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December 2007

December 31, 2007

Norman Mailer On Google

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Norman Mailer died at 84 this year, only months after the publication of his latest book, On God, a brilliant dialogue about God and Good and Evil.

Before Mailer passed away, I planned to interview him about Google and God and whether corporate technology in any human hands can Do No Evil.

Mailer was not a search engine expert. Nor was he a technologist. He was fearless, though.

As a towering literary figure, he took center stage in some of the great debates of the 20th Century. He refused to go quietly when the novel and the printed word lost prominence with the advent of film, television and the Internet.

His personal theology as outlined in On God provides a foundation for understanding technology and its influence on society. If there's sufficient interest among Search Engine Watch readers, we'll revisit the controversial New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, entitled "Is Google God?"

I'll excerpt Mailer's published views on technology and God. I'll try to persuade his co-author, Mike Lennon, to join the Google debate on Mailer's behalf.

Now that Google has won FTC approval of its DoubleClick acquisition, Search Engine Watch will keep an eye on the ways Google dominates the Internet, the search engnine marketing profession, and our professional as well as "private" lives.

We won't have Norman Mailer's wisdom and literary journalism to guide us, but we will have his words and his example.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 2:24 PM | Permalink

Network Neutrality

Back at SES Chicago, one of the keynote speakers, David Isenberg focused his presentation on the issue of Network Neutrality. One of the more interesting aspects of his presentation was how little those of us in the industry think about this issue.

Yet, if the telcos succeed in violating network neutrality, it will blow up the web experience as we know it. The consumer will no longer be in control on the web, and an era of innovation will be sorely impacted. Can you imagine Facebook being successful if the bandwidth to access it is controlled by a telco that is offering a competing service? Or, the telco will not give the service enough bandwidth to work properly unless they pay additional fees?

Additionally, in the current web environment, the consumer has virtually unlimited choice. The biggest challenge that the consumer faces is sifting through all the choices, but with choice, comes power. In a world where the consumer is loaded with power, the companies that want their business must truly compete for it. If the choice starts to become limited, then the power of the consumer will fade with it.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR and I spoke with Mr. Isenberg after his keynote. One thing that we all agreed upon was that the current telco companies are not well adapted to capitalizing on the web as it is, and they view the current web environment as a threat to their continued growth.

Worse still, these companies have large war chests, and the people they are working on selling their story to are the members of congress. Unfortunately, many of those in our congress are not particularly web savvy, so they may not understand the web as it exists today, and how critical that is to the innovation and growth that we are experiencing, and to consumer control (and therefore consumer rights).

Hopefully, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others have their eye on the ball on this one.

Posted by on 9:29 AM | Permalink

December 28, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 28, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected this week'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 5:07 PM | Permalink

Search Blogs Awards Voting Is On

Search Engine Journal's 2007 Search Blogs Awards have been posted, and the voting has begun.

The Search Engine Watch Blog has been nominated for "Best Search Industry News Blog of 2007," and the Search Engine Watch Forums have been nominated for "Best Search Engine Community/Forum." If you agree, head on over to Search Engine Journal and vote for us.

You can also share some SEW-love for our Link Love expert Justilien Gaspard, whose blog is nominated in the "Best Link Building Blog of 2007" category; or for SEW blogger and Local Search expert Michael Boland, nominated for "Best Local Search Blog" for the Kelsey Group Blog.

Andrew Goodman, conference chair for SES Toronto, is also nominated for "Best Contextual Advertising Blog" for his Traffick blog.

Even if you don't vote for us, head on over and cast your votes. What else were you planning on doing on the last workday of the year?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:29 PM | Permalink

An Open Letter to Google Engineering: Please Slow Down a Little

We really do love your software. And we appreciate the fact that you introduce valuable new features so frequently. But please: slow down a little, and spend a bit more time on bug testing.

In the time-honored model of software development (call it "pre-Web 1.0"), teams of programmers worked for years to craft scores of subroutines, knit them together into a megalithic "major release," and then test and re-test the application on a variety of software and hardware platforms. The application would often be "pre-released" to internal and external teams of alpha and beta testers who would run the software under an even wider variety of conditions.

All this methodical testing slowly but surely eliminated major software bugs until the "release" could be dubbed "Golden Master." Only then would it be released to the buying public, hopefully with only minor bugs remaining. Thus Word 2.0 begat Word 3.0, etc.

That model, though still practiced widely for PC- and server-based applications, seems almost anachronistic in today's environment of high-velocity incrementally-released Ajax-based web applications. New features – minor and major – appear overnight, often with little or no warning, explanation or documentation. And all too often, with minor and major bugs.

As an agency that manages client pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, we at Clix Marketing are elbow-deep in Google AdWords software – all day, every day. It's not unusual for us to wake up in the morning and find old features completely replaced by new ones. Almost always the new features provide improved functionality, or eliminate time-consuming steps from a process.

Occasionally, it's painfully obvious that the new feature hasn't been thoroughly tested. Recent examples come to mind: a new graphing feature simply failed to work (and displayed only flat-line graphs), and it took Google a week to fix it. AdWords Editor is up to its fifth release, an age when most software has attained stability – and yet it still crashes frequently.

The phenomenon isn't restricted to Google's AdWords software. Last week the phone development community was up in arms over their contention that Google's Android platform for phone application development "…has major bug issues."

A recent New York Times article explains that Google's breakneck software development speed is a concerted, encouraged effort to stay out ahead of serious competitors like Microsoft. "Velocity matters," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Google product road maps look ahead only four or five months at most.

But here's the thing, Google: you're already waaaay out ahead – for example, your Google AdWords campaign management software is two generations or more ahead of Yahoo and Microsoft. So you can afford to slow down a bit and test more rigorously before even minor software releases. You're starting to get a reputation for developing buggy software – one that's not deserved for the most part – and now is the time to nip the problem in the bud before the perception starts to snowball.

Thanks for listening.

Posted by David Szetela on 10:31 AM | Permalink

December 27, 2007

Defining Search in 2007

This year could be defined by social media, blended search, or even the changes in SEO. All told, 2007 is mainly the year that search continued to mature and fit in with other marketing disciplines. In today's SearchDay, "2007: The Year that Search Grew Up," we look at some of the top stories and trends of the past 12 months, and we come to the conclusion that sometimes you need to do more than just get better at what you're already doing.

Of course, there were many other important events in the search world in 2007. Yahoo's constant state of reorganization. Ask's unending push to become a legitimate search contender. AOL and Microsoft's continual morphing into advertising companies. And the acquisitions keep on coming.

For a list of articles, columns, and blog posts about the most significant search-related events of 2007, check out "This Year in Search." And never fear, we'll be back again next year to keep you updated on all that's relevant in the search world.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 6:06 PM | Permalink

Poor Market Less Impact On Online Marketing Of Real Estate

The subprime debacle and poor economic growth has not impacted the online marketing of real estate at least as far as online condos sales seem to indicate, according to newcondosonline.com's profit reports.

The effectiveness of online marketing - specifically search marketing - seems to be showing this success in many areas. Financial services companies have turned heavily to search marketing and have found much success.

This bodes well for the industry and will no doubt be reflected in the increase in budget spends of Fortune 100 companies next year. With the direct nature of the ad to the search, or the optimization and landing pages, our market can be measured and that ability to see ROI will keep money coming into our space.

Posted by Frank Watson on 4:09 PM | Permalink

Facebook Search Engine: Livin' the Vida Local Online

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When a global VP of marketing for a multinational company gives me advice, I listen. Brand equity Search Engine Watch Expert Erik Qualman told me the Facebook search engine has reached the tipping point for global brand building online. The reason? Facebook's open API that CMOs can leverage to great effect.

Erik's Google-powered TripAdvisor facebook app (pictured here) shows just one way anyone can start building a global brand and connecting with other professionals, influencers, and global companies via social search. For details on how Facebook stacks up against the competition and how SEMs and VPs of Marketing can benefit, read it and reap.

So this year, with the help of social search experts, I'll be living local online. Facebooking for the first time; Twittering my time away; experimenting with search engines with a social twist. http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3627928

I'm a skeptic -- going in with an open mind -- and the hypothesis that living online in the social search world will be a massive waste of time.

What do you think? Will Facebook die in 2008? Is the social search second life just another Second Life? Or will social search redefine vertical search and transform Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Ask?

First up -- I'll tap Techipedia founder Tamar Weinberg to help me transition my small LinkedIn network to Facebook.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 11:20 AM | Permalink

Google Misses the Mark with Reader Shared Items

This might make the folks at Facebook feel better about the whole Beacon privacy fiasco. It appears that even Google can make a mistake, as they did this month when they made shared items in Google Reader accessible to all Google Talk friends. Without asking. And without an easy way to opt out, short of deleting contacts or not sharing anything.

I don't know if I'd go so far as some, who claim that the move by Google ruined Christmas, but it was an unnecessarily foolish move by Google, which could have been avoided by making the sharing an opt-in decision, instead of an opt-out one.

This week (being a slow news week and all), many bloggers took offense to the move. Some complained that Google is invading their privacy by sharing items with people who they didn't intend to share with. Others blame users for not understanding what "shared" means.

Last night, the product team responded on the Google Reader blog with a response to the "helpful feedback" it received from bloggers. The sharing feature is still automatic and opt-out, but now users can quickly create a new tag for all shared items and then decide which contacts to share those items with.

And a link is presented at sign-in to a page that explains the process in the Reader Help Center:"If for any reason you'd like to start your sharing afresh, you can always remove all your previously shared items. Just go to the Friends Settings and click Move or Clear Shared Items. You will be given an option to select or create a tag and move your shared items to that tag, or clear your shared items. The items will remain in their original feeds along with any tags you've given them, but will no longer be in your shared items feed."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 5:28 AM | Permalink

A Look at the Top Searches of 2007

OK, so we all know what people are really searching for most of the time. But if you filter out the perennial favorites (most of which are NSFW), then you can have a look at the most popular, up-and-coming search terms of 2007. In case you missed these earlier, here are the lists of top queries from various search engines:

AOL breaks down its "Hot Searches" by categories, including movies, bands, and accidental celebrities

Ask.com shows that its search volume can predict World Series winners...now will the Cowboys beat the Patriots and prove that true for the NFL as well? If Ask users are unusually prescience extends to presidential candidates, it looks like Barack Obama has Hillary Clinton beat.

Google brings us its year-end zeitgeist, telling us that the iPhone, Webkinz, TMZ and Transformers were the fastest-rising search terms of the year in the U.S.

Lycos tells us that poker, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton topped the search charts this year.

Yahoo's Top Trends in Search in 2007 reveal that Saddam Hussein, Britney Spears, and Harry Potter were among the most searched-for names this year.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 5:19 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: 7 Tips for Training Link Developers

We all know the vital role of backlinks in search engine visibility. So how do you train your link building team? In today's Link Love column, "7 Tips for Training Link Developers," Justilien Gaspard shares some essential tips for training link developers in-house that are so simple, even traditional ad agencies can catch on.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Social Search Engine Face-off: Facebook vs. MySpace

Everywhere you turn, everyone's abuzz with Facebook, social search, and social networking. What's all the fuss about? In today's Brand Equity column, "Social Search Engine Face-off: Facebook vs. MySpace," Eric Qualman helps brand marketers understand whether they are missing the train, or jumping on the wrong train.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 26, 2007

YouTube Ads Broadcast Google Laser Targeting: RIP SEM

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Google and YouTube have taken the Art of Subliminal Advertising and Science of Behavioral Targeting to new heights. Shown here: a whimsical holiday video starring Juno (goddess baby mama of Mars, Roman God of War) paired with humorous Google homeland security Senate testimony aired on The Google Channel -- all seemingly produced by the film studio owned by MySpace mogul and Google content partner, Rupert Murdoch.

Or has Google simply struck a product placement deal with Fox Searchlight for all Google Congressional testimony?

Juno teen pregnancy flick (predictive modeling: Jamie Lynne Spears) appears to get four stars and two thumbs up in this "favorited" YouTube trailer.

Search Engine Watch apologizes to all our holiday readers who received a YouTube Google Video Holiday Card featuring Homeland Security testimony from Google exec J.L. Needham (pictured) instead of the (pirated) Golden Globe nominated flick they wished for.

Disclaimer: Search Engine Watch insists no digital copyrights were harmed in the filming of John Lewis (J.L.) Needham, Manager for Public Sector Content Partnerships at Google, testifying before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on the 11th of December for the sole purpose of discussing Google's efforts to help make federal government website info more accessible to citizens through search engines, and Google's use of the Sitemap Protocol to help government agencies.

So don't read too much into recent allegations of Google Reader's invasion of user privacy, Google Earth's internet surveillance, and homeland security partnerships. In the spirit of the holiday season, we urge conspiracy theorists to ask themselves, What would James Jesus Angleton do?

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 4:13 PM | Permalink

Google Senate Testimony: Homeland Security

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Now that NORAD has once again proven its superior technological power by tracking Santa across the globe (a task once thought impossible before the advent of Google), we can all rest a little easier. Who would've dreamed the new, more whimsical military-industrial complex could be so much fun?

Not Ike.

We like Ike, too. But WWII hero and former President Eisenhower never envisioned a military-industrial Googleplex that could Do No Evil.

Google Earth, for example, enables Homeland Security teams to collaborate (encouraging teamwork), focus (attention is paid to the task at hand) and comprehend (converts data into understanding). Google Earth solutions for homeland security include Google Earth Pro (Try it free for 7 Days!) and Google Earth Enterprise Solutions.

So what is Google exec J.L. Needham testifying before Congress about? Here on YouTube, he tackles the SEO debate on the use of Google sitemaps. Will Google protocols help government Web sites rank higher? You decide.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 3:09 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Large Enterprise SEO: CMS Duplicate Content

For large sites, CMS-created duplicate content obliterates SEO. In today's By the Numbers column, "Large Enterprise SEO: CMS Duplicate Content," Eric Enge shares the top duplicate content problems and the best ways to deal with them.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Google vs. the World

Round 1 goes to Google/DoubleClick and the U.S. FTC. Round 2: Will the EU strike a blow for global privacy? In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Google vs. the World," Kevin Ryan explores the latest trend in the interactive industry: consolidation.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 24, 2007

Interview with Microsoft's Mike Nichols

This week my interview is with Mike Nichols of Microsoft. We spoke about image search, video search, and celebrity search. With Microsoft's recent set of releases, their new video search engine was unveiled for the first time. One of the more interesting aspects of Microsoft's video search engine is the smart preview feature.

Mike showed me a great demo of a Baron Davis dunk (then select the video titled "Baron Davis dunks on AK-47 in Game 3"). The video is 25 seconds long, but the dunk happens only at the end.

