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February 5, 2008


Google is the Bomb! Obama, McC, Mitt, Hill, Huck, Paul on Super Tuesday

Google is the bomb on Super Tuesday for election results. Check out the new Google News Elections coverage section and Google Maps. No X-Ray vision superheroes but "primaries.XML?" Google's got it. No man of steel with X-Ray vision, but Google's got "rikanu" in Boston/Cambridge, MA who's "gone voting."

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You won't find Obama in 'Bama or Clinton on Capitol Hill but you can watch them on the new Google mashup on "Twittervision." (YouTube is so last year.)

Don't worry old media, Googlers are still tweeting about CNN plasma touch screens and who's got the best big box election coverage.

On Google, though, you can watch your Google Gadget fill in the returns for McC, Mitt, Obama, Hill, Paul, and the rest of the Super Tuesday superheroes.

If all the twittervision tweets on Obama watch parties correlate with exit polls, lots of states will rock with Barack. Looks like he's the Ba-Rocket.

For the Repubs, looks like Mac is back. Mitt? This is it. Paul? That's all, folks.

For complete elections coverage, stay tuned to your favorite Internet channel.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on February 5, 2008, 7:23 PM | Permalink


Search Headlines & Links: February 5, 2008

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 February 5, 2008, 6:00 PM | Permalink


Yahoo! Acquires FoxyTunes

While all eyes are still focused on Microsoft's proposed purchase of Yahoo!, Yahoo! has already made its first (real) acquisition of 2008 by picking up Israeli-based FoxyTunes, a Firefox plugin that allows you to control a variety of music players from your browser. This was a great purchase for Yahoo!; as I said yesterday, the new search engine battle is going to be for nearly everything but search itself—and music certainly falls into that category.

Yahoo! has a checkered history with music, despite music.yahoo.com drawing in a whopping 25 million uniques a month. Lovers of MusicMatch still can't forgive Yahoo! for what they did when they acquired the formerly-great player. Yahoo! seems to have since learned its lesson—as evidenced by their hands-off policy with Flickr—and I expect FoxyTunes to remain a great product and even improve under Yahoo! (especially if they add support for FineTune and Deezer). On a whole, especially with this acquisition, Yahoo! dominates the online music space, which makes them an even more attractive target for Microsoft.

On a side note, congratulations to the team behind FoxyTunes, many of whom I've met around Israel.

Posted by on February 5, 2008, 4:29 PM | Permalink


Boost Organic Results. Link Build with Social Media

In this evolutionary algorithmic age every search marketer charged with boosting rankings on the organic SERPs knows, with fearful certainty, that building inbound links is essential. Utilizing social media communities to do so is a front-and-center tactic for many.

Sure, we're all aware of mainstream players like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Propeller, etc...

However, there are hundreds of social communities other than the biggies. These niche' player-communities can be terrific venues to engage readers of similar ilk, make friends, drive focused micro-busts of traffic, and build links. Some communities are junk. This post offers niche' social site examples and provides links to lists which index and profile dozens of useful ones.

Dofollow and Nofollow
A quick word about Do/No follow. Most blogs (and many communities) these days attempt to discourage spam by removing "link-juice" passed on links dropped in discussion threads. That's called "Nofollow." (Wikipedia is a classic example of Nofollow.) Nofollow links deliver traffic but there's no SEO benefit. If you view the source code of this page, you'll see that some of the social site links are Nofollow and therefore do not pass energy.

When evaluating the potential benefit of social community participation, it's best practice to understand the objective and potential gain. Whenever a site, with decent Pagerank, "forgets" to turn off Dofollow, it's an opportunity of sorts to build links of varying strength and value. The most important caveat is that gratuitous link dropping, without offering true value to the community, is spam and will likely be treated as such.

Every search marketing professional knows that garnering good quality, relevant, and "natural" inbound links to your site or blog is critical to drive your SEO ranking efforts. Honest participation in niche' social communities, relevant to your product & services, is the tactic that many savvy SEMs reach for to build their site's inbound link-profile. In addition to the community site links themselves, "hot" posts can result in feed subscriptions, increased readership, and links from other relevant and valuable sites.

Fark is a social news site in which moderators approve user link-submissions and post them to the homepage. The links are Nofollow but can drive noticeable traffic.

Slashdot is a community where techno-heads hang out and geek-jam. However, users submit stories about entertainment, politics, and other fun stuff. If editors approve a submission and it's promoted the homepage, measurable traffic can result. Also, links in the body of each post are Dofollow and pass juice.

Metafilter is a moderated community, both by site administers and users, in which participants share interesting web content. Links are Dofollow.

Mixx is widely regarded as an up-and-comer in the social news world. A potentially mainstream Digg replacement site, many SEM folks had early-adopter Mixx profiles for fun and future marketing bang. Oh yes, they forget to turn off Dofollow so the links pass juice.

Hugg is a smaller community engaged in dialog surrounding environmental issues. There's social exchanges about technology, politics, and science as well. Links are Dofollow.

Sk*rt is a Dofollow PR 5 fashion, food, and technology community, primarily comprised of females.

Stirr'dup is a smaller NoFollow social news site which categorizes news as technology, entertainment, news and politics.

Linkinn is a PR5 site specializing in offbeat video and pictures. Links are DoFollow and pass juice.

