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September 30, 2007 - October 6, 2007


Search Headlines & Links: October 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 October 5, 2007, 5:37 PM | Permalink


Discussion with Sep Kamvar About Gadgets

Last week I traveled out to California for a series of meetings at Google, and also so I could be at the Searchification event. One of the people I sat down with at Google was Sepandar Kamvar (aka Sep Kamvar). While Sep is well known for his work on personalization at Google, our conversation focused on another area, that of Google gadgets.

I learned a few important things about the Google Gadget world. One of these is that getting a large number of gadgets you have developed installed by other users is not something that will help with your web search rankings. This is consistent with a conversation I had later with Matt Cutts, where Matt told me that this signal was simply too noisy.

On another note, promotion of gadgets is something that requires some effort as well. It's easier to get something to go viral if you nudge it along by getting the word out. Sep suggested that one way to do this is to buy Google Adwords ads to promote the gadget.

Another thing I learned is that placement in the Google Gadget Directory is based on popularity. You can get a lot of visibility here, but only if you achieve a high ranking. Note that user deletions of gadget installations also count as a negative signal for purposes of ranking in the Google directory.

We also talked about what makes a really good gadget. Here are the 3 main points I took out of the conversation:

  1. The content changes daily or more than daily. Freshness is a big reason why people install a gadget. Trivia, time, and weather gadgets all have done well (don't necessarily rush off and do these, many of them already exist).
  2. The gadget needs to be useful in a small space. No matter how useful the information is, users are not going to ties up en entire screen to get it.
  3. It should deliver useful content in the gadget itself. In other words, don't make the user click through to your site to get the information they want. Such a structure is not likely to get particularly much interest. Put it right there in the gadget where they get what the need most of the time. Of course, when they want additional information, they can click through to your site, and you always get the branding benefit.

Posted by on October 5, 2007, 10:50 AM | Permalink


Report: Online Ad Growth Slowing

During the first six months of 2007, online ad revenues grew by 26.4 percent over the same period last year to nearly $10 billion, according to the latest report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

According to ClickZ News:

Little has changed in the distribution of revenues across search, display and other channels. Search spending during the year's first half accounted for 41 percent of all revenues, compared with 40 percent for the year-ago period. In raw dollar terms, search grew 29 percent to $4.1 billion. Display advertising meanwhile increased from $2.4 billion, or 31 percent of the pie, in the first half of 2006, to $3.2 billion, or 32 percent, for the 2007 period.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 5, 2007, 10:24 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Is Optimization Key to Local Video Ads?

Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) providers have the customers and sales infrastructure to succeed at selling local video ads. But so far, they're overlooking the search optimization component. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Is Optimization Key to Local Video Ads?," video search expert Grant Crowell explains why a video search optimization program could be just what IYPs need.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 5, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: October 4, 2007

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

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 4, 2007, 6:09 PM | Permalink


Blind Person Suing Target For No Alt Tags

What started as a student suing target.com this time last year, has now grown into a class action lawsuit that just received certification from a federal court judge in California, Reuters reported.

"Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also rejected Target's motion for summary judgment in the case, according to the ruling filed October 2.

According to the ruling, plaintiffs -- including the National Federation of the Blind -- claim Target.com violates federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination against the disabled," Rueters stated.

Guess including alt tags takes on a whole new meaning now. I respect their battle and appreciate what they will do for overall optimization of websites in general.

Posted by Frank Watson on October 4, 2007, 5:43 PM | Permalink


Krugle Announces Deal with IBM

Code Search Engine Krugle continues to rock and roll. Their latest announcement is a deal that will IBM. Under the terms of this deal, IBM will incorporate Krugle search within IBM's developerWorks site. In addition, the IBM code has notw been incorporated into the Krugle index.

Both of these are significant, but I believe that the visibility on the developerWorks site is the more important development. This includes a statement with the search results as follows: "Code results provided by Krugle". This provides exposure to IBM's developer community incorporates 2.5M developers, out of a worldwide community of about 14M.

