a reminder that nominations are open for The ClickZ network's Decade of Achievement Awards.

We want you to weigh in on the 10 companies, products, services and people who have made the greatest contribution to interactive marketing and advertising (including search, of course). Nominations are open until August 3. Let us know who you think should win!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on July 26, 2007, 10:55 AM | Permalink


Behavioral Targeting Trots Along

For search marketers, Behavioral Targeting (BT) ads may be viewed as “that other advertising” some people try. It's a valid perspective, as Jupiter Research reported that only 16% of advertisers bought BT last year. At a recent Behavioral Marketing Forum, publishers said that only 2-10% of their revenues came from BT sources.

Search is essentially a direct marketing vehicle, text-based and sold in a CPC economy. BT is essentially a branding vehicle, banner-based and sold in a CPM world. So why does BT matter to searchers?

Maybe they aren't as radically different as you think. Both contextual text and BT banner ads respond to visitor browsing behaviors. Text ads are shown when you visit, while BT impacts what you see after your visit. These ad types also reflect content displayed on web sites. While text ads are targeted to unique page content, BT ads cater to higher-level category interests.

BT takes things a step further, beyond the domain. The BT providers tap into visitor interests as they navigate all domains in their respective ad networks. It's a matter of opinion as to whether this is seen as useful or obtrusive, but providers take great pains to enable people to “opt out” if they desire. When participating publishers see better rates than from run-of-network ads, there's no apparent downside for them.

Until the latest consolidation announcement, it's been difficult to bet on one BT horse or another. This week, AOL announced its planned acquisition of Tacoda (see ClickZ coverage). The mainstream reaction is that AOL's deep pockets and network can begin to close the challenging distribution gaps. Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz says he expects to triple revenues quickly. Is an ownership change going to change his company's fortunes that quickly?

The horserace gets more interesting when we look at what the Search and Portal providers are offering now. Yahoo SmartAds sound like an innovative response to the BT offerings, by delivering customized banner ads based on live interests. Microsoft has been promoting its own behavioral offerings for a while, where search and other data are optimized for targeted display ads too. Both are making progress, and these efforts have similar goals as the BT networks.

We're just opening the doors to behavioral targeting. Neither Search nor BT today actually responds to visitors in a fully-customized fashion. All things being equal, everyone sees the same ads when they visit particular pages or are tagged with specific interests. In addition, the text and banner ad networks haven't intersected much either. Some company is bound to test these boundaries and economics along the way.

Posted by on July 26, 2007, 2:45 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: 7 Tips for Training Link Developers

In today's Link Love column, "7 Tips for Training Link Developers," Justilien Gaspard offers 7 tips for training link developers that range from promoting creativity to teaching negotiation tactics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 26, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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:

  • Click Quality Council Holds First Steering Committee Meeting
    With over 20 people in attendance to this webinar meeting, representatives from Google and the IAB spoke with the committee about elements of click fraud.
  • How To Determine What A Link Passes
    Aaron Wall over at SEOBook wrote a great overview article the other day about how to see if a link passes "Reputation / Authority / Equity / Juice / etc..."
  • Digg Goes with Microsoft for Ads
    Social media site Digg has entered a deal with Microsoft to sell and serve display and contextual text ads on Digg, and to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives. The move displaces Federated Media and Google.
  • Brand Owners Unite Against Domain Squatters
    A group of big-name brand owners has teamed up to form CADNA: the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse.
  • Intent and Extent
    The premise is that there are a variety of tactics that are perceived to be spammy. However, there is general agreement that for nearly every tactic associated with black hat behavior, there are also scenarios where the same tactic might be used on your site in a legitimate manner.
  • Search and Affiliates Coming to London
    Search Engine Strategies and Affiliates4U.com will host a one-day SES Forum at the A4U Expo coming to London in October.
  • SEW Experts: Turning Local Inside Out
    Kevin Ryan takes a look at what local search looks like today, and why one-stop technology and search providers have an advantage over the big sales forces and more heavily regulated telephone directory advertising.
  • SEW Experts: Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors
    Eric Enge shows you why you might want to broaden your horizons beyond Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with your PPC campaigns.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 25, 2007, 5:00 PM | Permalink


Click Quality Council Holds Steering Committee Meeting

Kevin Embree, of Click Forensics, headed a Click Quality Council Steering Committee meeting today. With over 20 people in attendance to this webinar meeting, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Trust and Safety at Google, and Erica DeLorenzo, Director of Industry Practices at IAB, spoke with the committee about elements of click fraud.

Google is always working on improving their filters, Ghosemajumder said. "We are always looking at why it is these clicks get through," he added.

Both companies watch click bots, people sitting at an AdSense site and clicking or "anything manipulated or not in the way of natural behavior."

DeLorenzo said the IAB's Click Measurement Working Group is finishing up a detail report on the subject that should be released in the near future.

The concept of advertisers getting a 'phone bill-like' document for what they are paying is something being discussed and worked on by Google, Ghosemajumder said.

Google is working with the IAB to come up with standards so that people are better aware of what is being addressed. "We are striving to have the most powerful system possible," he added.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 25, 2007, 4:52 PM | Permalink


How To Determine What A Link Passes

Aaron Wall over at SEOBook wrote a great overview article the other day about how to see if a link passes "Reputation / Authority / Equity / Juice / etc..."

It really is a good read and very informative. It provides some "white hat" and some "black hat" methods.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 25, 2007, 3:33 PM | Permalink


Digg Goes with Microsoft for Ads

Social media site Digg has entered a deal with Microsoft to sell and serve display and contextual text ads on Digg, and to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives.

"Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true innovator in user-generated content," Steve Berkowitz, senior VP of Microsoft's Online Services Group, said in a statement. "We believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg's combined strengths to forge more meaningful connections online."

Digg's current partner of 18 months, Federated Media, will continue to work with Digg and Microsoft in a limited capacity, "focusing on integrated sponsorships and custom programs like the Arc project in labs," according to Digg founder Kevin Rose.

"Federated Media has unique advertising sales assets that dovetail with our efforts, and we look forward to working with them," Berkowitz said.

Google AdSense ads, which formerly ran on the site, will be replaced by Microsoft-served ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 25, 2007, 3:01 PM | Permalink


Brand Owners Unite Against Domain Squatters

Domain squatters, who buy domains that are typos or variations of a popular company or brand name and then put ads on the site, have a new foe. A group of big-name brand owners has teamed up to form CADNA: the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. CADNA is a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. Members include Yahoo, Dell, Verizon and Marriott.

According to a CADNA statement, "the coalition's goals are to pursue Congressional legislation that would increase the statutory damages set forth by the existing Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and to work with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to introduce an international anti-cybersquatting treaty."

The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), introduced in 1999, made it easier for brand and trademark owners to prosecute the unauthorized registration or use of their trademarks as domain names.

"As a result of the automation of the registration process and the monetization of domain name portfolios, the policing burden placed on brand owners has become almost insurmountable," Susan Crane, group VP of intellectual property for Wyndham Worldwide, said in a statement. "We have joined CADNA in this fight because we believe a coalition of companies from across multiple industries will be a more effective voice to address this issue than any one company or industry standing alone."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 25, 2007, 2:20 PM | Permalink


Intent and Extent

One of the themes that has emerged at the recent conferences I have been to, is the notion of "Intent and Extent". The premise is that there are a variety of tactics that are perceived to be spammy. One of these is using hidden text and/or keyword stuffing as recently blogged about by Matt Cutts. Other well know no-nos include cloaking, swapping links en masse, purchasing links, etc.

However, there is general agreement that for nearly every tactic associated with black hat behavior, there are also scenarios where the same tactic might be used on your site in a legitimate manner. Let's give four examples of black hat techniques that are sometimes used for legitimate reasons:

  1. Cloaking, also known as IP delivery: By definition, this is the delivery of different content to users than the search engine bots. However, IP delivery is a common method for delivering foreign language versions of sites to visitors come from foreign IP addresses.
  2. Swapping Links: As we know last Summer's Big Daddy update resulted in the demotion of sites that had a high percentage of sites implemented as reciprocal links. This was not a penalty, so much as a discounting of link value. Net-net - you should trade links with sites that are highly relevant to yours if it makes sense from a business and editorial prespective on your site.
  3. Purchasing links: Nothing wrong with it, but, if Google determines that are doing it for purposes of manipulating rankings, look out. Outright banishment is a possibility for this one. However, buying advertising for traffic and/or branding reasons is a legit practice.
  4. Hidden text: How I am going to justify this one? Simple, there are CMS systems out there that use coding methods that tend to embed hidden text in the web pages they create. This is not intended as a spam technique, but it is a coding technique of some sort. Point is that it emerges from the CMS implementation, not any bad intent.

There are many more examples of these types of scenarios. So what is a poor search engine to do? The answer is that they attempt to evaluate the intent of the use of the technique, and the extent to which it is used. If their evaluation leads them to believe that the intent is not bad, then that counts in your favor. They also evaluate the extent of the use of such techniques. In principle, one small transgression carries a lot less risk than massive and continual transgressions.

Regardless of what they might say, in my experience the search engines attempt to make the right decision. But the key word here is "attempt". Using these techniques does come with significant risk, no matter what your intent is, or the extent to which you use it. Even if your use of "spammy techniques" is in fact for completely legit reasons, I'd still proceed with extreme caution.

Posted by on July 25, 2007, 11:20 AM | Permalink


Search and Affiliates Coming to London

How are affiliates using search engine marketing? Search Engine Strategies and Affiliates4U.com will find out at a one-day SES Forum at the A4U Expo coming up in London on October 25-26. The search side of the event will be chaired by Kevin Ryan, global content director for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies. SES will also be announcing a dedicated Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Training Day on Wednesday, October 24.

Have no fear, the full three day SES London is still scheduled for February 19-21, 2008. In fact, it was just announced that Mike Grehan has been named chair and host of the event.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 25, 2007, 12:30 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Turning Local Inside Out

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Turning Local Inside Out," Kevin Ryan takes a look at what local search looks like today, and why one-stop technology and search providers have an advantage over the big sales forces and more heavily regulated telephone directory advertising..

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 25, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors

In today's By the Numbers column, "Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors," Eric Enge shows you why you might want to broaden your horizons beyond Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with your PPC campaigns.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 25, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 24, 2007, 11:46 PM | Permalink


Is DMOZ Delisting Sites Up For Sale?

There is a discussion going on at DigitalPoint that suggests DMOZ is delisting sites they find to be for sale. Interesting if true.

The impact on the sales price could be effected as soon as it is listed. Guess you want to sell it fast and edit the posts.

Mike McDonald over at WebMasterWorld found this link as well.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 24, 2007, 4:50 PM | Permalink


iRazoo: Human-Powered Search Engine With Prizes

Okay incentivized search is not new, but it usually was a bugus engine asking people to click and share some minor income. The newly launched engine iRazoo seems to be a different model (not unique), though it has some initial detractors over at Digg.

The engine is human-powered. As the site explains:

"A person goes to the iRazoo website and uses it to perform a search query. The search engine produces it's search results. The user then clicks on a search result. The resulting website that comes out of the click is opened up on another web page. That web page has the header of the original iRazoo search engine with the resulting website page beneath it. That header has the following wording “Do you recommend this site, yes or no.” If the user clicks yes, that website url is placed into a database and is cross-indexed to the search term the user entered. After the url and keyword have been recorded by the database, then the next time a user goes to the search engine and types in the same search term, a “user recommended” heading will show in the results page with the indexed url shown below. These “user recommended” results will be shown above the regular search results that are returned by our regular search engine."

Whether this has legs only time will tell. Mahalo - another human powered engine - seems to be struggling. ChaCha has a live chat session where you can ask someone for help. This human touch seems to be a popular notion right now.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 24, 2007, 3:12 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Europe Beta Testing PPC Quality Score Ranking

I just received an email letting me know that Yahoo Panama is starting to beta test the Quality Score rankings in Europe.

The email states:


Dear Advertiser,

Yahoo! Search Marketing is constantly striving to improve both the advertiser and customer experience, with the goal of providing the most relevant and targeted listings as users search, click and travel across the Internet. To accomplish this, we constantly test new implementations and matching technologies.

To help ensure we launch our new ranking model successfully, we will start running a limited test across our European advertiser listings in which the display order of Sponsored Search listings in some keyword markets is based on factors other than bid. In determining listing position, the test will take into account a particular ad's click-through rate, as well as other relevancy factors.

The total amount of Sponsored Search traffic that we are providing to you should not change, but due to optimisation of certain keywords you may see traffic volume increase or decrease depending upon the relevancy of your offers and other optimisation factors.

As always, we encourage you to track your results from individual keywords, so that you can manage your bids and creative for maximum return-on-investment.

We have begun upgrading advertisers to the new system and will continue to do so in waves to ensure a smooth transition to the new system. Once all advertisers have upgraded, we will introduce our new ranking model. We will be contacting you with more specific information as the rollout date approaches.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 24, 2007, 12:15 PM | Permalink


Google Earth Catches Chinese Sub, May Hurt With China Relations

Guess Google is officially that big that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. But you would think the left hand would be aware when righty is firing a gun at it!

The recent pictures taken of Chinese submarines by Google Earth and published for the world is a great example. Google and the internet in general has a delicate relationship with the Chinese government and this latest blunder will impact it.

That there are coordinates to the whereabouts of six subs according to the PC World article, including a new type never photographed before, also shows the automated nature of Google.