Lists of Useful Social Media Sites:
48 Social News Websites: A List of General and Niche Social Media Communities
Tropical SEO: Top 38 Niche Social Media Sites (That Actually Send Traffic)

Respected blogger Sugarrae has posted a serious interview with industry leading link-building experts and is a must-read. Interviews include:
Eric Ward, the Link Moses behind URL Wire
Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz
Roger Montti, the founder and owner of martinibuster.com
Todd Malicoat of Stuntdubl and Clientside
Justilien Gaspard, Link Columnist for SearchEngineWatch.com, his link building blog and course author SEMPO Institute
Aaron Wall of SEO Book and Clientside SEM
Debra Mastaler of Alliance Link and the The Link Spiel
Michael Gray of the Graywolf SEO Blog
Andy Hagans, the lazy SEO of the Tropical SEO Blog
Jim Boykin of We Build Pages and Internet Marketing Ninjas
Rae Hoffman, CEO of Sugarrae and MFE Interactive

Posted by Marty Weintraub on February 5, 2008, 11:27 AM | Permalink


Microsoft-Yahoo: No Mention of Publisher Deals

With all the news about Microhoo, no one's mentioned how current content deals with publishers might change -- for better or worse. Yet these licensed resources drive substantial portal traffic and ad dollars today.

As an example, let's take a quick look at news licensed by all three players:

* Yahoo licenses many well-known news sources.
* Microsoft offers MSNBC-branded news content.
* Google doesn't license; it scours thousands of sources.

At the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) conference last week, major publishers seemed more interested in driving traffic to their destinations than in licensing their online content to the portals. Even the most hide-bound publishers have delivered some content openly, and many have made their archives available online as well. In addition, they understand that engineering prowess will matter as much as editorial strength.

With these shifting priorities, do the large publishers win, lose or draw from Microhoo? It's a draw, assuming steady portal traffic and no change in news providers. Fat chance. I'm betting that most licensing deals aren't assignable -- which means anything goes with a merger.

Microhoo might play smarter, however, if they coordinate services to increase revenue for publisher sites along with their portals. They have an array of services that appeal to print and broadcast suppliers, who haven't made all their content completely crawlable yet.

Otherwise the publishers will be drawn, by default, to Google to meet their traffic and ad revenue goals. As Google's David Eun told publishers at the SIIA confab, Google will continue to provide services which help publishers become “more ubiquitous online."

Posted by on February 5, 2008, 10:15 AM | Permalink


Breaking News: New Leadership at Efficient Frontier

siminoff.jpg

Search engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier today appointed Ellen Siminoff chairman of the board and named president James Beriker as the new CEO and director.

In her four years as CEO, Siminoff grew Efficient Frontier from a team of eight to a leading search marketing technology and professional services company with 170 employees managing $450 million in annual search spend for 250 advertisers worldwide. As chairman, Siminoff will continue to guide and participate in the growth initiatives and the company's strategic direction.

Efficient Frontier was the first search marketing firm to apply portfolio management theory (Wall St. equity trading algorithms) to the optimization of paid search listings. Efficient Frontier's algorithms use historical data to model all possible bid combinations across a portfolio of keywords to allocate budget optiimally. The best possible return on investment? The so-called “efficient frontier.”

In a statement, Siminoff said Efficient Frontier has reshaped the SEM industry by applying advanced technology keyword optimization. Efficient Frontier pioneered the management of millions of keywords in Google's invisible bid landscape, bringing predictive modeling to opaque search marketplaces.

The next generation of Efficient Frontier's platform will enable clients to apply algorithms to emerging media auction marketplaces, including display and social search engines, as well as optimize advertising spend across multiple channels.

As CEO, Beriker will be responsible for the overall management of the business. His charge? Drive growth, product innovation and global expansion.

Prior to Efficient Frontier, Beriker held vice president, senior vice president and GM positions at online marketing services firm ValueClick and the ValueClick Media, Mediaplex, Commission Junction and PriceRunner brands.

Beriker was also the founder and CEO of Search123, a paid search engine that launched in October 2000 and was acquired by ValueClick in May 2003. Prior to Search123, Beriker practiced corporate law, representing early and mid-stage technology companies and entrepreneurs.

I had lunch with Jim a couple weeks ago when he was in New York. He outlined his vision to make Efficient Frontier the dominant worldwide optimization platform for all digital advertising. When he says EF is well on its way to achieving this goal, he's giving notice that the digital advertising platform race won't be Google-DoubleClick vs. Microsoft/Aquantive -- with or without Yahoo, the company where Siminoff made her reputation as a dealmaker.

Part of the founding executive team of Yahoo!, Ellen Siminoff led business development, corporate development, and the small business and entertainment business units. Ellen has served on the board of directors for online ticket broker, StubHub, and is currently on the boards of US AutoParts, BuildDirect, 4Info, and Journal Communications. Ellen graduated Stanford's Graduate School of Business with an MBA and has a bachelor's degree in Economics from Princeton University.

Geoff Yang, Efficient Frontier director and founding partner of Redpoint Ventures noted Siminoff's skills as a dealmaker and innovator. He praised her leadership in building the largest independent SEM provider in the world.

"Efficient Frontier's success is a testament to Ellen's unquestionable dedication and leadership talents, and cements her standing in the Silicon Valley as a company builder and thought leader,” said Yang in a statement.

Look for more discussion in Techmeme.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on February 5, 2008, 1:25 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: Don't Waste Money on a So-Called SEO Specialist?

A publication sent to American Express small business cardholders suggests that SEO is a waste of money. In today's au Natural column, "Don't Waste Money on a So-Called SEO Specialist," Mark Jackson once again comes to SEO's defense.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on February 5, 2008, 12:00 AM | Permalink


SEW Experts: 4 Ways Google AdWords Can Increase Small Business Profits

Sometimes AdWords accounts are set up with the best of intentions, only to languish or be turned off because they're not meeting expectations. In today's Little Biz column, "4 Ways Google AdWords Can Increase Small Business Profits," Carrie Hill outlines four key areas most new-to-PPC marketers overlook that cost them money.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on February 5, 2008, 12:00 AM | Permalink

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