There are plans for IBM to begin to use the Krugle appliance in the near future. According to Laura Merling, Krugle's VP of marketing, down the road IBM and Krugle are in discussion of how to integrate Krugle into more of IBM's products.

Ultimately, the two most important points about this deal are:

  1. The endorsement by IBM. IBM takes all the product evaluations it does very seriously. This is a very significant accomplishment for Krugle.
  2. Expanded reach into the world of enterprise developers. Given that the core revenue model of Krugle is the sale of the Krugle appliance into the enterprise, this exposure is a big win.

Posted by on October 4, 2007, 4:22 PM | Permalink


SEMPO Running In-House Salary Survey

While the search marketing industry has done much growing in the last few years, it's also lagging behind other industries in certain areas. One thing the industry lacks is credible information about salary and structure of in-house search marketing teams. Part of this is due to the esoteric nature of the job compared to other corporate functions, and part of it is just the relative newness of in-house search marketing and myriad ways in-house teams can be structured.

To help shed some light on the compensation and common reporting structures of in-house search marketers, SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is conducting an online survey of in-house marketers.

"There's no firm grasp on what's out there. You have people who have heard stories, but it's all third-hand information," said Duane Forrester, co-chair of SEMPO's In-House Committee and search marketing manager of Sports Direct. "For most other positions, you can find out the average compensation for that position, including bonus packages, broken down by geographic area. None of that exists for search."

Forrester came up with the idea for a survey after returning from SES New York earlier this year. He had spoken to several in-house marketers at the event, and inevitably the topic of salary came up. Urban legends of someone who knew someone who got a $300,000 a year job mixed with stories of large companies looking to hire a director of search marketing for $80,000 a year, he said.

The survey began running among SEMPO members earlier this week, and so far the results do not seem to be tied to geography or size of company, he said. What does matter is how vested in an online presence a company is – those who rely on search traffic for their business know the value of a top-shelf SEM and SEO team.

The 20-question survey is open to in-house search marketers, both on the organic and paid search sides. Results will be tallied anonymously after the survey is completed at the end of October. A preview of the survey can be downloaded here (PDF).

"SEMPO's goal is to go beyond anecdotal material and obtain data points that will add some clarity to the entire topic of compensation of in-house SEM professionals," Forrester said. "We want to provide professionals with a sense of their value in the marketplace, and businesses and employers with a greater understanding of SEM's valuation as they recruit for SEM professionals."

Join the discussion in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 4, 2007, 4:00 PM | Permalink


ComScore Launches Search Marketing Intelligence Service

Market research firm comScore has launched a search marketing-specific intelligence service, comScore Marketer. Using data collected from comScore's panel of more than 2 million consumers, the service can offer search marketers insight into their own visitors, as well as their competitors and partners.

"We have this rich base of panelists where we pick up online behavior, and we pick up search behavior too," said Dan Lackner, senior VP at comScore. "It made sense to harvest the data we collect to help our customers allocate their marketing dollars more efficiently."

ComScore Marketer is a subscription service, with data updated monthly. It presents the marketer with site-specific data, such as traffic and keyword referral data, as well as comparisons within a site category or among competitors' sites.

It also presents visitor data based on the search query, identifying other sites and categories frequented by others who typed in that query. That information will allow a marketer to find other sites to consider for advertising to increase their reach, or excluding sites that are being overexposed to control frequency, said Steve Dennen, comScore's senior director of market research.

"Over the last six to nine months, there's been a movement in the industry to get search out of the silo, and make it work together with other advertising," Dennen said. "This lets them reach people at different touchpoints, and find other places to reach similar people."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 4, 2007, 10:37 AM | Permalink


Microsoft Adds SEM Services to Office Live

Microsoft has added a search engine marketing offering to the suite of services available to its Microsoft Office Live Small Business subscribers. Through a partnership with The Search Agency, a Santa Monica-based SEM firm, Microsoft's customers, typically very small businesses with less than 10 employees, can sign up for three levels of service ranging from online training to full service campaign management.