Is Google heading us into the Terminator-type future? Their planned purchase of DoubleClick has raised privacy issues, but let's forget about them sharing the information with anyone else... what can they ultimately do with it themselves.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 24, 2007, 10:29 AM | Permalink


Matt Cutts Calls For Webmaster Central Features Ideas

I don't know if it is the popularity of Matt Cutts (undeniable if you have every watched the comet trail he has behind him at any search event) or a true desire to input ideas for Google's next Webmaster Central feature, but Matt has received over a thousand responses in under 24 hours and the news has not even been fully disseminated yet.

Matt added a poll to his call for feature suggestions and as of this blog entry there were over 1200 votes and 107 comments.

The poll options are:
* More information about penalties or other scoring issues

* Tools for detecting or reporting duplicate content

* Show links on your site that are broken

* Score the crawlability or accessibility of pages

* Show PageRank numbers instead of none/low/medium/high

* Tell Google the correct country or language for a site

* Tool to help move from one domain to a new domain

* Diagnostic wizard for common site problems

* Some type of rank checking

* A way to list supplemental result pages

* Show causes of 404 errors

* Option to "disavow" backlinks from or to a site

* Fetch a page as Googlebot to verify correct behavior

* Tell Google a parameter doesn't matter

* Show pages that don't validate

* Ability to show/download all pages from a site (e.g. if your server crashed)

* More documentation and examples

* Integrate "Add URL" feature

This is an interesting blog entry and many of the comments are well worth reading.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 24, 2007, 10:12 AM | Permalink


New Report from WebAnalyticsDemystified

WebAnalyticsDemystified has released an important new report titled: The Problem with Free Web Analytics. The report included a number of interesting results, including:

  1. 35% of free analytics users reort only an ad=hoc use of the tool, as opposed to less than 20% who used a paid for solution.
  2. 42% of companies using a free solution have no human resources dedicated to analytics, as compared with only 18% of companies with a paid for solution.
  3. 64% of people ussing a free solution have less than 2 years experience, as compared with 32% of those using paid solutions.

For those of you who are less familiar with web analytics, the premise here is that getting a high ROI on the use of web analytics involves an investment of people time. These powerful tools really begin to deliver when you use them to uncover the way that users are interacting with your site, and dig into a lot of details. For better, or for worse, this is an inherently custom process, because the needs of every site are different. Ultimately, according to Eric Peterson, CEO of WebAnalyticsDemystified successful "web analytics is hard".

Eric also emphasized that he also encountered users of free analytics that were making the people investment, and that it was possible to be just as successful with free analytics as paid, but that "it comes down to commitment". It should be noted that Eric uses Google Analytics on the WebAnalyticsDemystified web site.

Ultimately, these results make sense to me. For people who are just beginning to dabble in analytics, and are not really sure how to get the most out of it at this point in time, picking a free solution makes sense. Once a company has committed to investing cash in a solution, they are clearly more likely to have a different mindset about what they are doing. But the study makes for interesting reading, and provides insight into the state of the analytics market.

The results in the study were based on a survey of 856 web analytics users and consultants conducted in March of 2007.

Posted by on July 24, 2007, 9:02 AM | Permalink


Superpages Launches Local Video Ads

Idearc's Superpages has launched a beta trial of local video ads on its yellow pages directory. Superpages.com is trialing 30- and 60-second local merchant video ads in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with additional cities to be added in the next few months.

"There is a clear trend in advertising as more consumers are willing to engage with videos online," Eric Chandler, president, Internet, for Idearc Media, said in a statement. "Superpages video advertising allows small to medium-sized local businesses the opportunity to tell their unique story in a new medium. These 'documercials' also let consumers take an up-close and personal look at a business before making a buying decision."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 24, 2007, 8:01 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Quarterly Site Review: MDC Wallcoverings

In today's au Natural column, "Quarterly Site Review: MDC Wallcoverings," Mark Jackson examines a reader-submitted Web site, suggesting how it can be optimized.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 24, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Don't be a Local-Yokel — Enhance Your Local Business Listings

In today's Little Biz column, "Don't be a Local-Yokel — Enhance Your Local Business Listings," Carrie Hill shows you how to enhance your local listings in Google Maps and Yahoo Local to bring more traffic to your site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 24, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 23, 2007, 5:13 PM | Permalink


Hot Site Facebook's CEO Accused Of Stealing Idea

Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, will discover next week whether he faces legal action for claims he stole the idea for the $1bn website.

A US judge will decide next week whether Mark Zuckerberg should go to court after three former classmates accused him of stealing the idea, software and business plan for the social networking website.

The three former Harvard students say 23-year-old Zuckerberg stole the idea for the site while working as a programmer on their own social-networking site - called ConnectU, the UK Registar reported.

If successful, Facebook could be shut down it was suggested.

Cameron Winklevoss, his twin brother Tyler and their colleague, Divya Narendra, recruited Zuckerberg to their social networking site when they were all students at Harvard University. They now claim that he deliberately stalled its progress, stole the source code, design and business plan, then set up his own rival. Facebook sped away while their site, now called ConnectU, was still in the traps. 'It's sort of a land grab,' Tyler Winklevoss has said. 'You feel robbed. The kids down the hall are using it, and you're thinking, "That's supposed to be us. We're not there because one greedy kid cut us out", the UK Guardian reported.

At the first court hearing on Wednesday they will ask a judge to shut down Facebook and transfer all its assets to them, plus damages. At stake is a large slice of pride, one of the most coveted prizes of the Web 2.0 goldrush and potentially millions, or even billions, of dollars. Last week Facebook signalled its ambitions by making its first acquisition, reportedly beating even Google to buy a web-based operating system called Parakey and fuelling bloggers' suspicions that Facebook could threaten the web's diversity by sucking the best of it into one place.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 23, 2007, 3:18 PM | Permalink


ClickSurge's New Content Widget To Monetize Traffic Adds Pixsy Image Search

MediaRiver's ClickSurge, a relatively new entry into the content monetization industry, has partnered with Pixsy to help add image search to publishing sites, the two companies announced in a joint press release.

"MediaRiver recently launched ClickSurge as an innovative tool for web publishers to lead Internet users to online content in a discovery-based contextual model. Publishers deploy ClickSurge powered widgets on their web properties, their partner's web properties, or as a part of their viral widget strategy, that feed the end user articles, videos or photos that are relevant to the page they are viewing. For example, a visitor who is reading an article or blog posting around a specific celebrity would be shown links to relevant articles, video clips and photos of that celebrity, prompting them to click through to other monetized web pages," the press release stated.

By incorporating ClickSurge powered widgets into its offerings, Pixsy will enable its publisher customers to display rich multimedia content that is contextually relevant to whatever text is on the page where the widget is deployed. The end result is a significant increase in page views for its customers and an increase in search volume and market share for Pixsy.

"Pixsy provides web publishers with a platform for Internet users to search photo and video archives on their websites, a functionality many of the largest media companies are lacking," said Chase Norlin, CEO of Pixsy Corporation. "With ClickSurge, our publishers can now
display dynamic links to relevant images and videos, offering a powerful toolset to increase the profitability of web properties and deliver a very high quality user experience."

Under the terms of the agreement, Pixsy will deploy ClickSurge within its publisher network and leverage the solution to drive content syndication deals and extend the reach and effectiveness of its image and video search platform.

In addition, MediaRiver will leverage Pixsy's award winning multimedia search engine to provide its customers who lack multimedia search capability with the ability to drive traffic to their
monetized multimedia assets.

"Incorporating Pixsy's image and video search capability to the ClickSurge offering will enable MediaRiver customers to expose their image and video content to the right audience, at the right time, anywhere on the web," said Al Wasserberger, CEO of MediaRiver.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 23, 2007, 2:04 PM | Permalink


Ask Adds AskEraser To Maintain User Privacy, Microsoft Joins Them To Evolve Privacy Procedures

Want to make sure your search history is not being recorded? Ask.com has developed AskEraser a tool that will allow you to wipe your search history and will be launching it in the near future, according to their press release.

"Searchers will have easy access to AskEraser and can change their privacy preference at any time. Once selected, searchers' privacy settings will be clearly indicated on search results pages so they always know the privacy status of their searches," the press release stated.

"As search and other online services progress, it's important for our customers to be able to trust that their information is being used appropriately and in a way that provides value to them," said Peter Cullen, chief privacy strategist at Microsoft. "We hope others in the industry will join us in developing and supporting principles that address these important issues. People should be able to search and surf online without having to navigate a complicated patchwork of privacy policies."

"AskEraser is a great solution for those looking for an additional level of privacy when they search online," said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com. "Anonymous user data can be very useful to enhance search products for all users, and we're committed to being open and transparent about how such information is used. But we also understand that there are some who are interested in new tools that will help protect their privacy further, and we will give them that control on Ask.com."

"Anonymous user data can be very useful to enhance search products for all users, but people should have access to privacy controls based on their level of comfort around the storage of their search data," said Doug Leeds, vice president of product management at Ask.com. "We're committed to developing new ways to give consumers the control they are entitled to when it comes to searching online, and hope others will join us in engaging in dialogue on these important issues."

Microsoft and Ask.com are proposing that leading search providers, online advertising companies and privacy advocates convene to engage in an active dialogue to discuss privacy considerations posed by the proliferation of online advertising and search. The goal of the dialogue is to determine ways that the industry can work cooperatively to define privacy principles that take these new considerations into account. The companies will provide an update on their progress in September.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 23, 2007, 1:47 PM | Permalink


17% of marketers buy ads in return for news coverage

According to a survey from PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee Marketing, 17% of senior marketers say their companies have bought advertising in return for a news story. About 7% of respondents say they have an implicit agreement with a reporter or editor for favorable coverage. Carol Krol of BtoB Magazine calls this "a worrisome sign that independent editorial credibility is being sacrificed."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 23, 2007, 12:04 PM | Permalink


Interview with Robert Scoble

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview Robert Scoble. We covered a wide range of topics. Some of the areas covered were: dealing with information overload, what's hot in social media, and as a result, Facebook, whether or not Google can be beaten at the search game, and what Yahoo! and Microsoft should do with their strategies.

One aspect of the discussion emerged from talking about Scobleizer, the blog were Robert regularly publishes his reviews, opinions, and commentaries about what's going on in the world of technology. He reads more than 700 blogs a day to find our what's hot, to help him determine where he should focus his investigative energy. He also monitors services like Twitter for the same reason, but also to get the news (he learned about the recent earthquake in Mexico City from Twitter, and is took 6 more minutes before the news was on the US Geological Survey web site, and over an hour before CNN had the news).

His overall role in our industry fits well into a favorite them of mine - that we live in the attention challenged era. We have access to way too much information, and we have way (way) too little time. It becomes a real challenge to figure out how to deal with it. This is driving a new type of role in our world (not just our industry), the information professional. This was a featured aspect of one of the interviews I did with Gary Price.

Information professionals basically help your sort through the information glut. Traditionally, the information professional had another title: librarian. But now the world is far more complicated, so that role is growing. So the role is broader than ever. Robert is a great example of this new type of information professional. That's what made the discussion about social media and text search so interesting.

Posted by on July 23, 2007, 10:31 AM | Permalink


New Look, New Awards

Good morning, and welcome to a new look for ClickZ and Search Engine Watch, as well as a new twist on ClickZ's annual Marketing Excellence Award.

Since both ClickZ and Search Engine Watch celebrate 10th anniversaries this year, we reassessed. Both sites have grown considerably in both size and complexity over the years. That's why we've updated the look and feel, and hopefully made both sites (along with their respective newsletters) more usable and navigable.

And because 10 years is such a milestone in this nascent industry, we wanted to mark it with our annual awards, too. Rather than have you readers select the best products and campaigns of the past year, just this once we're expanding the scope to look at the first 10 years of interactive marketing and advertising. In October, we'll confer 10 awards in 10 categories to those products, services, businesses and people who have made the most significant contribution to the industry overall -- the ones that got it all started, so to speak.

And as usual, our readers have a big say in who those winners will be. Please nominate your candidates.

We can't wait to see your choices!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on July 23, 2007, 9:26 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Do You Really Need to Overhaul Your Landing Pages?

In today's Search Ads column, "Do You Really Need to Overhaul Your Landing Pages?," Tony Wright tells you how to determine whether or not it's really necessary to spend the summer doldrums tweaking landing pages.

Historically, summer is a slow time for conversions. Wright allows that it can be a good idea to look at your landing pages constantly, testing and tweaking to get that perfect combination of interesting information and eye-popping graphics. He warns, however, that before you go wild with your Web designer, it might be a good idea to take a look at the other aspects of your campaign before you go creating a new landing page with 12 Ajax wizards, a Flash intro, and a picture of a scantily clad model hocking your product.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 23, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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:

  • Link Building is a Permanent Investment
    I occasionally end up speaking with webmasters who thing of link building as an activity that you do for a while, and then you stop, or slow down. It's a mistake, and it's not one that you want to make.
  • Google Results Good, But Not Good Enough?
    Google reported its second-quarter results yesterday, which showed rapid revenue growth and strength in its business. Unfortunately for Google, expenses rose more than analysts expected, and profits fell short of expectations.
  • SEW Experts: Getting Started in Local Search
    Gregg Stewart introduces a new column, Local Search, with information on how to get started in finding cost-effective leads and developing a media plan.
  • SEW Experts: The Guts of an Enterprise-Level Web Analytics Audit
    Chris Boggs gives you the lowdown on a site side analytics audit, to help you overcome one of the biggest problems faced by large companies: knowing how to interpret Web analytics data.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 20, 2007, 5:57 PM | Permalink


Link Building is a Permanent Investment

I occasionally end up speaking with webmasters who thing of link building as an activity that you do for a while, and then you stop, or slow down. It's a mistake, and it's not one that you want to make. It's important to view link building as a permanent investment in your web based business. There are many reasons for this, but the most basic of them is that your competition is most likely continuing to add links.