The smart trailer technology is able to algorithmically figure out that the focal point of the video is at the end. As a result, the trailer Microsoft offers at the video selection screen goes right to the most important part of the video, to enable the user to better decide is this is a video that they want to watch.

It really sparks some interesting thoughts about the nature of the algorithms to determine the most important part of a video. One possible approach is simply to evaluate the video as a whole and then use a set of algorithms to figure out what part of the video is the most different from the rest of the video.

Whatever techniques Microsoft decided to use, it's clear that there are a large number of different scenarios that they have to deal with. In the case of the Baron Smith dunk, there is clearly a significant increase in crowd noise right at the end of the video. However, not every video provides a clue as simple as an great increase in crowd noise.

Posted by on 8:33 AM | Permalink

December 22, 2007

Try A Little Social Media In 2008

Make a resolution: Try participating in social media next year. While your site remains important, your visitors aren't only finding you through typical search engines. There's definitely enough audience ready to discover you and search for more through social connections.

Why bother? “The Internet lets all stuff fall apart in really useful ways” says David Weinberger, the author of Content Is Miscellaneous.

Your success depends on thinking more like Weinberger. All your stuff has already fallen apart, when people find you on search engines. When your content gets further disaggregated and shared through social media, there are additional social search opportunities.

Publishing 2.0 created this visual to describe challenges that print publishers face when they go online. Replace "print" with "site," and it's an apt metaphor for all web publishers:

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We all battle against other destinations that appeal to common readers and interests, and need to reach out behind our domains. Thus the opportunities to link or distribute your web content should be on your agenda.

Consider all the places where you'd like to be found and consumed. For next year, look at your visitors who blog or communicate on Facebook/MySpace. Decide how to engage and share content via containers, widgets and places where they live online.

My gentle resolution doesn't mean you have to change your business models -- only include social media in your mix.

Posted by on 5:52 PM | Permalink

December 21, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 21, 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 5:26 PM | Permalink

BitDefender Finds Google AdWords Hijack Trojan

Seems there is a trojan out there that can replace Google AdWords with other ads, according to BitDefender. The bug is loaded when a person visits an infected website and the malware attaches itself to a user's computer.

Then when they surf a publishing site that displays AdWords the ads are replaced by similiar looking ones from other advertisers.

"The threat, which is identified by BitDefender as Trojan.Qhost.WU, modifies the infected computers' Hosts file (a local storage for domain name / IP address mappings, which is consulted before domain name servers and is considered authoritative).

The modified file contains a line redirecting the host "page2.googlesyndication.com" which should point to an IP of the form 6x.xxx.xxx.xxx to a different address, of the form 9x.xxx.xxx.xxx, so that the infected machines' browsers read ads from server at the replacement address rather than from Google," BitDefender noted.

Posted by Frank Watson on 11:22 AM | Permalink

Comparing Kayak and SideStep Businesses, For The Last Time

With the recent announcement that Kayak will acquire SideStep, we wanted to examine the two travel search businesses and what they bring to the party. In this competitive vertical, it's good to have some visibility into their results.

At the SES-Travel show, held in Seattle last August, we heard from many travel search providers and learned about excellent conversion rates: 12-17% for air travel; 8-10% for car rentals; and 4-8% for hotels. Maybe that explains why there have been strong competitive entries!

Both Kayak and SideStep executives took pains to differentiate their offerings. Drew Patterson, who's VP of Marketing at Kayak, explained that Kayak was streamlined search, more like Google; SideStep was about social media and community, more like Yahoo. SideStep's priority was "to find the best deal or best reservation to meet your needs,” said Sam Shank, VP at SideStep.

It's easier to compare these search suppliers by analyzing their revenue contributions (per TechCrunch). Kayak said they supported $2.5 billion/year in ticket sales and earned $50 million revenues, which produced a 2% yield. SideStep supported $1.0 billion/year and earned $35 million revenues, or a 3.5% yield. However, this yield is inflated because SideStep revenues also included contributions from its TravelPost (user reviews) and TripUp (social networking) units.

Perhaps a more apples-to-apples comparison might be made from valuing unique visitors. In November, comScore reported about 5.25 million uniques from Kayak and 4.5 million uniques from SideStep. When we annualized these numbers, it translated to approximately $0.79 per Kayak unique and $0.65 per SideStep unique visitor.

In any event, there appears to be a lot of upside revenue potential from travel search volumes. In her SES-Travel keynote, Nancy Ramamurthi, Chief Marketing Officer for SideStep.com, claimed there would be over 100 million unique visitors in the next three to five years.

As long as the referrals model continues to work, Kayak is buying major market share and presumably efficiencies. It will be interesting to see how many metasearch engines continue to duke it out. Henry Harteveldt, a Forrester Research analyst, told the WSJ that the percentage of online leisure travelers using these engines has been holding steady, at 12% to 15% of travelers since 2006. Thus the upside isn't entirely clear at this stage.

More here: Travel Search: Up Close and Personal; Hug The Reservations; Tech Crunch's Breaking News; WSJ Coverage (Paid Access)

Posted by on 3:27 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: How to Market SEO to Humans

How do you explain your job to the people you meet at a holiday party? In today's Outsourced column, "How to Market SEO to Humans," William Flaiz reminds us that search engine optimization is a marketing discipline at heart, relying on the same principles as traditional marketing practices. While the medium may be unfamiliar, the process can be broken down easily for the unacquainted.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEM Agency: Uphill Battle? - Part 2

After deciding to go out on their own to start a search marketing agency, the main stumbling block for many people is a lack of organizational skills. In today's Business of Search column, "SEM Agency: Uphill Battle? - Part 2," Fionn Downhill covers some basic principles necessary for success.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Online Travel SEM Addictions: Web 2.0, Paid Links, Social Media

In today's rapidly changing search marketplace, ideas and technology move faster than the speed of light. Search marketers need to catch up, if they can. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Online Travel SEM Addictions: Web 2.0, Paid Links, Social Media," travel search expert Elisabeth Osmeloski helps you decide how your company should address this year's hottest topics: Web 2.0, paid links and social media.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 20, 2007

Free Google Flip Video Camcorder --No purchase necessary

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OK, strike "no purchase necessary." Free Flip video camcorder: "big purchase necessary?"

Google gave big-time advertisers and SEMs (whose clients spend big) a Flip Video Ultra Series camcorder with recording time up to 30 min. and 1GB internal memory.

Search marketer Shimon Sandler recorded an Oscar-worthy short film (YouTubed) of his Google Video Ultra gift being unwrapped. You'll watch the film again and again, if only to get into the Xmas spirit of green envy that children of all ages feel during the Holiday Season.

Google Flip flopped with all the SEMs who only received Google 2GB USB memory cards instead of the Google Flip (with MSRP of $149.99!). The 2GoogleByte USB card was described by our friends at SERoundtable as more or less a lump of coal -- way inferior to last year's Google gift gadget: a sweet digital picture frame.

It would seem only the FTC approves of Google acquisitions these days.

Here at Search Engine Watch, we'll be providing the P.O. Box for Google Customer Returns and the address of the secret Google Gift Exchange location.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 6:46 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: December 20, 2007

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

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 3:30 PM | Permalink

Search Engine Visibility and Crawlability of Dynamic Sites

Huge databases that generate Web site content on the fly can be the bane of search engine spiders' existence. They can't find pages; they can't see URLs. So they can't index pages. In a two-part SearchDay series, "Search Engine Visibility and Site Crawlability, Part 1," and "Search Engine Visibility and Site Crawlability, Part 2," Eric Enge looks at key problem areas with sites that have dynamically generated content, including information architecture and keyword research; robots.txt files; and the use of Sitemaps.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 2:53 PM | Permalink

FTC approves Google's acquisition of DoubleClick

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has formally approved Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, according to an announcement by Google this morning. Google announced the deal in April, along with a purchase price of $3.1 billion.

The FTC's investigation focused on antitrust issues, and in its clearance opinion released today, explicitly rejected any current or potential competition concerns. In a 4-1 vote, the commission wrote in its majority statement that "after carefully reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition."

Google's announcement also noted several recent acquisitions by their competitors, including: "Yahoo's acquisition of Right Media; AOL's acquisition of ADTECH AG and TACODA; WPP Group's acquisition of 24/7 Real Media; and Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive and acquisition of AdECN Inc."

This is excellent news for Google, and provides it with a significant expansion of advertising inventory. Not everyone will be so thrilled though, as privacy concerns will no doubt be discussed in the media for some time to come. The reason for this is that Google now has another extremely rich data source to combine with the information it has on user's search histories. Privacy advocates will be very concerned about this. Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said that Google will continue to protect the privacy of users.

When the deal was announced, three privacy watchdog groups asked the FTC to investigate the potential implications on user privacy. But privacy is not an antitrust issue, so it was not relevant to the investigation except in the ways those issues would relate to a reduction in competition.

The deal is still being looked at by the European Commission, which has until April 2 to render a decision. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission approved the deal in November.

Posted by on 10:16 AM | Permalink

IBM introduces free smart email search software

While search engines still can't help you find your missing car keys, prescription glasses or remote control, IBM Research has invented a “smart” email search solution that can figure out what you are trying to find, even when you aren't so sure yourself.

And now, IBM is letting the rest of us get our hands on their secret decoder ring by making IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search (IOPES) for Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook available at no charge on alphaWorks.

IOPES is powered by advanced algorithms that can interpret incomplete queries and find information such as phone numbers, people, meetings, presentations, documents, images and more. The “smart” search software can help people find information buried in the vast personal database that e-mail has become by identifying the most relevant information in a search query and extrapolating what the user is trying to find.

Common concepts built into the system enable users to quickly locate, for example, a person's telephone number, even if the words “telephone” and “number” aren't in the text of the email. And it's also easy to define more complex concepts – such as meeting requests and specific locations – on the fly because the technology returns more relevant results than simple keyword search can.

Okay, so the name IOPES doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as iPhone. And I haven't tested it myself, so I can't tell you how IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search compares to Google Desktop Search or Desktop Search from Yahoo! and X1.

But I have to admit that it's nice to see Lotus Notes mentioned in an announcement. I guess that I should disclose that I was the director of corporate communications for Lotus when we first publicly discussed Notes at the 1988 PC Forum. But I haven't had a business or financial relationship with Lotus in close to 20 years.

I think I still have an old satin jacket with Lotus Week on the back. I wonder if IOPES can help me find it.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 1:01 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Link Building Case Study: Santa Claus

Is Santa Claus a savvy Web marketer? In today's Link Love column, "Link Building Case Study: Santa Claus," Sage Lewis looks at a few Christmas sites that are labors of love -- illustrating that if you want links, you have to find something you truly love and build it on your site. You simply can't build something that's link-worthy any other way.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book? - Part 2

The general consensus from the SEO community and Search Engine Watch readers: learning SEO solely from a book doesn't cut it. In today's SEM.EDU column, "SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book? - Part 2," Ron Jones advises that if you're just starting out on the SEO train, picking up a book might help get you started. But once you've got the basics down -- or think you do -- the next place to continue your education is by reading blogs.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 19, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 5:54 PM | Permalink

Google Orkut Spreading Worms

A worm is infecting users of Google's Orkut, PC World reported.

Seems Google's social networking program is getting a little too social.

"Some Orkut users received an e-mail telling them they had been sent a new scrapbook entry -- a type of Orkut message -- on their profile from another Orkut user.

They only had to view their profile to become infected by the worm, which added them to an Orkut group, "Infectados pelo Vírus do Orkut," wrote the blogger Kee Hinckley on his site TechnoSocial," PC World noted.

Posted by Frank Watson on 12:33 PM | Permalink

Microsoft SERPs Listing Google AdWords

Raven SEO blogged about this earlier today, Google getting some great lift to their adwords campaigns... they are being listed in Microsoft Live organic results.

This one is not going to be there very long.... let's start the clocks now ..... But the MSN crew should be a little red faced about it.

Come on Google does not have enough traffic. Microsoft you have to make their AdWords product even better value? Oh wait do you two have a deal about paid search results?

Now I want to know if they are keyword ads that run on Microsoft.....

Posted by Frank Watson on 12:14 PM | Permalink

Shopping Search Engine Providing Online Safety Tips

Sortprice - a price comparison search engine - is doing its part this holiday season with a guide to safely purchasing online without falling victim to identity theft. If you are traveling in New York City between Dec. 19 and December 23rd, people will be distributing cards with safety tips for online buyers.

Taking the cause offline and to the busiest city on the planet is an interesting approach and one I want to follow.

Posted by Frank Watson on 11:40 AM | Permalink

Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Bidding Against Google For WiFi Access

Paul Allen, Microsoft cofounder, has registered to bid in the upcoming auction for the 700-megahertz spectrum scheduled for January 24, 2008. This is the same auction that Google has shown much interest in developing.

"Allen heads an investment company called Vulcan Capital and is also a majority shareholder in U.S. cable operator Charter Communications," Reuters reported.

Posted by Frank Watson on 11:26 AM | Permalink

Google's Feed Indexing Policy

The official Google Webmaster Central blog has a post on it titled Taking feeds out of our web search results.

With this post Google defines a precise policy regarding the indexing or no-indexing of feeds. In summary, Google is officially not going to index any feeds, with the exception of multimedia feeds such as Podcast feeds.

The most interesting part of this to me was the rationale - it turns out that the majority of non-multimedia feeds represent content already on HTML web pages, and many times these pages contain additional content beyond what is in the feed itself. When Google sees a scenario like this, the web page with the content, and the feed with the content are pretty much duplicate content for each other. Given that the HTML page has a strong chance of being the superior solution.

This happens less frequently with multimedia feeds such as Podcasts. For that reason, Google will continue to index Podcast feeds. Publishers who want their Podcast feed Noindexed can do so can follow the Yahoo Guidelines, or if they use Feedburner they can easily set this up within Feedburner.

I think it's great that Google has defined a clear policy for this. Now webmasters know exactly what they are dealing with. Of course, there will be some webmasters who want their (non-multimedia) feed indexed, and that have relied on that traditionally. However, this is no longer an option, and it behooves such webmasters to figure out how to get that content rendered on an HTML web page which is crawlable by Google.

Posted by on 9:53 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Large Enterprise SEO: Content Development

SEO for Large Enterprises means content development on a massive scale. In today's By the Numbers column, "Large Enterprise SEO: Content Development," Eric Enge explains that the motivation for addressing the challenges goes beyond duplicate content and poor quality pages.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Yahoo, Facebook, Life and Death

The holiday season is a time for sharing, spending time with family, and the time for writers everywhere to hopelessly pontificate about the coming year. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Yahoo, Facebook, Life and Death," Kevin Ryan offers his best baseless, unaccountable predictions for 2008.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 18, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:37 PM | Permalink

Google Listening To SEW Blog? Offers Video Sitemaps

A few days ago SEW Blogger Deborah Richman wrote an article about how tough it was to find videos through the search engines. Yesterday Google announced it now offers Video Sitemaps.

