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July 2008

July 31, 2008

Google VP Marissa Mayer Appears on Fox Business Network

This morning Google VP Marissa Mayer appeared on the Fox Business Network. She talked about what's next at search, privacy, working at Google (including 20% time), being a woman in tech, and how mobile is the next hot thing.

Check out the video below to see the interview.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Is SEO the Real Google Killer?

This morning the Guardian UK published a scathing analysis of Google, SEO and the launch of Cuil. In his article, Chris Williams claimed that the greatest threat to Google is spam. No argument there.

But Williams takes the argument one step further and states:

Plenty of digital ink has been needlessly spilt this week over the launch of the suicidally-monikered new search engine Cuil.com. But the only threat to Google is itself and, in a roundabout way, the legion of spammers and "search engine optimisation" (SEO) consultants that buttress its dominance.

It's clear that Williams is crying over "spilt ink." He's right in saying that Web sites have adapted their design and structure to accommodate Google.

But Williams would like to think that all companies - including competing search engines - are in the business of "reverse engineering" Google.

The people at the vanguard of reverse-engineering Google are not its jealous search rivals. They're the spammers and SEO consultants. They have driven an ever-closer relationship between the quirks and whims of Google's algorithms and policies, and the structure and content of the web. It's a feedback loop that was unavoidable once Google's early rivals proved unable to respond to its better search results and presentation.

He feels that techniques such as "adding needless internal links, creating PageRank-friendly URLs and distorting normal grammar" are all widely deployed with varying degrees of dastardliness.

While grammar may be distorted, the fault doesn't lie with SEOs but with writers lacking sufficient command of the English language.

Somehow Williams connects Google's share of searches with SEO efforts, rather than user preference. If that's the case, then SEO must be producing superior SERPs.

Williams writes, "Thanks to the mutualistic process driven by spammers and SEO consultants, that dominance is only going to increase, and it's the only 'Google Killer' on the horizon."

Williams envisions a future "when the favours spammers and SEO consultants have been doing for Larry and Sergey will become dangerous, anti-trust style." He believes regulatory intervention now seems the only bar to a complete Google autocracy over the Web economy.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

JupiterResearch Acquired by Forrester for $23 Million

After being owner-less for a little over a year, JupiterResearch has been acquired by Forrester Research for $23 million. Previously, JupiterResearch had been sold by Jupitermedia to Kagan Research, but then Kagan got acquired by financial business intelligence firm SNL Financial.

"We are very excited to be joining the Forrester brand, culture, and community," said David Schatsky, president, JupiterResearch. "For a quarter of a century, Forrester has been a trusted advisor to many of the top businesses and organizations in the world, and we are honored to bring the best of JupiterResearch to the Forrester name."

JupiterResearch is the source of a ton of great online marketing data. Check out these posts covering data released by Jupiter:

1.8 Billion Internet Users by 2012, China to Overtake US Internet Use by 2011
Blended Search Increases Your Visibility - Jupiter Research
Marketers Increasingly Turn to Social Networks
Jupiter Research Report Says Most Search Marketers Happy with ROI

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yuil Is Dead - Long Live Yuil

Today TechCrunch reported on the birth of a new search engine: Yuil. Now Yuil is dead.

Yuil (pronounced yule) was a short-lived Yahoo-powered mashup designed to look like Cuil.

Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup -- something of a search engine Frankenstein monster -- was destroyed by its inventor.

Yuil was designed by Yahoo VP of Platforms, Sam Pullara. Yuil was a brilliant marketing move designed to show off the new Yahoo BOSS API. BOSS gives developers a high level of control over SERPs generated by Yahoo's search engine.

The primary difference between the Yahoo Boss API, and the standard API-based engines is the ability to manipulate and reorder the results.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Opens Up About Customized Search

Google is helping its users understand what's behind customized, or personalized, results (as opposed to Google Custom Search). They're rolling out a new feature that explains why results may be tailored to a particular user.

The feature will be rolled out over the next few days. When it does, you'll notice a new link for "More Details" in the top right corner. Clicking on the link will take you to an explanation of customized results. The explanation says that location (IP address), recent searches and web history to serve up the personalization.

Google noted that this feature does not change how they compile results.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Adds Image Hotspots to Live Search Design

Microsoft has launched a new concept for Live Search. Now, when you visit the search engine, you'll see a background image with "hotspots."

Hotspots are small boxes that highlight a portion of the image. You can rollover them with your mouse to find out what is being highlighted, and click on the hotspot for more information.

Look quickly though, the hotspots appear quickly upon loading and then disappear. While you can still rollover the hotspots, you'll have to remember where those boxes appeared.

Below are some screenshots. Take a look, visit Live.com to check it out for yourself, then come on back to leave a comment about your impressions.

Related Reading:
Live Search Cashback Now Available for ebay "But It Now" Products
Live Search Displays Paragraph Under Wikipedia Results
Microsoft to Work on Live Search Reputation
Microsoft Live Search Toolbar to be Shipped with 2009 HP PC's
Windows Live Search Offers Google News Alternative
Microsoft Goes Deep with Search Results, Competes with Google's Sitelinks

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: The Future of SEM Education

Online advertising continues to grow in both good times and bad. That's good news for search marketers. In today's SEM.edu column, "The Future of SEM Education," Ron Jones shows how it also highlights the ongoing importance of search education.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Link Building: Understand Where You Are To Know Where You're Going

In link building, if you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up someplace else. In today's link building column, "Link Building: Understand Where You Are To Know Where You're Going," Sage Lewis looks at some tools to help you discover and monitor inbound links.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 30, 2008

Italian Broadcaster Sues Google, YouTube for $779 million

Google is facing another YouTube law suit, this time from Italian broadcaster Mediaset, which is controlled by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The suit was filed in Rome and seeks 500 million Euros in damages (approx $779 million USD).

The suit is similar to others, including the one brought by Viacom, citing illegal use of copyrighted materials.

Mediaset says a June 10 analysis showed 4,643 videos equaling more than 325 hours were found on the popular online video site. The broadcaster claims the videos amount to a loss of 315,672 days.

Related Reading:
Google Fights Back in Viacom/YouTube Copyright Suit
Others Join YouTube, Google Copyright Lawsuit
Viacom Would Rather Not Sue, Chief Counsel Claims

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Marchex Launches Integrated Local Advertising Platform

Marchex is integrating online and offline lead generation methods in its launch of Marchex Connect 2.0. The local advertising platform offers three products: online advertising, call-based advertising, and Business Profile Pages

With today's launch, Marchex subsidiaries VoiceStar and Traffic Leader have been unified under the Marchex Digital Platform Group to leverage the Marchex Connect platform and provide integrated, locally-focused advertising services including:

• Full Advertising Campaign Management – All campaigns are managed by a dedicated team of online marketing and call-based advertising experts.
• Strategic Consulting for Resellers – Leveraging Marchex's unique intellectual property regarding pricing and product strategies to appropriately balance and expand the total offline and online spends of an advertiser, and to maximize ROI goals.
• Sales Channel Training – Custom in-field and Web-based training programs to equip Marchex partners' local sales forces with the knowledge and sales materials they need to successfully migrate their local advertisers' spend online.

“We have invested heavily to build a performance-based, local-centric advertising platform for local resellers and advertisers that integrates online and call-based advertising products and services at scale, all supported by sophisticated reporting and analytics,” said John Keister, Marchex President and COO. “Our goal at Marchex is to accelerate the adoption of local online advertising and to deliver the highest volume of quality local leads to our advertisers at the most reasonable cost in the marketplace.”

Related Reading:
Marchex Shows How to Cash In on Local Search
Marchex Consolidates Ad Platforms
Marchex's Local Advertising Branches Out into Mobile Market
Marchex Develops Partnerships with Several Local Content Providers

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yellow Pages Beat Other Local Media in Online Sales in 2007

Local directories made 9% of their gross revenues online in 2007, while other local media such as newspapers and TV only made 5% online. Douglas Quenqua, over at ClickZ, has the full write up from the data released by Borrell Associates.

While search has threatened the industry, selling ads on the cheap has kept yellow pages companies competitive. And they aren't resisting the digital change.

Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, said, "We don't think yellow pages will disappear," said Borrell. "Eighty to 85 percent of people still use them at least once a year. They're eroding, but they won't completely collapse. They will just transform."

What do you think about the future of local directories? Read Quenqua's full article over at ClickZ and then come on back and leave a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ask.com and IAC Beat the Street:: 2Q 2008 Earnigs

Some skeptics have publicly predicted the death of Ask.com. With IAC planning to spin off its properties into four units, that's a bold prediction indeed.

For the divisions that will become the new IAC, including Internet services such as Ask.com and Match.com, revenue rose 11% as earnings improved 3%.

The Ask-Google partnership is already paying dividends. More people are using Ask more often.

Here's how the IAC Search business breaks out:

Media & Advertising consists of proprietary properties such as Ask.com, Fun Web Products, Citysearch and Evite and network properties which include distributed search, sponsored listings, and toolbars.

Proprietary revenue grew strongly during the quarter and now represents 75% of total Media & Advertising revenue.

Media & Advertising revenue growth was driven by improved economics associated with the renewed partnership with Google, which resulted in an increase in revenue per query across all proprietary search sites.

Revenue per query at Ask.com grew, even excluding the benefits of the renewed contract.

Ask.com continued to grow its core user base which searches most frequently, while queries declined overall due largely to significantly reduced marketing.

Media & Advertising profit benefited from lower marketing spend at Ask.com and higher margin traffic resulting from the ongoing shift in query mix towards proprietary and away from the partner network.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ask.com Parent Co. IAC Posts 7% Growth for Q2 2008

IAC, the parent company of top-5 search engine Ask.com, has posted a 7% year-over-year growth in revenue for the second quarter of 2008.

IAC is preparing for a transition, spinning off various assets into different companies.

"We are now right around the corner from the separation of IAC into five separate companies and the dissolution of the complexity surrounding the combined structure," said IAC's Chairman and CEO, Barry Diller. "Besides the detailed numbers contained throughout this release, focusing on consolidated results is only about the past, and I would think it far more productive for the future to analyze and judge the entities on their own merits ... as a large shareholder in each that is certainly what I intend to do."

Earlier this year, Ask.com changed up their management and cut 8% of their workforce. IAC also announced a bunch of new niche sites that serve up a mix of search and social media.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SEW Experts: What's Wrong With Being Cuil?

Cuil may be a good search engine...someday. But launching it as a "Google-killer" was a mistake. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "What's Wrong With Being Cuil?," Kevin Ryan outlines two lessons to learn from this: First, make sure it works before you launch it. Second, make sure you can live up to your claims or you'll suffer the consequences.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SEW Experts: Google vs. Yahoo on Paid Links

Google created a firestorm in the industry with its Paid Links directive. So where does Yahoo stand in the Paid Links debate? In today's Web analytics and ROI column, "Google vs. Yahoo on Paid Links," Eric Enge looks at Yahoo's stance on buying links for SEO value.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 29, 2008

Cloud Computing Unites Yahoo, HP, Intel

Yahoo, Intel and Hewlett Packard announced an alliance to advance "cloud computing," backing a global trend that threatens Microsoft's iron-fisted grip on packaged software installed on computers.

Earlier this year Google and IBM teamed up to advance research into providing SAAS (software as a service) on the Internet hosted by data centers.

Cloud computing isn't as futuristic as it sounds. Web-based email (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail) offered by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft is an example of cloud computing. Google has expanded its online software offerings to include word documents, spread sheets and more under the Google Docs brand.

The cloud computing initiative falls in line with Yahoo's goal of open systems. Results of research done at the centers will be made public to make it easier for software developers to write applications for cloud computing.

"We believe this collaboration will do a great deal to take the research to the next level," Yahoo Research chief Prabhakar Raghavan said during the conference call.

"We are really fueling the ecosystem here... Inevitably an application developer will build more readily for the cloud."

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Real Reason No One Can Beat Google

When it comes to beating Google, many entrepreneurs attempt to have what they consider better results than Google. Whether its indexing a trillion pages, advancing semantic search, or harnessing social search, everyone's looking for their Unique Selling Proposition.

I have conducted a great deal of thinking on the matter and have concluded that technology or financial backing has nothing to do with it. The real reason no one can beat Google is all in the name.

Think about it. It's quite easy and acceptable to say, "Google it." I say this to my kids. Despite the fact that Google does not prefer that their brand name is used as a verb, we do it all the time. It even happens in the movies!

But if I were to say "Cuil it," it, of course, would sound like "Cool it." That may even sound offensive in some cultures. Like you're telling someone they have an attitude and they need to chillax. Next thing you know, you're engaged in a nasty brawl on the Jerry Springer show. Or worse, face to face with Omarosa.

Cuil isn't the only search engine to face this problem. Microsoft doesn't need to buy Yahoo, they just need a better name for their search engine. Do they really think anybody is really going to "Live Search it"!?!?!

I'm not going to "Mahalo it" or "Wikia it" or even go old school and "Lycos it."

Sure, I could say "Look it up on hakia" - but that's just so many syllables!

No, dear readers, the only way to beat Google is to come up with a cooler name. So, get those thinking caps on and don't forget to call me before you IPO.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

T. Boone Pickens Sells Entire Yahoo Stake, 10 Million Shares

I was literally in the middle of writing a post entitled "All Quiet on the Yahoo Front" when news broke about T. Boone Pickens selling off his entire stake in Yahoo.

I was pondering whether or not the calm was more like a relaxing day at the spa or an eerie moment in a M. Night Shyamalan movie when the famed Texas oilman took the latter route.

Pickens, known most recently for his alternative energy plan, bought 10 million shares back in May when he decided to throw his support behind Carl Icahn.

Now that Carl Icahn is somewhat in cahoots with Yahoo, with the announcement that he will join an expanded Yahoo board, Pickens is selling of his shares.

Telling the San Francisco Chronicle, "I think that Yahoo management was pathetic," Pickens was adamant about Yahoo agreeing to Microsoft's offer to buy the company.

Yahoo's annual shareholders meeting will be held this Friday.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

20% of Primetime Television Now Watched Online

Online video consumption has been on the rise for a while, and now Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) is releasing demographic and behavioral data to show the details of the trend.

20% of primetime television programming is now viewed online. The audience is comprised of 55% female and 45% male. Households earning $80,000 a year or more are 56% more likely to watch a network show online. Those earning $40,000 a year or less are 75% more likely to watch a primetime show live. The largest segment of online television viewers are white, affluent, well educated, working women aged 25-44.

There's also been a shift in what's being watched. In May 2008, for the first time, a big chunk of those watching primetime TV online are NOT also watching some of the show on TV. In other words, more people are turning to online to watch TV than just catch a part of a show they missed or simply replay a scene they found funny.

41% of those surveyed first watch a show on TV, then catch another episode online.
31% of those surveyed first watch a show delayed (DVR/TiVO), then watch online.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SEW Experts: Press Releases and Search Engine Optimization

Issuing press releases without regard for SEO is a wasted opportunity. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Press Releases and Search Engine Optimization," Mark Jackson shows that combining press releases with SEO efforts can help gain presence in the editorial results of the search engines, even if it's not a direct presence for your actual domain.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: When's an Outage More than Just an Outage?

In SEO for major sites, one of the most overlooked factors is uptime. In today's enterprise search marketing column, "When's an Outage More than Just an Outage?," Aaron Shear looks at how a server outage can impact your SEO efforts.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Google's Sergey Brin on Local Mobile Search

In 2005, O'Reilly proclaimed it the "Year of Local Mobile Search," but that didn't work out. In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "Google's Sergey Brin on Local Mobile Search," Kevin Heisler points out that while this year may not merit that title either, Google sees 2008 as a key year in the battle for multiplatform search dominance.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 28, 2008

Social Networking and Employees: Where Do You Draw the Line?

With the rise of social networking, employers are left wondering if or how the trend affects their bottom line. Many have decided that Facebook and MySpace in the workplace are not appropriate (for content or productivity reasons) and have banned the sites from being accessed at their offices.

To which I say: Good luck with that!