Publishing a web site is a promotional activity. Once you decide to publish a site, you then need to promote it. The most basic way to do that is by telling people about it, showing them your great content, tools, or whatever, and over time, getting them to link to it. One of the challenges with viewing link building as a permanent investment is that you eventually run out of fresh ideas of who to contact and what to tell them about.

The key then is to keep generating new content or new tools that you can promote. No link campaign is going to be successful without having great content, tools, or both on your site. But if your content stays static, even if it's great stuff, your efforts will begin to return fewer results. This means you need to branch out. Branching out doesn't mean you need to change the topic of your site.

For example, if you are in the widgets business, and you have already been written up in the blogs and magazines that are about widgets, look for other magazines that might take an article about widgets. You need some creativity here. For example, if there is an article you could write about how your widgets can be used to reduce home heating costs, you might be able to get blogs or magazines about home improvement to take it.

This is just one idea, and there are many others. One thing you can do to get ideas is see what your competition is doing. By checking out their promotional strategies you just might get a bunch of new ideas for promoting your own site.

Posted by on July 20, 2007, 11:37 AM | Permalink


Google Results Good, But Not Good Enough?

Google reported its second-quarter results yesterday, which showed rapid revenue growth and strength in its business. Unfortunately for Google, expenses rose more than analysts expected, and profits fell short of expectations.

The news sent investors scurrying in after-hours trading, according to the New York Times

"The company spent too much, as they said they might some day," Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, told the Times. "It wasn't a bad quarter. It was a quarter where the analysts' models need to be reset at a slightly lower level of profitability, and that hadn't happened in a while."

Google attributed much of its overspending in the quarter to operating expenses, including payroll expenses for 1548 new hires and a revamping of its bonus plan.

"We ended up somewhat higher on our headcount expenses than we planned," CEO Eric Schmidt said on the investor call. "We will watch it, we will adjust, we will be opportunistic but we are going to be careful about that."

Google reported revenues of $3.87 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, an increase of 58% compared to the second quarter of 2006 and an increase of 6% compared to the first quarter of 2007.

In the second quarter of 2007 ending June 30, Google-owned sites generated $2.49 billion, 74 percent higher than the $1.43 billion gathered the same quarter of '06. Its AdSense network sites garnered $1.35 billion in Q2, a 36 percent leap over second quarter 2006.

Paid clicks revenues saw a boost, too, rising about 47 percent since the same period last year. Paid clicks represent the aggregate number of clicks related to ads served on Google sites and AdSense partner sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 20, 2007, 9:11 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Getting Started in Local Search

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Getting Started in Local Search," Gregg Stewart introduces a new column, Local Search, with information on how to get started in finding cost-effective leads and developing a media plan.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 20, 2007, 12:01 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: The Guts of an Enterprise-Level Web Analytics Audit

In today's Outsourced column, "The Guts of an Enterprise-Level Web Analytics Audit," Chris Boggs gives you the lowdown on a site side analytics audit, to help you overcome one of the biggest problems faced by large companies: knowing how to interpret Web analytics data.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 20, 2007, 12:01 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 Expands Newspaper Ads
    Google has opened up its Print Ads program to all AdWords customers, giving them the ability to purchase ads in approximately 225 U.S.-based newspapers.
  • Report: Click Fraud Up to 15.8% Last Quarter
    According to the latest Click Fraud Index report from Click Forensics, the overall industry average pay-per-click fraud rate rose to 15.8 percent for the second quarter of 2007. This is an increase from 14.1 percent for the same quarter in 2006 and 14.8 percent for Q1 2007.
  • Local.com Acquires PremierGuide
    Local.com has picked up B2B local directory provider PremierGuide for a about $2 million. PremierGuide offers white-label business directories to local publishers, such as newspapers, radio and TV stations, and regional sites.
  • Google-DoubleClick Deal Faces Congressional Scrutiny
    Google execs will be called to defend the potential $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick before both House and Senate Subcommittees
  • SEW Experts: Creating Link Love With Informational Videos
    Sage Lewis gives some advice for creating B2B videos that can create a lot of link love.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 19, 2007, 5:00 PM | Permalink


Local.com Acquires PremierGuide

Local.com has picked up B2B local directory provider PremierGuide for a about $2 million. PremierGuide offers white-label business directories to local publishers, such as newspapers, radio and TV stations, and regional sites. Its network reportedly includes more than 350 regional media sites, including Community Newspaper Holdings, GateHouse Media, and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

The business listings are designed to drive search traffic to the publisher sites, when the listings are indexed by search engines. The search traffic is monetized by ads displayed alongside the business listings, with ad revenues shared by PremierGuide and the publisher.

PremierGuide will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Local.com, and its founder and CEO, Malcolm Lewis, will become Local.com's VP, private label. Local.com plans to integrate PremierGuide's technology and product with the company's LocalConnect platform to provide an additional turn-key private-label solution to regional media.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 19, 2007, 1:28 PM | Permalink


Report: Click Fraud Up to 15.8% Last Quarter

According to the latest Click Fraud Index report from Click Forensics, the overall industry average pay-per-click fraud rate rose to 15.8 percent for the second quarter of 2007. This is an increase from 14.1 percent for the same quarter in 2006 and 14.8 percent for Q1 2007.

On content networks, such as Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, the click fraud rate was 25.6 percent. That's up from 21.9 percent for Q1 2007.

"A significant percentage of today's click fraud traffic can be attributed to two growing areas of concern for search advertisers: traffic that comes from botnets and from parked domains or made-for-ad sites," Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO of Click Forensics, said in a statement. "Advertisers running campaigns on content networks are especially vulnerable as they are increasingly targets of this growing pool of savvy fraudsters."

Click Forensics' numbers come from the Click Fraud Network, a group of publishers organized by Click Forensics to share PPC data from both large and small companies.

Preliminary data from a study of click fraud by Fair Isaac Corp (FIC) showed that, in the limited cases it was able to study, 10 to 15 percent of billed pay-per-click traffic was deemed "pathological," indicating a likelihood of click fraud.

According to Google and Yahoo, the actual click fraud rate is much lower. In March, Google reported that "under 10-percent" of clicks could be categorized as "invalid clicks," which Google catches before advertisers are charged. The amount of invalid clicks that are not proactively detected and are caught by advertisers is less than 0.02 percent. Also in March, Yahoo reported its "network discard rate," representing the average number of clicks (in aggregate) that its clickthrough protection filters identify, tag and do not bill to advertisers, is between 12 and 15 percent.

Click Forensics' 15.8 percent rate would compare to Google's "under 10 percent" number. Click Forensics does not offer a corresponding number to Google's "less than 0.02 percent" figure of invalid clicks that are billed to advertisers. That's the number that Fair Isaac's numbers would correspond to.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 19, 2007, 12:57 PM | Permalink


Google-DoubleClick Deal Faces Congressional Scrutiny

Google execs will be called to defend the potential $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick before both House and Senate Subcommittees, according to the New York Times. A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee on consumer protection are each planning to call a hearing to explore the antitrust and privacy issues.

The deal is already being looked at by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation, which telecom analyst Scott Cleland expects to end badly for Google.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 19, 2007, 12:14 AM | Permalink


Google Expands Newspaper Ads

Google has opened up its Print Ads program to all AdWords customers, giving them the ability to purchase ads in approximately 225 U.S.-based newspapers.

Advertisers will access the program through their AdWords account, and have similar functionality, with the ability to target specific newspapers, sections of newspapers, and days of the week when the ads will appear.

Google hopes online advertisers will embrace offline advertising as a way to lend legitimacy to their online businesses while increasing ad response rates. "Newspaper is really an excellent way to validate a business that may have been built online," Spencer Spinnell, head of sales strategy for Google print advertising, told ClickZ.

The program is also targeting smaller advertisers who may not have had the time or know-how to set up a national newspaper ad campaign.

Google, which is often at odds with newspaper publishers who don't like Google News appropriating their content, has gone out of its way to make the program publisher-friendly, giving them control and setting the program up so that existing advertisers don't have an incentive to bypass the newspapers' ad sales teams to go through Google. For instance, the inventory is not targetable by specific page, and is mostly remnant inventory not sold by the sales teams.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 19, 2007, 12:14 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Creating Link Love With Informational Videos

In today's Link Love column, "Creating Link Love With Informational Videos," Sage Lewis gives some advice for creating B2B videos that can create a lot of link love.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 19, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 18, 2007, 11:51 PM | Permalink


Hyper-Local Gets a Vote of Confidence

Dallas based Hyper local news and events site Pegasus News has announced it will be acquired by Fisher Communications. The deal will bring Pegasus' online local and hyper-local content capabilities to Fisher's existing properties, including 19 television and radio stations throughout the Pacific Northwest.

This comes days after Backfence, one of the original "hyper-local" online destinations announced it will close its doors (see co-founder Mark Potts' blog post earlier this week and SEW past coverage of Backfence's woes here and here). This has caused general awareness and speculation of online hyper-local destinations which are growing in number including Outside.in, SmallTown, CitySquares, and FatDoor.

Pegasus News founder Mike Orren has his own view on what hyper-local should be, which builds upon the generally accepted definition that, itself, is somewhat amorphous (see past SEW expert column on hyperlocal). Specifically, he believes hyper-local content (i.e. the high school box score, the mother's group meeting schedule) is important, but not enough to exist alone as a core feature to any local search site. You have to be holistic to the entire metro, he contends.

"Even with hyper-local, you have to cover the entire metro for it to work," he told me. "People aren't just identified with their community: You're a little bit your neighborhood, a little bit the food you eat, the music you listen to and the city you work in. Neighborhood content is important, but you have to put that in front of the basketball score someone will look for and where they are going to eat tonight – which may not be in their neighborhood."

Breathing New Life into Hyper-Local

This mindset works particularly well with the assets that it's new parent brings to the table. Specifically, the cities throughout the Pacific Northwest where Fisher hangs it's hat (i.e. Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, etc.) are conducive to Pegasus' particular brand of content aggregation and local flavor that has proven successful on its home turf of Dallas Tx.

"We work best in larger metros with lots of suburban sprawl," says Orren. "Yeah it could probably work well in New York City, but we're much more interested in places that have not a lot of media coverage and a lot of people that engage in entertainment in the city, but also want to come home and go to their kid's soccer game."

The Fisher ownership will also give it more resources to bring in user generated content and community participation, which have proven difficult to incentivize for Backfence and others. This could happen through the cross-promotional efforts of the new parent's radio and television media, and the overall resources they could bring to Pegasus.

"User generated content doesn't just find you," says Orren. "A fair amount of seeding and harvesting is required. With more resources, we can spend more time with high schools and community groups to engage them to contribute to the site and supplement what we're doing."

Next up for Pegasus is to develop monetization strategies around locally relevant behavioral advertising. Orren would also like to deepen content in niche areas such as theater, music and events, which will have SEO benefits and also serve to improve the customization and personalization tools that have characterized its user appeal.

"Customization gets better with a bigger body of content," says Orren, explaining that, here again, the resources that Fisher brings to the table and the boost in exposure will help Pegasus get there.

"It will hopefully turn everything up a little and help us go from being an intriguing startup to the next stage of legitimacy," he says.

Posted by Mike Boland on July 18, 2007, 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)


Matt Cutts Seeking Search Bugs

Matt Cutts is asking for anyone that is aware of any search engine bugs to post them in comments on his blog. Apparently he has a meeting tomorrow about the subject and would like to get as many listed and worked on as he can find.

So if you have come across something and want to have it addressed now is your chance. Note he is not looking for posts asking why your site dropped etc. This is a call for legitimate bugs.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 18, 2007, 12:48 PM | Permalink


FoodieView Is Recipe Search Engine, Restaurant Review

If you have some chicken breast inthe fridge and want a new way to cook them, then FoodieView.com may be the search engine for you.

This new recipe search engine could prove a popular niche. It also has restaurant reviews.

As the site's FAQ explains:

FoodieView is a recipe search engine. You can use our site to search over a million recipes on the most popular cooking sites on the web.

Anyone who has tried researching the best way to make their favorite dish knows that it's a pain to switch from site to site to find the best version. We make things easier by providing a single place to search the web for recipes.

Just use this simple form, and enter a dish name, a type of cuisine, a chef's name, a list of ingredients, or any combination of the above.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 18, 2007, 12:41 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Buys Part of Indian Ad Company Tyroo

The purchase of a major portion of Tyroo, the Indian online ad company, is seen as a further push into the fast growing Indian market.

"There are millions of potential advertisers in India, which all the search companies and advertising networks are chasing", George Zacharias, managing director of Yahoo India told InfoWorld.

Yahoo started beta testing its search-based advertising business in India over a year ago and opened it to the public about eight months ago and "so far has a few thousand small advertisers", Zacharias said.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 18, 2007, 12:29 PM | Permalink


Gmail Holding A T-Shirt Design Competition With Sweet Prizes

Gmail with online "do-it-yourself" t-shirt design/printer Threadless has started a competition to design the GMail t-shirt. The prizes include an iPhone, cash and other Google swag!