Coincidence maybe.... I tend to think they took our advice.

The new product is "an extension of the Sitemap Protocol that helps make your videos more searchable via Google Video Search," their blog post explained.

As Debbie wrote: "Despite all the search options available, only 33% of consumers find videos to watch through search engines. In addition, 34% of consumers are frustrated when trying to discover videos, and some 62% say it takes them at least a few minutes or more to find videos that interest them."

Though Google claims it was an "effort to help users search all the world's public videos", I believe they took the few days following Debbie's post and added it as a feature.

Nice job Deb! Now if we can only get them to open the algorithm up for public inspection.......

Posted by Frank Watson on 4:46 PM | Permalink

Microsoft adCenter Offering Affiliate Program

Linda Buquet, president of 5 Star Affiliate Programs, announced the launch of Microsoft's affiliate program today.

adCenter will pay a bounty for each new advertiser people bring to the Microsoft PPC program. The current payment is $35 per sign up - seems all the big engines prefer this one time payment to any ongoing percentage deal.

5 Star Affiliate Program currently offers two Microsoft affiliate programs. "The network encompasses all of Microsoft's premier affiliate opportunities. Today there are two Microsoft services you can promote and profit from: MSN AdCenter and Windows Live OneCare. Over the next few months more Microsoft products and services will be added," the press release noted.

Posted by Frank Watson on 3:10 PM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Video on ALT attributes

Matt Cutts has posted a new video about ALT tags in images. In it, Matt outlines the basics about how ALT tags should be used, and why they are helpful.

Matt starts the video with a picture of Amy Cutts (his cat) and a ball of yarn on a whiteboard. Matt then points out that search engine crawlers can't recognize the content of the image, and therefore have no way of understanding it what it is. To make matters worse, standard file names for the image are often something like "DCIMG42,JPG". This also provides no help to the crawler.

If we look more closely at a typical IMG statement, it might look something like this:

<img class="photo" src="http://www.example.com/images/dcimg42.jpg" />

Again, no help for the crawler there. SO what can you do? Matt recommends the use of the ALT atribute in the IMG statement. With this modification, your image statement might look like this:

<img class="photo" src="http://www.example.com/images/dcimg42.jpg"
alt="Matt's cat, Emmy Cutts, with some yarn" />

So now we are providing the crawler with some help. The alt tag in the example provided by Matt is 7 words long, and this is an OK length. Matt notes that if you start getting up to 20 to 25 words, that your ALT attributes are getting overly long. Also, you want to avoid spammy looking ALT attributes, e.g., "cat cat cat feline cat fur ...".

You can take this a little further and use the TITLE attribute, or name your file something helpful as well. This would provide more reinforcement for the crawler regarding the content of the images. However, according to Matt, just implemeting the ALT attribute is enough in most cases. Ultimately, the bottom line is that you should use the ALT attribute on ALL of your images.

Posted by on 9:52 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO Conversion Testing: Advanced Search Engine Optimization

The C-level executive doesn't often get involved in A/B Web site optimization decisions. It's a tactic better left to SEOs, Web site analytics gurus, and statisticians. What do you do, then, when the CxO asks you to explain how you do A/B conversion testing for an e-commerce site, for example? In today's Big Biz column, "SEO Conversion Testing: Advanced Search Engine Optimization," Aaron Shear shares the number one SEO challenge during holiday shopping season: explaining to senior management how complex it is to do A/B testing of SEO strategies for large enterprise mega-sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Search Marketing on the Efficient Frontier

Microsoft bought Avenue A | Razorfish and Atlas Search. Google, buying Performics. Where does that leave Efficient Frontier? In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "Search Marketing on the Efficient Frontier," Kevin Heisler gets an update on the search marketing management platform.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 17, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:31 PM | Permalink

Who's Google Taking On with Knols?

The Google Knol project is drawing almost universal comparison in the media to Wikipedia. That comparison works in one facet of this situation: it seems Google's goal with Knol is to take back some of the traffic that Wikipedia is getting from Google searches – and then monetize it with Google ads.

As Michael Arrington notes, the timing of the news leads to that conclusion as well, since announcing unlaunched products is not Google's style, yet they felt the need to pre-announce Knols right around the same time that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is set to launch Search Wikia.

Google Knol

In structure, the project is much more similar to Seth Godin's Squidoo, since it allows users to build authority and sign their work. It also matches Squidoo in that its aim is to build content pages that rank highly in search engines.

In that respect, it's also similar to Jason Calacanis's Mahalo. Despite the insistence that Mahalo is a search engine, it's much more a directory, or even a content site along the lines of About.com. And despite Calacanis' supposed disdain for SEO, Mahalo is all about getting ranked on Google to drive traffic to its site, where it will be monetized with ads (provided by Google, at present). With Mahalo Social, launched last week, that service adds the element of authority for individual users that Google Knols brings to the mix.

The three are all putting a brave face on this:

Wales told John Battelle, "We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line... Competition of ideas is a good thing." He also got in a dig at the project, saying, "Very different from a wiki, and not likely to generate much of quality."

Godin says the move legitimizes his mission with Squidoo, and goes with the "rising tide lifts all ships" hypothesis:

"That goes a long way to legitimize the original idea. It brings new users into the space. It makes it easier to find partners who want to exploit this ‘new' idea. It allows room for creativity. It's not about whether or not someone should be doing this. It's about which place they want to do it in. That's a huge change.

Just as the acquisition of blogger led to an explosion in blogging software, Google's Knol makes the space pioneered by Squidoo a lot more attractive."

Calacanis has Twittered that he thinks Knol is more like Wikipedia than Mahalo, and that Mahalo might link to Knols in the same way it now links to Wikipedia articles.

Calacanis told Leo Laporte on TWiT (at 1:09:38 into the podcast) that he feels that Google's announcement is a trial balloon, to see what kind of reaction they'd get from publishers. "All the clients that Google has for their amazing ad business are going to take this the wrong way, and they're going to feel like this is over-reaching...It feels like they crossed some imaginary line in people's minds from being a platform to being a content producer."

Heather Hopkins, VP of research at Hitwise, crunched the numbers, and the results show that Wikipedia is by far the biggest of this bunch in terms of market share, getting 0.46 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic. Just over half (50.96%) of its traffic came from directly from Google.com, which accounts for 2.13 percent of Google's outbound traffic.

Wikipedia market share

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 5:11 PM | Permalink

Is Google The Borg or Big Brother

Google is growing and the question of whether or not it has become too invasive (or persuasive) is one that needs to be answered now. While using pop culture references to attract attention to this situation is fun, it also captures the massive popularity of Google itself.

As any Star Trek fan can tell you, "[t]he Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against whom "resistance is futile."

Google has shown elements of this with its acquisition of companies and giving away their services leaving others in those industries worried about their futures. Web Analytics (Urchin), Office software, and DoubleClick (the purchase of which has anti-trust examinations both in the US and Europe).

The other part of Google is the control they have on a very powerful industry that impacts people's lives and perceptions. When Google has the lion share of all searches made globally they have the ability to manipulate what people see.

They can hold a company's very existence in their algorithm. They can manipulate PPC rules and cost people a lot of money to maintain their marketing.

But beyond that people are hooked on Google. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that over 47% of internet users have Googled themselves. A big jump from the 22% of 2002. We want to know what Google thinks of us... well really we want to know how we rate in Google. People see themselves as a reflection of the SERPs.... please tell me that is not true.

Meanwhile Google is rolling out their Google Profiles - a scary Big Brother type of scenario. But everyone loves Google and will be happy to give their information over to the collective.

As Wired magazine online notes people are fast grabbing a G-Identity.

While it is fun to mix the pop culture references, the humor lies in the kernel of truth that makes it funny. I guess we really have to hope they live up to their motto to "Do No Evil".

Posted by Frank Watson on 1:27 PM | Permalink

Sep Kamvar Discusses Personalization

My latest interview is with Google's Sep Kamvar. We talked about the personalization algorithms currently in use by Google in detail. Sep spells out in detail for us:

The two signals that we use right now are the search history and the location. We constantly experiment with other signals, but the two signals that have worked best for us are location and search history.

We do talk quite a bit more about the types of signals they experiment with. Net-net most of the other signals they have experimented with are "noisy" in nature. What he means by that is that their test has shown that the input from such signals does not really help them improve the quality of search results for their users.

It underscores the fact that it's not as simple as we are all inclined to think. There are lots of things that we can guess make for good signals for a search engine to use. But many times, these signals really don't match up with a user's search intent.

For example, just because a user indicates a personal preference for something, that doesn't mean that this really related to what they are searching for at a particular time. In fact, when Google tried to get users to specify their interests, they found that it was not a good signal for them to use.

The key element really is what they user's intent at the time they perform the search. Turns out, that is not that simple to determine.

Posted by on 9:01 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Search Marketing Skills: Tips, No Tricks

If becoming a search apprentice is one key to learning, how does one become an apprentice in search marketing? In today's Search Ads column, "Search Marketing Skills: Tips, No Tricks," Matt Spiegel shares the most important skills needed to break into the search business.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: B2B Marketing, Road Rules for Content Advertising

B2B marketing is tough. B2B search marketing is even tougher. The most challenging form of B2B marketing, without a question, is content advertising. In today's Content Advertising column, "B2B Marketing, Road Rules for Content Advertising," David Szetela offers some best practices in B2B advertising.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 16, 2007

AdSense Ad Review: Good for Advertisers?

A few days ago Frank Watson blogged here about a new AdSense feature that lets site publishers exclude AdWords ads they feel may be inappropriate for their sites.

AdSense publishers will be able to view ads that advertisers have directed to their sites via Placement Targeting, and choose to block ads they don't feel are "relevant" to their site visitors.

This will certainly be used by AdSense publishers to (attempt to) maximize AdSense revenues - - publishers will block ads that they deem "low-revenue" in favor of ads that visitors will click on more frequently.

But is it good for advertisers? Well, yes and no...

Most AdWords advertisers who create Placement Targeted campaigns have done time-consuming research to identify sites that have proven (or are expected) to be relevant, in terms of producing valuable clicks and conversions. Knowing their ads can be blocked at the whim of an AdSense publisher might make advertisers more reluctant to spend the time necessary to target their advertising.

AdWords advertisers will be able to see the reason an ad was blocked - if the AdSense publisher chooses to provide it. Google says "This feedback gives advertisers more insight on how to increase coverage by adjusting ad quality, content, and relevance. We also use this information internally to help improve products."

Nice theory -- but will AdSense publishers really provide (optional) constructive feedback?

As I've pointed out in my SEW Experts column, Content advertising requires significant work and diligence -- arguably more than for Search advertising. Dealing with blocked ads -- understanding why an ad was blocked, and possibly even corresponding directly with a site owner to appeal the decision -- could just add unnecessarily to the advertiser's workload.

Hopefully this won't happen often - and the system will work to each side's satisfaction and benefit.

But let's keep an eye on it.

Posted by David Szetela on 11:31 AM | Permalink

December 14, 2007

Still Tough To Find Videos!

Despite all the search options available, only 33% of consumers find videos to watch through search engines. In addition, 34% of consumers are frustrated when trying to discover videos, and some 62% say it takes them at least a few minutes or more to find videos that interest them.

ChoiceStream recently announced these video search and related consumption findings in their 2007 Survey of Viewer Trends.

When consumers don't use search, they are discovering videos primarily by browsing sites (56%) and by relying on friends/family recommendations (32%), web site recommendations (20%), magazine/newspaper reviews (10%), or other sources (11%).

At first, I thought this might be due to difficulties when searching user-generated videos. After all, it can be difficult to cull through those results. Of the 824 respondents, however, 39% watched user-generated videos while 65% consumed professionally-produced TV programming.

Sounds like a real opportunity to me, and some search engine will ultimately help consumers find what they need -- at least more than one-third of them.

Posted by on 10:47 PM | Permalink

Google Banned All Jobs: Is real? Or he brewed brouhaha?

Google ban on AllJobs. Global blog-hysteria. What's the real story?

To get the scoop, I turned to Eli Felblum, CEO of global SEO firm RankAbove, after his preso at Dave Burstein's Web Video Summit. His take: blogger-brewed brouhaha.

Elie said the whole fervor over the AllJobs.co.il delisting is just another overreaction to two of the oldest ...

SEO Myths
#1: off-page optimization can hurt sites
#2: there's such a thing as too much SEO, or over-optimization

AllJobs was temporarily removed but went back up quickly. Today -- indexed in both Google and Google.co.il.

Eli noted even Alljobs' top rankings are back: #2 in Google Israel for “jobs” and #1 for “חי׀וש עבודה”, which means “find work” (a popular search in Israel). Keyword “AllJobs” in Israel returns both the site and the Ha'aretz story about it being delisted.

Why it got penalized is another matter. Blogger Uri Breitman claims the site had too many backlinks (154,311 via Yahoo's Site Explorer). Eli translated Uri's SEO myth: Alljobs was allegedly guilty of “עודף קידום אתךים”, or “too much SEO.”

An "aha!" moment? Hardly. More like haha.

The truth: Google and other major search engines have stated they'll penalize or punish Web sites that don't follow their guidelines. Web sites that pay close attention to SE guidelines (or too much attention) do not generally receive penalties.

So I asked Eli if he'd share his view on link building for large enterprises. Would a site with, say, millions of inbound links raise a red flag? He said, "Do something wrong on your site—like the hidden text on the BMW site—and you get banned. Do too much of something right—like the excessive breadcrumbing on About.com—and you get rewarded, or at least tolerated."

"No search engine can EVER penalize backlinks. If any SEO firm ever got confirmation certain backlinks hurt or delisted a site, it would be open season for malicious placing of those backlinks to their competitors' and their clients' competitors' sites."

Good point. So the most likely cause for the temporary delisting?

"AllJobs did something wrong on-page. Google called them out with a penalty; they contacted Google and resolved it; and all went back to normal. Most likely, AllJobs tried a new SEO firm who told them to make some spammy, black-hat change to the site (no trace remains, but I'm guessing doorway pages). They did it, got penalized, claimed innocence at the hand of an evil SEO firm, and got reinstated—with a warning to use ethical firms from now on, no second chances."

Key takeaway for CMOs: Worry about what's on your page, and check search engine guidelines before making any change your SEO company recommends. Make sure there's complete transparency and you know exactly what they're doing.