With the onslaught of iPhones, resisting social media (and I don't mean for marketing purposes) will prove to be futile anyway. Go ahead. Fire someone for accessing their Facebook iPhone app. But don't be looking for any "Best Places to Work" awards anytime soon.

And when morale is down, productivity goes down. Call it anecdotal, but the places I've worked at with low morale lose productivity to gossip and office politics. What they're really looking for is support in a difficult workplace. So ban social media all you want, your employees will still find ways to "waste time." Or as I like to call it, not go completely mental.

On the flip side, social networking more often than not helps your business. Think of all the contacts that your employees have. All those college and high school pals now have careers in a variety of industries. Perhaps there are great partnerships to be had in these vast social networks.

Or when its time to hire a new employee, these networks are a great place to start.

Social media is also a great way to stay on top of your industry - to learn about things that are happening, what's new. You can't do it all yourself - or even with just your marketing team. What if a guy/gal in IT catches wind of a new program being implemented at a competitor? Chances are, they'll find it out via a social network, blog, Twitter, etc.

I say kill those largely unfounded fears and allow social networking in the workplace. Like the rest of business and life, it won't be perfect. But it can be reasonable.

By the way, one of the new hot things in social media is internal social networking, sometimes referred to as enterprise social media. This can foster genuine channels of good communication among departments across your company.

What's your opinion? Yay or nay to social media for employees? Leave a comment and tell us how it is!

Related Reading:
Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us?
Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yahoo Updates Ad Performance Reports for Sponsored Search Accounts

Yahoo has released updates to the ad performance reports for sponsored search accounts. First up, three columns have been added to the report. They are:

• Ad ID column – This column displays your Ad's ID number.
• Ad: – This column provides a visual representation of your ad, including its title, short description and display URL.
• Destination URL

The columns are available in report downloads as well. Additionally, Yahoo has consolidated ad statuses into a single column.

The updates have been made across global markets and Mobile Sponsored Search.

What do you think of the updates? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Yahoo's Conversion Tips: Optimize, Navigate and Track
Where My Ads At? Yahoo Knows
Yahoo Makes Minor Updates to Sponsored Search

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

China's Sohu.com Posts 600% Jump in Profit

Chinese internet portal Sohu.com has announced $40.2 million in second quarter profit, up 600% over the same quarter in 2007. The news comes in the wake of results posted by Chinese search engine Baidu, which saw profits rise 87% in Q2 2008. The big boost in profits for both companies come as the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach.

Check out this display ad from Lenovo on the Sohu.com.

"The growing momentum reflects the overall expansion of the China Internet market, increased shift in advertising budgets from offline to online, the robust pace of advertising spending leading up to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, as well as our significant traffic increase," Belinda Wang, chief marketing officer of Sohu said in a statement.

via Reuters

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft's Navic Networks Partners with Mediabrands

Microsoft's recently acquired Navic Networks has announced a new partnership with Mediabrands, a new group of four companies: Initiative, Universal McCann, MAGNA and IPG's Emerging Media Lab. The media companies will have access to Navic's Admira, a national media planning tool that includes audience behavior data and real-time viewership reporting.

“We are seeking new technologies to deliver unparalleled accountability to clients, and aligning with Navic was a natural fit,” said Nick Brien, CEO of Mediabrands. “By combining the power of television with the accountability of the Web, we're able to offer our world-class clients cutting-edge technology to help them maximize the ROI for their advertising dollars.”

“Navic is fully committed to offering innovative technologies that provide one of the most effective and accurate metrics available,” said Chet Kanojia, CEO of Navic Networks. “The industry has come a long way from defining keywords for targeted clicks, and we're excited to align with forward-thinking companies that make bold moves and, like Navic, are on the cusp of new trends and technologies.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Liana Evans of KeyRelevance on social media optimization (SMO)

One of the people that you will want to hear speak at SES San Jose is Liana Evans of KeyRelevance. Li is the director of Internet marketing at KeyRelevance and a member of the “Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization (SMO)” panel on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at 1 p.m.

I'm bummed out because I'll be speaking at the “News Search SEO” session at the same time, so I won't be able to hear what she has to say in San Jose.

So, through the magic of YouTube video, I've interviewed Li – so I won't miss her keen insights entirely – although there is no substitute to hearing her first hand.

Li is a search marketing guru (literally), especially on topics like social media optimization (SMO). So, here's a sneak preview of what she has to say.

Why Your Social Media Campaigns Should Socialize More

Liana is also famous for her Flickr photos from sessions, panels, exhibits, the night life, and everything in between at Search Engine Strategies conferences and she won one of the Flickr photo sharing awards for SES London 2008.

Li specializes in social media marketing, blog optimization, link building and viral marketing. I like to hang out with her at SES conferences because Li has a background in both public relations and information technology.

Li is the creator and main contributor to Search Marketing Gurus and has assembled a well rounded group of professional search marketing professionals to contribute to the blog. Oh, and she's shared her secret for finding the best cheesesteak in Philly with me – not that this has influenced my favorable opinion of her at all.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cuil New Search Engine Launches

Cuil, pronounced "cool," has officially launched.

All the kool kids are talking about it. The question is whether anyone will use it.

As a new search engine, Cuil is a longshot. It's no Google Killer.

Check out Cuil.com. Google needs the competition. But don't expect a revolutionary search experience. The results page looks very much like Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com.

Cuil was created by former Google engineers Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier, who picked up $33 million in venture capital to launch the search engine.

So how is Cuil different than Google? They're claiming bragging rights for search index size: 120 billion Web pages. While Patterson says that's 3X the size of Google's index, most people acknowledge that size doesn't matter.

As Google's official blog notes, many pages not indexed either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way. T

Of course, Cuil can't use PageRank to organize results. So Cuil apparently assesses the actual content of a page.

Cuil's results are most similar to universal search, displaying photos horizontally across the page. Sidebars can be clicked on to learn more about related topics.

In a nod to privacy, Cuil promises not to retain users' search histories or surfing patterns.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

SEW Experts: More Killer Keyword Techniques: Personas and Buckets

Successful PPC advertising campaigns are composed of perfect keyword lists, ads and landing pages. In today's Profitable PPC column, "More Killer Keyword Techniques: Personas and Buckets," David Szetela shows you how to create landing pages using keywords built around personas.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 25, 2008

RushmoreDrive IAC Search Engine Will Give Away Range Rover

Billing itself as a "Super Search Engine,"IAC's RushmoreDrive.com has announced a 2009 Range Rover Sport Sweepstakes.

RushmoreDrive.com, the new search engine for the Black community from Barry Diller's IAC (InterActiveCorp) announced its Range Rover Sport Drive Away Sweepstakes at the Michael Baisden LIVE event held at the Nokia Theatre in New York City.

Surprisingly, there's no mention of the Sweepstakes on the search engine's home page or media pages.

RushmoreDrive.com hopes to change the way the Black community searches the World Wide Web for information, jobs and news. The job search feature is especially important given the current job market and economic uncertainty caused by the sub prime mortgage crisis, high gas prices, etc.

Michael Baisden encouraged members of the Black community to not only register at www.RushmoreDrive.com every day from now until the September 5, 2008 drawing for the Range Rover Sport, but he also reminded them that this first-of-its-kind search engine was built by Black people, for Black people.

RushmoreDrive.com employs a patent-pending technology that reputedly enables the search engine to identify sites with heavy online traffic from Black users and to elevate relevant information in the way in which it is listed.

The search engine is complemented by a job search and networking feature as well as a news section that presents several points of view on current events coming from mainstream and Black media sources and outlets. "Finally, Black people across the country have a search engine that is shaped by the interests and usage of the Black community," said RushmoreDrive.com's Johnny Taylor in a statement.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Social Media Metrics: How Internet Famous Are You?

Monitor, monitor, on the wall, "Who's the most Internet Famous of them all?"

Wired.com has launched a new, free service for everyone who wonders how Internet famous they currently are.

It's called the "Celebrity Meter." It won't tell you how whether you have celebrity friends, but it will let you know - in rough numbers - how much of an online celebrity you are.

Wired's Celebrity Meter launched in beta this morning. The program uses data from Google's Social Graph service to see how many people are following you on MySpace, Twitter, and a personal blog/site. It takes into account things like incoming links and number of friends or followers to give you a numerical score — which you can then compare to other big names in the blogosphere and across the Web in general.

We know Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble and Mike Arrrington will be battling for the top spot.

Wired writes, "Of course, it's not a complete view. The measurement doesn't account for FriendFeed, Facebook, or a lot of other social services just yet. But it's still hard to resist giving it a whirl."

We agree.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Advanced Education for Search Marketers

Randy Pausch delivered the "Last Lecture" after he learned that he'd developed terminal pancreatic cancer.

His video became an Internet sensation, with over 3,000,000 views on YouTube. Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

You can find Randy Pausch's home page here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

Randy Pausch died today at the age of 47.

He is survived by his wife, Jai Pausch and three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe - to whom he dedicated his video lecture.

We've written a great deal about the education of a search engine marketer. Ron Jones's column, SEM.edu, provides a wealth of information about learning the technical aspects of SEM and SEO.

Today we'll take a brief look at the most important goal: achieving your dreams.

Here's the complete video of the "Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft's BrowseRank Aims for Better Results than PageRank

While Google is busy rolling out a PageRank update, Microsoft is researching what they hope will be the next big thing in search: BrowseRank. The technology takes user browsing habits into account when determining relevant search results.

We propose computing page importance by using a 'user browsing graph' created from user behavior data. In this graph, vertices represent pages and directed edges represent transitions between pages in the users' web browsing history. Furthermore, the lengths of staying time spent on the pages by users are also included. The user browsing graph is more reliable than the link graph for inferring page importance.

You can read the full paper by Microsoft Asia researchers here (pdf).

Earlier, we reported that Steve Ballmer says that search needs innovation. Will BrowseRank achieve that goal? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

via CNET

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Benchmark Natural Search vs. Paid Search Traffic

Compete has enhanced its Web analytics product features to include a breakout between organic search traffic and paid search traffic.

Compete just announced Paid vs. Natural Search Breakouts in Search Analytics.

This new metric takes an even deeper dive into competitive search data by showing the percentage of search referrals that a Web site receives from paid search, trended over the last six months. This metric can be found in the Site Referral and Compare Sites tools in Search Analytics.

Users will be able to compare a site's paid vs. natural search traffic to uncover even deeper insights into a site's search strategy.

Users can find out if rivals are relying more heavily on Search Optimization (SEO), or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Spikes in SEM campaign activity with 6 months of trended data can be found as well. It will be possible to benchmark paid search activity against rivals.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Moves on from Yahoo Again; Talks Internal Search Innovation

After the latest round of attempted negotiations with Yahoo and investor Carl Icahn, Microsoft is once again saying that it is moving on from trying to acquire the second-place search engine.

Addressing the attendees at Microsoft's financial analyst meeting, Ballmer explained Microsoft's Plan B for building search and competing with Google. And like Joel McHale on E!'s The Soup, I've read the transcript so you don't have to. Here are the sound bites.

First up, the reason why Microsoft thinks it can compete in a Google-dominated search marketplace:

Search is ripe for innovation. It has not been the most innovative category in the world. I mean, think back, what did search look like five years ago, 10 blue links on the left, some ads on the right, and maybe some ads on the top. What does it look like now, 10 blue links on the left, some ads on the right, and maybe something on the top. It is ripe for innovation. If you say to yourself, five years from now, 10 years from now will search be as humdrum, hard, 50 percent of searches don't actually lead to an answer to somebody's problem, is this an area that's ripe for innovation, in user experience, natural language, semantic understanding, consumer experience? The business model hasn't been touched.

Give Google credit, they invented the business model that supports the modern search business, and yet it hasn't been touched. How do you involve the consumer? How do you move to a pay-for-action model? How do you reward the consumer, and involve the consumer economically? This is a category that's ripe for innovation. And that's important, because if it's not ripe for innovation, we shouldn't be doing what we're doing. We will not be able to be very successful by only doing what the market leader does.

Next Ballmer says that Microsoft is ready to get in the ring with Google:

Second strategy for us I call it focus, but in my own mind I think of it as kind of our Mohammed Ali, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee strategy. Pick focused areas of search, really innovate, change those areas, differentiate from the market leader. That doesn't mean Google won't come back and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Ballmer says blah a lot.

And last, but not least, we will work to reinvent the user model and the business model. I know this from past experience, it's often harder for the guy who is market leader to reinvent their category than it is for somebody who is, so to speak, the Avis of the business, number two and trying harder.

Of course, competing in search is all about making a profit from ad dollar$.

We need more relevant ads. It turns out that one of the big advantages the market leader has is they have more advertisers in their system.

You don't say?

So if you look at two pages today, one from Google and one from Microsoft, the thing that's perhaps most interesting is, because they have more people bidding on advertising, they have more opportunity to serve up a relevant ad. A lot of our discussion around Yahoo! really centered as much on this issue as any other issue. How do we get enough advertisers to have a pool of advertising to change the whole advertising approach.

Buy AOL, whose Platform-A is the leading online ad network? Pony up the money for Yahoo?

And last, but not least, we're going to have to invest in search and advertising, in fantastic brand, and fantastic marketing.

That's two last but not leasts. Not sure which not least is the most not least.

Later, Ballmer handed over the stage to Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President heading up Microsoft's search, MSN and ad platform engineering efforts.

When it comes to best results, we have to ante up to create the core infrastructure. That allows us to have a very rich index, a deep and broad index, that helps us actually experiment on the relevance improvements, which is a continuous game. You can think of it as, like, drug discovery, where you continuously are in the game of improving your relevance.

So we have made progress on all of those. In fact, if you look at it, last fall is when we reached a huge milestone for us. We increased the index many-fold. Our relevance improved. We today believe we are comparable to the best in the United States when it comes to the core relevance. And that was not something that we could have said last year at this time when you were here. So that's substantial progress.

Nadella echoed a Yahoo researcher's recent article on Semantic search. Microsoft acquired semantic search company Powerset earlier this year.

We think the Search experience is going to evolve to really understand the query intent, as well as the document content, in rich ways. So this is where we're building the algorithm and capabilities to be able to get to that deeper level of semantic understanding, natural language understanding, so that we can really help users of search engines with their tasks, because nobody does queries in isolation. Queries are always done in the context of some task.

Microsoft has big plans for image search:

One of the nice things about our image search is that we've been able to sort of take an experience where we have infinite scroll capability, so you can – you don't have to paginate to be able to see, you know, hundreds of thousands of images. You can just keep going down. And we have a nice experience for infinite scroll here.

Want to refine those images searches? Ok.

We have the ability for you to refine by size. So if I'm looking for a specific size, I can refine that and find that. So in the case I'm looking for some large images, I can look for color. So if I'm looking only for black and white, I can go ahead and hit black and white. And if the demigods smile, I will actually get that. So, in any case, the idea is to be able to have rich filtering capabilities with your image search to get filtering.

The other thing that I can also do is to be able to drag and drop. I can open up the scratch pad and I can go ahead and drag and drop these images and make a new collection, because if I wanted to come back to a collection of images that I used in this project, then I can have a series of collections.

No offense, but that's not innovative. That's done by Google and Flock, too.

That's ok. Let's just move on to video search.

One of the things that we have done, working with MSR, Microsoft Research, is to do what we've done, all of us in the Search business have done for Web search, in terms of creating previews of content before you click on the link. We've done that for video. So we crawl all of the videos on the Web.

We created something called the Smart Motion Thumbnails, which, in fact, are basically summaries of video content out there. And we call them Smart Motions because we can actually do scene detection. So if it's a news clip, we can actually summarize the news clip. If it's a video of a sports event, we can make sure that we do the scene detection to get the complete shot, and what have you. So this is – so all you have to do is hover over the video. You get the summary before you actually click on it. And this is, again, best in class or first in class when it comes to creating video summaries that are semantically smart.

Just to compare that to what Google has, Google has, you know, a video search product where they have images. They don't have the summary capability. The one other difference is the selection. If you look at our selection, we have from MSN, AP, MSNBC, you know, and CNBC, ESPN -- lots of different sources, as well as YouTube – whereas the selection in video for Google is a lot more biased toward their own owned-and-operated indexes.