"The needs of entrepreneurs in this space are very diverse. Some are do-it-yourself oriented, and want to learn to do everything, while others want to completely offload certain aspects of their business to vendors," said Louise Rasho, senior manager of marketing communications for Microsoft Office Live Small Business. "Then there are the folks in the middle, who need consultative help getting started, so they can take over from there."

Microsoft already offers a service for the DIY set: the adManager service that allows subscribers to buy and manage PPC ads from Microsoft Windows Live Search and Ask Sponsored Listings. For the hands-off approach, Microsoft has an existing arrangement with Website Pros to handle full-service Web development and search needs.

The new services from The Search Agency will fit the needs of those users at either end, as well as those who fall somewhere in the middle, Rasho said.

The first service, TSA Learn, consists of three online training modules that teach the essentials of SEM and search engine optimization (SEO). Next is TSA Launch, a selection of more than 20 one-off, a la carte SEM and SEO services. For example, a user can fill out a questionnaire about their business and get a list of potential keywords to use in their search campaign, or enter their existing keywords and get a list of expanded keywords to consider. The third offering is TSA Grow, which is a full-service option where The Search Agency manages all search marketing activities for the subscriber.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 4, 2007, 12:42 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Link Value: Top Rankings, Secrets and Lies - Part 1

What's a Link Worth? Priceless? In today's Link Love column, "Link Value: Top Rankings, Secrets and Lies - Part 1," Justilien Gaspard encourages you to consider some simple techniques and strategies to help determine the value of a link.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 4, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: October 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 October 3, 2007, 5:08 PM | Permalink


Future for Kelkoo with Yahoo! Cloudy

As Yahoo! continues to redefine its business, Financial Times reports that Yahoo! is considering divesting Kelkoo, the European shopping comparison engine purchased in 2004 for $575 million. At the time of its purchase, Kelkoo was Europe's largest e-commerce service, operating in nine countries. Purchased to leverage this base and enhance Yahoo!'s search-and- advertising opportunities , the site has failed to meet expectations. Although Yahoo! has never broken out revenues from Kelkoo specifically, it has clearly not accomplished its mission, for Yahoo! today is third behind Google and MSN in European search visits according to ComScore.

With the return of Jerry Yang to the helm of Yahoo!, the search giant is reviewing its entire portfolio and seeking opportunities to enhance performance. As Yahoo! told the Financial Times, it is starting a process to give Kelkoo more independence - while evaluating strategic options for its long-term future. This is the business equivalent of handing the business unit a saw and inviting it to chop off the limb it is sitting on. When I consult the plastic magic 8 ball on my desk, it returns “Try again – future is cloudy” for this once bright acquisition.

Posted by Amanda Watlington on October 3, 2007, 2:01 PM | Permalink


Google Hits Snag in Monetizing Orkut

Google removed ads from its Orkut social networking service in August after facing complaints filed with a Brazilian advertising body, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Brazilian nonprofit group SaferNet lodged a complaint alleging that Orkut contains child pornography and other illegal content on some users' pages. Google removes such content when it's found

According to Google, the ads were part of a test, and only appeared on only 1% of Orkut pages. A Google executive in Brazil, Alexandre Hohagen, told the WSJ that the company was working closely with Brazilian authorities, and future plans for ads on Orkut were unclear.

Lack of control over the content ads appear near has been an issue for advertisers, especially big-brand owners. Add to that the reported poor performanceof ads, along with the risk of offending the core audience by disrupting their user experience, and it makes one wonder how sites like Facebook will ever be "the next Google," or why folks like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer think the hype around social networks is going to die down.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 3, 2007, 11:30 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Gives More Details To Panama Changes

I received another email with the updated press release about new changes to Panama so figured I would pass it along for everyone to read:

Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet brand, today announced the introduction of Blocked Domains within its Sponsored Search system, known as Panama. The new feature provides site blocking capabilities for advertisers enabling them to have greater control over where their sponsored search and contextual ads appear. Since these ads can appear outside the Yahoo! network, the Blocked Domains feature will allow advertisers to specify websites and/or sections of websites on which they don't want their ads to appear. This feature is designed to better enable advertisers to block their ads from appearing on websites that don't meet their business needs. This is just one of several ways Yahoo! is working to improve the value of traffic that is delivered to advertisers.