Let me know if you want to hear more from Eli -- one of the rising stars in SEO. What do you think ... should we invite him to join the SEW Experts writing crew?

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 7:02 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: December 14, 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 5:35 PM | Permalink

Reading Between The Lines DoubleClick Deal Will Get Okayed In US

The New York Times wrote an interesting article about the DoubleClick Google deal which suggests the deal will get approved.

The article discussing a possible conflict of interest with the FTC Chairperson Deborah Platt Majoras stated that even if she removed herself the vote would be 2-2. It takes a majority to stop a sale.

Majoras' husband works for Jones Day who has been retained to represent Google in the matter. Interestingly another member of the panel, William E. Kovacic, is married to a partner at Jones Day, though no mention of a possible conflict there was mentioned.

Posted by Frank Watson on 4:23 PM | Permalink

AdSense Introduces Ad Review Center

Google has added the ability to preview the ads that will run on a publisher's site and to block those they don't want to appear, the AdSense blog announced today.

This effort at improving transparency could help publishers and avoid sites advertising on a publisher's site that they do not feel are a good fit.

"In an effort to provide you with more transparency and control over the ads appearing on your pages, we've developed the Ad Review Center. This new feature, which we'll be rolling out to publishers over the next few months, will allow you to review ads placement-targeted to your site and ensure those ads are relevant to your site's users," the blog stated.

With growing compliance issues in some industries, this will help Google by allowing publishers to exclude sites that may violate their regulations and thus encourage them to add Google AdSense.

Google asks that you give feedback on why you exclude a site - a good idea and one that may start them looking at their content advertisers as well as the real needs of their publishers who helped make them a big chunk of their revenue.

The feature will be rolled out over the next few months, Google said.

"When it has been enabled for your account, you'll see a green notification box at the top of your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. By default, the Ad Review Center will let you review all placement-targeted ads after they have run on your site. However, if you have a strong need to manually review ads before they appear on your site, you may do so by clicking on the 'update settings' link in the Ad Review Center. You'll then have 24 hours to review ads before they are automatically allowed to run on your site. Please note that you can also return to the Ad Review Center and allow a previously blocked ad, or block a previously allowed ad," the blog explained.

Posted by Frank Watson on 10:59 AM | Permalink

'Knol' - Google Unit of Knowledge - Expert Authors Gathering

Seems Google has turned its eyes on the Wikipedia space and has a spin that may get a lot of attention from knowledgeable authors.

They just announced a beta project called "Knol" - a unit of knowledge - that gets experts in various field to write for an aggregated collection of knowledge. Why sign on for this project as opposed to Wikipedia etc.? Well Google has smartly added bylines - their articles will reference the author which could have all sorts of future implications.

Who wouldn't want to be listed as an expert on a topic by Google?

"Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project," the Google Blog explained.

I have already had people ask me if I can get them on the beta - this one is going to be hot. GMail hot I am starting to think.... remember when people were selling gmail accounts on EBay!

"The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest.

A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions. Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing' the blog explained.

Posted by Frank Watson on 10:43 AM | Permalink

Save the Date! "Meatball Sundae" Webcast with Seth Godin

seth_banner_updated_v2_copy.jpgWe know you guys love Seth Godin (who doesn't?). You nominate his blog for ClickZ's annual Marketing Excellence Award every year -- and it's won. Twice.

As a marketer, Seth's brilliance borders on the uncanny. He's an unparalleled public speaker (who just delivered a keynote at Search Engine Strategies Chicago), and a prolific author. And we're delighted to announced that on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM EST we'll be presenting a Webcast featuring Seth on the topic How Do You Avoid the Meatball Sundae? in conjunction with the release of his latest book, Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?

You owe it to yourself to catch this Webcast, so sign up now while you're thinking about it -- before you take off for the holidays.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb on 10:02 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Online Video Finds Local Search

How should local business and national advertisers selling locally think about incorporating video and video search into their ad arsenals? In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Online Video Finds Local Search," local search expert Gregg Stewart points out that now is the perfect time to test the effectiveness of online video in your local search marketing-driven ad campaigns. Costs are still relatively low and online searchers are seeking this ad enhancement out when making local purchase decisions.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Local Search Lead Gen: Yellowpages.com Ingenio-us Strategy

Late last month, AT&T purchased pay-per-call search platform and advertising network Ingenio. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Local Search Lead Gen: Yellowpages.com Ingenio-us Strategy," local search expert Michael Boland discusses what this means for AT&T Yellow Pages and, more importantly, Yellowpages.com, its Internet yellow pages (IYP) counterpart.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 13, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:35 PM | Permalink

What's Old Is New Again

There's a hot new ad unit that all the search marketers are talking about. In today's SearchDay, "Search and the Comeback Kid: Part 1," John Tawadros chronicles the rise, fall, and rise again of this old friend with a new twist.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:44 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Link Building: DIY In-House vs. Outsourced

A white hot debate started last week when Justilien Gaspard presented five reasons to take link building in-house. In today's Link Love column, "Link Building: DIY In-House vs. Outsourced," Justilien responds to reader comments and continues the in-house vs. outsourcing link building discussion.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 3

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, Eric Qualman discussed why you want to buy your brand search terms and how to properly measure them. In today's Brand Equity column, "Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 3," Qualman explores the intricacies of the ongoing maintenance/optimization of your brand terms.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 12, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 6:04 PM | Permalink

Putting the "Social" in Social Media Marketing

Some marketers think "social media marketing" or "social media optimization" means "social media manipulation." In today's SearchDay, "Blog Marketing Takes Commitment," Debby Richman reminds us that a better way to approach social media is to remember that behind every successful blog is a person. Reaching out to bloggers and building a relationship with them can go a long way in improving your social media efforts, your search ranking, and your overall marketing plan.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 4:58 PM | Permalink

Newsknife ranks top news sites in Google News for 2007

Newsknife has just produced a ranking of the Top News Sites of 2007, based on its study of the listings of over 3,800 news sites in Google News through the past year.

The Top News Sites of 2007 compiled by Newsknife's analysis of listings by news sites at Google News during 2007 are:
1 New York Times
2 Voice of America
3 Reuters
4 Washington Post
5 ABC News
6 Houston Chronicle
7 Forbes
8 Times Online, UK
9 Bloomberg
10 CNN
11 Los Angeles Times
12 Associated Press

Newsknife's ratings are based on monitoring the main US-oriented Google News site. Its Top 12 for 2007 suggests a trend towards US-based news sites, compared with previous years.

As I reported earlier this year in a post entitled, "Was Google's AP announcement a PR disaster?", the big event was the late-August debut of several major wire services at Google News. Calculated on an annual basis, Associated Press made Newsknife's Top 12 this year and Newsknife expects to see it climb in 2008.

In the Newsknife rankings posted today, there is a section entitled, "Associated Press winning the numbers game." Newsknife takes a closer look at November 2007 rankings and observes, "It looks like Associated Press could be taking up the position of greatest volume supplier of news items to Google News."

Of course, one month of data does not a trend make. Still, it reinforces a recommendation that I made back in September: "Pitch your next big story directly to one of the 3,000 AP journalists in one of the more than more than 240 AP bureaus worldwide. If they write a story, it has a better chance of appearing in Google News than any of the “duplicate articles” that might appear in one of the thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television and online customers that AP serves."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 4:20 PM | Permalink

Google Mobile Search G-Force: Android Trojan Horse?

Google Android software stack: Google's gift to the telcos. Or Trojan Horse? Adam Soroca, GM of Jumptap, sees dangers in mobile operators inviting Google inside their castle walls.

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With Sprint sprinting to join the Open Handset Alliance and T-mobile mobilizing to ride the Android wave, who will own the valuable search real estate on mobile phone platforms? Who will monetize search traffic and own the relationship with the mobile operators' current customers?

The biggest danger to carriers? Consumers will be able to bypass mobile operators altogether.

Soroca, a former exec with Google competitor Lycos, shared some insights into Google's likely long-term strategy. "The Google toolbar watches everything users do online in real time," he said. "Look at what Google can do with mobile phones: see every contact people dial, track and serve what ads they see. It's clear their intent is to have all search and advertising run through their toolset -- from Google AdWords and customer acquisition through the final Google Checkout transaction."

Google Android Trojan horse inside the mobile operators' walls would challenge Jumptap's white label search platform for mobile operators. Jumptap's software platform and service helps operators maintain their relationship with subscribers and retain search and advertising revenue.

Google's efforts to create standards and open APIs for mobile platforms is a terrific benefit to the industry, notes Soroca. Google's reach, powerful brand, and developer incentives will speed the industry's move toward open platforms. In short, it's a Google gift for mobile operators, mobile search, and local search on mobile devices.

It's not a gift, though, that will keep on giving.

"Android is more than just a Trojan horse," said Soroca. "Android can take awy all search and advertising revenue streams from mobile operators, who have the opportunity to become one of the most sophisticated and targeted ad networks on the planet."

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 3:41 PM | Permalink

AdWords Editor 5.0 Having Problems

Seems there are some minor install problems with the latest version of AdWords Editor.

There was one discussed on the forum here. And Google gave some information about what they had been seeing.

"The potential exists for v5 on Windows to crash on start-up. This will most likely be experienced by users who have Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. The work-around for this is to remove all copies of Google AdWords Editor from the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel (there will probably be two), then reinstall," Google suggested.

Posted by Frank Watson on 3:10 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Acquires UK Mapping Provider

Microsoft significantly expanded its mapping capabilities in Europe with the acquisition of Multimap, a UK-based online and mobile mapping company. Multimap will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, within the Online Services Group alongside Virtual Earth and Live Search.

Multimap offers a consumer-facing mapping site that also provides local services via partners, including hotel, holiday-cottage, and restaurant-booking services. Multimap's location-based business services include mapping, proximity searching, routing, aerial images with map overlay, local information, and weather.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:57 PM | Permalink

CSI Google Could Be New TV Show

Seems a Google satellite camera may help with information in a murder investigation in Australia, according to the Herald Sun.

A Google mapping van had been in the area of the murder for a week, the investigating detective noted.

"Det-Sgt Jeff Maher of the homicide squad confirmed that a Google Earth satellite mapping van had been filming the area for up to a week.

He said the images captured by satellite could hold some clues to the gruesome murder,' the Herald reported.

Posted by Frank Watson on 11:54 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Finance Partners With CNBC

In another move geared toward building their niched portal/community efforts, Yahoo has partnered with CNBC to increase the information available at Yahoo Finance.

"Under the terms of the agreement, CNBC will provide video clips from its global networks and articles from CNBC.com. The content will be available to Yahoo! Finance users in the U.S. (http://finance.yahoo.com), and will also be available to Yahoo!'s 21 international financial news sites. The video clips will encompass commentary and analysis of the day's top business stories, pre-market opening buzz, interviews, investing and stock-picking segments from CNBC programs including "Mad Money w/Jim Cramer" and "Fast Money" and international market news and analysis from CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia," the press release stated.

I have long thought the development of their niched areas was the way for Yahoo to counter the Google juggernaut. Providing the best community sites - be it finance, sports, health or any of the myriad other topics - allows Yahoo to grab the visitors and make them repeat appreciative users who will then end up using the search boxes strategically placed on the community pages.

Let's see how this works for them.

Posted by Frank Watson on 11:41 AM | Permalink

Facebook Applications and Promoting Your Site

One of the interesting frontiers in the market today is the role that widgets and/or Facebook Applications (and soon OpenSocial applications) can play in your overall marketing strategy, and, of course, how this will impact your search marketing strategy.

To dive into this a bit deeper, I spoke recently with the Greg Spector, co-founder of Rebtel. Rebtel offers a great service that allows you to convert phone calls to your international friends into local calls. For example, if you live in San Francisco, and have a friend in Germany that you want to speak to, the system will generate a 415 number for you. You can then call that number, so the phone company sees a local call, and then Rebtel connects you directly with your friend in Germany.

It's a neat service. When they were looking at ways to promote the service, they quickly developed a belief that a Facebook Application would be a great way to go. So they developed a Facebook ap that automatically identifies all your friends that are located internationally, and makes it wasy for you to decide which ones you would like to generate a number for.

In one sense, it's a great enhancement to people search, as now finding one of your friends overseas comes with the extra juice of making it cheap and easy to contact them. In addition, as I have written before, these types of tools have the potential to spread virally. This provides great visibility and exposure, which ultimately is what you need to do to run a business that accumulates links to its web site automatically (which is a form of SEO nirvana).

The key that makes this work is having an application that leverages your business, and still fits neatly into the Facebook environment. Rebtel did this quite nicely with their application, and this is what makes it very interesting.

Posted by on 10:12 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO Hell, a CMS Production

Large scale Web sites with a content management system (CMS) face different SEO problems than smaller Web sites. In today's By the Numbers column, "SEO Hell, a CMS Production," Eric Enge explains that while CMS developers' knowledge of SEO has improved, serious SEO issues resulting from CMS software still need to be addressed.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Google Mobile Search Gamble: Everybody Wins?

If you had billions of dollars lying around, what would you do with it? Google has billions, and has turned its attention to the upcoming FCC auction for Spectrum 700-MHz. What's next: Google phone? Google mouth? Google brain? In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Google Mobile Search Gamble: Everybody Wins?," Kevin Ryan discusses the potential ramifications of Google's mobile dreams.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 11, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:55 PM | Permalink

Interview with Microsoft's Grad Conn

My interview of the week is with Grad Conn of Microsoft. In the interview we take a detailed look at the unique nature of Health Related searches. Microsoft did a lot of user testing to learn about user's needs and their state of mind when they are searching.

Among the interesting conclusions was that users were generally dissatisfied with health search results. Many of the returned sites were simple too technical for them, and they were not helping them accomplish what they needed. A good part of this is that the users don't really know what questions to ask yet.

What Microsoft decided to do with this was create a dashboard. The dashboard includes a set of refinement links up the top. The refinement links are determined algorithmically, based on the most common related references in peer review journals. So if you search on diabetes, you will see the most common terms which are used in related journals when they write about diabetes. It's a nifty way to help users quickly refine their search, while providing the most current relevant links on the topic.

In addition, Live Search presents a list of articles inline on the results page in it's left column. These are articles that are targeted at helping the average consumer by providing information on the topic of their search. These sources are selected because of the authoritative nature of the source, and the material is generally introductory in nature, so a consumer can rapidly learn the basics.

It's a great example of vertical search in action - where specialized information is accessed in a custom way, and presented in a custom way to meet the unique needs of the audience.