Nadella moves on to talk about travel search. This must be part of Ballmer's ideas about focusing on specific parts of search and innovating them:

Whenever you're booking a flight, one of the specific things you're looking for is to time your purchase. We know that airline fares are volatile, so the idea of being able to purchase when we think is the best time to get the best fare is fairly critical. So in this case, if I go ahead and click flights from Seattle to San Francisco, what I do is I get back on something called an Instant Answer. It says that there are many results of flights from Seattle to San Francisco. It also has this prediction algorithm.

Enter in the Farecast acquisition and re-launch.

In this case, it looks like it's a good time to buy. Let's go ahead and look at the actual flights. It takes me to something called a Smart Calendar. I can actually pick the date pair, so when I want to leave and when I want to come back. So let's say I want to leave Thursday and I want to come back on Saturday; I can go ahead and do that. I will hit Find Flights. And at this point, Farecast is going out to all the agencies and all the airlines and bringing back search results that meet the criteria of the dates I picked.

But Microsoft's plans for the HP Toolbar is where they hope to take some precious market share away from Google.

How do we really get more people to know about Live Search and get the taste for some of the value, like, in particular, the cashback value? So the place where we are innovating is in the toolbar. We have recently done a distribution deal for our toolbar with Hewlett-Packard. So this is the toolbar that Hewlett-Packard will carry with some customizations of their own. It's the MSN toolbar.

And so let's say I'm on Google and I type in Xbox. I can go ahead and search for Xbox, and automatically the toolbar detects that you're searching for Xbox on Google and a Gleam view that there is a cashback on Live Search. And so I can go ahead and at this point click on that Gleam and it'll take you to Live Search, or it's supposed to take you to Live Search. Oh, it is on Live Search. See, I didn't even notice the transfer. So it's so seamless that now you're on Live Search. You can get the cashback for a particular Xbox that you want to buy. So that's just an experiment on how we get the word out, get more users trying Live Search, and getting the value of things like Live Search cashback.

What do you think of Microsoft plans? Can they gain market share? Let it fly in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google PageRank Updates to Roll Out Soon

Google's head of web spam, Matt Cutts, has announced that updates to PageRank will be visible in the coming days. Cutts also said that some existing penalties will be expired with the update.

If you're new to search engine marketing and want to learn about PageRank, here's a whole slew of posts to get you in the know:
Google PageRank: Simplified
Google PageRank isn't the Same as Ranking in Google
Should You Join the PageRank Hysteria?
Thankful for PageRank Updates, Blended Search
The Art of Sculpting, or There's Nothing Wrong with Knowing SEO
Google Will Bank on VisualRank - PageRank for Images

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SEW Experts: The Local Advertiser of Today and Tomorrow

Local advertising is a key component of any vertical search marketing strategy. In today's vertical search column, "The Local Advertiser of Today and Tomorrow," Gregg Stewart discusses staying on top of the competition now and preparing for the future.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Trademarked Terms: Guaranteed Conversions, Guaranteed Controversy

Bidding on trademarked kewyords may bring big conversions, but the strategy is often perceived to carry a grand amount of legal trouble with it. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Trademarked Terms: Guaranteed Conversions, Guaranteed Controversy," Frank Watson explores whether or not bidding on competitors trademarks is a worthy strategy.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 24, 2008

Microsoft and Facebook Enter Into Search Partnership

Microsoft Senior Vice President Satya Nadella announced at the company's financial analyst meeting that their partnership with Facebook has been extended to include search.

The existing partnership has Microsoft serving up banner and sponsored ads on the popular social network. Last year, Microsoft paid $240 million to own a 1.6% stake in Facebook, a private company.

Microsoft expects Facebook members to see the integrated Live Search, including search ads, by the end of the 2008.

Earlier today, Facebook announced a new initiative, opening up its platform to aggregate feeds from other sites, including local search site Citysearch and other social networks such as Digg and Twitter.

In March, Microsoft announced its alternative to Google's OpenSocial, a data portability partnership across 5 social networks: Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a reorganization which will split the Platforms and Services Division into two new divisions: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdMob Launches New iPhone Ad Solutions, Offers Free Advertising to iPhone Developers

Leading mobile advertising provider AdMob has announced brand spanking new advertising solutions designed specifically for the iPhone. Advertising options will be made available for both branding and performance and function in both browser and native applications.

Have an app you want to promote? AdMob is giving away a total of $1 million in advertising to iPhone developers wanting to market their applications.

"AdMob has seen enormous growth in both our iPhone traffic and advertiser interest. This new class of device, led by the iPhone, is pivotal to the future of mobile browsing and of mobile media business models," said Omar Hamoui, CEO and Founder of AdMob. "We are excited to leverage our platform to take advantage of the uniquely mobile connected experiences that the iPhone makes possible."

AdMob recently forged a partnership with DoubleClick to integrate their ads into their mobile ad network. DoubleClick was recently acquired by Google.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Link Building with Customers

When it comes to link building, a great source for links might be right under your nose! In today's link building column, "Link Building with Customers," Justilien Gaspard talks about asking your customers for links as well as embarking on link recovery missions.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Connect Aims to Aggregate Social Media While Protecting User Privacy

In May, Google announced a new initiative called Friend Connect that enables site owners to add social media to their websites, and allows internet users to connect their social accounts more seamlessly. But while Facebook was initally part of the effort, later they banned Google's Friend Connect from their site, citing issues with privacy and the redistribution of user data.

Instead of waiting for Google to comply, Facebook has announced their own initiative: Facebook Connect. It's designed to do basically be a FriendFeed - to aggregate information from users' various profiles on numerous social sites in order to view it all in one place. Here's the details of what to expect:

• Trusted Authentication - easily authenticate into partner sites using your Facebook account
• Real Identity - leverage your real identity across the Web in a trusted environment
• Friend Linking - take your friends with them wherever they go, enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web
• Dynamic Privacy - assurance that the same privacy settings users have set up on Facebook will follow them wherever they decide to login throughout the Web
• Social Distribution - share actions on partner sites with your friends back on Facebook through feeds

Straight out of the gate, the following sites will utilize Facebook Connect:

Digg
Citysearch
Twitter
Seesmic (online video conversation tool)
Six Apart (blog publishing platform)
Hulu
CBS.com
CNET
CollegeHumor
Disney-ABC
Evite
Flock (social media browser developed on Firefox)
Kongregate
Loopt (new social network for iPhone)
Plaxo
Radar
Red Bull
Socialthing! (think FriendFeed)
StumbleUpon
The Insider
Uber
Vimeo
Xobni

What do you think of Facebook Connect? Let us know in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Knol Is Googlepedia

Knol is knowledge without the W(ikipedia) and an edge.

Knol is the newest product launched by Google. The Wikipedia competitor is in beta. Get ready for Knollywood.

Knol is basically Blogspot on steroids, organized by topic.

Google states the key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an identified author (or group of authors). It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. Google expects multiple knols on the same subject.

With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call "moderated collaboration." With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public.

People can submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.

The New Yorker magazine will allow any author to add one cartoon per knol from the New Yorker's cartoon repository. Cartoons are an effective (and fun) way to make your point, even on the most serious topics.

Of course, The New Yorker is a publisher.

Google will continue to claim that Google is not.

It's like the famous New Yorker cartoon, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a publisher."

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Former Yahoo, Tacoda Exec Heads to interCLICK

Jason Lynn, Director of Solutions Engineering for Yahoo/Right Media is exiting the Sunnyvale search engine to become Executive Vice President of Product Management at online advertising network interCLICK. Prior to his Yahoo/Right Media stint, Lynn was Director of Product Management at behavioral targeting firm TACODA, which was acquired by AOL in July 2007.

That's the same month Yahoo finalized its acquisition of Right Media.

Lynn joins an exodus of Yahoo execs as of late. Network Division Executive Vice President Jeff Weiner left and became Executive in Residence at two venture capital firms. Vish Makhijani, Senior Vice President of Search, is now heading up the Bay Area operations of Yandex, a Russian language search engine. Brad Garlinghouse, Sr. VP and author of the Peanut Butter Manifesto, and Qi Lu, Executive Vice President of Search and Advertising Technology have left as well.

Founders of other Yahoo-acquired companies aren't sticking around either. Flickr co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake and del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter have said their goodbyes.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Baidu Profits Soar 87% in Second Quarter

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo may have disappointed Wall Street, but Baidu is proving to be a Dark Knight in this tough economy.

Boosted by advertising sales in advance of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese search engine posted an 87% jump in profits in the second quarter of 2008. Net profit came in at $38.6 million, beating expectations of $35.5 million.

Baidu owned 63% of the search market in China, accoring to iResearch. Google had 26% and Yahoo came in third at 8%.

source: Reuters

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Reorganizes Platforms & Services Division; Kevin Johnson is Out

Microsoft has announced the reorganization of its Platforms and Services Division (PSD). The department will split into two new divisions: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services. Kevin Johnson, PSD President, is leaving Microsoft to head up Juniper Networks.

Senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky, Jon DeVaan and Bill Veghte will report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer to lead Windows/Windows Live.

The Online Services Division will be headed by a newly created senior lead position for which an executive search will be conducted among external and internal candidates. For the duration, Senior Vice President Satya Nadella will continue to lead Microsoft's search, MSN and ad platform engineering efforts.

In a memo to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer addressed goals for many of Microsoft's products and services. Here's what he had to say about search:

Google: We continue to compete with Google on two fronts—in the enterprise, where we lead; and in search, where we trail. In search, our technology has come a long way in a very short time and it's an area where we'll continue to invest to be a market leader. Why? Because search is the key to unlocking the enormous market opportunities in advertising, and it is an area that is ripe for innovation. In the coming years, we'll make progress against Google in search first by upping the ante in R&D through organic innovation and strategic acquisitions. Second, we will out-innovate Google in key areas—we're already seeing this in our maps and news search. Third, we are going to reinvent the search category through user experience and business model innovation. We'll introduce new approaches that move beyond a white page with 10 blue links to provide customers with a customized view of their world. This is a long-term battle for our company—and it's one we'll continue to fight with persistence and tenacity.

Yahoo: Related to Google and our search strategy are the discussions we had with Yahoo. I want to emphasize the point I've been making all along—Yahoo was a tactic, not a strategy. We want to accelerate our share of search queries and create a bigger pool of advertisers, and Yahoo would have helped us get there faster. But we will get there with or without Yahoo. We have the right people, we've made incredible progress in our technology, and we'll continue to make smart investments that will enable us to build an industry-leading business.

What do you think about Microsoft's reorganization? Will Kevin Johnson's departure hurt them? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading:
Microsoft Adds Record Number of Employees, Rules Out Acquisitions
Microsoft to Build Search Technology Center in Europe
Microsoft to Work on Live Search Reputation

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: The Top 4 Best Facebook Practices

When engaging in social media, companies are often encouraged to engage consumers on Facebook. In today's Brand Equity column, "The Top 4 Best Facebook Practices," Erik Qualman explains why playing in this space is not like traditional marketing methods.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 23, 2008

Yahoo Researcher Seeks to Combine Semantic Search Methods

Yahoo researcher Peter Mika has written up an extensive article on semantic search. First he talks about the limitations to syntax-based search:

• It is almost impossible to return search results that relate to the secondary sense of a term—especially if a dominant sense exists—for example, try searching for George Bush the beer brewer as compared to the President
• The capabilities of computational advertising, which is largely also an IR problem (for example, retrieving matching ads from a fixed inventory), are clearly impacted because of the sparsity of advertisements.
• When no clear key exists, search engines are unable to perform queries on descriptions of objects. For example, try searching for the author of this article with the keywords ‘semantic web researcher working for yahoo.'
• Current search technology is unable to satisfy any complex queries requiring information integration such as analysis, prediction, scheduling, etc. An example of such integration-based tasks is opinion mining regarding products or services. While there have been some successes in opinion mining with pure sentiment analysis, it is often the case that users like to know what specific aspects of a product or service are being described in positive or negative terms and to have the search results appear aggregated and organized. Information integration is not possible without structured representations of content.
• Multimedia queries are also difficult to answer, as multimedia objects are typically described with only a few keywords (tagging) or sentences. This is typically too little text for the statistical methods of IR to be effective.

Mika says there are two approaches to semantic search: Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the Semantic Web.

Natural Language Processing "builds on the automatic analysis of text." Semantic search company hakia is an example of natural language processing. Interestingly, hakia uses Yahoo search technology, including the recently announced Yahoo's BOSS (Build Your own Search Service). Powerset, which was recently acquired by Microsoft, is another example of NLP. These NLP semantic search providers "extract entities from text, disambiguate them against large-scale background knowledge sources (PowerSet uses Freebase, Hakia has its own ontology), and then record the relationships as found in the text." Users can query by asking full questions, though many still use keywords.

Semantic Web "aims to make the web more easily searchable by allowing publishers to expose their metadata." Mika says most publishers are willing to share their data if it results in increased traffic. Plus, semantic web allows publishers to avoid costs and quality issues associated with NLP. But last year, Yahoo researcher Mor Naaman declared the Semantic Web dead. Naaman's reasoning was the limitation of microformats, but Mika says that the new RDFa standard would have greater capabilities.

What Mika wants to do is to integrate the best of NLP and semantic web. He says Yahoo's SearchMonkey platform allows for this integration to occur.

To dig into all the technical nitty gritty, check out Mika's full article, "Semantic Search Arrives at the Web."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

15% of Fortune 500 companies have blogs

PRWeek reports that a new study conducted by Burson-Marsteller has found that 15% of Fortune 500 companies communicate with consumers via blogs.

The survey, conducted in February and March this year, found that 74 Fortune 500 companies actively maintain blogs, many of them technology-related corporations. The top four industries with blogs were: Computers and Office Equipment (IBM, Dell, etc.); Network and Other Communications Equipment (Motorola, Lucent Technologies, etc.); Semiconductors and Other Electrical Components (Intel, AMD, etc.); and Internet Services and Retailing (Amazon, Google, etc.).

Of course, the next step is learning how to optimize your blog. For that, may I recommend that representatives of Fortune 500 companies attend the "SEO Through Blogs & Feeds" session on Wednesday, Aug. 20, at SES San Jose. The session will be moderated by Rebecca Lieb, Contributing Editor, ClickZ, and the speakers are:
* Chris Boggs, Search Engine Watch Expert & Manager, SEO, Brulant, Inc.
* Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
* Amanda Watlington, Owner, Searching for Profit
* Daron Babin, CEO, Webmaster Radio

Check out the session to learn more about the unique advantages that optimized blogs and RSS feeds offer to companies large and small.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

SEM Platform Provider Kenshoo Opens U.S. Office

Tel Aviv-based search engine marketing platform provider, Kenshoo, has announced plans to open an office in the United States. The office will be located in San Francisco. Kenshoo has a European subsidiary in London as well.

Kenshoo provides a third generation SEM platform called KENSHOO SEARCH.

"We see North America as a key market and are very happy to hit the ground running. Following our plan, we have decided to take the needed step and establish a local company. This move will help us expand our already solid base of U.S. customers while improving our service." said Yoav Izhar-Prato, CEO of Kenshoo.

Related Reading:
Online Advertising Shifting from Branding to Direct Response
Local Advertisers Shifting Dollars to Internet
Global Internet Ad Spend to Exceed $106 Billion by 2011
Online Ad Spend Intact Despite Weakening Economy

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Rumored to Buy Digg for Third Time

A few months ago we explained why Digg would be worth $200 million to Google.

Now it appears the rumor mill is reporting that Google will buy Digg for $200 million or so.

Rumor has it the two companies have signed a letter of intent and are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property.

Microsoft has an advertising deal with Digg so the deal would be a competitive blow to the Redmond giant.

This is the third time the buyout rumor has surfaced.

Is it "three strikes and you're out" or the "third time's the charm?"

Digg has yet to publicly disavow the rumor but it's still early on the West Coast.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SEW Experts: How Valid Are Your Landing Page Test Conclusions?