“This domain-blocking feature is yet another way for us to provide greater advertiser control,” said Reggie Davis, Vice President of Marketplace Quality, for Yahoo!, “Now, by enabling advertisers to control the placement of their ads, they can partner with us to help drive traffic quality. We believe this is welcomed news for advertisers.”

This year, Yahoo! introduced pricing discounts so that advertisers may be charged less based on Yahoo!'s assessment of the quality of its partners' traffic, as well as Yahoo!'s Click Protection System which automatically filters out potentially invalid and poorly performing clicks .Yahoo! has also launched enhanced geo-targeting, blocked continents, and most recently the Traffic Quality Center (trafficquality.yahoo.com).

With the new Blocked Domains, advertisers will be able to block up to 250 domains per account, including an entire domain, a subdomain, and up to two directories within a particular domain. Yahoo! plans to introduce the Blocked Domains feature in October 2007.

A forum discussion on this topic can be found here.

Posted by Frank Watson on October 3, 2007, 11:19 AM | Permalink


.EDU domains and links

Links from .edu domains are commonly thought to be higher quality links than links from other top level domains. There is truth to the notion, but not because the domain has the magic letters (.edu) in the domain. The reason why these types of domains tend to offer better quality links is that they often receive better quality links, and in significant volume.

Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped provides an example of this with his recent post .Edu and Spam, where he provides the example of America.edu, a site filled with Google Ads. In spite of 941 third party back links (according to Yahoo), the site has a Page Rank of 0.

A quick look at the site reveals the problem. In addition to the Google ads, the rest of the content is in the form of news feeds. The site is not going to draw a whole slew of high quality links. They actually do have a couple of decent links in the batch, which appear to have been obtained by writing and syndicating articles.

Ultimately, there is no magic fairy dust here, or with .edu domains in general. However, there are a couple of reasons why looking to colleges and universities is still a really good idea:

  1. Real colleges and universities do get a lot of trusted links, and therefore and provide a more trusted link
  2. These schools also do like to point their students to helpful resources

These factors make this a useful direction for link building efforts. However, be sure that you do have something very, very useful. These types of entities tend to shine a harsh white light on all such requests to make sure that they truly have merit, and are useful for their students.

Posted by on October 3, 2007, 10:05 AM | Permalink


Search Ads Fared Poorly in Trust Study

We're disappointed to learn that search ads fared poorly in Nielsen's survey of over 26,000 internet users worldwide. Just 34% of these respondents trusted search ads!

Let's see how well the remaining online vehicles performed. Only banners were judged more harshly, with 26% saying they trusted them. These other ad sources did far better:

* Emails I signed up for - 49%
* Brand websites - 60%
* Consumer opinions posted - 61%

Most likely, these results reflect the degree of user control. When you decide to check out products or services directly, you have some faith in the messages. When your fellow consumers weigh in, that's what you believe the most. However, when unknown or unwanted services are targeted online to you, that trust can start eroding.

It's a plausible explanation, anyway.

Posted by on October 3, 2007, 12:15 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Get Your Web Site in Good Working Order: Google Website Optimizer

GWO is the newest search engine acronym. What does it mean for you? In today's By the Numbers column, "Get Your Web Site in Good Working Order: Google Website Optimizer," Eric Enge tells you how to optimize your site in five easy steps.

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


SEW Experts: Halo 3 as Meta4 Redux

Last week, the big launch of Halo 3 enticed gamers in droves. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Halo 3 as Meta4 Redux," Kevin Ryan describes a whole new kind of fight gamers are taking to the search results pages this week.