Posted by on 9:25 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Social Media for SEM Savvy Small Biz Owners

Social media campaigns and traffic generally have lower conversion rates -- especially from sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. A huge percentage of visitors from those sites will never buy anything. The challenge, then, is monetizing the traffic. In today's Little Biz column, "Social Media for SEM Savvy Small Biz Owners," Carrie Hill explains how a small business owner can benefit from social media.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: What's in a (Domain) Name? Take 2

As much as some people would like to have the industry more regulated and standardized, SEO is both art and science. The art part includes opinion. In today's au Natural column, "What's in a (Domain) Name? Take 2," Mark Jackson responds to reader criticism and sticks by his opinion that hyphenated domain names are spammy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 10, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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:

  • It's All in the Links
    According to Matt Cutts, it really doesn't make much difference to Google whether you choose subdomains or subdirectories for your site.
  • The Human Equation: Giving Back Internet Style at SES Chicago
    The World Wide Web has changed how we do everything, including (potentially) the way we give back to our community. But, what do nonprofit organizations look like in the Web 2.0 world?
  • Online TV forecast sees huge growth ahead
    New research by Informa Telecoms and MediaSome forecasts 38.4 million homes worldwide will receive TV via the Internet by 2012.
  • SEW Experts: Search Engines, Silos, SES Solutions
    Not long ago, it was easier to justify the existence of disparate marketing functions, each working within its own domain. Today, consumers move between touch points with ease and expect consistent and meaningful messages to be delivered on their terms.
  • SEW Experts: Content Advertising Best Practices in Action
    In previous columns, David Szetela advocated turning off your content ad campaigns. Now he puts together all of the best practices he's shared in an example of a campaign that will finally perform, equipping you to turn your new and improved content campaigns back on.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 5:51 PM | Permalink

Online TV forecast sees huge growth ahead

Steve Clarke of Variety reports on new research by Informa Telecoms and MediaSome that forecasts 38.4 million homes worldwide will receive TV via the Internet by 2012. In the shorter term, Informa is forecasting 10.6 million online TV households by the end of 2007, double the 2006 figure.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 1:30 PM | Permalink

It's All in the Links

Matt Cutts did a blog post bright and early this morning (just after midnight) about subdomains and subdirectories. Matt clarifies the definition of each:

Just as a reminder, in a URL such as subdomain.example.com/subdirectory/ , the subdomain is “subdomain” and the subdirectory is “subdirectory” (also sometimes called a folder).

Matt goes onto say that it really does not make much difference to Google which you choose for your site. He also explains that setting up a subdomain is generally a bit harder than setting of a subdirectory. Matt tends to lean toward using a subdirectory over a subdomain as well (as do I).

Here are a few extra points I'd like to make about the way these things work:

1. From a ranking perspective it truly makes no difference. It's all in the links (had to get the title in there somehow). If you have a subdomain (content.yourdomain.com) that is linked to by the main domain (www.yourdomain.com), and you also have a subdirectory (www.youdomain.com/content) that is linked to by your domain in exactly the same way, the crawler treatment, and the indexing and ranking of the two will basically be identical.

2. That said, I do think that there is a slightly greater risk that a subdomain will be treated as a separate site by Google. While this risk is fairly low, I don't think there is zero risk. I say this because it is entirely conceivable that the subdomain is not operated and managed by the same people who operate and manage the main domain.

This risk is probably greater for smaller sites not yet trusted as much by Google. Bottom line: if you have a relatively new site, steer away from subdomains and stick with subfolders. No need to complicate your life after all.

3. For larger more well established sites, I don't think there is any risk of this being an issue. Using subdomains or subfolders is a matter of choice. I've worked with massive media companies that have large families of large sites that use subdomains heavily.

Subdomains can provide a preferable way to organize the site, particularly when dealing with highly varied topics or channels of delivery (e.g. video, mobile, etc.). This is especially true if the nature of the content or channels makes it more likely people will link to it directly.

Summary

Ultimately, I think the key point is the first one. How you link to your subdomain or subfolder guides the behavior of the crawler. There is no magic juice that accrues to either method, and using a subdomain does not make it more likely you'll get multiple listings in the search results.

Posted by on 9:50 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Search Engines, Silos, SES Solutions

Not long ago, it was easier to justify the existence of disparate marketing functions, each working within its own domain. Today, consumers move between touch points with ease and expect consistent and meaningful messages to be delivered on their terms. In today's Search Ads column, "Search Engines, Silos, SES Solutions," Matt Spiegel shares details of a panel discussion he participated in at SES Chicago where it was noted that if we begin by asking questions about the needs of the consumer, then the goals of the business silos are naturally harder to justify.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Content Advertising Best Practices in Action

In previous columns, David Szetela advocated turning off your content ad campaigns. In today's Content Advertising column, "Content Advertising Best Practices in Action," he puts together all of the best practices he's shared in an example of a campaign that will finally perform, equipping you to turn your new and improved content campaigns back on.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 8, 2007

The Human Equation: Giving Back Internet Style at SES Chicago

Last Monday, I moderated a session at Search Engine Strategies Chicago entitled, “The Human Equation: Giving Back Internet Style.” I wasn't able to live blog and moderate the session at the same time, so I'd like to give you a belated report from SES Chicago on the latest developments in community and technology for nonprofit organizations.

The World Wide Web has changed how we do everything, including (potentially) the way we give back to our community. But, what do nonprofit organizations look like in the Web 2.0 world?

According to Darian Rodriguez Heyman, Executive Director, Craigslist Foundation, there are great opportunities and challenges facing nonprofit organizations today.

While there are many resources available to support today's social entrepreneur – whether they are dedicated fighters who stand up for civil rights, women's rights, the environment, education, child protection, gay rights, public health, or other socially responsible causes – there is a need for more practical wisdom to help nonprofit leaders succeed in their mission and manage their organizations more effectively.

The mission of the Craigslist Foundation is to leverage the power of the Craigslist brand to create a rising tide that lifts all boats and creates a true movement in more than one nonprofit sector or interest area. Darian envisions a single point of entry to the nonprofit sector for emerging leaders and is helping to make this a reality through free and low cost events and online resources, connecting thousands of emerging and established leaders with vital support organizations, ideas and peers. Ultimately, his hope is that this focal point will bring an overarching sense of unity and community to the entire nonprofit sector, inspiring increased collaboration and effectiveness throughout civil society.

According to Ben Rattray, Founder & CEO, Change.org, the dawn of the internet brought expectations that online giving would transform philanthropy, making it more transparent, personal, and efficient. But, with the exception of the success of disaster giving, the internet has largely fallen short of these expectations and currently comprises only about 3% of total giving annually.

Ben proposed that the reason for this shortcoming is that the first stage of the internet didn't fundamentally change the relationship between nonprofits and donors, but instead caused organizations to transfer decreasingly effective practices from offline fundraising to an online format. Websites replaced brochures and email replaced direct mail, but the means of communication has remained largely impersonal and one-way.

Web 2.0 tools represent the potential to transform philanthropy in a way that the first wave of the internet wasn't able to, through the following four means:
1. enabling nonprofits to personalize their communication with donors,
2. empowering donors to more richly participate in the organizations they care about and magnify their impact by working with others to fundraise and take collective action,
3. leveraging existing social connections to spread an organization's message and forge a sense of solidarity around its cause, and
4. facilitating the creation of broad issue-based online communities that help donors more effectively target their giving.

Nan Dawkins, Partner, Serengeti Communications, completely agreed with Ben about the shortcomings. Her comments focused on how NPO's continue to try to fit Web 2.0 into their old thinking, i.e., using social media as funnel sites (essentially campaign sites) into the donation or action process. This is fine, but there is so much MORE going on at the individual level in a Web 2.0 world.

According to Nan, NPO's are experiencing a version of what companies are going through in Web 2.0: Companies are agonizing over the loss of control over defining their own brands; nonprofits are actually losing control of the issues, as individuals decide what they will work on, how they will work on it, when they will work on it, etc.

Individuals no longer have to go through an NPO to make change, and they often don't. Still, NPO's are trying to control the message and “herd cats” to get individuals to create/speak in ways that benefit the organization as opposed to facilitating existing work at the individual level on issues/causes that are important to the organization.

Dave Bascom of SEO.com filled in for Katie Winterbottom, Director of Development & Outreach, Grassroots.org, who got stranded in New York due to weather delays and couldn't get to Chicago for the panel on Monday.

Dave didn't have a lot of prep time, but he has a very close relationship with Grassroots.org and Katie had a good PowerPoint presentation and notes. So he was happy to jump in and speak on the “Giving Back” panel.

He/she/they basically had two calls to action:
1. If you are a nonprofit and need help with online marketing and SEO, sign up for the services offered by Grassroots.org. Also, be sure to check out their Nonprofit SEO Guide for tips on getting started with SEO for your nonprofit.
2. If you're an SEO and you want to volunteer some of your time to offer your expertise to help a non-profit improve their search engine visibility, contact Dave through this form. Dave said it's a great way to give something back and start putting out some of that good karma.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 4:08 PM | Permalink

December 7, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 7, 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 5:11 PM | Permalink

Thoughts on Don Schultz's Keynote at SES

On Monday afternoon at SES Chicago, Don Schultz of Northwestern University was the featured keynote speaker. His presentation focused on providing some perspective on the maturity of the search industry. For a bunch of great quotes from the presentation, check out the write up by Kevin Heisler.

The overriding theme of the presentation can be captured in a few of his key observations:

  1. The amount of money spent on traditional marketing in the past year was $2.5 trillion. This is way more than we have in our tiny little industry at this point.
  2. Marketing courses today are still based on the 4 Ps - Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. This is what is in all the marketing text books.
  3. CEOs are not going to get moved by the quality of the results or ROI of a marketing campaign that involves 1% or less of their buget. It's just not on their radar.
  4. Finding ways to integrate with traditional marketing is critical to the growth of the search industry.

One major theme that underscored the presentation was that today's search marketing operates in an environment where the customer is in control. In addition, search marketing is accountable. You can actually measure the ROI. Traditional marketers don't like this.

In addition, traditional marketing uses a "srpay and pray" methodology. Everything is "push" oriented, and the customer has much less control.

This has evolved so that it's all about the brand. Products and services can be copied, so brand ends up being the differentiator. Brand advertising was effectively invented by Proctor & Gamble back in the early days of TV. One way you can think about integrating with tradiotnal marketing: reputation management. Reputation management is interesting because that is all about brand as well.

The biggest thing I liked about his presentation was that he reminds us all to look at the bigger picture. It's easy to get wrapped up in the details of our day to day jobs and lose the forest for the trees. Our customers have large scale marketing problems to solve. Today, they can't spend enough on search to satisfy the demands of their business.

As Don put it: "It's not how good you are, it's more about how you fit into traditional marketing." What can you do to fit search into the broader marketing picture of your clients?

Posted by on 11:30 AM | Permalink

Google Improves AdWords Location Targeting

Google AdWords advertisers now have new options for location targeting of their ads. The geo-targeting feature now shows advertisers an interactive map showing the locations selected for each ad. Targeting options have been made more flexible, according to the AdWords blog:

"For example, let's say you run an online store, and you ship to all of the United States except Hawaii and Alaska. With these new targeting options, you can target your campaign to the U.S. and exclude those two states. Or, you might run campaigns that are relevant to markets across the United States and a few cities in Europe -- now you can target all of those locations in one single campaign."

Advertisers can search or browse for countries, regions, and cities; select a preset bundle of locations; choose a point on the map and specify a radius around it where ads will appear; or target a custom shape on the map. In all methods, advertisers can also exclude areas within the selected locations.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 11:29 AM | Permalink

Top 10 stories from SES Chicago – Day 4

It's Day 4 at Search Engine Strategies Chicago and the last session ended at 12:30 p.m. Matt McGowan's comprehensive list of press and blog coverage from the final day of the conference is posted over on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Looking through more than 30 news stories and blog posts from Thursday, Dec. 6, here are the top 10 stories from SES Chicago on Day 4:

1. SES Session: Kevin Ryan Unplugged
By Jolina Pettice, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
“I was surprised when getting involved with this conference how many people could not distinguish between strategy and tactic,” stated Kevin Ryan at the top of my final session of a whirlwind SES Chicago.

2. SES Chicago 2007: Danny Sullivan
WebProNews talked with Editor of SearchEngineLand.com, Danny Sullivan at the Search Engine Strategies 2007 Conference in Chicago. He gives us his perspective of the conference and describes the sessions he thought to be very helpful and informational. He also talks about a controversy discussed in a session about sitemaps.

3. Are We Too Excited About Personalization?
By Mike Murray, Fathom SEO Search Engine Marketing Blog
The good thing about these conferences, including Search Engine Strategies in Chicago this week, is that they put some issues in perspective. In other words, there has been a big buzz about personalization on Google this year. Any change is going to have its pros and cons. So why not make search more relevant to a user if personal profiles can enable Google to adapt to an individual's search preferences and patterns?

4. SES Chicago 2007: David Isenberg on Net Neutrality
By David Dalka, Creating Revenue and Retention
I'd like to thank Kevin Ryan for bringing in this speaker and challenging the audience to think about this issue. My follow up question is how can the SES community be best utilized to be an activist catalyst for this?

5. So You Want to Be a Search Marketer at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago
By Li Evans, Search Marketing Gurus
Kevin Ryan, who moderated this panel, said, “I like to call this ‘the panel for my mom, cuz she's still waiting for me to get a real job.'” This is a group of entrepreneurs who've come together to tell you the ups and downs of being a search marketer.

6. Video Interview With David Wallace at SES Chicago
By Li Evans, Search Marketing Gurus
After the “So You Want To Be a Search Marketer” panel here at the Search Engine Strategies search marketing event here in Chicago, I got the chance to sit down and talk with panelist David Wallace.

7. Dealing with Difficult Clients
By Chris Boggs, Search Engine Roundtable
Moderated by Jeff Rohrs, who states this this will hopefully be an Oprah-like therapy session (laughs).

8. Fun With Dynamic Websites
By Justin Davy, Search Engine Roundtable
It's extremely important for IT and Marketing to work together. Kiss and make up!!! IT guys do more than play quake.

9. SES Session: Landing Page Optimization Clinic
By Mike Yanke, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Focus is a tricky thing. Especially when describing a product that has so much too it. How can you possibly explain a detailed product, like a customized laptop, for instance – in just a few bullet points? The ideal prospect will want to read about every last feature – that's simply their demeanor.

10. SEM Pricing Models: SES Chicago 2007
By: Navneet Kaushal, Search Newz
How should you charge for SEM work? Monthly fee? Percentage of ad spend? Percentage of sales? We explore a variety of options in this session. The percentage of the spend SEM model is one of the most common of SEM pricing models, this model in particular allows for the ease of client budgeting, the profits of the agency increase with the campaigns, it great and easy for new clients.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 1:21 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Wherefore Art Thou SEO?