Hey for an iPhone and $2,000 even I may take a stab at it!

Posted by Frank Watson on July 18, 2007, 11:40 AM | Permalink


Google Readies To Photograph America

Gizmodo's Charlie White has posted pictures of an armada of cars with mounted photo equipment taken a Google HQ.

The 30 Chevy Cobalts are an interesting addition. Watch for them in your neighborhood!

Posted by Frank Watson on July 18, 2007, 11:28 AM | Permalink


Home Design Vertical Search

Convera and Nielsen Business announced earlier this month that they are partnering on a new vertical search engine for the Kitchen and Bath industry. The site can be found at KitchenandBathSearch.com. The search engine is targeted at professionals, such as architects, custom builders interior designers, kitchen design specialists, and re-modelers.

The search engine is focused on providing information on design ideas, industry trends, installation tips, news, products, services, showcases, and other content. Another more established site that provides vertical search capability related to home design is Home Portfolio, which is a site that provides information for consumers and professionals on tens of thousands of products for all kinds of home design topics (not just Kitchen and Bath).

Posted by on July 18, 2007, 10:00 AM | Permalink


Blinkx to Include Content from Pyro.TV

Over the past few months the video search marketplace has resembled a homesteading land rush, as video search players strike deal after deal with content sources and aggregators. Today the rush continues. blinkx has announced a partnership with Vibe Solutions Group that will add Pyro.TV content, to its searchable index. With this agreement, blinkx users will be able to search for and have access to thousands of video channels on Pyro.TV, ranging from mainstream broadcast programming to niche channels.

Pyro.TV enables publishers to extend their reach to online audiences. For consumers, Pyro.TV provides an easy-to-use, customizable Internet TV service that allows consumers to aggregate and share their favorite video channels. With over 12 million hours of video and audio content already indexed, blinkx will offer Pyro.TV users additional content options.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on July 18, 2007, 9:56 AM | Permalink


Speak Softly And Carry A Big Stick

So who is quietly trying to solve your search and discovery problem? Librarians. This week, a new searching mechanism was announced by the OpenLibrary project, with the audacious goal of providing information about every book on the planet. No ordinary catalog here, as OpenLibrary relies on the considered librarianship of everyone who uses or contributes to it.

As usual, librarians are experimenting with access, resources and usability. We're happy to follow their lead. In this case, it's digital librarian and archivist Brewster Kahle, who started the Wayback Machine and has been thinking about open access for years. Yet almost no one heard about this effort, and it's pretty interesting!

Lately, we have seen some mainstream publicity about librarians and their quiet influence. The NYTimes has focused on them in recent weeks -- from announcing the impending death of Dewey Decimal to declaring librarians as hipsters. Say what you will about this recent spate of publicity, but these book lovers are notoriously bad at marketing themselves. There are some web sites which aim to help, however, such as Librarian and I Love Libraries.

Librarians have always represented the “uber class” of searchers. They may not tout their achievements as prominently as the pure tech crowd, but they have been pushing web access since before it was even remotely hip. Looking for recommendations, links or more? Your local librarian has probably spent more time unearthing truly meaningful resources than the average techie. It's too bad that we can't bottle their vast experience and create the most expert results out there -- or maybe there is a way of tapping into their search sorcery.

Ask any student working through a term paper and you'll find that librarians are a welcome influence when the going gets tough. For those of you who graduated over a decade ago, you'd be amazed at how academic and public libraries have transformed into electronic wonders, open 24/7. Too bad we are blocked from so many of these restricted or deep-web resources.

Where can outsiders see the good stuff? That's always more challenging. It's often helpful to follow the trails behind librarians. We're familiar with Gary Price, from Ask, who also co-manages the excellent ResourceShelf site. Another influential librarian in our search world is Mary Ellen Bates, who offers tips to help her fellow info pros get their bearings. We're also interested in whatever the American Library Association (ALA) provides, like these monthly recommendations.

Whether individually or collectively, these expert librarians are trying to be helpful. We wish they would speak a little louder -- and be heard amidst the overall search cacophony.

Posted by on July 18, 2007, 3:25 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Q2 Post Slight Decline, Yang To "Put Back On Winning Path"

Despite posting a slight decline from last year's numbers in their Q2 report yesterday, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang intends to put the company back on "a winning path". A company blog detailed Yang's intentions for Yahoo in the coming quarters. (The content of the entry is shown below).

Yahoo shares lost 3.8% in after hours trading yesterday to trade at $26.49. The company's second-quarter net income was $160.57 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with $164.33 million, or 11 cents a share, last year.

Total revenue was $1.7 billion compared to $1.58 billion same quarter last year. "Net sales, which exclude payments Yahoo makes to other Web sites to acquire traffic rose to $1.24 billion from $1.12 billion a year ago" MarketWatch reported.

This is the first financial report since the resignation of CEO Terry Semel last month and co-founder Jerry Yang took ovcer as his replacement.

Yang's blog comments:

Based on the hundreds of people — employees, investors, partners, advertisers, users, peers — who've reached out to me over the past month, there seems to be no shortage of folks who want Yahoo! to succeed. Put me at the top of that list.

The last four weeks have been occupied by candid conversations and an intense analysis of our assets, challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities. It's helped me look at Yahoo! through new eyes — an approach I think is critical for a guy who's been around for 12 years. While our business continues to grow, we need to dramatically improve our performance and I intend to put us back on a winning path.

So, how do we get there? To be honest, we don't have all the answers today — there's a lot of work to do and some tough decisions ahead. I have a great sense of urgency to move in a fast yet focused way, but we want to do this once and do it thoroughly so it will take time. I intend to spend the next 100 days mapping out a game plan and working with Sue, Filo, Blake, and the team to put the right organization in place and make any necessary changes. We need to invest in areas that are most critical to our success and de-emphasize those that are underperforming or match up with our priorities. There will be no sacred cows.

I believe that Yahoo! is too often defined by the competitive landscape, rather than by what we can accomplish with our assets. I'm determined for us to define our own path. Here's where it starts: We see Yahoo! as a deep and active marketplace — an ecosystem of hundreds of millions of consumers, advertisers, publishers, and developers. All benefit from the presence of the other, and the healthier the ecosystem is, the healthier Yahoo! is. That ecosystem today is not thriving as it should and there's a wide gap between where we are and where we need to be.

We want to deliver the most insights, serve the best content, and create the greatest value. To achieve that, we plan to take advantage of three major differentiators — consumer insights, a prime asset we've frankly under-leveraged to date; openness, as demonstrated by the online exchange we're building with Right Media; and being the partner of choice, as we focus on creating relationships like those with Ebay and the newspaper consortium.

There's a lot of heavy lifting ahead, but I'm feeling good about our awesome assets, our initial progress against our challenges, and our vast opportunities if we nail down and execute against the right plan. It's imperative that we accelerate the transformation of Yahoo!. Our immediate priorities are to invest in the right businesses and shift our product focus accordingly, speed our decision-making and execution, channel our technology assets to build game-changing platforms, and do a better job of attracting, developing and motivating talent while rekindling the culture of winning that built this great company.

One last note: Don't be surprised if you don't see a lot of me in the press in the near future as we keep our heads down working through the challenges and opportunities at hand. I'm sure not everyone will agree with that approach, but it feels right to me. I'm a big believer in doing versus talking. We're focused on making changes from the inside out and we'll get out there when the time is right.

In the meantime, thanks for your encouragement and support.

Jerry Yang
CEO & Chief Yahoo

Posted by Frank Watson on July 18, 2007, 12:07 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Housebreaking the Search

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Housebreaking the Search," Kevin Ryan struggles with search marketing for grown-ups.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 18, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Analyzing Data to Lower Your CPA

In today's By the Numbers column, "Analyzing Data to Lower Your CPA," Eric Enge takes on the challenge of optimizing a PPC campaign, showing you one way to lower your cost-per-acquisition by analyzing the data.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 18, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 17, 2007, 11:48 PM | Permalink


Google Planning Mobile Media Search Engine?

Google is planning to launch a mobile media search engine to help consumers find and buy ringtones, games and other mobile content, according to a Wall Street Journal report (subscription required).

According to the WSJ, "people familiar with the matter" say that the system will allow users to find and pay for mobile content, and that Google will eventually monetize the search with AdWords. Google has reportedly been working with mobile content providers to index their content for several months, but technical issues have delayed its launch.

The service will also potentially include a social networking element, allowing Gmail users to exchange content.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 17, 2007, 11:23 AM | Permalink


Microsoft Adds Ask Sponsored Listings to Office Live Ad Management

Microsoft has added Ask Sponsored Listings to its adManager service on the Office Live platform. Using adManager, small businesses can buy and manage search ads from a simplified interface. Previously, the ad options were Microsoft's MSN Network and Live Search.

"This is one of the first times you've had search engines joining together to meet the needs for small businesses," Michael Schultz, U.S. business and marketing lead for Microsoft Office Live, told ClickZ News. "What's significant about Ask.com getting together with Microsoft Office Live, is we're actually making it simple and easy for small business to understand and take advantage of search marketing. To be able to do things like contextual targeting opens up another avenue to allow small businesses to get their message out."

Schultz also said the deal was in the works before former Ask.com CEO Steve Berkowitz left to join Microsoft 15 months ago.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 17, 2007, 11:14 AM | Permalink


Google to Offer Hosted Custom Site Search for Businesses

Google has launched a program offering small businesses hosted site search with its Google Custom Search Business Edition, an enhanced version of its Custom Search Engine (CSE) service launched last fall.

The Business Edition allows site owners to turn off AdWords ads that normally appear in free CSE search results. Site owners can also create a custom user interface and import search results via an XML feed, and Google branding is optional. It also comes with dedicated e-mail and phone support.

Custom Search Business Edition starts at $100 a year for searching up to 5,000 pages, and extends to $500/year for up to 50,000 pages.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 17, 2007, 10:45 AM | Permalink


BidClix Closing Doors July 31

BidClix, recently purchased by aQuantive, will cease to exist on July 31. They have sent out emails letting current advertisers know they will be sending refunds in August for any remaining balances in prepaid accounts.

The interesting thing is they will be moving select advertisers and publishers to another aQuantive property.

"Over the next few months we are going to work hard to transition our best BidClix advertisers and publishers to DRIVE Performance Media, an operating company of aQuantive and one of the world's leading advertising networks," the email stated.

This is an interesting approach by aQuantive. Buy something only to cherry pick the good advertisers and publishers then gut the company. One would think it would have just been easier to approach those advertisers directly.

Guess the talent at BidClix was worth the expense.

The full email is below:

The BidClix Advertising Marketplace, as you know it, is closing. Soon you will no longer be able to access your BidClix account and the existing interface will be shut down.

In December 2006 BidClix became part of the aQuantive family. Over the next few months we are going to work hard to transition our best BidClix advertisers and publishers to DRIVE Performance Media, an operating company of aQuantive and one of the world's leading advertising networks.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR ACCOUNT.

Please note your current account balance: $278.67

If you would like to receive a refund for any positive account balance then you MUST first verify your contact information by logging into your BidClix account and following the steps outlined there. If you do not wish to receive a refund check then you do not need to take any action.

Login here: http://www.bidclix.com

Please Take Note of these Important Dates:

* July 31st: BidClix will stop serving ads and stop accepting bids from advertisers.

* July 31st: The last day you will be able to verify your contact information for payment/refund.

* August 6th: The last day you will be able to log into your BidClix account to call reports etc.

* August 8th - 30th: We will send final checks to all verified accounts.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 17, 2007, 10:14 AM | Permalink


Best of the Web announces B2BSoftware.com

Best of the Web has expanded their offerings by entering the vertical search market with the launch of B2Bsoftware.com. The site is designed to help people looking for Human Resources Software solutions of all kinds. The search capability also makes it easy for users to compare and rank various products for themselves.

The site is implemented in a simple directory form. Best of the Web's press release points out the inconsistency that is inherent in algorithmic search. It appears that their focus with this initiative is to identify vertical markets that can be well categorized and optimized using a human edited approach, and then providing a superior experience for that vertical market.

Posted by on July 17, 2007, 9:44 AM | Permalink


It Takes More Than A Village

As anyone publishing a web site knows, you have a front row seat when it comes to observing a multitude of visitor behaviors. Yet, when it comes to advertising, we continue to profile site visitors in such an unsophisticated manner. Our profiles tend to group visitors into a single community or two, based on demographics, interests or subject areas.

We haven't yet begun taking advantage of ethnographic insights, where visitor behaviors are understood both independently and as part of communities. When we do, the impact to advertising will be significant -- following behaviors as they are being expressed.

At the moment, search ads quite literally respond to what visitors search while contextual ads appear based on specific content. However, these ad placements can't foresee visitor intentions. Take for example travelers. They may be armchair dreamers, more budget conscious, long-term planners, or last minute vacationers. Just because 10 people search for travel excursions in the same manner, does not mean that their needs are exactly the same. Different visitors reflect separate communities of interest.

In yesterday's Ad Age (paid access), author Tom Neveril addresses the bigger picture of customer wants and desires. He claims we should pay more attention to what consumers do. He says marketers typically research past behaviors, by triggering memories. He pushes for more focus on current behaviors, by asking consumers to journal. Tom also advocates capturing and understanding present behaviors. It's hard to follow someone around in their native habitat. At least in the search environment, we're lucky to see the natives!