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


Search Headlines & Links: October 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 October 2, 2007, 11:55 PM | Permalink


Henry: Portrait of a Search Engine Serial Killer

It's hard to pimp your Website in the city that never sleeps.

Especially when you're the Internet Outsider Insider.

The who? A man without fear: Blodget. No beta blockers needed!

On a two day killing spree, he slashed MSN, leaving Live Search Sucking Wind After All These Years. (Or days.)

Henry's Panama hat? Strategically dipped (hannibal lecter-like) below one eye. His corpse? Had a familiar face:Yahoo's Revenue Per Search Stinks.

Some search engines call him a space cowboy. Some call him the gangster of love.

Blodge The Ripper: Ripped Google's stock price a new one today: Google to $2,000 a Share?

A (stock) picker? A grinner. A joker? A sinner.

Henry: Portrait of a SErial Killer. Who's behind the Metamorphosis of Blodget's in-beta blogger's digi-bizWeb2.0site?

Stay 'tooned.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on October 2, 2007, 10:28 PM | Permalink


Better Search: Libraries or Engines?

The Engines win by a landslide, at least according to current college students.

They preferred searching on Google or Yahoo versus their college library systems, based on the attributes of: speed (90%); convenience (84%); ease of use (87%); cost-effectiveness (71%); and reliability (63%). Libraries, however, won on more trustworthy measures including credibility (77%) and accuracy (76%).

While students prefer library sources, they also heavily count on the engines. Over half (53%) say the results from engines are as trustworthy as libraries. Google, Yahoo and Ask all rank about the same, without much differentiation.

And, as for those people sitting behind the library desk, here's your wake-up call. It turns out that over two-thirds (67%) of students believe that librarians performed either the same as or worse than the engines. Even though librarians were valued and considered helpful, they apparently don't compare to indices and algorithms.

Interestingly, the survey sponsor is OCLC, a library services organization best known for its worldwide catalog which helps libraries make their holdings more searchable and available to patrons. They contacted several hundred students last year to determine their views on libraries, and recently made the results accessible online.

Of course, the major engines already acknowledge the importance of libraries and their holdings. We see this playing out in myriad initiatives underway, ranging from Google's Scholar and Books efforts to Microsoft's think-tank gatherings.

Libraries are still filled with treasure troves, holding everything from special collections to rich databases. Years ago, librarians made progress in providing electronic islands for their patrons. Now, their challenge is to make the holdings as searchable as possible -- following their "self-service" patrons into the larger search ecosystems.

Posted by on October 2, 2007, 3:12 PM | Permalink


Study Shows Many Plan to Spend More on Search in 2008

A significant number of advertisers plan to increase both their search ad spend and SEO budgets next year, according to a MarketingSherpa report. In a survey of more than 2,400 marketers who conduct or supervise search marketing in-house, as well as more than 700 agency executives,

Many marketers say they plan to increase their PPC budgets by at least 11 percent next year. For average search spenders, 33 percent plan to do so on Google AdWords; 23 percent plan to do so on other top-tier PPC engines (defined as Yahoo, MSN/Live Search, Ask.com and AOL); and 10 percent plan to boost their budgets on second-tier PPC networks (including Miva, Kanoodle, and Business.com).

Search is also seen as providing a strong return on investment by many marketers. More details on the Search Marketing Benchmark Survey can be found in today's SearchDay, "Search Budgets to See Double-Digit Growth."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 2, 2007, 3:10 PM | Permalink


iHeard.com: Web Radio Search Engine

A specialized search engine for finding internet radio stations has just been launched by Fusa Consumer Search Network, Eric Ward reported today.

The site, iheard.com, organizes a directory of online radio stations by genre, language and country, and allows users to search through their database of thousands of stations, Ward noted. Fusa also has specialized search engines for podcasts, news and videos.

Posted by Frank Watson on October 2, 2007, 12:04 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Acquires Shopping Search Site Jellyfish

Microsoft has acquired Jellyfish, a comparison shopping site that launched in June with a pay-per-action ad model.