With so many so-called search professionals on the market today, it's easy to pick one that's inept -- or even unscrupulous. So where are all the honest SEOs? In today's Outsourced column, "Wherefore Art Thou SEO?," William Flaiz discusses what to look for in an effective and ethical SEO.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEM Agency: Uphill Battle?

There are many challenges involved in setting up a search marketing business. Our new and ever-changing industry presents some unique challenges. In today's debut Business of Search column, "SEM Agency: Uphill Battle?," Elixir Systems' President Fionn Downhill shares some basic business advice on how to get started.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 6, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:32 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Adds Support for Page-Level Exclusion Tags for Non-HTML Docs

Yahoo is giving webmasters more control over page-level directives to its Slurp crawler for non-HTML files.

The X-Robots-Tag is a page-level exclusion tag that is used to direct a search engine spider in how it should treat that page. Similar to the way a robots.txt file is used, or a meta tag, the X-Robots-Tag can use the NOINDEX, NOARCHIVE, NOSNIPPET, or NOFOLLOW tag to tell spiders not to index a page, not to display a cached version of a page in search results, not to display a summary of the page in search results, or not to crawl links on a page.

The difference is that the X-Robots-Tag directive is processed in the http header, so it can now be used on non-HTML pages like PDF files, Word documents, PowerPoint, video, and other file types. It can still be used on HTML pages as well.

Yahoo also gave a weather report: "Along with this change, we'll be rolling out additional changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days. We expect the update will be completed early next week, but you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index during this process."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 1:47 PM | Permalink

Google Improves AdWords Troubleshooting

Google has upgraded its Ads Diagnostic Tool, a tool that allows AdWords advertisers to determine why their ads may not be showing on a given SERP. Where it previously listed just one reason why an ad might not appear, it now lists multiple reasons, and multiple issues that should be fixed.

The tool is accessible within an AdWords account, either via a magnifying glass icon next to an individual keyword in an ad group or in the account's 'Tools' page.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 1:23 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: A Convenient Truth: To Link Builders With Love

There's no doubt link building is a win-win. The only way to acquire relevant and meaningful links is to provide some value to the Internet community. In today's Link Love column, "A Convenient Truth: To Link Builders With Love," Sage Lewis explains that the question is not, "How do I get links?" The right question is, "How do I become interesting and valuable to an online community?" or, "How do I differentiate myself in a sea of sameness?"

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book?

It's challenging to learn search marketing. Since the rules are made by the search engines and their algorithms, all we can do is try the tactics we learn from others and see what works and what doesn't. In today's debut SEM.EDU column, "SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book?," Symetri Internet Marketing's Ron Jones begins an exploration of some of the best ways to learn SEM and SEO.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 5, 2007

Podcast & Audio Search

Preparation was the name of the game at today's Search Engine Strategies Chicago “Podcast & Audio Search” session presented by Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit and Daron Babin of Webmaster Radio, and moderated by Danny Sullivan. The importance of preparing your show's structure, establishing your software, your production process (whether or not that will involve a production studio), your broadcast frequency, and how the whole idea of this marketing tactic fits into your overall search marketing and brand marketing strategies.

Amanda's presentation focused on the rundown on how to establish yourself as a podcaster if it's the right direction for your overall online marketing efforts.

She broke down the benefits of podcasting from the perspective of the marketing strategies for brand marketers and search marketers. Brand marketers can make use of the direct communication channel it creates to the consumer, the engagement through emotional connection, for search marketers, it's another (very optimizable) channel through which you can gain a larger presence in the search engines, and, physically speaking, more real estate on search results within the new universal search formats.
They're easily indexed by engines, but there are difficulties measuring effectiveness. It augments your site content, but you have less control over ownership as it can find a home all across the web. This makes it important, Danny noted, to orient your listeners to who you are, whom you're speaking for, and what your show is about (be sure to brand your ‘cast!).

Don't jump right in, though, says Amanda. It's important to ask yourself, before you get started, what strategy fits your ability to fulfill a schedule or, in a more general sense, to match with your image. Will your podcast be an occasion-based one-off? Will you have a series? It's important to make a commitment to your model and to openly frame your ‘cast by that strategy. Some important tips about thinking ahead to position your show: research your name and establish it; distinguish between your episodes and be sure you know what your keywords are in your space for optimization of your tags and, if you decide to abstract rather than publish a transcript, the abstract description. Develop a long-range strategy for how audio fits with marketing and search efforts, and the whole process will fit more easily with your overall SEM and SEO efforts.

She laid out a 4-step piece in a comprehensive podcasting strategy: optimization of the sound file and the id3 tags, optimization of the web page, creation and validation of feeds, and the submission and monitoring of your distribution on the back end.

I'll just give a brief run-down of some of her best tips on podcast optimization and relevant site optimization, as the creation/validation and submission/monitoring processes really work best with the sorts of graphical aids she had on screen (Mike Yanke runs through the list with a little more detail):
From a top-line perspective of audio file optimization (though Amanda recommends going into depth in your use of tags, such as capitalizing on the embedded files tag), the most important aspects are the usual suspects like assigning your title, artist, track name, etc., and optimize these to the extent that is feasible (“pdkstmktg03243” could read “podcast-marketing-03243”). Beyond the file itself, however, the on-page optimization for your site's listing of the episodes is very important—some tactics include creating optimized landing pages for each episode, a full directory page with appropriate anchor text linking to your episodes' pages, and providing some kind of abstract or transcript can be effective ways of optimizing the landing pages for the engines (transcription services are the best route unless you've got more time than you know what to do with).

Daron went more into the makeup of the podcasting medium and a few broadcasting strategies, but he agreed strongly with Amanda about planning ahead for your podcast strategy: he advised to take every aspect seriously, such as not going with any free podcast hosting services. Make sure you've got a hosting deal set up, because if you mean to distribute the content efficiently to an engaged audience, you can't have sluggish downloads or hiccups in service. “All it takes is one blogger, just one [linking in to you], and they'll melt your account” on your server. Both Darren and Amanda were strongly in favor of preparing for this “worst-case” scenario by reserving extra bandwidth, either on an external host or through some deal with your current provider.

He reinforced the importance of traditional on-page SEO for your podcast, but with new twists unique to the podcast medium, such as optimizing for podcast directories, especially iTunes. In iTunes, there are ways to control how your podcast is presented in the store: for starters, use the iTunes store links to promote the feed through iTunes on your page—iTunes appreciates the linkback and the traffic, and this can help your podcast's rankings in the store. For the wider selection of podcasting directories, be sure to optimize (with applicable terms!) your feed description—and, of course, subsequently your episode titles & tags etc.—in whatever you've chosen as its primary home. This will help listeners find your feed more readily.

As far as targeting your podcast to an audience, you should be very much aware of who the people you're reaching out to are: podcasting is extremely vertically-oriented, so you can really use this as a channel to define your company in your market, but you need to remain aware of who the people in your market are. So of course you want to develop your presence and image online, but does this actually help you? Of course, this means that the people who are listening to your feed are likely to be very much engaged with the topics you're addressing; so be careful what you say—if you have enough content out there and you start to rank, you want only what you want people to hear and see to be available on this channel that can allow you so much control over your image, but none over where that image will crop up.

Daron also put a lot of emphasis on measurement and both he and Amanda talked about stragegies for controlling costs in order to make this as viable a medium for building brand-awareness as possible. Towards the end of his presentation, Daron touched on the uses of statistics, not just as a bean-counting of listenership size and engagement, but as a tool for knowing, podcast to podcast, which had the most appeal to the engines by virtue of optimization and then, when these optimized podcasts landed in front of the eyes of a web searcher or subscriber, which of them invited the most listener engagement—this is a great tactic we've seen success with ourselves, and it can tell you a lot about the matchup between 1)the content you're pushing, 2)the optimized terms in your space, and 3)the mindset of your potential audience.

This was an information-packed session from two podcasting experts, and if you haven't heard them on air, be sure to visit Amanda Watlington on Weekly Insight and Daron Babin on WebMasterRadio.fm.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 11:18 PM | Permalink

Top 10 stories from SES Chicago – Day 3

It's Day 3 at Search Engine Strategies Chicago and I can't keep up with all the stories coming out of the conference and expo. If you want a comprehensive list, Matt McGowan, the VP of Marketing for Incisive Media, has posted one over on the Search Engine Strategies Blog. It's getting so long, that he needed help from Sandra Proulx of PAN Communications and John Mulligan of SEO-PR to compile it today.

Looking through more than 60 news stories and blog posts from Wednesday, Dec. 5, here are the top 10 stories from SES Chicago on Day 3:

1. Net Neutrality: What Can We Do?
By Rebecca Lieb, ClickZ News
Reformed telco executive David S. Isenberg, author of the influential essay "The Rise of the Stupid Network: Why the Intelligent Network was a Good Idea Once but isn't Anymore", delivered the morning keynote today at SES Chicago. His talk was entitled “Five Reasons Why Search Engine Marketers Need a Neutral Net.”

2. SES Chicago 07: Brad Goldberg of Microsoft
By Kara Ratliff, WebProNews Videos
WebProNews continues its coverage of SES Chicago 2007 with Brad Goldberg, General Manager of the Search Business Group for Microsoft. Brad gives his insight to the future of search engines, Microsoft's approach, and how small business owners can get involved.

3. SES Chicago 07: Don E. Schultz Professor at Northwestern University
By Kara Ratliff, WebProNews Videos
WebProNews is at the 2007 Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago and Kara spoke with Don E. Schultz, Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University and President of Agora, Inc. about search marketing. Schultz describes how search is now involved in marketing and how customers can now find their way to you now.

4. Thoughts on Seth Godin's keynote at SES
By Eric Enge, Search Engine Watch Blog
Because of the prior coverage, Eric's post focused on offering some additional impressions about a few key points in his keynote. The first is that watching Seth on stage is like watching a nightclub entertainer. And it is entertaining. He also provided a compelling presentation that was completely text free. Every single slide was a live example of some point related to the Meatball Sundae.

5. Tales from SES
By Alan Chapell, Chapell Blog
Earlier this week, Alan participated in this year's Search Engine Strategies Show. He was on a panel with Jack Myers of JackMyers.com, Pauline Ores of IBM, and moderated by Kevin Ryan and Kevin Heisler of Search Engine Watch.

6. SES Session: Personalization, User Data & Search
By Jolina Pettice, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Whether you're part of the search industry or just affected by it, you've probably not only grown used to change but are excited by it. Attending a session this morning about personalized and universal search, we had a panel full of excited folks and audience members all bursting at the seams to discuss what these two types of search bring.

7. Last Minute Holiday Search Tactics
By Chris Boggs, Search Engine Roundtable
Kevin Ryan, the conference's organizer and moderator of this session, says that search is great since you do not have to have the campaign “in the can” months in advance. He cites the Aquadots story and how they are being recalled, and that many ads on Black Friday still featured the product in their creative since they could not remove it in time.

8. Managing Automated PPC Bid Management
By Marty Weintraub, Search Engine Roundtable
Managing PPC without automation is becoming impossible to do by hand. Tools at different price points are becoming more prevalent and require serious expertise. This SES session discussed using API bid management applications to increase ROI and gain a competitive advantage.

9. Selling your integrated plan to the C-Suite: SES Chicago
By Simon Heseltine, RB Digital Rodeo
You have an integrated marketing plan all ready, all you need is the approval from the C-level crowd. How can you make them understand what it is that you're trying to do, and why the tactics that you're proposing are the best way forward? That's the idea behind this session, moderated by Rebecca Lieb of Click Z.

10. Strolling the Exhibit Floor at SES Chicago
http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/exhibit-floor-ses/
By Jolina Pettice, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Exploring the exhibit hall at SES Chicago 2007. Jolina's photos of the Google Booth, SES Chicago Exhibitors and SES Chicago attendees on Day 3 of Search Engine Strategies Chicago captured the “other side of the story” at SES Chicago. While the conference sessions were packed — and full of news and useful information, so was the trade show floor. For example, the Daily Search Cast with Danny Sullivan and Daron Babin from the WebmasterRadio.FM booth at SES Chicago was as lively an event as any of the sessions.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 10:21 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 6:30 PM | Permalink

Thoughts on Seth Godin's keynote at SES

Seth Godin provided the morning keynote on Tuesday morning at SES Chicago. His talk was an overview of his latest book, Meatball Sundae. He recently did a pre-show seminar that received excellent coverage from Kevin Newcomb and Lisa Barone, yours truly, and I also interviewed Seth about the book. In addition, every attendee to SES Chicago got a free copy of his book, a book which has not yet been released for sale to the general public.

Because of the prior coverage, this post will focus on offering some additional impressions about a few key points in his keynote. The first is that watching Seth on stage is like watching a nightclub entertainer. And it is entertaining. He also provided a compelling presentation that was completely text free. Every single slide was a live example of some point related to the Meatball Sundae.

The focus of the book is how to succeed in the new marketing environment. New marketing here refers in a general way to the environment that is emerging from the Internet. One of the big observations about this is just how much control a consumer has today, and also just how easy it is for them to express their opinion of your product or service.

If you are looking to truly capitalize on the new types of marketing opportunities that exist in the new marketing environment, there are a couple of major things that you should really think about doing:

1. Design your business around the new marketing. Older businesses that were not designed around the new marketing environment have difficulty in making the shift. Seth cites the example of Walmart's MySpace knockoff, called "The Hub" which was instantly doomed to failure from the start. One reviewer commented: "Dude, is there anything more excruciating than some lametard adult trying to speak to teenagers in their own language?"

Another example that he cites is Bud TV. This also had an underwhelming response.

The problem with these initiatives? It is really hard for a business built on one set of assumptions about the market to simply take on a new set of assumptions and change overnight. There are often major cultural and economic problems for them in making such a shift. For example, if your business is built on a model of delivering a product to a customer in a week or two, and you have a new competitor who delivers it to you in the same day, it will be very, very difficult to make that shift.

2. Design your busines to capitalize on major trends in the market. Seth itemized 14 in this presentation which are also featured in his book. There are more than 14, but these are the ones he has chosen to emphasize. The idea is if your business can is leveraging some of these trends (even just a few of them) you are more likely to "have the wind at your back"

For example, instead of worrying about what it means when the consumer is in control, turn this into an asset for your business. One fundamental way to do this is by completely unbundling your products, and/or offering a wide range of "long tail" solutions. People today want to have a lot of choices - so give it to them.

Don't worry that consumers can communicate to other consumers what they think about you, embrace it. Engage directly with the consumer. You can create mechanisms for doing this on your site, or you can go out to the web and find out where they are talking about your company or where they talk about the types of problems that your products or services are trying to address.