What exactly is ethnographics? It's a well-developed research methodology originally applied by sociologists and anthropologists. Modern-day market researchers often short-cut the process, but still have to “tune-in” with consumers and their activities. The idea is to study the emic perspective, or behaviors based on how individuals within communities perceive them. By studying and better understanding relevant communities, individual needs may be addressed better too.

One of the underpinnings of ethnographics, according to NCSU Professor David Garson, is defining the relevant community or communities of interest. In his Northern Carolina State University class notes, he explains, “In some settings, this can be difficult. Community, formal organization, informal group, and individual-level perceptions may all play a causal role in the subject under study, and the importance of these may vary by time, place, and issue. There is a possibility that an ethnographic focus may overestimate the role of community culture and underestimate the causal role of individual psychological or of sub-community (or for that matter, extra-community) forces.”

Why ethnographics? It provides an opportunity to add community targeting to the marketing arsenal. Web publishers tend to focus on visitor status and marketing responses. Segmentation is based on first vs. repeat visits; where visitors arrived from; whether they registered; or if they trigger specific key pages. These are valuable drivers of outcome, but knowing who you collectively reached is important too.

Fortunately, it's getting easier to define multiple communities based on how visitors communicate. First, there are explicit communities. You can gauge interests based on what's saved, shared or voted on -- providing opinions to be mined. Whatever biases are included, they do reflect native interests. As a start, these interests can be profiled for ad purposes.

Implicit communities have the ability to capture even more about individuals. They aren't dependent on outward participation levels or socialization. We should start thinking about visitors in terms of everything they consume on your domain. What are the intentions driving browsing and searching behaviors? My advice is not to get too distracted by web logs or pathing tools. It's almost better to see changes that emerge suddenly or when you see any critical mass of interest forming. Technology has caught up in this arena too -- for you to create dynamic profiles and also respond to your natives.

Posted by on July 17, 2007, 12:05 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts

In today's au Natural column, "Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts ," Mark Jackson discusses the key components of successful SEO, showing you how on-site optimization efforts work together to accomplish a common goal.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 17, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Don't Panic Over Sudden Traffic Changes

In today's Big Biz column, "Don't Panic Over Sudden Traffic Changes ," Aaron Shear tries to ease the fears of a sudden algorithmic traffic change. Shear has been there, done that, and provides some advice for meeting panic from the executive suite.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 17, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 16, 2007, 5:00 PM | Permalink


Microsoft adCenter Adds Negative Keyword Tool

After a false start last month, Microsoft this weekend upgraded adCenter and gave advertisers the ability to add negative keywords at the campaign level, instead of just at the ad group level within campaigns.

According to the adCenter blog, "Negative keywords are specific words or phrases that help prevent your ads from being displayed to customers who are unlikely to click them. For example, if your ad sells televisions and you have specified 'TV' as a keyword, but you don't want search queries to produce results on entertainment-type searches, you could specify 'listings,' 'soap,' and 'show' as negative keywords."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 16, 2007, 4:50 PM | Permalink


Google Sets Expiration on Cookies

Google announced today on its blog that it will expire cookies for visitors who have been more than 2 years from their last search. Instead of the permanent expiration date of 2038, they will now auto expire after 2 years of non-usage.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 16, 2007, 4:14 PM | Permalink


ToDou: China's YouTube Adds Advertising, Gets Venture Capital

ToDou, the Chinese equivalent to YouTube, announced the launch of an ad serving platform, as well as the acquisition of $19 million in venture capital, according to an Adotas report.

ToDou gets 50 percent of China's valid video sharing, according to IResearch. "40 million Chinese Internet users are currently watching more than 1.2 billion videos each month off of the Tudou platform", Adotas stated.

Kathy Xu, of Capital Today - one of the venture investors - said, “Tudou is a new life style where we see millions of people spend hours and hours to watch their own shows. It is a cool place where new stars will be born, and new media where eyeballs will eventually turn into advertising dollars.”

Posted by Frank Watson on July 16, 2007, 3:51 PM | Permalink


Incisive Events Coming This Summer

It's been a busy conference season for search marketers over the past few months, and the pace is finally letting up – but only a little bit. Incisive Media, parent to Search Engine Watch, is planning four more events in July and August, and then we promise to take a break for a little while.

Coming up are three Search Engine Strategies events, and one ClickZ Specifics event which may be of interest to some of our readers:

  1. ClickZ Specifics: Online Video Advertising – July 19, 2007, in New York City.
    Get up to speed on the latest online video formats, strategy, results, and creative in this immersive one-day forum.
  2. SES Travel – July 26-27, 2007, in Seattle.
    Find out about the web marketing tools available to those in the travel industry directly from the experts at this two-day conference.
  3. SES Training – August 8, 2007, in Boston.
    This one-day workshop provides the practices, applications, and hands-on exposure you need to become (and remain!) a top performer in your field.
  4. SES San Jose – August 20-23, 2007, in San Jose, California.
    While SES NY is the agency conference, SES SJ is the high-tech and internet company event of the year. Keynotes from Ask.com's Jim Lanzone and Google's Marissa Mayer highlight this 4-day event. SEM training classes will also be offered on August 24.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 16, 2007, 3:49 PM | Permalink


Google Confirms Mobile AdSense Beta

Word of a new version of AdSense for mobile users began spreading last week, and a Google spokesperson has confirmed that it is running a limited beta of the product, according to ClickZ.

"Google is committed to finding new and better ways to get users the information they need while on the go, and to opening up new revenue opportunities for our partners," the spokesperson said. "We are currently conducting a limited beta to test AdSense for mobile, a monetization product for mobile publishers. We will continue to evaluate the beta and will refine the product based on feedback from our users, publishers, and advertisers."

Google has been seen testing mobile search ads in the U.S. and U.K. in September 2006, and in more of Europe, Asia, and Australia in November. This is the first time Google ads have been placed on third-party mobile publisher sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 16, 2007, 10:22 AM | Permalink


Interview with Unica's Rand Schulman

Just over a week ago I sat down with Rand Schulman and spoke at length about the web analytics industry, and some of the recent events there. To put in place Rand's role in this industry, consider the following quote from Jim Sterne:

Rand Schulman didn't study web analytics, he created it. He didn't join the industry, he built it. He didn't prophesy solutions, he helped a generation of web analysts identify and tackle real world problems.

One of the intriguing comments that Rand made during the interview was about Google Analytics. He believes that Google will not give away much more advanced functionality in their analytics product because it would be difficult for them to support it. I.e. the lack of incoming revenue makes it hard to cover the costs inherent in supporting more advanced functionality. One thing he feels that Google should do is to increase the integration of Google Analytics with other Google owned applications.

Posted by on July 16, 2007, 10:00 AM | Permalink


Rediff Possible Google, Yahoo Buy To Imrove India Presence

The value of Rediff India Ltd. - which owns one of India's most popular consumer Internet portals - has been speculated as a possible acquisition by Google and Yahoo by numerous publications recently.

"Talk of the deal is emerging in the context of a general worldwide rebound in the Internet business, and India emerging as a hot story in the global economy with strong growth in both telephone penetration and the Internet in urban areas," the the Hindustan Times reported today.

While Barrons suggested the price of Rediff right now may be too high.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 16, 2007, 1:18 AM | Permalink


Google Responds To Aussie Fraud Claims

Google has responded to the "legal proceedings by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that Google has failed to adequately distinguish 'sponsored links' from 'organic' search results", the UK Telegraph reported today.

Google spokesman Rob Shilkin told the UK Telegraph: "Google Australia believes that these claims are without merit and we will defend against them vigorously. They represent an attack on all search engines."

The court date is set for August 21.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 16, 2007, 1:05 AM | Permalink


AdSense Adds CPA Ads With CPC, CMP Ads

A thread over at WebMasterWorld is discussing the integration of Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) ads into the AdSense mix. CPA had been offered as a beta to a number of advertisers but it seems a bunch more are seeing this on their sites.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 16, 2007, 12:47 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Boosting CTRs in a Search Fragmenting World

In today's Search Ads column, "Boosting CTRs in a Search Fragmenting World," Tony Wright reports further on the fragmentation of search with reader-submitted tips and some of his own. Here's what you can do to keep your CTRs up.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 16, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 13, 2007, 11:58 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Closes Right Media Deal

Yahoo announced yesterday that it has closed the acquisition of Right Media that was announced in April. Yahoo had bought a 20-percent stake in the company in October 2006 for less than $45 million, and paid $650 million in cash and stock for the remaining equity interest in Right Media.

Of the remaining big-name acquisitions announced this spring, Google-DoubleClick and Microsoft-aQuantive are still awaiting regulatory approval, and the WPP-24/7 Real Media acquisition closed earlier this month.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 13, 2007, 2:19 PM | Permalink


Visual Sciences Retains Goldman, Sachs & Co

It looks like life at Visual Sciences remains busy. In response to a number of unsolicited queries about acquiring them, the company has retained Goldman, Sachs & Co to manage those queries, and evaluate their next steps. The company has stated that the reason for their retaining Goldman, Sachs & Co is to allow the company to remain focused on day to day operations, even while these opportunities can be explored.

With the announcement it looks like Visual Sciences is doing two things: (1) Reassuring customers that any rumors they may hear about such activity will not affect the support they get, and: (2) while there is nothing in the announcement that suggests that the company is trying to sell itself, they are letting the market know that they are open to such discussions.

Posted by on July 13, 2007, 10:38 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Call for Production Value Standards in Search Marketing Videos

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Call for Production Value Standards in Search Marketing Videos," Grant Crowell conducts a survey of the top-20 videos on YouTube and comes to the conclusion that our industry needs the same professional standards for search marketing videos as we hold for our Web sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 13, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 12, 2007, 11:49 PM | Permalink


Latino Search Market Presents Opportunities

At the recent Search Engine Strategies Latino event in Miami last month, speakers again and again spoke of the ripe opportunity for search marketers in the nascent U.S. Hispanic and Latin American search markets. Yesterday, we shared the experience of Matt Williams, who successfully translated a campaign for the Latino market.

Google's Gonzalo Alonso said the market was poised for growth, and that sentiment was echoed by several other speakers. In today's SearchDay, Grant Crowell outlines some of the opportunities in the Latino search market.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 12, 2007, 2:58 PM | Permalink


Australian Gov. Suing Google Over Misleading Conduct

The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) is taking Google, as well as Trading Post Australia, to court over misleading and deceptive advertising, according to the press release on the Australian government agency's website.

Google Inc, Google Ireland and Google Australia have all been named in the suit.

"The ACCC understands that it is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Google's conduct from a trade practices perspective," the press release states.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 12, 2007, 2:41 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Adds Search Suggest Feature

Yahoo has added a Search Suggest feature to its Web search box on Yahoo.com. A user is presented with a likely search term when they begin typing a query into the search box. It's intended to prevent misspellings, as well as aid in the discovery of refined or related queries.

The feature has been available in the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox since March.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 12, 2007, 10:43 AM | Permalink


Google Maps Mashups Now Easier to Find and Create

Google has introduced the term Mapplets to describe what it's calling the next generation of user-created data overlays commonly known as "mashups." In the LatLong Blog, product manager describes the new platform in Google Maps Mashups 2.0. Mapplets are intended to be mashups that allow developers use dynamic data, such as live weather information, or events from Zvents, as an overlay on a map.

Mapplets are available on Google's MyMaps tab, along with a drag-and-drop editor that allows users to add placemarks to a map, which was released in April.

In addition, users can add existing Mapplets to their MyMaps page from the Google Maps Directory.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 12, 2007, 10:02 AM | Permalink


HowToDoThings.com Offering Writers Opportunities

Web publisher How To Do Things is looking for writers. The company offers a program where people can get themselves published on a regular basis, and share in the revenue generated from those pages over time.

I spoke with a spokesperson from the company, Erik Budde, yesterday, and he tells me they want to rapidly expand the content on the site, and they plan to be aggressive about recruiting new writers. This seems like a great opportunity for writers looking for exposure on a heavily trafficked site.

The site has over 2,500 “How-To” articles on a wide variety of topics. To be accepted, you must complete a short application, pick the categories where you have expertise and start writing. It's a good chance to share your expertise, be recognized as an expert and help others. You can also use your profile page to promote your business or website (including a link). The site has grown tremendously in the past year, but there are still many areas without many articles so there's lot of room to pick good topics.

If you want to be considered for this opportunity, visit this page to get started.

UPDATE: We've been contacted by authors who have stressed that potential contributors should be certain to check HowToDoThings' contract terms before submitting their work. Some authors are concerned with policies that assume all rights to any accepted content, whether it's published later or not, and offer writers remuneration only from Google AdSense earned on the writer's article pages.

In addition, if a writer terminates the agreement with HowToDoThings, any previously accepted work remains under contract and the company is free to alter and sell said work using the writers' likeness and name without further permission from or paying the writer.

Posted by on July 12, 2007, 10:00 AM | Permalink


10 Cool Things With Clicktracks

Clicktracks was one of the packages that my company, Stone Temple Consulting, evaluated during our recent Web Analytics Shootout. The package performed well during the study, and we have now followed up with an article titled 10 Cool Things You Can Do With Clicktracks.

The major items covered in this article are:

  1. Optimize your PPC Campaigns
  2. Slice and Dice your Visitors with Segmentation
  3. Apply New Analysis to Old Data
  4. Improve Your User Experience
  5. SEO Optimization
  6. Contextual Analysis
  7. Powerful Testing Capabilities
  8. Keyword Analysis and Research
  9. Click Fraud Detection
  10. Track KPIs Over Time

Posted by on July 12, 2007, 9:00 AM | Permalink


June Search Numbers: Microsoft Growing, Yahoo Dropping

Compete.com released their monthly search percentage numbers and has Microsoft making the biggest gains year over year and Yahoo showing the largest drop.