Jellyfish acts like a reverse auction through which retailers are ranked according to the amount they agree to lower their prices. The more they drop the price, the higher up in the search results advertisers appear.

On the Live Search blog, a Microsoft rep said, "We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 2, 2007, 9:48 AM | Permalink


Yahoo Search Gets Blended, Helpful

Yahoo today launched what it's calling the "new Yahoo Search." The biggest changes are the introduction of Search Assist, a pre-search query refinement tool that Yahoo has been testing since July; and blended search results that include more photos, videos, and Shortcuts.

Search Assist refines queries by providing related topics as searchers type to assist them in finding the right search term. It's similar to Yahoo's Search Suggest feature, which as the name implies suggests alternate queries, but Search Assist goes further by offering related topics as well as specific suggested queries as searchers type. This kind of recommendation and discovery tool is part of the Ask 3D interface, which offers pre-search query refinement suggestions and post-search related categories.

Yahoo Search Assist

Blended search results are now available on all the top engines, with recent launches of Google Universal Search, Ask 3D, and Microsoft Live Search. Yahoo's version is closer to Microsoft's and Google's in that it includes multimedia results within the main results, instead of in designated areas like Ask uses.

Yahoo Search

Results are pulled from Yahoo properties, like Flickr, Upcoming, and Yahoo Answers; as well as third-party sites like YouTube. New today are the video inline results and Flickr inline results, as well as the Upcoming.org shortcuts.

"One thing we've learned since launching our own algorithmic search engine back in 2004 is that at the end of the day, people really don't want to search; they want to get things done," Tim Mayer, VP of search products, wrote on the Yahoo Search Blog. "Today, we're launching an all new Yahoo! Search experience that gets users the answers they're looking for quickly and easily, and often in one search."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 2, 2007, 8:42 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Top 10 Reasons You Must Do SEO

Many have claimed "SEO is Dead." In today's au Natural column, "Top 10 Reasons You Must Do SEO," Mark Jackson offers the final five reasons why that just ain't so.

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


SEW Experts: Taking the Offline Business Online

Is your small business hiding offline? In today's Little Biz column, "Taking the Offline Business Online," Carrie Hill shows you some ways to make it easier for you to be found in search engine results.

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


Search Headlines & Links: October 1, 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 October 1, 2007, 6:14 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Sponsored Listings Allowing Site Blocking

Yahoo announced it is broadening its Traffic Quality Features for its sponsored ads in an email today.

Apparently you are now able to block up to 250 web sites you do not want your ads to appear on Sponsored Search and Content Match, according to the email.

The email stated:

As an advertiser, you want quality traffic—qualified clicks from the users who are most likely to become customers. Our new blocked domains feature, planned for launch later this month, will provide you with greater control of where your ads appear. This is just one of several ways that Yahoo! is working to improve the value of the traffic that we deliver to you.

• Blocked Domains (New!)
Now you can specify websites in our partner distribution network where you don't want your ads to appear.
• Pricing Discounts
You may automatically receive pricing discounts based on our assessment of the quality of traffic coming from our partner distribution network.
• Click Protection System
We track click and search patterns across many data points to identify clicks that we believe shouldn't be billed to our advertisers. The click protection system generally discards charges from 12 percent to 15 percent of clicks.
• Blocked Continents
Yahoo! automatically excludes traffic from continents other than North America. If global traffic is important to your business, you can opt into this traffic.
• Traffic Quality Center
This site is our home for traffic quality tips, tools and news. This is the place to go, for instance, if you want to learn how to submit click investigation requests.

Posted by Frank Watson on October 1, 2007, 5:07 PM | Permalink


Microsoft Updates Top Ad Algorithm on Live Search

Along with the recent organic ranking improvements Microsoft has made to Live Search, it has also tweaked the algorithm it uses to rank ads. The quality-based ranking algorithm is now less rigid, according to a post on the adCenter blog. This will allow more advertisers to get their ads into one of the top positions above the organic results, which Microsoft refers to as "the mainline."