Are your landing page tests telling the whole story? In today's By the Numbers column, "How Valid Are Your Landing Page Test Conclusions?," Tim Ash talks about the care and feeding of landing page tests - and their results.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: The Japanese Search, Why Don't We?

"Drive to search" campaigns are hot in Japan. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "The Japanese Search, Why Don't We?," Kevin Ryan explains the trend and how you can implement similar techniques in your search marketing campaigns.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 22, 2008

Yahoo Q2 2008 Disappoints Wall St.

Yahoo Second Quarter 2008 Financial Results
• Revenues were $1,798 million for the second quarter of 2008, a 6 percent increase compared to $1,698 million for the same period of 2007.

• Marketing services revenues were $1,587 million for the second quarter of 2008, a 7 percent increase compared to $1,486 million for the same period of 2007.

“Yahoo!'s transformation gained momentum in the second quarter as we announced new product initiatives and partnerships along with solid financial results,” said Sue Decker, president Yahoo! in a statement. “We advanced our position with users by opening up Yahoo! through new innovative offerings like SearchMonkey and BOSS in search and have seen great improvements with Buzz in the freshness of content on our home page. Our commercial agreement with Google is another great example of our open strategy and we expect it will strengthen our competitive position as a leading provider of search and display advertising. On the advertising side, our growing list of major agency partners including Publicis, WPP, Havas and premier publishing partners including walmart.com, and CNET and Turner are great examples of our ability to be the partner of choice across search and display advertising. We remain confident that our efforts will lead to a stronger and more profitable Yahoo!.”

o Marketing services revenues from Owned and Operated sites were $1,016 million for the second quarter of 2008, a 14 percent increase compared to $892 million for the same period of 2007.

o Marketing services revenues from Affiliate sites were $571 million for the second quarter of
2008, a 4 percent decrease compared to $594 million for the same period of 2007.

• Fees revenues were $211 million for the second quarter of 2008, a less than 1 percent decrease compared to $212 million for the same period of 2007.

• Revenues excluding traffic acquisition costs (“TAC”) were $1,346 million for the second quarter of 2008, an 8 percent increase compared to $1,244 million for the same period of 2007.

• Operating income for the second quarter of 2008 was $101 million, a 45 percent decrease compared to $185 million for the same period of 2007.

o Operating income for the second quarter of 2008 includes incremental costs of $22 million
incurred for outside advisors related to Microsoft's proposals to acquire all or a part of the
Company, other strategic alternatives, the proxy contest, and related litigation defense costs.

• Free cash flow for the second quarter of 2008 was $231 million, a 30 percent decrease compared to $328 million for the same period of 2007.

• Net income for the second quarter of 2008 was $131 million or $0.09 per diluted share compared to $161 million or $0.11 per diluted share for the same period of 2007.

“Despite a difficult economic environment, we posted solid results in line with the ranges we indicated in April,” said Blake Jorgensen, chief financial officer, Yahoo! in a statement. “GAAP revenue was $1.8 billion, with operating cash flow on a normalized basis coming in at $449 million. Our diverse advertiser base and compelling value proposition for our customers were key factors behind Yahoo!'s strong second quarter performance.”

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yang to Yahoos: One Team, One Voice

We're not sure what the long-term implications of the Yahoo-Yang-Icahn settlement will be. In the short term, though, the agreement that ended the impending proxy fight appears to have inspired Jerry Yang to use capital letters in his memos to employees.

Here's the full text of Jerry Yang's take on the Icahn affair.

Today, Yahoo! moves past a distracting proxy contest. This morning we announced a settlement with Carl Icahn which will enable Yahoo! to put an end to this challenging chapter in our history, and allow us to get back to the business at hand – building our business and maximizing value for all stockholders.

Over the past few weeks we've made progress communicating with investors, helping them to better understand our roadmap for long-term growth, our valuable combination of assets, and our solid position in the converging search and display marketplaces. These discussions have been productive for everyone.

Under the terms of the settlement with Mr. Icahn, he has withdrawn his nominees for consideration at the annual meeting, and has agreed to vote his Yahoo! shares in support of the Board's nominees. At our annual stockholder meeting on Aug. 1, we'll ask stockholders to re-elect eight of our current directors. (In connection with the settlement of the proxy contest, Bobby Kotick has notified the Company that he will not stand for re-election to the Board.) After the annual meeting, Mr. Icahn will be appointed to our Board. We've also agreed to expand our Board to make room for two additional members to be chosen by the Board upon the recommendation of the Board's Nominating and Governance Committee from a list that includes the rest of Mr. Icahn's slate and Jon Miller, former Chairman and CEO of AOL.

We're pleased that both parties were able to work together productively to accomplish this settlement, and we look forward to working with the new Board members and benefiting from their fresh perspective.

Yahoo! is now moving forward with one team and one voice, and we're excited about what the future holds.

Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Expedia Chooses Baynote Social Search to Improve Site Usability

Travel search site Expedia has announced the selection of Baynote to add Social Search to complement its search results. Baynote uses what other searchers find most helpful or most interesting to refine search results.

“Baynote's Social Search technology is a great fit for Expedia because the collective input from our millions of monthly visitors constantly improves the relevance of the search results,” said Tom Taylor, director of strategy for Expedia.

Expedia says users will now be able to search for specific types of trips or hospitality vendors instead of simply browsing the site. The goal is to provide a better experience for the user. Adds Taylor, “The Baynote solution is able to deliver the most relevant results based on what other Expedia customers have previously found most useful for similar queries.”

Earlier today, SEW expert Mark Jackson posted about the connection between Usability and SEO. Looks like social site search could be another way to incorporate usability while aiding your SEO campaign.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEO copywriting tips from Jill Whalen of High Rankings

I went to my first Search Engine Strategies back in the spring of 2002. And one of the SEO experts speaking at that search engine conference was Jill Whalen, the CEO of High Rankings.

Six-and-a-half-years ago, Jill spoke at a session entitled, “Writing for Search Engines.” And six-and-a-half-years later, I'm still quoting her SEO copywriting advice in the “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing” sessions at SES conferences because it was “built to last.”

As Jill says, “Good SEO work only gets better over time. It's only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.”

And next month, Jill will be speaking at SES San Jose at the “Building a Search Friendly Site” session on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at 10:30 a.m. as well as the “Keywords & Content: Search Foundations” session later that day at 2:45 p.m.

I recently interviewed Jill and asked her to share some of her SEO copywriting tips. The video interview is below.

Copywriting: High Rankings Jill Whalen

Jill is a pioneer in search engine optimization. She founded High Rankings in 1995 and since then, it has grown to be one of the pre-eminent SEO companies in the United States, providing hundreds of clients in more than 40 industries with expert SEO consulting, website audit reports, SEO campaigns and in-house SEO training classes.

Jill is also the founder of the popular High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum, the author of The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines, and the co-founder of the Search Engine Marketing Network for New England (SEMNE).

If SES San Jose is going to be your first search engine conference, then I strongly encourage you to attend both of the sessions where Jill will be speaking. Her advice is “built to last.”

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

80% Buy from a Store Whose Site They Previously Visited

Measurement and analytics are crucial to a successful online marketing campaign, but the relationship between online marketing and offline purchases has been a tricky one to figure out. But as more attention is given to the matter, we're learning more about the connection.

Media measurement company, Nielsen Online, conducted a survey to examine the relationship between online research and offline purchases. They found that 80% of participants who had recently bought consumer electronics from a brick and mortar store whose site they visited first.

• 53% bought from the site where they spent the most time.
• 58% would choose the internet if they could only use one channel to conduct product research on consumer electronics. Only 25% chose the brick and mortar store.

Nielsen used "pet food" as another category to examine the online/offline connection. They used this category to examine a niche that might not need as much research. I personally think this was a bad topic for that purpose due to last year's pet food crisis. But let's check out the data anyway.

Here's the percentages of pet food survey participants who would use the internet to research each topic.

• 48% Learn about nutritional specifications
• 45% Learn about product ingredients
• 45% Learn about recalls
• 40% Learn more about safety issues
• 40% Find sales/promotions

Of course, as we learned yesterday, more and more people are turning to the internet to make purchases due to rising gas costs.

But the message is clear, online marketing and company websites impact consumer purchasing decisions.

What do you think of the data? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Barely Inches Out Yahoo for Top Web Property; Platform-A Top Ad Network for June 2008

comScore has released the top 50 ad networks and top 50 web properties for June 2008.

In ad networks, AOL's Platform-A takes the top spot, reaching 90% of American internet users. Yahoo comes in second, reaching 83% and Google comes in third with 81%. Here's the full list:

In web properties, Google leads the pack 140.2 million unique visitors, but Yahoo comes in a very close second at 140.1 million. This past April, Google's sites beat Yahoo's properties for the first time. Microsoft trails in third with 119 million. AOL is in 4th with 110 million and Fox Interactive rounds out the top 5 with 85 million. Here's the chart:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Usability and SEO

How does the usability and accessibility of your website affect your SEO efforts? In today's au Natural column, "Usability and SEO," Mark Jackson explains the connection and gives you tips to make your site user-friendly.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Why Links are Like Shoes

Is that incoming link a Manolo, a Jimmy Choo, or a bargain pump from Payless? In today's small business SEM column, "Why Links are Like Shoes," Carrie Bradshaw, I mean, Carrie Hill indulges the fashionistas among us with a catwalk of links - and how to make them part of your wardrobe.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 21, 2008

Peace In Our Time: Icahn Gets Yahoo Board Offer

Seems Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has made an end move to stop the bickering between the usurpers and his current slate of board members. They have offered Carl Icahn a spot on the new board along with another of his proposed new slate of candidates, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Very clever Jerry. Adding Icahn and former AOL Chairman and CEO Jonathan Miller is a good way to stop the schoolyard emails and press releases we have seen over the past month or so.

That shareholders meeting on Aug 1 should be interesting.

Posted by Frank Watson on 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: PPC Keyword Sets: Words to the Wise

When it comes to paid search, there's no such thing as a free lunch. In today's Profitable PPC column, "PPC Keyword Sets: Words to the Wise ," David Szetela explains why a successful paid search campaign requires a constant gardner.

» Full story

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Mobile Search for iPhone 2x Faster, on 3G and EDGE

Whether you stood in line for hours for an iPhone 3G or are still hanging with your first gen iPhone (that's me), you are likely to use your touch-screen gadget to conduct searches. Google has not only created a downloadable application for its search product, but has also increased the speed of its web-based mobile search application. Users should now find search to be twice as fast as it used to be - and that's not just for 3G, but EDGE as well.

There's also easier access to other web-based apps including Calendar, Gmail, and Reader. (Hey Google, any chance of getting downloadable apps for those products? Just sayin')

The web-based apps also all have new icons. Thank goodness.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdWords Editor Update Launches Performance Statistics Download

Just over a month after releasing Adwords Editor 6.0, the team at Google AdWords has released a new update. The update launches a highly requested feature: the ability to download performance statistics. If you have AdWords Editor, you should be prompted automatically to download the new update, Version 6.0.1.

The update will not affect comments or unposted changes. Because of this, Google says:

• You don't need to export an archive of your account. In the auto-update prompt, choose the 'Update without Backup' option.
• After you upgrade, your account will already be in the new version. You won't need to download your account again.

What do you think of this update? Give your opinion in the comments.

Related Reading:
Conversion Optimizer Now Supported by Adwords Editor and API
Google AdWords Editor a Great Tool for Content -- and for Yahoo/Microsoft!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Gas Prices Send Consumers Online to Shop

As gas prices rise, mall traffic has been dropping. But all is not lost for retailers. Consumers are increasingly turning online to conduct their shopping, according a report in the New York Times.

J.C. Penney saw 8.7% growth in online traffic for the first quarter of 2008, while same store sales saw a 7.4% drop. Gap saw a 21% increase in online sales compared with an 11% decline in same store sales.

Looking for a way to get shoppers to buy from your site? Free or discounted shipping is a popular strategy. Makes sense, doesn't it? If people are looking to save on gas, then reduced/free shipping is all the more reason to buy online. Or try couponing, which is up 56%.

The Times also points out that deals on shipping are a stark contrast to businesses who raise fees to cover their costs due to increasing gas prices (yeah, we're talking about you, airline industry!).

Are you noticing a change in consumer behavior due to rising gas prices? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Conference speakers from brand name companies at SES San Jose

Last Thursday, I had a chance to spend a full day with a diverse group of search engine marketers during the Search Engine Strategies “Optimizing for Universal Search” workshop in Seattle. Over lunch, we talked about SES San Jose – which is coming up August 18-22, 2008.

The people around the table were excited to see that conference speakers from brand name companies like Adobe, Cisco, Discover, Forbes, HP, Humana, IBM, Intuit, P&G, Monster, Napster, New England Journal of Medicine, The New Republic, The New York Times, Stanford University, and Walt Disney were on the agenda.

Um, yes, of course. How could I have possibly overlooked that significant market trend?

Okay, so maybe I've attended too many SEO conferences. When I looked at the agenda in my post, “Optimizing your schedule for Search Engine Strategies San Jose,” I was excited to see that Matt Cutts, the Software Engineer Guru from Google, was speaking on Day 2 during the Orion Keynote Panel: Technical & Information Giants.

And I'm so used to seeing conference speakers like Marshall D. Simmonds, the Chief Search Strategist of The New York Times / About.com, on the SES conference agenda that I had missed the fact that he is being joined at SES San Jose by more than a dozen other conference speakers from brand name companies.

This market trend is significant.

In the past, conference speakers from brand name companies have been under-represented at search engine conferences.

Part of this is evolutionary. In the early days, most search engine experts either headed up SEO companies or worked at one of the search engines. And these segments are still well represented on the Search Engine Strategies conference agenda.

But part of this is revolutionary. Kevin Ryan, VP of Global Content for the SES series, named an advisory board in August 2007 that included a number of individuals from brand name companies.

Their input is clearly reflected in this year's agenda at SES San Jose. Here are some examples:

(Monday, Aug. 18, 2008, 1:30 p.m.)
Orion Keynote Panel - How Much Search is Enough?
Moderators:
• Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch
• Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink
Speakers:
• Robert Murray, President, iProspect
• Aaron Goldman, VP, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships, Resolution Media, an Omnicom Media Group Company
• Steven Kaufman, Senior Vice President, Media Director, Digitas
• Bob Tripathi, Search Marketing Strategist, Discover Financial Services

(Monday, Aug. 18, 2008, 4:30 p.m.)
Opening Keynote Presentation
• Lee Siegel, senior editor at The New Republic and author of “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob”

(Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, 9:00 a.m.)
Keynote Roundtable: Why Does Search Get the Credit for Everything?
Moderator:
• Bill Hunt, CEO, Global Strategies International
Speakers:
• Randy Peterson, Search Marketing Innovation Manager, Procter and Gamble
• Terry A. Cox, Manager, Search Engine Marketing, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts Online
• Mikel Chertudi, Sr. Director, Online & Demand Marketing, Omniture
• Sharon Gallacher, West Coast Managing Director, Neo@Ogilvy

(Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, 2:45 p.m.)
War of the Search Worlds: Unifying Your Global Search Marketing Program
Moderator:
• Kevin Heisler, Executive Editor, Search Engine Watch
Speakers:
• Olivier Lemaignen, Group Manager, Global Search Marketing, Intuit
• Jay Middleton, Senior Manager, Worldwide Search Marketing, Adobe
• Mark Scholz, Interactive Manager of IPG Worldwide, Hewlett-Packard
• Russ Mann, CEO, Covario

(Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008, 9:00 a.m.)
Morning Keynote
• Chip Heath, Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and author of "Made to Stick"

(Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008, 2:45 p.m.)
In House SEO: Lessons Learned & Victories Won
Moderator:
• Jessica Bowman, SEO Strategist and in-house SEO Expert, SEMinhouse.com
Speakers:
• Marshall D. Simmonds, Chief Search Strategist, New York Times / About.com
• Derrick Wheeler, Senior SEO Architect, Microsoft
• Kara Jariwala, Search Marketing Strategist, Cisco
• Laura Lippay, Group Program Manager, Search Strategy, Yahoo!

Of course, you can also see plenty of search engine experts from SEM and SEO companies speaking at SES San Jose. This includes Greg Boser, Christine Churchill, Barbara Coll, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Bryan Eisenberg, Kevin Lee, Jeffrey K. Rohrs, Dana Todd, Amanda Watlington, and Jill Whalen, who were all speakers at the first SES conference that I attended in the spring of 2002 -- which was programmed back then by Danny Sullivan, who will also be speaking at the SES conference in San Jose next month.

And you can also hear lots of representatives of the top search engines speaking at this year's Search Engine Strategies San Jose. The fact that it is being held in the backyard of Google and Yahoo explains why the top search engines are sending so many people from their engineering and search quality teams to both the conference and expo.

So, some things haven't changed.

But, the growing number of conference speakers at SES San Jose from brand name companies is a significant market trend that's worth noting. It's “the new new thing” in Silicon Valley.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

comScore and Nielsen Release Search Market Data for June 2008

comScore and Nielsen have released their search market data for June 2008. comScore gives insight into month-over-month growth while Nielsen's report shows year-over-year growth. Let's look at comScore's data first.

Google dropped by .3% from May 2008 to reach 61.5% of the search market for June. Yahoo gained that .3% to rise to 20.9% for June. Microsoft gained .7% to 9.2%, while Ask.com and AOL dropped .2% and .4% respectively. Here's a handy chart:

Taking a look at the number of searches conducted, Google sites saw over 7 billion searches, Yahoo saw 2.4 billion and Microsoft saw 1 billion. Americans conducted a total of 11.5 billion searches, up 7% from may.

Nielsen's data has Google seeing 59% of the search market, up 19% from the year before. Yahoo is at 16.6%, down 12.4% year-over-year, while Microsoft is at 14.1%, up 12.5% over June 2007. AOL was down 17% to 4.3%, and Ask.com was up 4.9% to 2.0%.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Settles with Icahn - Yang Keeps Job; Icahn to Join Board

Jerry Yang threw Carl Icahn a bone today. So Carl Icahn called the dogs off.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO),announced today that it has agreed to settle with Carl Icahn to avoid a proxy contest related to the Company's 2008 annual meeting of stockholders.

* Jerry Yang will remain CEO.
* Carl Icahn will join the board.
* Eight Board members will face re-election.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, eight members of Yahoo!'s current Board of Directors will stand for re-election at the 2008 annual meeting: Roy Bostock, Ronald Burkle, Eric Hippeau, Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern, Mary Agnes Wilderotter, Gary Wilson and Jerry Yang. Robert Kotick has decided not to stand for re-election to the Board at the 2008 annual meeting.

After the 2008 annual meeting, the Yahoo! Board will increase to 11 members. Carl Icahn will be appointed to the Board and the remaining two seats will be filled by the Board upon the recommendation of the Board's Nominating and Governance Committee from a list of nine candidates recommended by Mr. Icahn, which includes the eight remaining members of the Icahn slate of nominees and Jonathan Miller, currently a partner in Velocity Interactive Group and former Chairman and CEO of AOL.

As part of the settlement agreement, Mr. Icahn, who owns an aggregate of 68,786,320 shares, or 4.98% of Yahoo! common stock, has agreed to withdraw his nominees for consideration at the annual meeting and to vote his Yahoo! shares in support of the Board's nominees.

"We are gratified to have reached this agreement, which serves the best interests of all Yahoo! stockholders," said Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock in a statement. "We look forward to working productively with Carl and the new members of the Board on continuing to improve the Company's performance and enhancing stockholder value. Yahoo! is a world-class company with an extremely bright future, and collaborating together, I believe we can help the Company achieve its ambitious goals."

"This agreement will not only allow Yahoo! to put the distraction of the proxy contest behind us, it will allow the Company to continue pursuing its strategy of being the starting point for Internet users and a must buy for advertisers," said Yahoo! Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang in a statement. "No other company in the Internet space has our unique combination of global brand, talented employees, innovative technologies and exceptional assets, attributes that will help us take advantage of the large and growing opportunity ahead of us. I look forward to working together with our new colleagues on the Board to make that happen."

Mr. Icahn said in a statement, "I am very pleased that this settlement will allow me to work in partnership with Yahoo!'s Board and management team to help the Company achieve its full potential. While I continue to believe that the sale of the whole Company or the sale of its Search business in the right transaction must be given full consideration, I share the view that Yahoo!'s valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders. I believe this is a good outcome and that we will have a strong working relationship going forward. Additionally, I am happy that the board has agreed in the settlement agreement that any meaningful transaction, including the strategy in dealing with that transaction, will be fully discussed with the entire board before any final decision is made."

Yahoo intends to file the full text of the settlement agreement later today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and will also file and mail to its stockholders, supplemental proxy material.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo and Carl Icahn Agree to Settlement

Yahoo has announced that it has forged an agreement with Carl Icahn. Here's the details.

Yahoo's board will expand to 11 members, but only 8 of the current board will stay on. They are:

Roy Bostock
Ronald Burkle
Eric Hippeau
Vyomesh Joshi
Arthur Kern
Mary Agnes Wilderotter
Gary Wilson
Jerry Yang

Robert Kotick is the remaining board member. He's decided to step down.

The expansion will occur AFTER the August 1 shareholders meeting. Carl Icahn will become a board member, and then 2 more will be added from a list of 9 that Icahn will supply. The list will be the 8 remaining members of Icahn's now-cancelled proxy board plus Jonathan Miller, partner in Velocity Interactive Group and former Chairman and CEO of AOL.

Icahn owns an aggregate of 68,786,320 shares, or 4.98% of Yahoo! common stock. He will vote his shares for the current board at the August 1 shareholders meeting.

Here's the corporate-speak:

"We are gratified to have reached this agreement, which serves the best interests of all Yahoo! stockholders," said Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock. "We look forward to working productively with Carl and the new members of the Board on continuing to improve the Company's performance and enhancing stockholder value. Yahoo! is a world-class company with an extremely bright future, and collaborating together, I believe we can help the Company achieve its ambitious goals."

"This agreement will not only allow Yahoo! to put the distraction of the proxy contest behind us, it will allow the Company to continue pursuing its strategy of being the starting point for Internet users and a must buy for advertisers," said Yahoo! Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang. "No other company in the Internet space has our unique combination of global brand, talented employees, innovative technologies and exceptional assets, attributes that will help us take advantage of the large and growing opportunity ahead of us. I look forward to working together with our new colleagues on the Board to make that happen."

Mr. Icahn said, "I am very pleased that this settlement will allow me to work in partnership with Yahoo!'s Board and management team to help the Company achieve its full potential. While I continue to believe that the sale of the whole Company or the sale of its Search business in the right transaction must be given full consideration, I share the view that Yahoo!'s valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders. I believe this is a good outcome and that we will have a strong working relationship going forward. Additionally, I am happy that the board has agreed in the settlement agreement that any meaningful transaction, including the strategy in dealing with that transaction, will be fully discussed with the entire board before any final decision is made."

What do you think of this settlement? Sound off in the commments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 20, 2008

Is YouTube about to pass Yahoo in expanded searches?

On Friday, comScore announced that Google retained its lead in the U.S. core search market capturing 61.5 percent of the searches conducted in June 2008. By and large, the press coverage focused on the fact that Google's share of core searches was down slightly from May, while Yahoo! and Microsoft's share of core searches were up slightly from the previous month.

But, farther down the comScore press release was data on the "expanded search queries" for June. This includes the top properties where search activity is observed -- like YouTube. And here's what comScore qSearch 2.0 found:
-- 7.3 billion expanded search queries were conducted at Google in June;
-- 2.5 billion expanded search queries were conducted at Yahoo that month;
-- 2.3 billion expanded search queries were conducted at YouTube and other Google sites;
-- 1.1 billion expanded search queries were conducted at MSN-Windows Live.

And the month to month growth of expanded search queries at YouTube was 15%, while it was 8% at Yahoo!

So, let the countdown begin. How many months do you think it will take before YouTube passes Yahoo!?

According to comScore Video Metrix, 82.2 million viewers watched 4.1 billion videos in May on YouTube.com -- that's an average of 50.4 videos per viewer. It's also worth noting that YouTube.com accounts for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at Google Sites, which means that Google Video is now round off error.

Okay, to be fair, expanded searches includes ones for mapping and local directories as well as user-generated video sites. So, YouTube and Google Maps are being combined in the comScore data.

Nevertheless, the media world still seems focused on core searches, which doesn't count about 5.1 billion expanded searches a month.

So, it's important to remember that vertical search engines are ... search engines, too. And getting found in all the right places increasingly means optimizing video for YouTube as well as web pages for Google, Yahoo! Search and Live Search.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 19, 2008

JumpTap Adds New York Office in Growing Mobile Search Market

The mobile search world paints a slightly different picture of the distribution of search providers. Yes, we have the big guns as the dominant forces in the mobile search marketplace. But many of the carriers view the big search companies as rivals, and have opted to partner with lesser known companies such as JumpTap, Medio, InfoSpace, and FAST.

These companies provide carriers with their own white labeled search engine, which offer generous revenue sharing models to the mobile carriers. Mobile carriers are looking beyond their flat rate monthly data plans to bolster revenue, and JumpTap is offering their carrier partners just that. JumpTap collects behavioral data provided by the carrier to serve ads that are most relevant to searchers. These highly targeted ads are likely to generate high click-throughs. A win-win solution for the carrier, JumpTap, the advertiser, and the searcher.

This model has allowed JumpTap to secure relationships with partners include Boost Mobile, Alltel Wireless, Rogers Wireless, Fido , Virgin Mobile USA, Bell Canada , Telefonica, and TeliaSonera. On the content syndication side - JumpTap has partnered with both NBC - Universal, and FOX. The reach is approximately 140 million mobile subscribers.

What makes the JumpTap search experience different than it's competitors? JumpTap is unique in that it only indexes sites that are optimized for the mobile web. The company boasts the largest pure mobile search index. Mobile searchers will not be delivered sites developed in Flash, for example, which cannot be viewed on the great majority of handsets.

We asked what makes the mobile search experience different than traditional web search. "Mobile search is completely different. You are not likely to do research for a term paper via your mobile device. Queries are more likely to be fall into categories such as entertainment, games, restaurants, shopping. Mobile search intent is completely different", said Eric Brown, Manager of Ad Operations at JumpTap.

Another JumpTap enthusiast told us - "Mobile is so important, because for many individuals, particularly in emerging countries, it's their only gatway to the web. It's the only medium for them to harness the power of a search".

A guest of the event, Adam Broitman - a blogger on the subject of emerging media shared with us his thoughts. "JumpTap's realization that the mobile phone is slowly becoming the remote control for our entire life could not be more timely. The mobile web needs companies like JumpTap in order to help further the mobile web, and I could not have been happier to have been in attendance at the celebration of their arrival in New York City."

Posted by Frank Watson on 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 18, 2008

Google's Matt Cutts on Spam, Ranking, and Your Search Future

Matt Cutts has now earned international film star status.

Google Webmaster Central in Germany has created an SEO video with excellent production values - particularly by YouTube standards. They've even translated Matt into German:

Hallo an alle User aus Deutschland! Ob ihr nun User, Webmaster oder ein SEO seid - ich freue mich, hier die Gelegenheit zu haben, ein bisschen mit euch zu sprechen. Ich hoffe, dass ich bald die Möglichkeit finde, auch einmal nach Deutschland zu kommen. Bis dahin bin ich froh, dass wir hier viele talentierte Googler haben, die sich um den deutschen Markt kÌmmern und den Kontakt zu deutschen Webmastern halten.

We were hoping they might dub Matt into German for the video with English subtitles, but no such luck. You will find out a number of cool things, including Matt's vision of search in the next five years.

For example, do you know when Matt first came across spam at Google?

After this interview, you will.

To find out Matt's true vision of the future of search, you'll have to read SES Magazine, available only at SES San Jose.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Legg Mason Continues Support Yahoo's Current Board

In April, before Microsoft's ultimatum for Yahoo to accept its bid came to pass, Legg Mason threw its support behind Yahoo. Now the investor group is continuing its support of Yahoo and plans to vote for the current board at the upcoming August 1 shareholders meeting.

However, Legg Mason did advise Yahoo and Carl Icahn to bury the hatchet by the time of the meeting. Icahn has submitted a proxy board to replace the current board and has been in talks with Microsoft for a deal should his board win.

Legg Mason owns 60.7 million shares of Yahoo, adding up to 4.4% of the total shares.

via Reuters

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Auto-tagging Adwords and URL Redirects: Please Pass the Gclid

To pass the gclid or not to pass the gclid, that is the question. At least, if you're trying to tag your AdWords URLs in Google Analtyics it is. On the Google Analytics blog, they're talking about using auto-tagging in Adwords in order to facilitate easy viewing of info in Analytics. But problems may arise if you've got some URL redirecting going on.

Basically, auto-tagging inserts a little snippet of code into destination URLs. But if you have several redirects, the snippet could get stripped. That snippet is "gclid." What happens if the gclid gets snipped?

While Google Analytics still records the visit and the subsequent user activity, it doesn't have the information necessary to properly attribute the visit to your Google ad. As a result, some of this traffic will be included in the "direct" category while other visits may show up as "not set". Furthermore, your Adwords Campaigns report in Google Analytics may show cost metrics, but your visits columns may show zeros.

If this is happening to you, you have two options.

1. Ask your site administrator to configure their servers to pass the glid
2. Manually tag your Adwords

So how do you figure out if you're passing the gclid? Follow these steps:

Scenario 1 If your destination URL has no query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/:

1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar, but before you press Enter, append "?gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?gclid=test.

2. Now press Enter.

3. If the gclid is present on the final landing page URL, you're golden.

Scenario 2
If your destination URL already has query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a¶m2=b:

1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar and before pressing Enter, append "&gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a¶m2=b&gclid=test.

(This is why the "?" and the "&" distinction were important to note earlier. It's a matter of URL syntax. Luckily, auto-tagging knows the difference.)

2. Press Enter.

3. If the gclid is still there, you're in good shape, and need only to enable auto-tagging.

Related Reading:
Rewriting URLs: SEO for CMS, E-Commerce, and Dynamic Sites
Tracking and Analytics 101

Google AdWords 101

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Buys Russian Ad Agency for $140 Million

Google is looking to extend its global ad reach with its purchase of a Russian ad agency. Rambler Media has sold Begun advertising agency to Google for $140 million. Begun serves up contextual ads. Rambler will also contract search technology from Google as part of the deal.

"Google is very committed to giving Russian users, advertisers and partners the best possible service and experience," said Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director Emerging Markets, Google. "This agreement will result in better search results and more relevant advertising for our Russian users and publishers."

In 2006, Google opened a development center in Moscow, and tapped another Sergei, last name Burkov, to run the place. Burkov was the founder of Dulance, which Google acquired in the process of opening their Russian center.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft's 18% Growth Disappoints Wall Street

Google wasn't the only one reporting second quarter revenues yesterday. Microsoft also dished, though they label the same period as their fiscal fourth quarter.

The software giant made $15.84 billion last quarter, up 18% over the same quarter last year. Annual revenue was $60.42 billion, which was also up 18% over the year prior.

The growth rate is not good enough for Wall Street, however, as the stock was down nearly 5% at the time of this post. Analysts see Microsoft as struggling in a weak economy.

If making $15.84 billion in three months is struggling, then I want to suffer!

Related Reading:
Microsoft Earnings Key Takeaways: Where's the Search?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 17, 2008

Google Earnings Top $5.37 Billion in Revenue Q2 2008

Google revenues topped $5.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, an increase of 39 percent compared to the second quarter of 2007. That's also an increase of 3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008.

But those numbers still disappointed investors who basked in the glow of Google's growth and perhaps lingered a little too long in the sun.

The big news? Weakness in key sectors such as real estate, where paid search has proven resilient in the face of the recession. As SEW readers know, Auto finance average CPC was down in June; as was the total Finance category.

Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs, or TAC. In the second quarter of 2008, TAC totaled $1.47 billion, or 28 percent of advertising revenues.

"Strong international growth as well as sustained traffic increases on Google's web properties propelled us to another strong quarter, despite a more challenging economic environment," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, in a statement. "As we continue to focus on innovating in our core business of search, ads and apps, we also look forward to enhancing the experience of our users and expanding the reach of our advertisers and partners with new technologies and formats, particularly as our integration of DoubleClick gains momentum and creates new opportunities in display advertising and elsewhere."

Highlights of the 2nd Quarter:

Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $3.53 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2008. This represents a 42% increase over second quarter 2007 revenues of $2.49 billion and a 4% increase over first quarter 2008 revenues of $3.40 billion. Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.66 billion, or 31% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2008. This represents a 22% increase over network revenues of $1.35 billion generated in the second quarter of 2007 and a 2% decrease over first quarter 2008 revenues of $1.69 billion. International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.80 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in the second quarter of 2008, compared to 48% in the second quarter of 2007 and 51% in the first quarter of 2008. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the first quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2008, our revenues in the second quarter of 2008 would have been $88 million lower. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the second quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008, our revenues in the second quarter of 2008 would have been $249 million lower. Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $774 million, representing 14% of revenue in the second quarter of 2008, compared to 15% in the second quarter of 2007 and 15% in the first quarter of 2008. Paid Clicks - Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 19% over the second quarter of 2007 and decreased approximately 1% over the first quarter of 2008.

The growth of paid clicks year-over-year is good news, showing the strength of the paid search marketplace. As Google has stated previously, the company has made an effort to improve the quality of clicks rather than increasing click volume. AdWords and AdSense were down sequentially, due to quality control and seasonality.

Google acknowledged the weakness of key sectors (Autos, Finance, Real Estate) that have wreaked havoc with display advertising. Real estate sector for paid search and contextual ads is down year-over-year. Auto ad spend is up year-over-year, but not consumer financing.

Ad Sense partners may have felt the squeeze too. Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC), the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, decreased to $1.47 billion in the second quarter of 2008. This compares to TAC of $1.49 billion in the first quarter of 2008. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 28% in the second quarter, compared to 29% in the first quarter of 2008.

The majority of TAC expense is related to amounts ultimately paid to Google's AdSense partners, which totaled $1.32 billion in the second quarter of 2008. (TAC is also related to amounts ultimately paid to certain Google distribution partners and others who direct traffic to Google's website, which totaled $154 million in the second quarter of 2008.)

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

GoDaddy's New .Me Domains Turning Into Circus

Seems GoDaddy is having some problems with their just launched .me domains. People were applying left and right for them and obviously GoDaddy seemed to have a "box office" hit with the new domain extension.

But as SEW moderator Discovery details here, everyone seems to get an initial you got your domain only to find out a little while later that the names have already been assigned to someone else. Jeremy Shoemaker had the same problems over at Shoemoney and posted the responses.

GoDaddy is going to make a lot of money with this new domain roll out, but now that people are being rejected after being told otherwise, the loss of goodwill may have a much bigger longterm negative effect for the company.

Hope GoDaddy registered younolongerlike.me and dontblame.me, as they may need to use them to offset the bad publicity.

Posted by Frank Watson on 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

SEO Can Be A Bear

We often take the mainstream press to task for not understanding the value of search engine marketing and search engine optimization. So it's a welcome change when a national columnist gets it right.

Today Steven Strauss in TheStreet.com wrote a column titled, "Get on Google's Good Side with SEO." With Matt Cutts' recent endorsement of "white hat" SEO, it's great to see small business embrace search engine optimization.

Strauss writes, "One of the questions I hear most often these days goes something like, 'How the heck am I supposed to keep my small business going in this economy? I don't have a lot of money for advertising.'"

He states - or perhaps overstates:

The good news is that there is in fact a great way to market your business that is not expensive and is very effective. However, it is quite time-consuming.

It's called search engine optimization. SEO gets you noticed, is practically free marketing and increases sales. SEO is the magic bullet.

Anyone who's done SEO knows it's not a magic bullet. Calling SEO a magic bullet beats "snake oil" any day of the week.

Since he's writing for beginners, Strauss compares fear of SEO to an Alec Baldwin-Anthony Hopkins movie written by David Mamet, "The Edge."

I am reminded of the 1997 movie The Edge with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. In it, the two men are stranded in the Alaska Outback after their small plane crashes.

Soon they are being stalked by a bear. Eventually Hopkins' character convinces himself and Baldwin's character, Bob, that they can slay the bear.

"I'm going to kill the bear," Hopkins' character says, "Say it! Say I'm going to kill the bear!"

Bob says it, halfheartedly.

Charles (Hopkins) then yells at Bob: "Say it! Say I'm going to kill the bear!" Bob says it.

"Say it again," says Charles. Bob, starting to feel it, says it more loudly. "I'm going to kill the bear." "Again!" Charles bellows. Finally, Bob yells, convincingly, " I Am Going To Kill The Bear!"

Finally, they kill the bear.

You must believe in SEO and your ability to achieve online marketing goals to succeed.

Steven D. Strauss is a lawyer, author and USA TODAY columnist. His latest book is the Small Business Bible. He's spoken around the world about entrepreneurship, including at the UN, and has been seen on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, The O'Reilly Factor, and many other television and radio shows. He maintains a Web site at www.MrAllBiz.com.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google On User Intent in Search Queries

In the latest installment from Google about search quality, the topic du jour is user intent. Google Fellow Amit Singhal is at the helm of the Official Google blog again and wrote about efforts Google makes to help searchers find what they're looking for.

Singhal writes, "Search in the last decade has moved from give me what I said to give me what I want." I guess that depends on who you ask. Perhaps the search engines have approached it this way, but users have always been in the give me what I want column. Either way, today it's all about what searchers want.

Using the example of kofee annan, Singhal says Google knows a searcher is really looking for Kofi Annan, and will prompt the searcher as such. However, in a query for kofee beans, Google knows that the searcher is looking for coffee beans. Basically, Google isn't a spelling-monger.

Singhal also says that Google knows when Dr means doctor and when it means drive, and that searching for new york times square church is a search for an actual church and not something in the New York Times.

Understanding user intent is also something that drives Google's initiatives in both personalized and universal search.

Finally, Singhal introduces Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR). The technology allows searchers to discover information in a language other than the one they're searching in and use Google's translation technology to access it.

What do you think about Google's understanding of user intent? Leave a comment and let us know!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

77.4% of Search Ads to Google in Q2 2008

Efficient Frontier has released search advertising market data for the second quarter of 2008, and it showed Google growing 2% over Q2 2007. For every new dollar spent on search ads in 2008 over 2007, Google received $1.10, while Yahoo lost $0.09 and Microsoft lost $0.01.

As a result, Google enjoyed 77.4% of total search engine spending in Q2 2008, while Yahoo fell 2% to 17.8% and Microsoft came in at 4.8%. Google's rise comes despite Adgooroo data suggesting their client base has actually declined.

Google accounted for 77.4 percent of total search engine spending in Q2 2008, an increase of 2 percentage points over the previous year.

Here's more toasty data nuggets for your consumption:

• Cost per click (CPC) rates increased by 13.8 percent for Google in Q2 2008 versus a year ago, while average CPCs on Microsoft Live Search increased at a slower rate of 5.6 percent, and Yahoo! CPCs declined by 7.3 percent.
• Return on Investment (ROI) improved on all three search engines, with Microsoft Live Search improving 25% YOY, while ROI on Yahoo! Search increased by 13%, and Google's ROI increased by 3%.
• Automotive advertisers increased search advertising spending by 24 percent in Q2 2008 versus Q2 2007, but retailers increased search spending by a cautious 1 percent. Financial services advertisers, hit hard by the mortgage crisis, decreased search engine spending by 7 percent YOY, and travel advertisers decreased spend by 17 percent as consumers pulled back on leisure spending.
• The global outlook for Google's growth is very positive, with the search giant capturing 75% or more of search engine spending in Q2 2008 in the global markets in which Efficient Frontier operates, with the exception of Japan and China. In Q2 2008, for the first time Google captured a majority share of search engine spend in Japan, with 56% of search spending in that market.

Google releases Q2 revenues after the closing bell on Wall Street later today.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yahoo's Latest Letter to Shareholders: We'll Sell for $33 Per Share

In a letter that is likely to believed by almost no one, Yahoo regurgitated much of the same old statements about Microsoft and Carl Icahn - and then slipped in something about selling the entire company for $33 a share. Of course, that's only "if Microsoft will negotiate a transaction that delivers certainty of value and certainty of closing. This is the simplest, most straightforward way to maximize value for you."

Rumor had it that Yahoo wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of $35-37 per share in the spring when the deal went south. Both sides have accused the other of walking away prematurely.

Then Carl Icahn created a proxy board and subsequently called for Yahoo to sell for $34.375 a share. Now Yahoo says it will go for $33 per share.

If I were Microsoft, I would just sit back, relax and continue to watch the price drop. If I were Google, I'd continue laughing all the way to the bank.

Here's the full letter:

Dear Fellow Stockholder:

The recently-formed Carl Icahn-Microsoft alliance continues to make misleading statements about their plans for Yahoo!. Your Board of Directors believes strongly that the Icahn-Microsoft agenda -as presented to us jointly last week - will destroy stockholder value at Yahoo!, serving only their very narrow special interests, clearly not your interests.

Your Board continues to work to maximize value for you and is taking the following steps to do so:

-- Moving forward with our strategic plan and strategies to lead in online advertising - with both search and display;

-- Preparing to implement our recently signed commercial agreement with Google that will increase cash flow;

-- Continuing to explore other ways to unlock value and return value to you such as unlocking the value of our Asia assets; and

-- Remaining open to negotiating a value creating transaction (including with Microsoft) that provides real and certain value - not just the possibility of value.

In contrast, let's review Carl Icahn's brief involvement with the Company to date.

Carl Icahn bought his stock two months ago for an estimated average cost of less than $25 per share. He is well-known as a corporate agitator with a short-term approach to his investments. His short-term approach gives Mr. Icahn a strong incentive to strike any deal with Microsoft that enables him to recover his investment and get back his money quickly, even a deal that does not provide full and fair value to you. Is that in the interests of all stockholders? Clearly, it is not.

Mr. Icahn has severely handicapped himself in his ability to negotiate a favorable transaction with Microsoft. Why?

-- Mr. Icahn has made it clear that his only objective is to sell part or all of Yahoo! to Microsoft. That fact, combined with his lack of an operating plan going forward, means that he will have no leverage to negotiate a fair deal with Microsoft. He has set himself up for failure.

-- Second, Mr. Icahn and his slate lack the working knowledge of Yahoo! and its Internet business needed to do two things that are required to successfully deliver a value-enhancing transaction for Yahoo! stockholders. First, they do not have the detailed knowledge to negotiate a complex restructuring of a large, innovative high technology company in a rapidly changing environment. Second, they do not have the hands-on experience to manage and lead Yahoo! during the approximately one year period estimated to be required to gain regulatory approval for a deal or to manage and lead the remainder of the Company (non-search) after a transaction is completed. Don't take our word for that. Mr. Icahn will be calling the shots if his slate wins and yet Mr. Icahn himself told the Wall Street Journal last fall: "Technology hasn't really been one of the things I've focused on too much before" and "It's hard to understand these technology companies." That's why you need a knowledgeable, experienced and independent board to represent your interests vis-a-vis Microsoft.

Mr. Icahn can't make up his mind about what he thinks will work for Yahoo!. He bought his position believing that he could bring Microsoft back to buy all of Yahoo!, at one point suggesting we publicly offer to sell Yahoo! to Microsoft for $34.375. But he didn't do enough due diligence to determine what your Board already knew: that it was Microsoft's decision to walk away and that it had rebuffed repeated efforts by your independent directors to get a whole company acquisition back on the table. Recognizing that a sale to Microsoft might not be an option, Mr. Icahn said as an alternative that we should enter into an agreement with Google (which we were already negotiating and subsequently signed), and that we should walk away from Microsoft's search-only proposal (which we did after careful evaluation of that proposal). Then, in an extraordinary flip flop, Mr. Icahn teamed up with Microsoft and embraced their latest joint search-only proposal--even though it involved significant execution and operational risks and was fraught with flaws that made the "headline value" asserted by Microsoft and Mr. Icahn more illusion than reality.

How can Yahoo! stockholders trust Mr. Icahn to deliver what he claims he can deliver when his actions have been so contradictory -and when all he has delivered so far is a risky proposal of questionable value from his new friends at Microsoft? Yes, the Microsoft/Icahn proposal is somewhat of an improvement over Microsoft's last search-only proposal, but no one should confuse a modestly improved offer with a good offer. The Icahn/Microsoft proposal was more "smoke and mirrors" than objective reality.

Now let's turn to the recent marriage of convenience between Microsoft and Mr. Icahn.

This "odd couple" collaboration - between two parties with keenly different agendas - is indeed perplexing. Why does Mr. Icahn believe he can count on Microsoft to complete a transaction? Certainly Microsoft is a well-respected and successful company and we have been clear that we are fully prepared to do a deal with them. But Microsoft's flip flops and inconsistencies over the past five months are so stupefying that one can only conclude that Microsoft was never fully committed to acquiring Yahoo! either because:

-- Microsoft can't decide what is and isn't strategically important to its online business; or

-- Microsoft is more interested in destabilizing a key competitor so that it can either enhance its competitive position or buy our highly valuable search business--and the enormously desirable intellectual property associated with it --at a bargain basement price.

Microsoft desperately needs to improve the performance of its online services business (consisting of its search and display assets) which, cumulatively since 2003, has lost money despite billions of dollars of investment. And yet Mr. Icahn would ignore this track record and its implications for his fellow Yahoo! stockholders, swallowing a deal that leaves Yahoo!'s future dependent, in part, on Microsoft's ability to monetize search. And, as Mr. Icahn has himself pointed out, it would eliminate any opportunity we may have to sell the entire Company for an attractive premium.

In contrast to the conflicting and confusing statements emanating from the Icahn-Microsoft alliance, your Board and management have been crystal clear about our position.

First, we will sell the entire Company to Microsoft for $33 per share or more if Microsoft will negotiate a transaction that delivers certainty of value and certainty of closing. This is the simplest, most straightforward way to maximize value for you.

Second, we remain open to selling only search to Microsoft as long as it provides real value to our stockholders and resolves the substantial execution and operational risks associated with the separation of our search and display businesses.

Third, your Board takes seriously its obligation to examine all value-creating steps it could take and continues to actively examine many of these now, including a potential spin-off of our Asia assets and a return of cash to stockholders. These are steps Yahoo! could take, if we determine they are feasible and in our stockholders' best interests, without any "help" from Microsoft or Mr. Icahn. But they are complex steps that require care and prudence. These should not be adopted simply because Mr. Icahn and Microsoft are trying to dress up Microsoft's inadequate search-only proposal.

While your Board continues to evaluate the foregoing avenues, your current Board and management continue to execute on our strategy to grow the value of our unique collection of assets. That strategy is working and we believe it can result in substantial double digit growth in operating cash flow as we move forward. Our recently executed search advertising agreement with Google reflects our commitment to achieving our strategic goals, while preserving flexibility to pursue a sale of the Company or even, on the right terms, a sale of our search business.

Please compare and contrast the straightforward, responsible actions and positions of your Board of Directors with the behavior of Mr. Icahn and Microsoft.

There you have the situation, as we see it, put as simply and clearly as we can. We believe the Icahn slate and agenda present significant risk to your investment in Yahoo!. We believe you cannot count on Microsoft to bail out Mr. Icahn's misguided agenda, at least not on terms that are in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders.

In contrast, your Board remains fully prepared to represent your interests aggressively and conscientiously in the effort to maximize value--whether that takes the form of negotiating a transaction that provides full and fair value, with certainty; finding other ways to unlock and return value to you; or moving forward with our accelerated strategies to lead in online advertising.

Your Board of Directors remains committed to maximizing stockholder value. It is--and will remain--our number one priority. Do not be fooled into thinking otherwise by Carl Icahn.

We strongly urge you to vote your WHITE Proxy Card today for your current Board of Directors.

Thank you for your support.

Roy Bostock Jerry Yang
Chairman of the Board Chief Executive Officer

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google's Mobile Ratings Increase Need for Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management just became much more crucial. Google has enabled reviews and ratings for businesses, restaurants, etc via mobile. Now people don't have to wait until they get home (and have time to cool down on the way?) to write a review after a negative (or perceived negative) experience.

On the flip side, you could encourage your customers to write a review if they had a positive experience.

Don't freak out too much yet - it's still not available for iPhone customers. But, it will be soon.

Never fear, we've got you covered. Read up on online reputation management to keep your virtual image afloat:

• How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You - Intermediate Level Tactics
• Local Search Lives or Dies by User Reviews
• Constructive feedback on online reputation management
• Defining Yourself Through Search
• Search and Reputation: Your Brand Standing Is Your Shelf Landing
• Video Marketing and Brand Management Online
• Hospitality Social Media Marketing: Influence Critical Customer Reviews
• Women Execs Have Better Online Presence

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Internal Links And My High School Evolution

Understanding internal linking is made easier by comparing it to high school. In today's link building column, "Internal Links And My High School Evolution," Sage Lewis shows that, just as cool kids in school can make others cool by associating with them, internal linking can spread the "coolness factor" of your site, aka PageRank, among various pages.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: SEM.edu: College and Career Points

Though few and far between, there are opportunities to learn search marketing at an accredited university. In today's SEM.edu column, "SEM.edu: College and Career Points," Ron Jones shares some letters from readers who have come across a few programs that may not be on your radar.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 16, 2008

Q&A with Google's Tim Armstrong

Canadian Business Magazine has an excellent Q&A with Google's Tim Armstrong. Here are some choice excerpts that show where Google's headed and why.

Canadian Business: What are some other emerging trends you're seeing in Internet advertising?

Tim Armstrong: Social networking will be a big part of online advertising in the future. There's also going to be a lot more analytics beneath Internet advertising. It's still hard to measure how different types of online ads and targeting techniques affect a consumer's perception of a brand. We're also excited about mobile opportunities.

CB: How big could mobile advertising become for Google?

TA: It will vary depending on the country. For example, in some developing countries, the infrastructure is being built more for cellphone access than stationary computer connections, and some people are skipping the computer generation altogether. We've done a lot of mobile testing in Japan, which has done a nice job of building high bandwidth access for cellphone users. I don't think one mobile search will eliminate one computer search or interaction on the web. Consumers have different needs when they're using those devices.

CB: How will the advertising industry change in the future?

TA: Advertising over the last 50 years has been about coming up with a big idea, planning around it for a year, then launching a six-month or year-long campaign for a product or service. In the future, advertisers will come up with 10, 100 or 1,000 creative messages for their products and services, then run, test and optimize them in real time. Campaigns won't be based on a time schedule, but on consumer behavior patterns.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

.Me and .Pro Domains to Go on Sale

Beginning tomorrow (July 17), GoDaddy will offer .me domains in open registration. The registrar and hosting provider hopes that people will sign up for two reasons: 1. to have their own name as their domain and 2. to have more control over their email address.

"'I want my name as a domain name' is something I hear often from Internet users," said GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. "DotME not only gives everyone a chance to register their own name, but provides the perfect domain for expressing themselves."

Next Monday, July 21 at 12pm EST, Encirca will sell .pro domains (pdf) as part of the relaunch of the extension. Only licensed professionals can register .pro domains.

"We enthusiastically support the re-launch of dot-pro," says Thomas Barrett, President of EnCirca, the leading dot-pro registrar. "These long overdue changes will open the door for businesses representing over 1,100 licensed professions, from every country in the world, to establish their Internet brand identity with the .pro domain name."

Previously, the .pro domain was only available for four types of professionals in four countries, but now the domain is available to many more professions in hundreds of countries. Examples of eligible licensed professionals include:

• Lawyers
• Accountants
• Engineers
• Architects
• Surveyors
• Doctors
• Dentists
• Chiropractors
• Nurses
• Opticians
• Optometrists
• Podiatrists
• Psychologists
• Therapists
• Social Workers
• Veterinarians
• Plumbers
• Inspectors
• Building Contractors
• Electricians
• Investment Advisors
• Real Estate Brokers
• Insurance Brokers
• Educators
• Patent and Trademark Examiners
• Court Reporters
• Police and Fire Safety Officers
• any other profession where an official credential is required for a business or individual to offer services

Before you make those all important domain purchases, be sure to brief yourself on the impact of domain names on SEO:
How to Choose the Best Domains for Search Engine Visibility
What's in a (Domain) Name? Take 2
Is The Company Worth As Much As The Domain Name?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Google to Hold Ad Planner Webinars

Google recently announced Ad Planner, its new media measurement tool. The tool is designed to help media buyers in their ad campaign spend planning. Though the tool is currently in private-beta, anyone is welcome to attend two upcoming webinars introducing the tool. Both webinars are free of charge. You must register to attend, so check out the links and info below:

July 16, 2008 (TODAY!)

Time: 4:00 – 5:00 pm EST
Register
Call-in toll-free number (US/Canada): 866-469-3239
Registration password: agency1
Event number: 573 433 113
Event password: planner1

July 18, 2008 (Friday)

Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm EST
Register
Call-in toll-free number (US/Canada): 866-469-3239
Registration password: agency1
Event number: 577 712 627
Event password: planner2

Related Reading:
Google to Unveil Media Planning Tool
Does Google Analytics Share Data with Google Trends and Ad Planner?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DoubleClick to Launch Proposal Exchange Platform

Currently being tested by over 20 companies, DoubleClick has an electronic propsal exchange platform in the works. In a 2007 survey, 70% of DoubleClick's ad agency clients said that a publisher's use of an automated proposal tool would have a positively impact on their decision to send that publisher an RFP (Request for Proposal).

The new tool would automate the RFP process and integrate with DoubleClick's existing DART® Sales Manager (DSM) for publishers and DART® for Advertisers' (DFA) MediaVisor planning tool.

"DoubleClick's vision is to help digital advertising scale by developing platforms that bring advertisers and publishers together," said Group Product Manager Jonathan Bellack. "Our new proposal exchange platform reduces operational friction by eliminating error-prone manual data entry. In addition, our tight integration with Salesforce.com continues to develop DART Sales Manager's mission to enable an integrated quote to cash solution for publisher sales teams."

Related Reading:
Google + DoubleClick = 69% of Online Advertising Market
DoubleClick Mobile Integrates with Mobile Ad Networks
Google Nixes AdSense Referrals, AdWords PPA; Rebrands DoubleClick Performics

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Server Update Includes New Enterprise Search Features

Microsoft has released an update to its servers and new enterprise search features are included in the mix. The update (which is a series of three bundles) affects:

• Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Search Server 2008
• Search Server 2008 Express
• Office Project Server 2007 and Office Project Professional 2007

The new enterprise search features include:

• A federated search capability, which can index content stored in other repositories
• An administration dashboard
• Performance updates

These updates were already included in Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.

via PC World

Related Reading:
Fast Search Acquisition Completed by Microsoft
Social Media Marketing in an Enterprise Environment
Large Enterprise SEO: CMS Duplicate Content

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AOL Seeks Microsoft Deal Before Yahoo Aug 1 Shareholders Meeting

AOL is feeling the urge to merge and soon. Time Warner is reportedly seeking a deal with Microsoft prior to the fast-approaching August 1 Yahoo shareholders meeting.

The deal would merge AOL with Yahoo's search business, and owned by Microsoft. Time Warner would take a minority stake in the newly formed company. AOL has shifted its focus from dial-up internet service to online advertising.

Previously, Yahoo talked to AOL about a merger in what appeared to be one of many attempts to stave off Microsoft.

AOL's Platform-A was the top online advertising network in the month of March. The network reaches 9 out of 10 internet users, or 170 million people. Yahoo Networks came in second at 160 million, while Google came in third at 152 million.

Seems like Microsoft should acquire AOL with or without Yahoo. Then again, nothing is quite what it seems when it comes to the whole Microhoo debacle is it?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google to Scramble YouTube User IDs and IP Addresses in Viacom Case

Yesteday, I reported that YouTube user viewing histories would not longer be handed over to Viacom by Google per an agreement by the two. I also wrote that User IDs, IP addresses, and Visitor IDs would still be handed over. What yours truly completely missed (i am afterall, only human) is that even that data will be scrambled. Here's the legalese:

When producing data from the Logging Database pursuant to the Order, Defendants shall substitute values while preserving uniqueness for entries in the following fields: User ID, IP Address and Visitor ID. The parties shall agree as promptly as feasible on a specific protocol to govern this substitution whereby each unique value contained in these fields shall be assigned a correlative unique substituted value, and preexisting interdependencies shall be retained in the version of the data produced. Defendants shall promptly (no later than 7 business days after execution of this Stipulation) provide a proposed protocol for this substitution. Defendants agree to reasonably consult with Plaintiffs' consultant if necessary to reach agreement on the protocol.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: When Being First Isn't Worth It

A new report from AdGooroo shows that, generally speaking, for short keywords it's not profitable to bid your way into the high positions. These types of keywords actually lose money in the first and second positions, but longer keywords can do well near the top. In today's Web analytics and ROI column, "When Being First Isn't Worth It," Eric Enge shows that by testing this idea on your campaigns, you stand to create more profitable PPC campaigns.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Google's Path to Domination

And you may ask yourself, 'how did we get here?' Today's search landscape is a result of Yahoo trying to integrate large acquisitions too fast, while Google focused on core disciplines, small complimentary acquisitions, and smart build-outs. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Google's Path to Domination," Kevin Ryan points out that today, Microsoft is trying to do the same thing Yahoo failed at five years ago. Think it'll work this time?

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 15, 2008

MSNBC Digital Network Becomes Number 1 News Site

According to Nielsen Online, the MSNBC Digital Network (msnbc.com) was the number one Current Events and Global News site in June, attracting 37.6 million unique visitors that month. The MSNBC Digital Network's surge in unique visitors is a 29 percent increase above its 2007 average.

Yahoo! News ranked #2, with 35.0 million unique visitors and the CNN Digital Network ranked #3, with 33.4 million unique users, according to Nielsen Online.

The MSNBC Digital Network was also ranked #1 in total minutes, with consumers spending a total of 1,058,344,000 minutes on the site (eight percent ahead of the CNN Digital Network and 42 percent ahead of Yahoo! News).

As I mentioned back in April in a post entitled "CNN and MSNBC Battle Yahoo News for Top News Site," the battle for news site supremacy is a big story – similar to the newspaper war between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in the 1890s.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Share of Searches Almost 70 Percent

Google grabbed 69.17 percent of all U.S. searches for the four weeks ending June 28, 2008, Hitwise announced today. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 19.62, 5.46 and 4.17 percent respectively. The remaining 42 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.70 percent of U.S. searches.

Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending 5/31/ 2007, 4/26/08, 5/26/2007 from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. * - includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com.

In the U.K. market, Google search properties (Google.co.uk and Google.com) accounted for 87 percent of all UK searches in June 2008 representing a 10 percent increase compared to June 2007. Yahoo! search properties accounted for 4.00 percent of UK searches in June 2008, a 2 percent increase compared to April 2008. MSN search properties accounted for 3.72 percent and Ask search properties accounted for 3.07 percent of searches. MSN increased two percent compared to April 2008 and Ask increased 6 percent.

In the Australia market, Google search accounted for 88 percent of all AU searches in June 2008 representing a 12 percent increase compared to June 2007. MSN search accounted for 7 percent and Yahoo! search accounted for 4.00 percent of AU searches in June 2008.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Congressional Judiciary Committees Look into Yahoo-Google Ad Partnership

Last week the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on online advertising and privacy. Today, the Judiciary Committees of the Senate and House get in on the action as it relates to the recent Yahoo-Google deal.

The Senate hearing began at 10:30 am, but is largely eclipsed by a speech by the President as well as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's umteenth appearance on Capitol Hill. You can watch it live by clicking on "Live Webcast" here.

The House hearing begins at 1:30pm and the site has links to webcast video, though I personally couldn't get them to work on my laptop. If you're in the DC area, head on over to 2141 Rayburn House Office Building to observe the hearing for yourself.

Google Senior VP for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will be appearing at both hearings and is planning to touch on the following:

• The agreement will be good for Internet users (who will see ads that are better targeted to their interests); advertisers (whose ads will be better matched to users' interests, allowing them to reach potential customers more efficiently), and website publishers (who will see increased revenue from better-matched ads on their websites).
• Google and Yahoo! will remain vigorous competitors, and that competition will help fuel innovation that is good for users and the economy. Commercial arrangements between competitors are commonplace in many industries. Antitrust regulators in the US have recognized that consumers can benefit form these arrangements, especially when one company has technical expertise that enables another company to improve the quality of its products
• The agreement will not increase Google's share of search traffic, because Yahoo will continue to run its own search engine and compete in online search.
• Yahoo! will make its instant messaging network interoperable with Google's. This will mean easier and broader communication among a growing number of IM users, and enable users to choose among competing IM providers based on the merits and features of the services.
• A number of steps have been taken in the Yahoo! agreement to protect user privacy. As Google supplies ads to Yahoo! and its partners, personally identifiable information of individual Internet users will not be shared between the companies. Yahoo! will anonymize the IP address of a searcher's computer before passing a search request to Google.

Also scheduled to appear are:

• Michael Callahan, General Counsel, Yahoo!
• Brad Smith Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft
• Matthew Crowley, Chief Marketing Officer, Yellowpages.com
• Tim Carter, President and CEO, Askthebuilder.com

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Viacom Agrees to Skip YouTube Viewing Histories

Despite a court order requiring Google to hand over YouTube user viewing histories, Viacom and Google have come to an agreement where that data will be left out of the user log handover. Viacom will still receive user ID, user IP addresses, and visitor ID data.

Viacom has been going after Google for the copyright material found on YouTube, something many predicted would happen once the Mountain View-based search giant acquired the popular online video site. And while Viacom may have the law on its side, many feel the media conglomerate should just accept the free advertising that comes with the so-called copyright violations.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Yahoo may want to take notes on how to negotiate an agreement without the help of the mainstream media.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twing Search Engine Launches Buzz Graph

Twing.com, a new search engine dedicated to finding information within forums and communities, today announced it has launched new features that can help brand managers gain insight into product and company discussions.

“Our Saved Search and Buzz Graph products were created for our users,” said General Manager Kevin Shea in a statement. “And they also have a lot of value for anyone tracking brand conversations.”

Buzz Graphs let visitors see the popularity of various terms within the online community space, as well as refine terms by category and share the results with colleagues. Typical web users might find the results fun and interesting. For brand managers, it's a valuable tool offering insight into what's being said about products and companies.

According to Forrester's North American Social Technographics Online Survey, Q2, 2007, those who read online forums account for 28 percent of US Consumers – even more than blogs, which account for 25 percent. In terms of participation, 18 percent contribute to online forums, whereas only 14 percent comment on blogs, with 11 percent maintaining their own blogs. While blog writing and usage is considered explosive, the facts show that much of the online conversation is happening in forums.

Launched in January 2008, Twing.com is a search engine dedicated to online communities and forums. Twing.com's proprietary software and algorithms index thousands of forums and millions of conversations worldwide. Analyzing forum posts, topics, and whole forums provides accurate and relevant search results.

“If today's marketing is really about conversations and relationships, then good brand stewardship demands managers pay attention to the conversations happening in forums,” said Director of Product Management Scott Germaise in a statement. “Keeping track of web pages and blogs is not enough. The real person-to-person communication is happening in online forums.”

Twing offers multiple search options plus advanced filtering and sorting tools so people can effectively search forums in ways not available until the advent of Twing.com. The company also seeks to build even more awareness of the online forum space.

Twing.com is easily used by entering search terms to quickly locate specific discussions and/or topics. Visitors can register – for free – to become a Twing.com member, participate in Twing.com's forums and take advantage of current and upcoming personalization options.

Twing.com's use of proprietary software and algorithms enables users to search into forum content well beyond the limitations of traditional search engines. With Twing.com, Internet users can search the rich user-generated content found in online communities and forums, and access these discussions through highly relevant, easy-to-read search results.

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Extends Webmaster Tools Access Program to Qualifying Hosting Providers

Google is extending the Webmaster Tools Access Provider Program to include more hosting providers. Originally, the pilot program was a partnership with GoDaddy. Now other hosting providers can apply for qualification in order to offer the same services to their customers.

The program allows hosting providers to offer Google's Webmaster Tools directly through their account management panels. Webmasters may find this particularly useful as they can now use the Webmaster Tools right along their other account management tools, if their provider qualifies.

Related Reading:
New Google Webmaster Tool Aids Robots.txt Creation
Google Adds Site Location To Webmaster Tools
Google Adds Malware Tool To Webmaster Central Tools

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Website Optimizer Offers $100 AdWords Credit for 60 Minutes of Your Time

Google's Website Optimizer Tool came out of Beta in April, and practing what they preach, they're doing some testing. They are looking for a few good partipants for a test that requires 60 minutes of your time. In exchange, you'll get $100 AdWords credit.

Here are the requirements in order to sign up:

• 18 years old or older
• Sign their Usability Non-Disclosure Agreement
• Windows 2000/XP and Internet Explorer installed (sorry, no Macs)
• Broadband Internet connection or stronger (such as DSL, Cable, or T1)
• Have a phone (cell or land line) with a handless option so you can speak on the phone and use your computer simultaneously

Interested? Sign up here.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Launches Election Video Gadget with Transcribed Speech Text

Google has launched a new iGoogle gadget that allows users to search for election videos. The gadget uses speech recognition technology, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

The only speech that is transcribed are fragmented snippets. If you click on little yellow squares along the play bar, you can find out the snippet that occurs at that point and jump to that point in the video.

Of course, what would be most useful is a fully transcribed version of the videos. So much of politics seems to be about statements taken out of context (on both sides of the aisle). At least the full video is there.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft Gives Their Side of the Latest Yahoo Offer Story

If Microsoft and Yahoo spent half as much time developing search technology as they did battling out the proposed acquisition in the court of public opinion, they might actually make the marketplace competitive.

But instead of working together in peace and harmony, they're engaged in posturing that's akin to a nasty celebrity divorce - or an episode of The Hills.

This time, Microsoft is feeling the need to correct what they say are inaccuracies of Yahoo's account of the latest search proposal. Primarily, they say that no change-up in Yahoo leadership was part of the latest offer.

Furthermore, they say that Roy Bostock called Steve Ballmer and requested a new offer. They quoted him as saying, “with substantial guarantees on the table and an increase in the TAC (traffic acquisition cost) rate, there are the pillars of a search only deal to be done.”

Because of that, Microsoft says they made an offer that "included significant revenue guarantees, higher TAC rates, an equity investment and an option for Yahoo! to extend the agreement over a 10-year period."

That offer was made on Friday, rejected on Saturday, the same day as Yahoo's latest statement. It took Microsoft two more days to release their statement. Sounds like they took some time to get their story together?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Duplicate Content -- A True Story

Dealing with sites that steal your content is not fun. But it doesn't have to be difficult. In today's organic SEO column, "Duplicate Content -- A True Story," Mark Jackson outlines a few simple steps before and after you discover the offending scraper sites.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SEW Experts: Recruiting SEO Talent for Big Sites

Finding an experienced SEO expert is not easy, when most are either in top-level positions at an agency or have their own successful consulting firms. In today's enterprise search marketing column, "Recruiting SEO Talent for Big Sites," Aaron Shear advises that, to begin your search, you must first throw everything you know about hiring out the window.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Bernstein Research Predicts the Future of Paid Search

In a full-blown recession, what's the future of paid search? In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "Bernstein Research Predicts the Future of Paid Search," Kevin Heisler looks at a new study from Sanford C Bernstein's research arm that's a virtual crystal ball into Google and search engine marketing.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 14, 2008

Americans Watched 12 Billion Videos Online in May

comScore today reported that U.S. Internet users viewed more than 12 billion online videos during May 2008, a 45 percent increase from a year ago.

Google Sites ranked as the top U.S. video property that month with 4.2 billion videos viewed (representing a 35 percent share of all videos viewed). YouTube.com accounted for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property, making Google Video less popular than Hulu.com, a joint venture of NBC and Fox, which debuted in the 10th position with 88 million videos being viewed (0.7 percent).

Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 778 million videos (6.4 percent). Yahoo! Sites ranked third with 347 million (2.9 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 246 million (2.0 percent).

According to comScore, nearly 142 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 85 videos per viewer in May. Google Sites also attracted the most viewers (83.8 million), who watched an average of 50 videos per person. Fox Interactive attracted the second most viewers (60.8 million), followed by Yahoo! Sites (40.2 million) and Microsoft Sites (29.5 million).

Other notable findings include:
-- 74 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
-- The average online video viewer watched 228 minutes of video.
-- 82.2 million viewers watched 4.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).
-- 54.8 million viewers watched 703 million videos on MySpace.com (12.8 videos per viewer).
-- 6.8 million viewers watched 88 million videos on Hulu.com (13.0 videos per viewer).
-- The duration of the average online video was 2.7 minutes.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vote WHITE: Yahoo's Bastille Day Response to Carl Icahn

In language much more formal than his blasting of Icahn and Microsoft in interviews, Yahoo's Jerry Yang responded -- with capital letters -- to the proposed board of directors designed to unseat him. Today on Bastille Day, Yahoo's fighting its own revolution.

There was no mention of liberte, egalite or fraternite, but Yang could have easily addressed his shareholders:

"Chers Les Miserables,"

Yahoo Inc. mailed this letter to stockholders.

July 14, 2008

Dear Fellow Stockholder:

We have written to you before to explain why we believe your Board of Directors has the knowledge, experience, independence and commitment to best represent the interests of all Yahoo! stockholders. We have also told you why we believe the slate of directors advanced by Carl Icahn is not the right answer for Yahoo!.

When Mr. Icahn began his proxy contest he had no articulated plan for Yahoo! other than a sale of the Company to Microsoft. Today he still lacks a plan that makes sense for Yahoo! stockholders. On Monday, July 7, Mr. Icahn announced that he and Microsoft had engaged in conversations he claimed could lead to a transaction between Yahoo! and Microsoft if his slate is elected. In what was clearly a coordinated approach, Microsoft promptly followed Mr. Icahn's announcement with its own press release, stating that if – but only if – a new Board of Directors is elected, it might be interested in discussing either a transaction involving only Yahoo!'s valuable search assets or an acquisition of the entire Company (something Microsoft had refused to discuss with your Board for months).

The fact that Microsoft and Icahn had indeed teamed up to serve their own ends became entirely clear the evening of Friday, July 11, when Microsoft and Mr. Icahn jointly proposed a new complex restructuring of Yahoo! that would include the acquisition of Yahoo!'s search business by Microsoft. Your Board of Directors was given less than 24 hours to accept the proposal, the fundamental terms of which Microsoft and Mr. Icahn made clear they were unwilling to negotiate. After reviewing the proposal with our legal and financial advisors, your Board of Directors determined that accepting the proposal is not in the best interests of our stockholders.

The Board's rejection of the new proposal was based on a number of factors, including the following:
• 1. Yahoo!'s existing business plus its recently signed commercial agreement with Google has superior financial value and less complexity and risk than the Microsoft/Icahn proposal.

• 2. The Microsoft/Icahn proposal would preclude a potential sale of all of Yahoo! for a full and fair price, including a control premium.

• 3. The major component of the overall value per share asserted by Microsoft/Icahn would be in Yahoo!'s remaining non-search businesses which would be overseen by Mr. Icahn's slate of directors, which has virtually no working knowledge of Yahoo!'s businesses.

• 4. The Microsoft/Icahn proposal would require the immediate replacement of the current Board and removal of the top management team at Yahoo!. Your Board believes these moves would destabilize Yahoo! for the up to one year it would take to gain regulatory approval for this deal.

We believe that this odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo!'s stockholders in mind. Clearly, Microsoft, having failed to advance in search, is aligning with the short-term objectives of Mr. Icahn to coerce Yahoo! into selling its core strategic search assets on terms that are highly advantageous to Microsoft, but disadvantageous to Yahoo! stockholders. It is ludicrous to think that your Board would accept this "take it or leave it" proposal – under which we would restructure the Company and hand over to Microsoft Yahoo!'s valuable search business and to Carl Icahn the rest of the Company – with less than 24 hours to respond. We remain open to any transaction that delivers full value to our stockholders – we just do not believe such a transaction should be dictated by Microsoft and a single short-term investor.

In addition, Microsoft's position that it would not deal with, or otherwise engage with, Yahoo!'s management to reach agreement on this proposal or to implement it, is completely absurd and irresponsible given the complexity of the deal – one that requires the removal of half of Yahoo!'s business from Yahoo! and then its integration into Microsoft.

In contrast, your Board of Directors points out that a transaction to acquire the whole Company would be much more straightforward and involve far less risk than the new proposal or any similar alternative. The Board believes a whole company transaction could be negotiated and executed prior to August 1st . In communicating with Microsoft and Mr. Icahn our position with regard to their search and restructuring proposal, your Board not only repeated its offer to sell the entire Company to Microsoft for at least $33 per share, but also offered to negotiate an improved search only transaction. Microsoft rejected both offers.

Ironically, Mr. Icahn, who jointly with Microsoft developed and presented this proposal, had previously urged Yahoo! not to sell its search business to Microsoft. Specifically, in an interview on CNBC's Fast Money program, on June 4, 2008, Mr. Icahn said, "... it's crazy for this company now to do this alternative deal and give the store away, because obviously, an alternative deal is a poison pill because once you've done an alternative deal and given the search to Microsoft, you don't need Microsoft to buy you anymore. So, that would be a poison pill...."

Significantly, the Board also believes Microsoft and Mr. Icahn are overstating the value their search and restructuring proposal would deliver to Yahoo! stockholders and substantially understating the risks. A transaction that would separate the Company's search and display businesses is an undertaking of great complexity. While this most recent proposal contains a number of improvements over Microsoft's earlier proposal, your Board's conclusion that the current proposal is not in the best interests of stockholders is based on the following factors in addition to those we set forth above:

The revenue guarantees suggested, which are conditional and subject to reduction, are well below the search revenue that the Company is expected to generate on its own and in association with its announced commercial agreement with Google. That agreement alone is estimated to generate $250 to $450 million of incremental operating cash flow for the first twelve months following implementation, while allowing Yahoo! to remain a principal in paid search;
• The success of the remaining Company is critically dependent on Microsoft's ability to effectively monetize search;

• Microsoft/Icahn's proposed traffic acquisition costs rates are below market;

• The proposal calls for Yahoo! to sell its industry-leading algorithmic search business and its related strategic and valuable intellectual property portfolio for no incremental consideration; and

• Many of the components of the headline value that Mr. Icahn and Microsoft put forward, such as the spin-off of Yahoo!'s Asian assets and the return of cash to stockholders, are steps that could be taken by Yahoo! on its own, and the Board continues to evaluate these options.

The choice for Yahoo! stockholders is clear: turn your Company and its uniquely valuable combination of assets over to Carl Icahn and his nominees and allow Microsoft and Mr. Icahn to dismantle the Company and deliver our search business to Microsoft on terms that would be disadvantageous to Yahoo! stockholders, or re-elect your experienced and dedicated Board with a clear strategy and a demonstrated commitment to create value for Yahoo! stockholders. We are prepared to let you, our stockholders, not Microsoft and Carl Icahn, decide what is in your best interests and we look forward to the upcoming vote.

We strongly urge you to vote your WHITE Proxy Card today for your current Board of Directors.

Thank you for your support.

Roy Bostock
Chairman of the Board

Jerry Yang
Chief Executive Officer

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Incorporates Code Search Results into Universal Search

In news that is likely to make my software-developer husband happy, Google has incorporated Code Search results into its main search results. Blended search results is often referred to as universal search, and in the past has included news, images, videos, etc.

Code Search, which launched in October 2005, competes with other vertical code search sites, such as Krugle. Krugle has a deal with IBM, a partnership with the Yahoo Developers Network, and indexes the Microsoft Codeplex.

via TechCrunch

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now States are Investigating Yahoo-Google Deal

Just a few weeks after the US Department of Justice formally opened its investigation to the Yahoo-Google search advertising partnership. Now, about a dozen states are looking into the matter, according to the Washington Post.

Not at all surprising, Connecticut is one of those states. Earlier this year, a bill was introduced to the state's General Assembly that sought to tighten the rules of data collection for companies who serve ads on sites they don't own.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the Post, "We're looking at it because we're concerned about an excessive concentration of market power." Connecticut has subpoenaed both Yahoo and Google for documents related to their new partnership.

Also issuing subpoenas is the state of Florida. Recently, the Sunshine State has been cracking down on online ad fraud. A spokeswoman for the Attorney General Bill McCollum told the Post, "We are reviewing the proposed transaction in conjunction with other state attorneys general, as well as the Department of Justice."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Find Free Cash Online with MissingMoney.com Search Engine

This may be the most important blog post you will ever read.

UPDATE: One of the hottest Google Hot Trends today is "missing money" so we thought it would be a good time to revisit our post on unclaimed money. The keywords searched include missing money .com, you might be rich, missing money.com, and missingmoney.com

You need to try out the most valuable vertical search engine ever created. It's Free Money with a Free Search.

Search for the cash and property you're owed right now. You owe it to yourself. This isn't just a free offer. It's not the IRS 2007 File Free program.

It's the law.

We're talking about cash you've earned. Forgotten cash. No, not Johnny Cash.

Cash money.

Free cash is better than free chat, free movies, free hugs, free books, free iTunes, free agents, free ringtones, free screensavers, free downloads, duty-free shops, free video games, free TV, gluten-free, free software and even free search engine optimization.

Well, maybe not better than free search engine optimization.

But it's way better than totally awesome killer freebies.

What's more - the money's already yours. You don't have to enter a lottery, win a game show, or wait for Oprah to give it away.

Here's how to find money that's owed to you: missing money AKA "unclaimed funds."

Click here: MissingMoney.com

Enter your Name and Zip Code in the secure database.

MissingMoney.com is a search engine for state unclaimed property records - not real estate, but real property. The states must keep your money and return lost funds. It's the law.

The Top 10 most common types of unclaimed property:

1. Bank accounts
2. Stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and dividends
3. Uncashed checks and wages
4. Insurance policies
5. Utility deposits
6. Safe deposit box contents
7. Escrow accounts
8. Trust funds
9. Certificates of deposit (CDs)

Unclaimed property does not include real estate property.

You may not find as much cash as you receive in the upcoming $600 tax rebate checks to be sent out as part of the U.S. economic jumpstart package. But then, you won't have to thank the lame duck President.

You can just thank us and the search engine: www.missingmoney.com.

Once you've identified the location of your money, you can contact the appropriate state government unclaimed property office directly to recover it.

Keep on rockin' in the free world!

After the jump: All the states that participate - and the next two that will.

Participating States:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

The following states will soon have their public records on the MissingMoney.com Web site:

Illinois, Rhode Island

Posted by Kevin Heisler on 10:41 AM | Permalink

Google Talks Ranking and Basic SEO Again, This Time on Adsense Blog

Recently, Google's Matt Cutts gave USA Today readers 5 SEO Tips, which many of our readers found quite basic (albeit good). Then, last week, Google gave an overview of its ranking system. Both come in the midst of Google's latest push to inform about its privacy policy. Now, Google has taken to the AdSense blog to inform publishers of basic SEO tips.

Here's what Ambroise Fensterbank, Search Quality Evaluator, recommends:

• Your pages should have a clear hierarchy and relevant internal links. We also recommend creating a Sitemap and using Google's Webmaster Tools. These tools are useful, user-friendly and will provide information such as where your backlinks come from or which queries visitors used to reach your site.
• Use