Microsoft had more than a 67% increase over their search share from last month and more than 48% from June numbers in 2006.

Yahoo has lost 16% since the same month last year and failed to improve on last month's numbers. Google increased its 55% share from last year to 62% this June, but dropped from May's 67%.

Part of Microsoft's increase has been attributed to their online gaming requirements of coming through their Live Search Club. The games involve using search to gain points for products, Compete noted.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 12, 2007, 12:23 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Exploiting Your Current Backlinks and Link Referrals

In today's Link Love column, "Exploiting Your Current Backlinks and Link Referrals," Justilien Gaspard tells you how to take full advantage of your current backlinks, while getting referrals to other Web sites that can help promote your business.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 12, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 11, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


Hotlinking Images Can Help SEO

Google Blogoscoped has an interesting article about using hotlinked images to gain high organic rankings.

Michel Telendro told Phillip Lenssen, "“I do one of this hotlinking with one flickr image in a new domain (3 weeks, no backlinks) and in one week I was ranking #3 for that keyword in [Google Images].”
Case in point – do an image search for paris in Spanish Google, and of the top 5 results, all but 1 are hotlinking the image. Even when you do a Google web search, thanks to the direct image results box on top of the web results, a hot linker ranks top for paris."

Posted by Frank Watson on July 11, 2007, 5:24 PM | Permalink


Korean Portal, Search Engine Yehey Partners With Pixsy

Yehey, the Korean search engine and portal, announced ti will use Pixsy's enhanced media search platform.

The press release about the partnership is below. Yehey is the leading Filipino portal.

Yehey is using Pixsy's enhanced media search platform to populate its highly-popular Internet portal, providing up to the minute image and video content for consumers around the world.


Pixsy Corporation, a media search platform that powers private label image and video search engines, today announced the availability of customized vertical media search engines developed with Pixsy's proprietary technology. The first implementation goes live with Yehey.com, the world's number one Filipino internet portal and search engine.

With this new product enhancement Pixsy expands its award-winning media search platform; creating tailored verticals for any business partner. Customized search engines can be built from a variety of specifications. For example, a partner may want to capture image and video content from a specific list of URLs; they may prefer to use only their own unique content; or they may want to include media from the massive Pixsy index. The latest Pixsy technology makes any or all of these options possible, depending on the publishers' needs.

Under this agreement Yehey is using Pixsy's enhanced media search platform to populate its highly-popular Internet portal, providing up to the minute image and video content for consumers around the world.

“Pixsy technology enables us to deliver a Filipino oriented image and video search engine to our huge user-base,” said Yehey executive Lazlo Miguel A. Lim. “By delivering relevant media content to our vast, global consumer audience, the partnership creates a unique advertising monetization opportunity.”

Pixsy's Media Search Platform will enable consumers to search for multimedia content based on a variety of popular categories, including news, sports, entertainment, celebrities, travel and more. Pixsy will use its proprietary technology to capture, index and deliver the most current and relevant thumbnail images and video worldwide.

“Yehey is an excellent partner for our entry into Asia,” said Chase Norlin, Pixsy CEO. “Our advanced technology solutions will add value to their user experience, which will reach their strong following among Filipino internet users worldwide.”

By partnering with the Filipino Internet giant Yehey, Pixsy is creating a footprint in Asia. Pixsy recently announced entry in the European markets through a partnership with ad pepper media; one of several strategic ad network partners.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 11, 2007, 4:33 PM | Permalink


Masked Bandits Use Google To Crack Safe

Seems safe cracking is a profitable search term in Colorado. A group of masked bandits needed help from Google search to get away with over $12,000, according to The Register.

The unskilled thieves also used WD40 instead of paint to attempt to stop security cameras.

"All that did was clean off the lenses," Colorado Springs detective Chuck Ackerman said.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 11, 2007, 4:17 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Tops Asian Popularity, comScore Reports

comScore published its first comprehensive Asia-Pacific internet usage review and Yahoo was found to be the most popular.

The report examined the percentage of visitors to various sites for each country's web activity.

Though China has 91.5 million people using the internet it only represents 9 percent of the country's population, according to comScore. South Korea, followed by Australia, had the highest penetration, 65 and 62 percent respectively.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 11, 2007, 3:38 PM | Permalink


Can Search Success Translate?

Making a search campaign that's been successful in English work in Spanish can be more difficult than simply translating the same words. Matt Williams, managing partner of search marketing firm Prominent Placement, shares his company's search optimization experience with the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets in today's SearchDay, "Can You Translate a Successful Search Campaign?."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 11, 2007, 3:25 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Advertising Numbers Under Attack, According to Bloomberg

Not only is Yahoo being beleagured by Google, but the social networking sites are cutting into their display ad revenue, according to a Bloomberg report.

Yahoo has seen its stock value fall recently, and while some financial advisers are recommending selling, there are still a number who see Yahoo as a buy.

"Yahoo still takes in more display advertising than its competitors", Yahoo spokeswoman Joanna Stevens told Bloomberg. "Measured by dollars spent, Yahoo was first among U.S. sites in the first quarter, followed by AOL and parent Time Warner Inc. and Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is third, according to TNS Media Intelligence. TNS didn't provide year-ago comparisons" Bloomberg stated.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 11, 2007, 2:50 PM | Permalink


Privacy and Yahoo's Integration of Flickr with Image Search

Yahoo! recently highlighted in the Yahoo! Search Blog that they have now integrated the millions of Flickr photos into the image search results. This lets users of Yahoo! Image search access 300 million Flickr photos directly from Yahoo!. I am a huge Flickr fan and love to browse photos.

As an amateur photographer (albeit not very good), I am always very concerned about where my photos may turn up. For a long time this kept me from posting my personal photos on online photo-sharing sites. In the image search results, Yahoo attributes images to the photographer using the 'by membername on Flickr' attribution. A click on the thumbnail leads directly to the photo. A click on the photographer's name leads to the photgrapher's Flickr photo stream. As users of Flckr already know that is a starting point for viewing the photographer's public photos.

A feature of Flick that I personally like is that a photographer can set viewing permissions for each photo and can block from public view any photo. A photographer can also change these settings at will. According to an update posted on the Yahoo! Search Blog in response to comments, images shown in image search are those that the photographer has labeled public. This means that photographers posting personal photos – clearly marked as blocked from public view – can expect to have their privacy rights respected. It is unclear how Yahoo! will handle fickle-minded photographers who change their permissions.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on July 11, 2007, 10:59 AM | Permalink


Google Maps missing Ontario on JetBlue flight

Last month, JetBlue launched a real-time flight tracking channel featuring Google Maps on its in-flight TVs. On Sunday, I flew from Boston, MA, to Oakland, CA, on JetBlue -- and was surprised to find that Ontario, Canada, was a blank area on Google Maps when we flew over it. There were plenty of details on the map until we crossed over Buffalo, New York, and the details returned when we crossed back into the United States over Detroit, Michigan. Does JetBlue have a blind spot on its map -- or has everything from Hamilton to Sarnia been moved to an "undisclosed location"?

Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 11, 2007, 10:26 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Up Your SEM Knowledge

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Up Your SEM Knowledge Now!," Kevin Ryan reviews the importance of SEM education, and provides some guidelines to help you choose the right path for you.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 11, 2007, 12:03 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: The Role of Trust in E-Commerce Sales

In today's By the Numbers column, "The Role of Trust in E-Commerce Sales," Eric Enge reviews research from ScanAlert showing that e-commerce sites can profit by ensuring their sites are safe and secure.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 11, 2007, 12:02 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 10, 2007, 11:50 PM | Permalink


Quantcast Offers Free Video and Widget Audience Measurement Services

As reported yesterday in Clickz, Quantcast has added online video and widget audience measurement tools. The service enables publishers to measure the usage of videos and widgets on their Web sites. These free tools will report stats on all Flash-based media. This includes videos and online games as well as Web-based and downloaded desktop widgets.

The beta version of Quantcast's video and widget measurement service reports on reach, plays, category and amount consumed. It is expected that the complete offering will include measurements of frequency and distribution, as well as demographics and lifestyle assessments based on Quantcast's Mass Inference algorithm.

MetaCafe, Mochi Media, PictureTrail, RockYou and Slide are among the early beta program participants working with Quantcast's enhanced measurement capabilities.

With the rapid growth of video and the introduction of universal search, site owners are expected to need and demand more robust audience measurements that will allow them to justify expenditures for these new media and advertising that will be linked to them.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on July 10, 2007, 1:21 PM | Permalink


Podcast with Brett Crosby and Avinash Kaushik

After a bit of a layoff, I had the pleasure of doing a podcast together with Google Analytics's dynamic duo of Brett Crosby and Avinash Kaushik. Brett handles the marketing of Google Analytics, and Avinash is the "evangelist".

Avinash is a really well known for his Occam's Razor blog, which is a great source of information about analytics. Avinash recently left Intuit, to become an independent, and to work as the Google Analytics Evangelist.

One of the interesting parts of the conversation took place when we discussed the Entrance Paths and Entrance Sources reports within Google Analytics. Both reports give you keen insight into the flow of traffic into, and through your site. Based on the data provided, you can see if the pages on your site are performing the way you expected.

The key distinction between the two is that the Entrance Sources report focuses on pages that are the initial landing pages on your site, whereas the Entrance Paths report looks at entrance and exit paths for any page on your site (even if it is not the initial landing page). Both reports can provide you with quite a bit of value in understanding what users are doing on your site.

Posted by on July 10, 2007, 10:54 AM | Permalink


Mahalo Moves Forward

Chris Hemphill over at Pronet Advertising put up a post titled Mahalo will compete with search giants and vertical search. It's an intriguing post because it points out that human edited search results do have some advantages. Jason Calcanis was quoted as saying:

Now, we're in alpha so there are only 6,000+ pages right now, but if you compare our pages (when we have one) to any other machine search engine we will win hands down.

I do agree with that this does offer some real advantages. The only issue I see is that I don't understand how this can scale to cover the true complexity of web search, which is measured in billions of pages. As noted by Udi Manber at the recent announcement of Universal Search by Google, 20 to 25% of the queries they receive every day are being seen by Google for the first time.

Essentially, human nature and the nature of language allows for an infinite number of possibilities in terms of search queries. So, even as Mahalo scales up to hundreds of thousands of pages, or even millions of pages, it will still fall far short of the complexity of the total search problem. I don't think that users are going to want to guess when one search engine has a better result than another. But, time will tell us.

Posted by on July 10, 2007, 9:38 AM | Permalink


Are You Scared of Universal Search?

Google's switch in May to Universal Search has more than a few marketers awash with panic over loss of rankings – and understandably so – since some have lost visibility due to other digital content such as video, images, or blogs, etc. occupying valuable real estate within the search results.

John Tawadros, COO of iProspect, will help calm your nerves with his advice for using Universal Search to your advantage in today's SearchDay, "Google Universal: Friend or Foe?"

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 10, 2007, 12:20 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Hosting Issues as They Relate to SEO

In today's au Natural column, "Hosting Issues as They Relate to SEO," Mark Jackson defines the use of basic server response codes the common pitfalls as related to search engine optimization.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 10, 2007, 12:02 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 2

In today's Little Biz column, "Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 2 ," Carrie Hill tells you how to use plug-ins when designing your standalone or Web site blog – great tips for getting started.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 10, 2007, 12:01 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 9, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


Google AdWords Offers Impression Share Numbers

In their Friday blog, Google announced they have launched a new feature in the AdWords interface, Impression Share - the percentage of impressions your ads see. Thus giving very accurate numbers for total searches for all keywords or their expanded matches.

The feature is well detailed by the Googlers.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 9, 2007, 4:55 PM | Permalink


Newsknife names top sources in Google News for environmental articles

While the impact of humans on the environment has been one of the big stories so far for 2007, that doesn't seem reflected in the environmental articles that appear in Google News. According to Newsknife, only 37 of the 1048 news items recorded at Google News to the end of June 2007 have been clearly related to the environment. Even then, Newsknife had to include news of local items like storms along with important issues like global warming.

The top news sources for environmental articles in Google News include:

1 The Boston Globe 3 appearances found
L2, 1, 3:00 pm Wed Jan 31,
Welch: Interference in science "stunning"
L1, 1, 6:58 pm Fri Mar 16,
Montpelier escapes flooding...
L3, 1, 7:00 pm Thu Mar 22,
Gore takes his global-warming battle to
Congress

2 AllAfrica.com 2
W1, 1, 7:00 pm Mon Jan 29,
Nigeria: The Weather is Confused
T1, 1, 7:00 pm Fri Feb 2,
Africa: Scientists United On Human-Induced
Climate Change

3 The Christian Science Monitor 2
W1, 1, 7:00 pm Sun Feb 4,
...calls mount for global response
W2, 1, 6:59 pm Tue Mar 13,
Britain's 'global first' bill to cut CO2 emissions

4 The Houston Chronicle 2
L1, 1, 7:00 pm Sun Mar 4,
Bush tours towns hit by tornadoes
L2, 1, 7:01 pm Wed Apr 25,
EPA accused of flouting Supreme Court

5 The New York Times 2
W3, 1, 7:00 pm Mon Jan 15,
At Summit, Asian Nations Sign Energy Accord
L3, 1, 11:26 pm Tue May 22,
California Wants Strict Auto Emission Rules

To see the entire list, go to Newsknife's “Ultimate 2007 environment news resource,” which lists the headlines that Newsknife found at Google News as the first listed source for 37 environment-related news items, January - June 2007.

Or, if you are a Newsknife member (which costs only $10), you can get a list of more than 5,000 environment-related headlines from 985 news sites worldwide that wrote about these 37 stories, but were buried as many as 10 pages deep in the news search listings.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 9, 2007, 2:47 PM | Permalink


Bill Slawski Uncovers Patent Info About Google Quality Scoring

Bill Slawski - SEO By The Sea - should be voted the global expert on search engine patents. He keeps on top of them and is always breaking solid insights into how the patent applies to the various engines and ways to learn from them.

"A trio of patent applications from Google look at estimating the likelihood that an advertisement is a good one, in a method that goes beyond counting click-through-rates (CTR)." he blogged.

The blog is one worth reading and if you have any insights or comments let's discuss them here.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 9, 2007, 12:01 PM | Permalink


Google Pays $625 Million for Email Security Company

Google bought Postini Inc. - the San Carlos, California-based email security company - for $625 million, according to a Bloomberg report today.

The purchase strengthens Google's ability to compete with Microsoft's Outlook product and allow them to market email services to businesses.

``This brings Gmail up to enterprise class, embedding the security,'' said Peter Firstbrook, a research director at Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 9, 2007, 11:40 AM | Permalink


Social and Portal Connections Underway

Weekend mumblings of social networks came from both Yahoo and Google. In the case of Yahoo, it intends to develop Mosh. For Google, it has made progress with Socialstream. What are these new social and portal connections?

Mosh: Call this one the Social at the Portal. Techcrunch shows a Yahoo job posting about the service. Commenter “Anonymouse” says Yahoo plans for a late Fall launch. He/she also believes “it may be Yahoo's first time doing any real Integration across products as well!”

Socialstream: Call this one the Social Portal, period. Google's supporting a Carnegie Mellon development called the Unified Social Network (USN). This would become a “one stop” shop for social networks, if the social networks are open to it. See the features here.

Why now, in the summer dulrums?

First, the continued growth by MySpace and now Facebook must be a wake-up call. According to ComScore, MySpace attracted 69 million uniques and Facebook garnered 29 million uniques during May. MySpace encourages large networks of friends, music and more. It enables you to experiment with identities, too. Facebook is about friends you know. COO Owen Van Natta says they are primarily a technology company (see AdAge, paid access).

Second, social networking and communications are being adopted elsewhere. User-generated content commonly appears on traditional media's own websites. There are sites built solely to share interests too, from mothers to dog owners. At this stage, blogging, photo sharing and video viewing have become fairly mainstream activities.

Third, things may be getting unwieldy. With so many social networks, perhaps we do want to unify our friends. Or at least start searching in a more sophisticated way among our friends and their interests too. While not explicitly addressed in weekend mumblings, we would like to see how the search mechanisms will be tied into these social and portal connections.

Posted by on July 9, 2007, 11:29 AM | Permalink


Yahoo, Microsoft To Change Privacy Policies

Pressure from the European Union has Yahoo and Microsoft changing their privacy policies, according to the Financial Times.

"The Article 29 Working Party, a group of national officials that advises the European Union on privacy policy, last month said it wanted to investigate how long companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft keep data on individuals who use their search engines," FT.com reported.

“We are talking to customers, to the industry and government officials about this, and intend to provide an update in the near future which will more directly give the time frame,” said Brendon Lynch, privacy expert at Microsoft.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 9, 2007, 11:23 AM | Permalink


Using Wikipedia to Improve Search Quality

Bill Slawski put up an interesting post over the weekend titled Can Web Search Use Wikipedia to Understand References to Names?. Bill references a paper by Microsoft researcher Silviu Cucerzan. The gist of the paper is that search engines can use Wikipedia as a cross referencing source, to help a search engine understand when it sees a name like "Bush" in a document which Bush is being referred to (George W. Bush, his father, Reggie Bush, or whatever).

In principle, what the paper discusses is how the context of the use of a particular name in a web document can be compared to the context of the use of that name on Wikipedia. Simplistically put, if the reference to "Bush" appears on a site about the New Orleans Saints, the likelihood that it's about Reggie Bush is quite high. The search engine can use an external reference source, such as Wikipedia, as a method of validation, but trying the various pages on Wikipedia with a last name of Bush, and noting the references in common.

For example, the Wikipedia page and the web page being analyzed probably both use phrases like New Orleans Saints, football, running back, etc. By developing this sense of context, the web page being analyzed can be more properly classified, even if the page never uses the running back's full name. So if the user searches on Reggie Bush, the search engine will know that the particular web page can be considered as relevant to the query.

It makes for interesting reading, and provides some insight into the types of analysis that search engines perform. What makes this even more intense to think about is that this is just one example of thousands of such scenarios that search engines deal with. It's a complicated process, indeed.

Posted by on July 9, 2007, 11:00 AM | Permalink


Google's VP Search Quality, Udi Manber, Interviewed

Latest in my interview series is a discussion I had with Udi Manber, Google's VP of Search Quality. For me, it was a great opportunity to speak with Udi, and learn more about some of the thinking about key parts of Google's strategy. I first saw Udi speak at the announcement of the Universal Search initiative, at the event that Google referred to as Searchology.

In fact, he was the one who pointed out during Searchology that 20 to 25% of the search queries Google receives every day are being ssen by Google for the first time. Perhaps this is a tribute to the complexity of language, and the relatively random process by which people approach the formulation of their search queries.

One of the interesting discussions in the interview was about the future role of links in the Google search algorithm, in light of all the changes of late, including the move towards personalization. I asked him if this would diminish the important of links over time. Udi reinforced that links will continue to play a large role in the Google algorithm for the forseeable future. Not a big surprise perhaps, but it was interesting to confirm it.

Posted by on July 9, 2007, 10:00 AM | Permalink


Google Webmaster Blog Talks About Flash

Mark Berghausen of Google offered up a post last week on the Google Webmaster Central blog about the Best Uses of Flash. In it, Mark points out that Google can read the content of Flash files, but not all forms of Flash. The post provides some helpful suggestions about smart ways to use Flash as part of your web design.

My observation is that Flash is a movie. Even if Google is able to read the text in your movie, you don't decide to build a movie and then create text rich pages. The only movie I ever saw that had a lot of on screen text was Star Wars, and that was only the first minute or so of the movie. I would bet that a very small percentage of Star Wars viewers read that text in detail.

The point is that once you have decided to make a movie out of your site, you have already moved away from the premise of a search engine friendly site. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but just don't expect to get much search traffic after you put it up.

Along those lines, Mark does clearly outline some ways to integrate Flash into your site so that it's a component of the site, as opposed to it being the whole site. The suggestions make a lot of sense, and can help you if you really want to have the strong visual appeal that Flash can offer on your site.

Posted by on July 9, 2007, 9:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: The Beginning of the Fragmentation of Search

In today's Search Ads column, "The Beginning of the Fragmentation of Search," Tony Wright ponders the evolution of search marketing from its heady first years to the competitive situation today. Can this be the beginning of the fragmentation of search?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 9, 2007, 12:01 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 6, 2007, 11:59 PM | Permalink


LG, Google Developing YouTube Phone

Mobile phone manufacturer LG is working with Google to develop a mobile phone that will allow you to upload videos directly to YouTube, according to an Adotas.

The phones should be available by the end of the year, the report stated.

"The technology will give users the ability to shoot, view and upload videos onto YouTube from their phones just as they would on their PCs. Also, videos on the site will be easily viewable," Adotas reported.

LG Electronics CEO Skott Ahn said the phones should be available globally by the end of the year.

This new content will provide more advertising space for Google and continues the relationship they have with LG that has a number of Google aps installed on some of their mobile phones.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 6, 2007, 12:09 PM | Permalink


Convera and SearchChannel Partnership

It was announced earlier this week that Convera and SearchChannel have formed a strategic partnership. This relationship pairs up Convera, a vertical search engine platform provider, with SearchChannel, an e-media and search engine marketing consulting firm.

According to the announcement, SearchChannel will consult with Convera on the development of online business solutions for B-to-B publishers, and SearchChannel will provide consulting services to Convera's customers. These services will include search engine optimization, online advertising sales training, and revenue and analytics modeling. SearchChannel also has it's own vertical search engine sites, which it will integrate with Convera's vertical search platform.

One of the major goals of the partnership appears to be to help Convera's customers drive more traffic to their vertical search engines. This makes sense, as one of the biggest challenges for vertical search is getting a user to recognize that it exists, and to recognize its added value over a horizontal search platform, such as Google. The added value needs to be substantial before people will make the switch to use a vertical search engine for their specific needs.

Posted by on July 6, 2007, 8:32 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Enterprise SEO Project Pricing: One Size Does Not Fit All

In today's Outsourced column, "Enterprise SEO Project Pricing: One Size Does Not Fit All," Chris Boggs talks about the challenges of scoping an enterprise-level SEO project.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 6, 2007, 12:35 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Why Should I Book My Vacation Via Your Travel Site?

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Why Should I Book My Vacation Via Your Travel Site?," Elisabeth Osmeloski tells owners and managers of travel sites how to convince every traveler that their service provides the most value. Do this well, and word of mouth marketing will kick in.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 6, 2007, 12:34 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 5, 2007, 11:30 PM | Permalink


Domain Contacts Should Not Change

Lately, ICANN has been in the process of determining the fate of domain name ownership information. The proposed change aims to improve the privacy of domain registrants by limiting the information required. However noble, we hope the proposal will be tabled to prevent "bad actors" from flourishing across domains.

Until now, the WHOIS database or the Internet "white pages" has been the primary way to find information about domain registrants as well as to protect Internet users from such risks as sales fraud, brand theft and counterfeit. WHOIS is seen as offering a form of responsibility and lucidity to the Web. Imagine if all of this information suddenly disappeared or was no longer so easily available?

This spring, ICANN created an Operational Point of Contact Proposal (OPoC) where registrants of top level (.com, .net) domains would be required to list only one contact's postal, email and phone info. Currently, domains are listed with the registrant's name, a tech contact and an admin contact. The registrant provides a postal address, while the other contacts provide full postal, email, phone and fax info. In addition, primary and secondary servers are openly listed.

The current method of offering multiple contacts helps many different constituents. Steven Metalitz, president of the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) of ICANN's Generic Name Supporting Organization, explained during an Inside Counsel presentation that trademark owners, copyright owners, anti-phishing and anti-cybersquatting interests, corporate transactions, major non-profits, consumers, parents and law enforcement all rely on reaching domain owners and their teams.

At the most recent WHOIS Working Group meeting (transcript here), many questions about OPoC roles and responsibilities were left unanswered. An entire day was spent deliberating about whether new operational contacts should represent domain registrants. Would these new contacts respond quickly to critical matters? Would there be penalties for non-response? Should they assume responsibilities that seem more appropriate for registrars or even ISPs?

The Working Group participants felt that if OPoCs botched the job, these operational contacts could be discredited and at some point no longer exist as an entity – which begs the question of exactly why this intermediary function is needed in the first place.

Somehow, ICANN got this one wrong. We're all for privacy here. The focus should be on accessing the registration information. Do we really need another layer of bureaucracy to intervene in the synergy now available between registrants and their users? I don't think so. Should it continue to be available on WHOIS allowing people to easily look it up? I think so.

Rather than creating a new entity for the sole purpose of cautiously doling out information, perhaps another way to keep some control over the matter is to charge a fee for downloading domain information from registrars. This might be a better path, leading to compromise in this ongoing debate.

Posted by on July 5, 2007, 2:49 PM | Permalink


adCenter Gets Click Quality Reports

Microsoft adCenter has added click quality reports, according to a post on the adCenter blog by Brendan Kitts, program manager for click quality for Microsoft adCenter.

Because all clicks don't necessarily carry the same value, adCenter categorizes them as either standard quality or low quality. Standard-quality clicks are the clicks that you want, that ordinarily result in conversions, and that you are billed for.

Low-quality clicks are clicks that adCenter classifies as non-billable, including those that adCenter has identified as:

  • Invalid clicks
  • Clicks that have characteristics of low or unclear commercial intent
  • Clicks that exhibit patterns of unusual activity
  • Clicks that originate from spiders, robots, questionable sources, or test servers
  • Clicks that should be filtered out for other reasons

Some traffic that adCenter has flagged as low quality might ultimately result in conversions for you, which is why the label “low quality,” rather than “invalid,” provides a more accurate description of this class of traffic.

Kitts also points to a few studies that show adCenter producing a higher conversion rate than other ad platforms, including research from Atlas, Nielsen/Netratings, Compete and WebSideStory (now Visual Sciences).

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 5, 2007, 12:29 PM | Permalink


Did They Really "Give It Up"?

The long-awaited live-blogged session from SMX Advanced, "Give It Up," where search marketers were meant to share their insider tricks, has now been published after a one-month embargo. You can find a recap of the session at Search Engine Roundtable, Bruce Clay Blog and Marketing Pilgrim.

It seems the juicier secrets were kept hidden, due to the presence of a certain spam-fighting search engineer, but there are still a few gems in there that people might not know about.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 5, 2007, 12:24 PM | Permalink


FAST Acquires Personalization/Recommendation Technology

Norway- and Boston-based search company FAST Search & Transfer has acquired AgentArts, a San Francisco-based technology company with a personalization and recommendation engine for music, video, games and mobile entertainment. AgentArts clients include Infospace Mobile, Telstra Big Pond, Telstra Mobile, and Unipier.

FAST will add the technology to its enterprise search products, which will allow users to see the relationships between content and get recommendations for similar content based on their search patterns. It also includes a social recommendation feature, which helps users discover similar content based on patterns of other users with similar interests.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 5, 2007, 10:50 AM | Permalink


Internal Link Structure Optimization

Jim Boykin has a nice post about Optimizing Your Internal Link Structure. In addition to providing background on how page rank flows from page to page, Jim outlines the basics on how you should prioritize which pages should get the most attention.

Keeping in mind that your site as a whole only has a finite amount of page rank, you need to decide how to focus it. In essence take you most important keywords, make sure you have pages for those, and give them the most internal link love. If like most sites, your home page has the most page rank, link to your most important pages from there, or even consider giving them a site wide link from your site.

By clearly communicating what you believe your most important pages are, the search engine will do a better job for you in ranking those pages. Note that this is likely something you would want to do with your users too (i.e. steer them to your most important pages). Whenever you find yourself doing something that is good for both users and search engines, like optimizing your internal link structure, you are truly in the sweet spot of SEO.

Posted by on July 5, 2007, 10:18 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: How Many Links Could a Link Lover Love?

In today's Link Love column, "How Many Links Could a Link Lover Love?," Sage Lewis describes the many different ways to count and track your links. What good is link love if you don't know how many links love you?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 5, 2007, 12:09 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 9:33 PM | Permalink


Google Gives Away FeedBurner Services

Following its usual pattern of acquiring a company and then making its services available for free in the hopes of bringing in more advertising dollars, Google is now giving away TotalStats and MyBrand, which were previously only available with a FeedBurner Pro subscription.

Existing Pro users will not be charged for June or any month after, and new users need to sign up to access the services in their FeedBurner Accounts.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 1:47 PM | Permalink


Google URL Parameters Cheat Sheet

Joost de Valk, the Dutch SEO who recently created a Firefox plugin for de-personalized Google search, has put together a one-page guide to the various Google search parameters that can be appended to a Google search.

The list includes modifiers for many of the advanced search queries, such as date restrictions or appearance of a certain phrase in a page's title, body, url or links. It also includes result modifiers, such as the one used for getting non-personalized search results, even when a user is logged into a Google account (&pws=0). Other modifiers allow localization, from country down to latitude/longitude coordinates.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 1:23 PM | Permalink


Thinking About Innovation

Greg Jarboe recently spoke at a Wharton School conference on innovation. He thought he'd be the one offering the insights on search and blogging, but found that he was just part of conversation. He shares the five questions that helped start the conversation in today's SearchDay, "5 Questions on Innovation."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 12:01 PM | Permalink


Speaker Openings for SES San Jose

Chris Sherman is putting the finishing touches on the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference, coming up on August 20-23, 2007. There are currently openings for speakers on four panels: Personalization, User Data & Search; Search APIs; So You Want To Be A Search Marketer!; and SEM Pricing Models.

To be considered for the open slots, first read the guidelines to see if you qualify, and to learn how to get in touch with Chris Sherman for consideration.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 11:04 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: 7 Questions for Conducting an SEO Site Review

In today's au Natural column, "7 Questions for Conducting an SEO Site Review," Mark Jackson offers tips for performing a professional site review and invites you to submit your own site for a complimentary review on SEW.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 9:36 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Can You Purchase Text Links for Big Business Sites?

In today's Big Biz column, "Can You Purchase Text Links for Big Business Sites?," Aaron Shear offers some insights on purchasing text links for a big business site, and the subsequent effects.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 3, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: July 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 July 2, 2007, 11:35 PM | Permalink


Old But Not Forgotten?

With all the focus on Gen Y and even the millennials, seniors aged 65+ seem almost completely forgotten when it comes to online marketing. We can't help but wonder why, except we admit this isn't exactly the most desired demographic for advertisers.

Still elders are considered to be one of the fastest growing demographics for online media. It's not so much that people in their 70s and 80s are suddenly shifting to being heavy internet users; it's that a huge wave of Internet-savvy boomers, now in their 60s, will begin passing the 65+ milestone – making now the time to start planning.

Technology Adoption: We can see the transition happening already. Our elders represented over 12% of the population in 2000, and the U.S. Census projects steady increases to nearly 21% of total Americans by 2050. According to Pew research, only 15% of boomers aged 50-65 are unwired as compared to 44% of the current elders. That compounds the changes expected from this group.

At the other end of the scale, more super-wired behaviors will emerge soon. There are admittedly a few seniors who download music and make blog postings today. Pew reports that about four percent fall into this “Elite” category (early adaptors, positive view on technology, own most gadgets.) However the older boomers are already six times more likely to fall into this category.

Online Activity: There are areas where the seniors behave like everybody else. They are just as likely to look for health information as Gen Y users. They make online travel reservations in equal numbers. Both e-mailing and searching, especially for people, are commonplace activities too. They don't research products or buy online as much as their counterparts, at least not yet.

When starting an online search, elders are reacting to off-line media triggers based on their consumption patterns. Per BIGresearch, they rely most heavily on newspapers before searching. Nearly 53% identify newspapers versus 42% of all adults, and specifically mention reading "an article" too. They cite radio less frequently, at 18% versus 30%, perhaps due to no commuting time.

Of course, elders initiate searches based on online marketing influences. They respond to e-mail advertising like other adults, both over 25% each. Yet only 17% point to online advertising versus 25% overall, and we're not sure why. They aren't reacting much to blogs, instant messaging or online communities, but only young adults are really triggered there.

Destinations: Certainly some web sites cater only to seniors, offering everything from health care advice to computer know-how, even the opportunity to start your own blog. Notable examples include AARP, which has many different resources including an active forums area; Senior Journal, which guides visitors to local services; and Senior.com, a site whose tagline refers to it as “Your Internet Community.”

There are also destinations aimed for older boomers. One well-known example is ThirdAge Media. We all chuckled about a specialized search engine, Cranky.com, announced earlier this year. Cranky is part of Eons, which aims to be community-destination for this age group.

What's more interesting? The actual behaviors of seniors online. Creating specialized, age-based sites to meet their needs seems very challenging to me. However, knowing exactly what they are doing online – and where to market effectively to them – should be more productive in the long run.

Posted by on July 2, 2007, 10:24 PM | Permalink


Google Et Al Should Buy Australian Hosting, Financial Times Suggests

The Financial Times suggests that the big three search engines should buy local hosting comapnies if they want to make inroads into the Australian market.

Australia does not have the population of their nearby Asian neighbors, but the market is financially capable and one that the engines are not overlooking. Add to this that the telcos are more protected in Australia and the move of Google and Micrososft to establish data centers and the space gets a little crowded.

"The likes of companies like Google and Microsoft could look to consolidate Australian hosting players to get a foothold in the market", analysts and industry executives told FT.com.

Posted by Frank Watson on July 2, 2007, 5:34 PM | Permalink


Even More Local Search Patents

When we wrote last week about Local.com's new local search patent, we pointed out that there were far too many patents being issued in that space. That's only gotten worse this week, with another local search patent awarded to Local.com, this time for ad-supported 411 calls.

Once again, this patent seems to be in direct conflict with an existing patent, one from Jingle Networks.

There's either going to have to be some litigation, or consolidation of businesses or patents between the various players. In the meantime, it's the users and advertisers who will suffer, since the confusion in the marketplace and looming lawsuits will only serve to scare off advertisers and slow the growth of local search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 2, 2007, 12:15 PM | Permalink


Matt Cutts Offers Corporate Blogging Advice

Joining the damage control of the Google Health Blog vs. Sicko incident on Sunday, Google blogger extraordinaire Matt Cutts outlined some guidelines for company blogging 101 as an explanation for Turner's actions, and guidance for avoiding future incidents.

He advises:

  1. The easiest time to make a blogging gaffe is when you're starting out.
  2. Don't criticize other companies or people.
  3. Don't post when you're angry.
  4. Learn which stories matter and which ones don't.
  5. If you make a mistake, don't clam up.
  6. Include a datestamp on all your posts.

Excellent advice from a seasoned corporate blogger.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 2, 2007, 11:28 AM | Permalink


Google Blogger Attacks Sicko, Backtracks

On Friday, Google Health account planner Lauren Turner tried to rally healthcare advertisers against Michael Moore's latest documentary, Sicko, by advising them that they should increase their presence in the search results in a blog post on the Google Health Advertising blog, "Does negative press make you Sicko?"

The post was an attempt to educate healthcare advertisers of the benefits of search in reputation management, but many accused Google of going too far with its apparent partisanship, and by Sunday, Turner was forced to recant.

The healthcare industry is no stranger to negative press. A drug may be a blockbuster one day and tolled as a public health concern the next. News reporters may focus on Pharma's annual sales and its executives' salaries while failing to share R&D costs. Or, as is often common, the media may use an isolated, heartbreaking, or sensationalist story to paint a picture of healthcare as a whole. With all the coverage, it's a shame no one focuses on the industry's numerous prescription programs, charity services, and philanthropy efforts.

Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through “Get the Facts” or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them?

Turner reminded advertisers that place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or on Google's content network could provide "a platform for educating the public and promoting your message."

On Sunday, Turner backtracked a bit, making it clear that the opinion of the film she expressed was her own, not Google's, but reiterating that search could be an effective way to manage a company's or an industry's reputation:

But the more important point, since I doubt that too many people care about my personal opinion, is that advertising is an effective medium for handling challenges that a company or industry might have. You could even argue that it's especially appropriate for a public policy issue like healthcare. Whether the healthcare industry wants to rebut charges in Mr. Moore's movie, or whether Mr. Moore wants to challenge the healthcare industry, advertising is a very democratic and effective way to participate in a public dialogue.

The film, according to the NY Times, attacks the American health care system and calls for its complete overhaul. Moore's goal is reform: the creation of "a single-payer system, with the government as insurer, that would guarantee access to health care for all Americans and put the private insurance industry out of business."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 2, 2007, 11:18 AM | Permalink


Yahoo SmartAds: Super-Targeted Display Ads

Yahoo has launched a new SmartAds display ad unit that uses behavioral, demographic and geographic targeting capabilities to create ads from submitted elements based on the user.

SmartAds expand on the targeting capabilities of search ads, and make it easier for advertisers to customize ads for multiple users by allowing an advertiser or agency to submit art and provide a direct feed of offers to Yahoo, which will create an ad from the best combination of components based on the targeted user.

SmartAds makes heavy use of "customer insights" extracted from data Yahoo keeps on visitors, including their shopping, searching and Web surfing behaviors, as well as registration information and location data. Ads will be sold on both CPC and CPM pricing models, and will roll out first on Yahoo's travel sites. Retail and automotive are the next likely verticals, according to ClickZ.

If Yahoo can successfully match ads to users based on search and browsing behavior, and make the process scalable and easy to use, it should gain some traction from both search marketers looking for more inventory and richer ad units; and from display advertisers looking for better targeting.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 2, 2007, 10:32 AM | Permalink


Interview with Vanessa Fox (Her Last at Google?)

I did an interview together with Vanessa Fox, just before she left Google. We talked about what was going on with Google Webmaster Tools, features that people have been requesting, duplicate content, and the renaming of the re-inclusion request form to the reconsideration request form.

I was intrigued in particular by the renaming of the re-inclusion request form. Vanessa clearly defined this form as something to be used in the event that you had been violating a webmaster guideline, and that you had fixed it. Here is her exact wording:

That form is really for situations where you have violated the guidelines in some way, and you've fixed it. Then you can use those forms to have someone take a look at it as opposed to just waiting over time for things to naturally pickup again.

It's a fascinating statement. It suggests that you can send in an appeal for any penalty that you have become subject too (once you have fixed it that is), and the value of this appeal is not necessarily limited to appealing manually applied penalties. Keeping in mind Google's recent statements that ALL forms submitted with the reconsideration request form within Webmaster Tools (i.e. you are providing your identity as you make the submission) will get looked at, this is a powerful statement. Just be careful to really address the issues before you make the submission

Posted by on July 2, 2007, 9:00 AM | Permalink


New Call for Case Studies

It's time once again to put the word out that I am looking for interesting case studies to write about for my weekly "By The Numbers" column on Search Engine Watch. All participants will get at least one link, and the visibility of being in SEW. So if you have an interesting SEO or PPC optimization story to tell, let me know, using this form. The best case studies will have the following elements:

  1. A solid description of the original state of the site, or the PPC campaign, before any changes were made. This should include metrics, such as traffic, rankings, ROI on campaigns, or whatever. Some form of numbers is essential (the column is "By the Numbers!")
  2. A description of the changes made that created the most impact. A complete description of these changes is required. The timing of when the changes were made should also be included.
  3. A detailed description of how the metrics changed after the changes, as well as how long it took for the changes to the metrics to become visible.

If you have a good story to tell that will help our readers better understand some facet of SEO or SEM, let me know. I will get back to you quickly on whether or not it's a fit, and whatever other information I may need.

Posted by on July 2, 2007, 8:55 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Zen and the Art of Paid Search Maintenance

In today's Search Ads column, "Zen and the Art of Paid Search Maintenance," Tony Wright shows that discipline is the key to achieving paid search enlightenment – aka success. He provides tips for implementing some regular processes to ensure top performance from your paid search campaigns.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on July 2, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink

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