071001-Live-mainline.jpg

Ads must meet a certain quality score to be considered for the top spots. Among those contenders, the algorithm will consider a combination of click-through rate and maximum bid. Microsoft warns advertisers that ads may move in and out of the mainline position, which may or may not be affected by max bid.

All of our quality-based ranking improvements have been made in the context of the overall search experience -- we will take both the paid and organic listings into account when assessing the overall experience for the searcher, while at the same time endeavoring to balance the needs of the advertiser.

Over time, we will continue to improve the paid search listings on Live Search, specifically focusing on:

* Quality of ads – that the ad copy aligns with offer, landing page and search term

* Quality of advertisers – that the advertiser is offering unique and valuable goods, services or information

* Quality set of overall listings – that the overall result set is unique, extremely relevant, high quality and the best value for the searcher

Google made a similar move to change the way it calculates ad placement for its top ads in AdWords. For Google, the Quality Score continues to be weighted heavily in the calculation, but now the formula uses the advertiser's maximum bid CPC instead of the actual auction-driven CPC to determine which ad will be shown in the top spot.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 1, 2007, 4:59 PM | Permalink


Has Change In Google PPC Algorithm Created New Budget Busting Possibilities?

The current cost jumps in cost per clicks at Google may have created a way of pushing a bunch of your less savvy competitors out of the mix. If they have unlimited funds then you are out of luck, but I have noticed that not many people really do have or want to use a "zero sum game" approach.

So how do you do it?

First you want to spend some time looking at your traffic numbers. If you can determine your best hours of lead acquisition - I know all of them are decent etc. - generally there will be a couple of hours a day where you get high clicks and impressions and either don't get the click or it does not convert as well as other hours.

These would be the first things I would turn off. This pushes that traffic to your competitors and pushes them to the top, sending them many more impressions and many more clicks. The CPCs are going to be impacted by improved CTRs - but not like it used to be - so it is still going to cost them more especially when there are a few of them.

Dropping some of your bids during the other hours so that you are at number 3 as opposed to 1 will also give the competitors the higher and more costly spots.

This all works if they have daily and monthly budgets.

The increases will bring them a lot of garbage traffic as well as converting traffic but the increase in volume and cost will sooner or later impact their bids.

Budgets can be busted easily using this method and when that happens you are back on top at a much reduced rate.

If you have any comments on this let me know here.

Posted by Frank Watson on October 1, 2007, 2:19 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Calls In Steve Jobs to Inspire VPs

Instead of the rumored mass firing expected to take place at last week's all-day meeting of top Yahoo execs in Sunnyvale, attendees were treated to real goals and concrete plans from company leadership, and a guest appearance from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to provide an extra burst of inspiration, according to Kara Swisher.

What do you do when you want to inject a little inspiration into a company that needs a lot of it? Do you hold an all-day meeting of top execs where you actually outline specific goals and exhibit better leadership? Do you admit your corporate culture is a little weak and promise to focus on strengthening it? Do you trot out all the senior execs and let them talk about their concrete plans (and, better still, actually prepare them to deliver their spiel with some level of quality)? Do you do some post-lunch touchy-feely group exercises to get people talking?

Best of all, if you really want to send things over the top, do you bring out an icon so beloved as to give goosebumps to explain to the troops how he managed to turn his once-beleaguered and now-soaring company around?

All that and more occurred on Friday at Yahoo HQ as CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker really put on a show that seemed to resonate with the 300-plus top Yahoo executives (vice president and above) gathered there, capped by an appearance by Apple's Steve Jobs, who is apparently now Silicon Valley's equivalent of Oprah.

The company is 76 days into the return of Yang as CEO, following the departure of Terry Semel from that role in June. While Yang had promised a "100-day review," he has since backed off from a concrete timetable. Regardless of the timetable, it's clear that changes are already afoot, and more are planned at Yahoo, the perennial second-place search engine.