One key to this is being able to tell an authentic story. In other words, if you are trying to tell a story to the market, and people are able to figure out that the story you are telling is not genuine, you are going to be into a whole world of hurt.

Summary

Ultimately, major market shifts create new winners. That is why EBay rules auctions on the web, and not Sotheby's. Understanding what the major trends are, and the new marketing environment will put you one step ahead of the competition.

Meatball Sundae covers these things in much more detail than I have here, or that we collectively did in the articles referenced about. It's thought provoking indeed.

Posted by on 9:19 AM | Permalink

Who Holds the Keys to Video-Related Ads?

Nielsen will release a service enabling broadcasters and cable networks to control and make money from their online video distribution (per today's WSJ, subscription only). Through fingerprinting technology, the video may be blocked, permitted to load, or "perhaps load only if it is attached to a particular piece of advertising.”

This announcement makes me wonder who holds the keys to video-related ads. With Nielsen acting as a neutral party, I would like to believe the largest rights holders keep control of their ad sales and sources.

However, we can't predict new moves from social networks, such as YouTube. What if the network itself starts to block copyrighted clips, but you want to show your clips and ads? What if the network begins showing ads that somehow interrupt yours? What if you prefer to use the network's ad inventory after all?

Regardless of these unknowns, the Nielsen announcement is interesting news. We'll see who gets real traction in this "video cop" marketplace, and how they charge for or otherwise monetize their services.

Posted by on 2:39 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Always Rank No. 1 in Google: Custom Search

Implementing a Custom Search Engine won't change your organic search engine rankings. It will give you the flexibility to make your listing the top result on every SERP when visitors conduct a search from your site. In today's By the Numbers column, "Always Rank No. 1 in Google: Custom Search," Eric Enge shows you how, with a basic level of programming effort, you can get those search results and substantially customize the look and feel of the results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEM Brand Reputation Management

The cold harsh reality for those who have ever purchased traditional media is: it happens. How fast can you pull your ads? In today's Searching for Meaning column, "SEM Brand Reputation Management," Kevin Ryan discusses the Aqua Dots disaster, and methods of damage control.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 4, 2007

Top 10 stories from SES Chicago – Day 2

It's Day 2 at SES Chicago and the stories coming out of the conference and expo are growing. If you want a comprehensive list, Matt McGowan, the VP of Marketing for Incisive Media, has posted one on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Looking through the 50 news stories and blog posts from Tuesday, Dec. 4, here are the top 10 stories from SES Chicago on Day 2:

1. SEMs Get ‘No Respect' No More
By Kevin Heisler, Search Engine Watch, Dec. 4
As an SEO or search marketer, recruiters call you the hottest commodity in marketing. At Search Engine Strategies, you can't walk down the hall or sit at the bar without getting spammed by job offers. Good times.

2. The Unfiltered Reality of SES Chicago
By Marty Weintraub, Aim Clear Blog
Much has been written about the inevitable evolution of Search Engine Strategies which, though destined to occur eventually, happened cold turkey this week with the overlapping of PubCon. We'll I'm here in Chicago and I've got feedback for you straight from the source.

3. Search Industry Nostalgia a Reminder of How Far We've Come
By Andrew Goodman, Search Engine Land
As I get settled in at SES Chicago 2007, the search marketing industry feels as dynamic as ever; who else could make the grand old 1927-built Chicago Hilton feel so alive with pleasure?

4. SES Chicago ‘07: Jim MÃŒller Tech Lead for Google's Universal Search
By Abby Prince, WebProNews Videos
WebProNews reporter Abby Prince speaks with Jim Muller, Tech Lead for Google Universal Search. Mr. Muller talks about Google's view of SEO's future (hint: it still involves getting those links), and also about Google's continued expansion of Universal Search and blended search.

5. SES Chicago Keynote – Seth Godin & 14 Trends to Avoid a Meatball Sundae
By Jolina Pettice, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Day two at SES Chicago opened with a keynote speech from Seth Godin talking about Meatball Sundaes. So what's this Meatball Sundae all about?

6. Are Paid Links Evil?
By Marty Weintraub, Search Engine Roundtable
Google is on a rampage to devalue sites who engage in link buying and selling. Do paid links ruin the integrity of search engine results? Are they evil?

7. SES Session: Actionable Social Media
By Mike Yanke, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
By 2010, 70% of all content online will be developed by individuals, so claims iCrossing's Adam Lavelle, articulated during the session “Actionable Social Media” today at SES Chicago.

8. Usability and SEO - SES Chicago live blog
By Dave Bascom, Search Trends
I thought I would try to live blog this session. I'm realizing that it's hard to keep up with everything that's going on. We'll see if I have the stamina (and laptop battery power) to do more of this. Very good session, btw - MANY excellent points came up.

9. SES Chicago: The I-word, Discussed
By David A. Utter, WebProNews
If you want to build up investment interest in your SEO/SEM firm, you have to make your company compelling enough to separate capital from capitalists.

10. SES Chicago 2007 - Should Kevin Ryan Make a Hammer Video?
By David Dalka, Creating Revenue and Retention
During the universal search session, the usefulness of video in regards to boring business items was discussed. Kevin Ryan asserted, “Should I make a video of me hitting myself with a ball ping hammer?”

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 11:03 PM | Permalink

Hitwise to launch paid and organic search tools

Sometimes, the news at SES Chicago is hidden in plain sight. For example, during a quick tour of the trade show floor, which opened today, I bumped into Matt Tatham, Manager of Media Relations for Hitwise.

Without twisting his arm too hard, I was able to get him to share an advanced copy of a press release that won't go out until tomorrow. In it, Hitwise will announce the addition of several new features to its Search Intelligence product, including Paid and Organic and Fast Moving Search Terms data.

Hitwise Search Intelligence is part of the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence service, which is based on how 10 million US Internet users interact with more than one million websites on a daily basis.

The new features enable marketers to pinpoint opportunities to refine keyword portfolios and improve the effectiveness of search marketing campaigns.

For example, Paid and Organic reports allow marketers to analyze which paid terms and organic listings have been most successful in driving traffic to competitive websites or to an entire industry.

Fast Moving Search Term reports identify the terms that have increased in popularity each week across all search engines. This data can identify emerging search behavior trends to better understand what is top of mind with consumers.

For more details on Hitwise Search Intelligence, you can visit www.hitwise.com, or for up to date analysis of online trends, you can visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 6:51 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:45 PM | Permalink

Google Launches Local PlusBox

Google has begun using its new PlusBox feature in local search results. The Local PlusBox appears as a plus sign and hotlink to a Google Map appearing after an AdWords ad in the top position at the top of the page.

Google Local PlusBox

When clicked, the PlusBox will expand right in the search results page, showing a map, address, driving instructions, and phone number, in addition to the location name that appears beneath the last line of ad.

Google Local PlusBox - open

The Local PlusBox will only appear on locally targeted ads. Advertisers will not be charged for clicks on the Local PlusBox, map, or driving instructions; they will only pay for clicks on their local business ad that lead to their landing page.

The Local PlusBox is being rolled out to AdWords accounts in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 3:44 PM | Permalink

Big Site, Big Search at SES Chicago

I sat in on a unique session today at SES Chicago called “Big Site, Big Search,” which explored the role and shape of Search Marketing in large and even global corporations. Kevin Ryan moderated, with Bill Hunt of Global Strategies International, Amanda Evans of WebMama.com, Inc., Olivier Lemaignen of Intuit, Randy Peterson of Procter & Gamble, and Carol Kruse of Coca-Cola all coming together for a stellar panel with some interesting perspectives.

Meet the panel:

Carol offered some great insights into the unique problems of scale that organizations of Coke's size face, both internally with respect to change and externally with respect to meeting the demands of a global brand in a globalized medium.

Olivier's primary concern was for the education of the client.

Randy came out as the strongest proponent of using large organizations' size to take firm control of the kind of campaigns of scale only they can produce (and, therefore, botch up).

Bill really beat the drum for integration of large-scale SEM's and SEO's to the structures of the company—this came across as sort of the inverse conservative corollary of Seth's 9AM vision towards a new-economy Giza, that if you as the SEO aren't going to change a Fortune 500 overnight through its website architecture then first and foremost make sure you aren't slathering on the hot fudge.

Amanda pushed the idea of identifying specific site architecture problems and fixing those hurt areas. She positioned her methodology as very sympathetic to the needs and goals of a client with respect to SEM: a site shouldn't be redesigned, she argued, for the sake of THE INTERNET, but for the sake of the client's goals on the internet.

Do you know who I am?
Though it almost seems self-evident, the first question we should ask, the one that I was particularly glad to hear the rep's of these behemoths address, is why on earth companies with such brand recognition should need to reinvent themselves for the digital space. Coca-Cola is, anywhere and everywhere, Coca-Cola, right?
The answer seems to be, “Yes, but not automatically.”
Some of the stunning results of Coke's successes in their recent pilot online marketing and optimization projects:
Coke's optimization efforts (which the panel didn't have time to go into detail on) correlated with a 139% improvement in registrations, 109% improvement in conversion rate, and CPA was controlled to an only 6% increase. Even for a household organization like Coke, it's important to push results beyond branded terms, a change which Coke has seen as a result of its pilot programs.
This takes on an interesting twist, however, when we examine unnecessary attempts to use the internet to make a brand even more mass-market when there is an established base of consumers online right now looking for your product. Bill advocates a strategic and judicious approach to SEM, saying big brands shouldn't be shy about optimizing with emphasis on their brands if they work.

So that's the why, but how do you do it? As Carol pointed out, “search at a consumer package goods company is a tough sell,” especially because sell-through is hard to measure with lifestyle branding; this means that search optimization requires a lot of energy in advocacy of it in order for meaningful change to occur.
How do mega-sites internally structure online marketing shifts when, as Bob Tripathi pointed out in the morning's Usability & SEO session, there are numerous concerned parties and everybody's got an agenda? Or how does a mega-brand like Coke externally maintain its online image when it's competing against eBay for rankings on branded terms? 4 answers to these questions:

How to convert friends to your search cause.
Carol said that fundamentals like missed keywords that apply to your site, showing your weak points to management, can open the door to the discussion, and case studies of big successes by comparable companies can then be very compelling in making the case for the necessity of implementing these changes. Amanda and Olivier also felt competitive analysis was the most powerful way of making your case to make change.
Randy promotes the “path of lease resistance”: find another person in your organization who can be an advocate for your cause, and fit your approach to the company's language.
Bill kept it simple and clean: “take five words.” Don't get any expensive tools, just do the search, get volume estimates, and make your case in the context of missed opportunities. Once the door is open, you can step your campaign up and make a more detailed case and lay a program out for
Kevin pressed the issue with a focus on the IT department. How do you get these gatekeepers to your site's eventual form to work actively with you on your SEM program? Both Randy and Olivier agreed that giving kudos along the way to the department showing increases in revenue resulting from their efforts can go a long way to winning them over to your program (and Olivier's firm takes this as far as setting up financial rewards tied to improvements of online performance). Carol shared the effectiveness in her projects of setting common metric benchmarks for everyone to shoot for.

How big is big? Going world-wide on the web.
Bill points out that optimization, design, and user experience are very different from country to country. Deep internal structures need to address the language in these foreign countries; if you're pushing various sites with similar content you want to be careful you're not running into a duplicate content issue. Right now, Bill says there are serious problems with differentiating between countries on the directory level (Google is picking up the domain and now the subdomain differentiations), but the “/country/”, formatting is extremely problematic right now. This echoed today's earlier Usability & SEO session, in which the panel addressed problems of engaging users across multiple languages by doing more on an international site than simply translating the body copy and publishing.

Synchronization: How to get everyone on the same page.
Bill, from a strategic point of view, approached the problem of syncing multiple teams in a large department up with one another by understanding and working with the existing structures: he pointed to sitewide style protocols as a great resource for finding initial common ground between different groups.
On the process & technical side of things, Randy emphasized how crucial it is to determine what stats everyone is going to be using—get your SEM and SEO groups using the same data set and determine how they'll access this data. This streamlines strategy discussions. Randy also dealt in a roundabout way with the problem of turf wars in response to Coke's practice—although Carol underscored the importance of challenging SEM's and SEO's to make sure they're giving you what you specifically need—of outsourcing all their metrics analysis, and only having a few Search Marketing people on the staff. Randy's work at Procter & Gamble gave him a much different and more metrics-based perspective, and he insisted on the importance of taking as much of the analysis and implementation in-house in order to ensure that they have better control over the data and, as a result, over the ultimate development of programs on their site.
Later on, following a question from the audience as to how to determine which battles a Search-Enthusiastic Marketer should pick, where do you draw the line between becoming “that *** search guy” and becoming a mover and shaker with respect to your company's online presence, Ryan returned to the idea of establishing best practices that everyone can refer to. This makes it less a personal confrontation than a goal everyone needs to address. Amanda advocated an incremental approach that would allow people to accept the budgetary needs and Carol suggested moving up to a high level on the site where the money will be and the management will be able to push for change more authoritatively.

Mistakes to not make: Kevin and Bill see stupid people.
Bill called on marketers to challenge their agencies. You can't blindly accept the agencies' thinking—your metrics might not mean what they say they mean. “Stupid money”: don't just throw money at your problem to make it go away. You might end up with an expensive site that's not crawlable [read “flash”], so do your research, and learn what it is you're trying to build and what the rules are. Among the biggest mistakes Bill sees right now is the overextension of brands when they have perfectly good target keywords and audiences right at home (I mentioned this above).
Carol played a little nicer, emphasizing the need of education, and that with the right approach, people can be won over, and she wasn't the only one to argue the importance of educating co-workers and clients in the importance of the media. Olivier pushed for this as well, and the incremental steps that Amanda advocated as well as the cost-effective and proving measures of targeting a few low-hanging fruit as suggested by Randy and Bill.

The lessons I took away from the panel were:
1. Find your Allies
2. Make your case and make your converts
3. Educate, educate, educate
4. Build and market your organization for what it is: if I'm not putting words into Bill's mouth, I think the conservative path of proving the worth of the medium to these large organizations in their own field is exactly the way to go. However much change may be demanded, the change can't happen overnight; but it needs to be started.

All in all, it was insightful advice from a panel of very singular experts in the field, and though the discussion was very much centered on large-scale optimization projects, the lessons of advocacy, measurement & accountability, and hands-on adoption of the medium are hardly exclusive to the big companies.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 2:49 PM | Permalink

Top 10 stories from SES Chicago – Day 1

It's only Day 1 at SES Chicago and there are already 40 stories coming out of the conference. If you want a comprehensive list, Matt McGowan, the VP of Marketing for Incisive Media, will be posting one shortly on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Looking through all the news articles and blog posts from Monday, Dec. 3, here are the top 10 stories from SES Chicago on just Day 1:

1. Microsoft Adds More Tools for Search Marketers
By Kevin Newcomb, Search Engine Watch
Microsoft today launched the adCenter Add-in for Excel and adExcellence accreditation program for search advertisers, and a new Webmaster Center for organic search optimizers.

2. SES Keynote Speech - Rodney Dangerfield School of Search Marketing
By Jolina Pettice, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Wrapping up the day was Don Shultz, Ph D and professor at Northwestern University, who introduced attendees to what he calls the “Rodney Dangerfield School of Search Marketing”.

3. SES Chicago: Soaring Through Universal Search
By David A. Utter, WebProNews
The speakers at the SES Chicago Orion Panel: Universal, Blended and Vertical Search, noted the need to fulfill the value proposition of search for visitors.

4. Orion Panel – Search, Privacy, and the Community in the Digital Age
By Chris Boggs, Search Engine Roundtable
Kevin Ryan said he thought he would change it up a little, this being his first SES fully in-charge. They created a pop culture video mash about search…very funny.

5. SES Chicago: Igniting Viral Campaigns
By Mike Sachoff, WebProNews
In the session "Igniting Viral Campaigns" Bill Hanekamp, CEO of The Well got things started by saying, "I get really nervous in front of SEO people, because I'm a marketing guy."

6. Mobile Search Battle Royal
By Chris Boggs, Search Engine Roundtable
Welcome to the Search Engine Roundtable coverage of Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2007. The crowd seems to be fairly large, with people trickling in and smooth lines in the registration booth.

7. Bryan Eisenberg - Redefining the Customer Conversation
By David Dalka, Creating Revenue and Retention
Bryan Eisenberg gave a great talk on the multitude of issues surrounding the challenges of successful customer conversions and conversation.

8. Global Search: Japan, China, Australia
Posted by Marty Weintraub, Aim Clear Blog
In each country there are cultural distinctions which must be honored and significant challenges surrounding keyword research.

9. Global Search: Latin America & Europe
Posted by Marty Weintraub, Aim Clear Blog
Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch moderated this session which was part two of SES's global search series here in Chicago today.

10. Meet the Web Analytics Players
By Jolina Pettice, TopRank Online Marketing Blog
In a morning session, here at SES Chicago, attendees had the chance to learn from and interact with folks from the world of Web Analytics.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 1:05 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Choosing the Best Domains for Search Engine Visibility

What's in a name? Search engine visibility starts with buying the best domains. In today's au Natural column, "How to Choose the Best Domains for Search Engine Visibility," Mark Jackson explains why choosing the right domains, and creating a domain redirect strategy, can be a valuable move in your SEO plan.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEMs Get 'No Respect' No More

At Search Engine Strategies Chicago, keynote speaker Don Shultz told search marketers in no uncertain terms that they need to start thinking differently about what they do. In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "SEMs Get 'No Respect' No More," Kevin Heisler shares Shultz's views on talent development, helping traditional marketers understand search, and a range of other topics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Measuring Cyber Monday

Is it seasonality, or the effect of your SEO efforts? In today's Big Biz column, "How to Measure Cyber Monday," Aaron Shear shows you the best way to measure the impact of traffic over time.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 3, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: December 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 5:32 PM | Permalink

SES Wit and Wisdom: The Don of Marketing

Opening Keynote this afternoon: Don E. Schultz, Professor (Emeritus-in-Service), Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern University & President of Agora, Inc.

Some quick hits from a conversation I had with the Don (not The Donald). If not yet the godfather of search marketing, he's definitely our HL Mencken. Brilliant, funny, brutally honest. His quotes: audience food for thought and candid questions.

Here's Don on Truth, Knowledge, and the American Way:

Search destroyer: "All marketing theory is based on a push marketplace. Marketers develop material and messages to push out faster, in more volume. What does the search model do? Destroys the push model. I, as a consumer, can go anywhere I want online."

How to fix traditional marketing models: "Blow 'em up and start over."

Biggest marketing problem: "Measuring campaigns separately and independently. TV versus radio versus newspaper versus online. The premise is consumers only doing one thing at time. We don't have any ways to measure multitasking behavior."

How marketing problems are solved: "There are lots of people throwing lots of money at it with no clue."

Jack Welch: "The era of Welch may be over. Leaders aren't pioneers who won the West. There's a leveling of leadership and much more interaction."

Social networks: "Social networks are there to certify and validate: I am here. I am alive. I am part of a group. I perform as part of a system."

Mobile Search: "We've defined search in Western terms. The U.S. is a Third or Fourth world country when it comes to mobile. We have five cellular protocols. The rest of the world is on one. We're idiots."

UPDATE: After the presentation, Janelle Landis of Sendtec told me, "best keynote ever."

Missed the Don? Catch him LIVE on video in the Search Engine Watch members section. Coming soon.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 12:09 PM | Permalink

SEMPO Brings Search Engines Together for Education

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is bringing representatives from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to its annual meeting for a round-robin discussion of each company's latest issues and initiatives. The event will take place at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, in room Stevens 5 at the Chicago Hilton, tonight from 6 - 7:30 p.m. Attendees will be divided into three groups – agency search marketers, in-house search marketers, and other marketers – and will spend roughly 15 minutes with each engine.

SEMPO is also kicking off the data collection phase of its annual State-of-the-SEM Market Survey. The survey is open to all search engine marketing professionals working in an agency or in-house. Participants do not need to be SEMPO members.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 9:51 AM | Permalink

Google Makes Paid Link Guidelines Crystal Clear

Google's policy on paid links has long been the same: it does not approve of buying or selling links for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings. Links that use the "nofollow" attribute or some sort of redirect to prevent the passing of PageRank are fine with them.

Today in both the Webmaster Central blog and on Matt Cutts' personal blog, the topic of paid links is discussed in detail.

"Our goal is to provide users the best search experience by presenting equitable and accurate results. We enjoy working with webmasters, and an added benefit of our working together is that when you make better and more accessible content, the internet, as well as our index, improves. This in turn allows us to deliver more relevant search results to users."

"If, however, a webmaster chooses to buy or sell links for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings, we reserve the right to protect the quality of our index. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank violates our webmaster guidelines."

Cutts goes through the history of Google's stance, and the reasons behind it. Where some webmasters questioned Google's clarity on the issue, here Cutts makes it abundantly clear that Google is indeed cracking down on buyers and sellers of links that violate its policies.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 9:31 AM | Permalink

Can Better Tools Make Up for Less Traffic for Microsoft?

The old saying goes that it's not about quantity, but quality. Can that be true for search marketing as well? Microsoft is hoping that new tools it's launching today at Search Engine Strategies Chicago will allow advertisers and webmasters to make the most of limited traffic.

In today's SearchDay, "Microsoft Adds More Tools for Search Marketers," we look at the adCenter Add-in for Excel and adExcellence accreditation program for search advertisers, and a new Webmaster Center for organic search optimizers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 7:59 AM | Permalink

Online Information Show this Week in London

While many search marketers in the U.S. are headed to Search Engine Strategies Chicago or Webmasterworld Pubcon in Las Vegas this week, our UK readers should not feel left out. This week in Olympia, London, Incisive Media is putting on the Online Information Show, from December 4-6.

The event highlights online content and information management solutions, and features a keynote from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. There are three main tracks, covering Web 2.0 issues, information search and discovery, and library and publishing.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 6:59 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: How Google, Yahoo Content Ad Matching Really Works

If you think you know how Google and Yahoo perform content ad matching, you may be surprised. In today's Content Advertising column, "How Google, Yahoo Content Ad Matching Really Works," David Szetela takes a detailed look at how content advertising campaigns really work -- how Google and Yahoo match your ad groups to appropriate pages of site content, and display your ads there.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEM Mentors: The Apprentice

In a previous column, it was suggested that the search marketing industry needs to take responsibility in solving the search marketing staffing crisis. In today's Search Ads column, "SEM Mentors: The Apprentice," Matt Spiegel shares an exchange with an SEW reader, an SEM apprentice turned mentor.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 2, 2007

SES: 4 Best SEO panels picked by SEW Expert Jackson

Seaqrch Engine Watch Expert Mark Jackson, a bold recommendation on top 4 Must-See SEO panels at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, citing Google, Grehan, Bailey and more:

Day 1 – Universal, Blended and Vertical Search
Day 2 – Usability and SEO
Day 3 – Personalization, User Data and Search
Day 4 - Fun with Dynamic Websites

Dynamic Web site? How's this for a dynamo panel:

Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink
Laura Thieme, President and Founder, Bizresearch
Matt Bailey, President, SiteLogic

Fun? You got that right.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 6:53 PM | Permalink

December 1, 2007

SES Chicago is attracting a crowd of bloggers and journalists

In the past couple of days, a small army of bloggers and journalists have indicated that they're heading for SES Chicago.

The Search Engine Watch staff will be there in force. This includes Rebecca Lieb, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of the ClickZ Network; Kevin Ryan, Global content director for SearchEngineWatch.com and Search Engine Strategies; Kevin Heisler, Executive Editor of Search Engine Watch, and Kevin Newcomb, Search Engine Watch's daily news editor.

If you want to hold a press conference, just yell, “Hey, Kevin.”

Search Engine Watch Blog correspondents will also be there in force. This includes Michael Boland, who also writes for the Kelsey Group's Blogs; Eric Enge, who also writes Stone Temple's Ramblings About SEO Blog; Amanda Watlington, owner of Searching for Profit; Frank Watson, who moderates SEW's paid search forums as AussieWebmaster; Debby Richmond, who also writes for blog.collarity.com, and me.

We also plan to provide some post-SES analysis – after we've returned from the Windy City – and gotten a few hours of precious sleep.

Chris Boggs, who is also a correspondent for the Search Engine Watch Blog, is heading up Search Engine Roundtable's coverage of SES Chicago with help from SEM professional Justin Davy, Marty Weintraub of the aimClear Search Marketing Blog, and Steve Krull of The Krull Group. Together, they will be covering 37 sessions over four days.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Search Engine Roundtable is the C-SPAN of SES.

Also heading to SES Chicago is CEO Daron Babin and the crew at WebmasterRadio.FM. It is the official radio network of the Search Engine Strategies conference series and the premier free, 24/7 Internet business radio network focused on the B2B marketplace.

Listen to the 2007 Search Engine Strategies Chicago Preview on your iPod while you workout, read your favorite weblogs, get a tattoo, whatever.

A big batch of bloggers will be speaking at SES Chicago. This includes:
• Tim Ash, SiteTuners.com Conversion Blog;
• Matt Bailey, SiteLogic's Marketing Logic Blog;
• Constantin Basturea, PR meets the WWW weblog;
• Dave Davies, Beanstalk's SEO News Blog;
• Fionn Downhill, View on the World of Internet Marketing;
• John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer;
• Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now's GrokDotCom;
• Liana Evans, Search Marketing Gurus;
• Sally Falkow, Internet Marketing Strategy;
• Seth Godin, Seth's Blog;
• Andrew Goodman, Traffick;
• Mike Grehan, Mike Grehan says;
• Bill Hanekamp, The Well;
• Simon Heseltine, Search Engine Tigers;
• Tamera Kremer, Wildfire Strategic Marketing's 3i Blog;
• James Lamberti, comScore's Voices;
• Charles Laughlin, Kelsey Group Blogs;
• Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide;
• Kevin Lee, ClickZ Experts;
• Sage Lewis, SageRock Web Marketing Blog;
• Jonathan Mendez, Optimize and Prophesize Blog;
• Mike Murray, Fathom SEO Search Engine Marketing Blog;
• Jack Myers, JackMyers.com;
• Todd Parsons, BuzzBlog;
• Gary Price, ResourceShelf;
• Jeffrey Rohrs, ExactTarget's The Four Rights;
• Jay Sears, ContextWeb Internet Advertising Blog;
• Brian A. Smith, Comparison Engines;
• Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land;
• Shari Thurow, Search Engine Land;
• David Wallace, SearchRank Blog;
• Eric Ward, Link Moses; and
• Richard Zwicky, Enquisite Search Metrics Blog.

In addition, a large pack of journalists will be covering the event. This includes editors, reporters and bloggers for the following news media:
• BtoB Magazine,
• DIRECT Magazine,
• Electronic Retailer Media Group,
• Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations,
• MarketingExperiments.com,
• MidwestBusiness.com,
• Revenue – The Performance Marketing Standard,
• Search Engine Guide,
• Search Marketing Gurus,
• Search Marketing Standard Magazine,
• Smart Business Moves,
• Target Marketing Magazine,
• TopRank's Online Marketing Blog,
• Visibility Magazine, and
• WebProNews.

As you can see, both of the lists above are in alphabetical order. Hey, I'm a PR guy – and SES Chicago is a client. It seemed like the prudent thing to do.

In addition to the slew of bloggers and journalists listed above, David Dalka, a Chicago GSB MBA Alumni, Karl Ribas of the Karl Ribas.com Blog, and Dave Bascom of SEO.com's SEO Blog will be coming to SES Chicago. Carolyn Shelby of Cshel SEO and PR plans to drop by for some pre-SES Chicago “networking” at Kitty O'Shea's at the Hilton (on Congress).

Nevertheless, I've got this sixth sense that tells me I've missed someone else who will be blogging or reporting about the show. Let me apologize in advance. I'll be trying to keep tabs on the coverage of SES Chicago, so tap me on the shoulder in the press room and let me know where I can find your blog posts, Flickr photos, or YouTube videos.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 6:17 PM | Permalink

Jason Calcanis: "...I'm One of the Best SEOs."

ILM 07, packed house, on stage Jason says, quote, he's one of the best SEOs." No joke. kal%20kan%20coupon%282%29.jpg Mentions Bruce Clay as another. Congrats, Bruce. You've hit the big time. Jason has at least one SEO client on Page 1 of Google -- his Brit bulldogs Taurus and Toro's "los angeles dog trainer." Kelsey Group's Krasilovsky had a very funny, well-mannered "Kal Kan Is" on a tight F-bomb leash: Jason only dropped maybe one onstage. Good boy.

He also claimed (again) SEO industry leaders failed by allowing search engine optimization to get a "smarmy" and "spammy" SnakE Oil rep. Jason wants "good SEOs" to rebrand as "Traffic Optimizers." Why didn't we think of that?

Yo, JasonDawg, Daaaaaaamn, you represent. You could be the first T.O. of SEO.

So now Jason's got mad SEO skillz and Mahalo human search engine, no doubt Kal Kan Is: "One of us! One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! …"

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 1:49 PM | Permalink

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