According to Swisher, much of the focus of Yang's plans revolve around an "ecosystem" that centers on the interplay of advertisers, publishers, and consumers. Plans include building out Yahoo's ad network, using its "consumer insights" to improve ad targeting, creating a corporate culture open to new ideas, and a more open developer network, Swisher said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 1, 2007, 12:07 PM | Permalink


Yahoo Expands Reach of OneSearch in Europe, Latin America

Yahoo has doubled the reach of its oneSearch mobile search application by partnering with mobile provider Telefonica to make oneSearch the main search service on Telefonica's mobile portals.

OneSearch, a mobile-specific interface and algorithm, was launched in January with the Yahoo Go for Mobile downloadable application, and expanded in March to be available to all WAP-enable devices on the Yahoo Mobile site. OneSearch was launched in Canada and five countries in Europe in May, and to six mobile operators in Asia in June.

Through the Telefonica partnership, OneSearch is now the main search service for users in 15 countries in Europe and Latin America. Global expansion of its mobile search offering is a priority for Yahoo, according to Steve Boom, SVP of broadband & mobile at Yahoo, who posted on the Yodel Anecdotal blog:

We plan to continue this great global momentum for oneSearch. We're working to make oneSearch one finger away through a host of high-quality carrier and device partnerships. As of today, oneSearch is the priority search service for over 200 million mobile consumers through seven major mobile operators in nearly 30 countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Our ultimate goal is to connect one billion mobile users worldwide, so you can count on more to come.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 1, 2007, 11:30 AM | Permalink


Why Index Size is Important

UPDATE: There is an update from Microsoft at the end of this post.

One of the interesting things about Microsoft's new Live search update was the announcement that Microsoft had expanded its index from about 5B pages to about 20B pages, a 4x increase. At some level, the exact index size is not a big issue, unless, your index is simply too small.

Google has stopped reporting its index size, but reportedly has about 24B pages in its index. In my opinion, there is little significance in the difference between 20B and 24B pages in your index, but there is a significant difference between 5B and 24B pages in your index. In short, Microsoft needed to make a move of this type to improve their relevance.

What's at issue is coverage. People increasingly search for a highly specialized set of things on the web, and if you don't have the related sites in the index, you can't return the right result. During the announcement sessions, Microsoft demoed many search queries, but one that illustrates this point particularly well was a search for shelli segal.

A search for this term on Live Search will being up the designer's website. This happens even though the site has a relatively small number of third party web site links to it (106 according to Yahoo).

UPDATE: I got an email from Matt Cutts letting me know that the laundrybyshellisegal.com web site is out of operation, and has been that way for several months. This makes the specific example provided here invalid, but nonetheless the underlying point of this post is unchanged. I have asked Microsoft to provide a new example, and will update this post when I get that.

By comparison, if you search on Google, you quickly discover that Google does not have this web site in its index. Note that many counter examples are possible to show - sites in the Google index that Microsoft has in its index. Ultimately, the point is, you can't return the right result if the site you should be returning for a given search is not in your index.

Update from Justin Osmer of Microsoft:

"We crawled the site and did not receive any redirects, Like many other engines we rely on redirects and other Webmaster Tools help us stay fresh (like our URL removal process) but we know we can't rely on that alone and are still building out as scalable, broad, and updated of an index as we can and are continuing to improve.

As you state, we still stand by our original point and intention that a user won't get the relevant site if it isn't indexed and this particular (poor) example was used to illustrate the point that before we never would of have had it, then we did with the larger index...however, unfortunately in the time we built the index the most relevant site is no longer available and we hadn't re-crawled it yet. We have removed the site from the index now and are returning what we believe to be the most relevant set of results for that query. Our larger index will speed up its crawl frequency in time and situations like this will hopefully be minimized.

You had asked for some additional examples from the presentation Ramez gave so here they are:

Bigger index helping us: search for janet Buxman kurihara.

Core ranking examples:

Hottest temperature in the state of az:

Safeco building address Redmond: