January 18, 2005
January 18, 2005
Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links
In the first cooperative move for nearly ten years, the major search engines have unveiled a new indexing command for web authors that they all recognize, one that they hope will help reduce the link and comment spam that plagues many web sites, especially those run by bloggers.
The new "nofollow" attribute that can be associated with links was originated as an idea by Google several weeks ago and pitched past MSN and Yahoo, as well as major blogging vendors, gaining support.
The Nofollow Attribute
The new attribute is called "nofollow" with rel="nofollow" being the format inserted within an anchor tag. When added to any link, it will serve as a flag that the link has not been explicitly approved by the site owner.
For example, this is how the HTML markup for an ordinary link might look:
<a href="http://www.site.com/page.html">Visit My Page</a>
This is how the link would look after the nofollow attribute has been added, with the attribute portion shown in bold
<a href="http://www.site.com/page.html" rel="nofollow">Visit My Page</a>
This would also be acceptable, as order of elements within the anchor tag makes no difference:
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.site.com/page.html" >Visit My Page</a>
Once added, the search engines supporting the attribute will understand that the link has not been vetted in some way by the site owner. Think of it as a way to flag to them, "I didn't post this link -- someone else did."
By the way, should you be one of the few using other types of rel attributes within your links (a way to show the relationship between your page and the page you're linking to), Google advises that you should separate them with spaces.
For example, Google cited this page, which provides one example of multiple rel attributes in action, like this:
<a href="http://jane-blog.example.org/" rel="sweetheart date met">Jane</a>
If you wanted to add nofollow to the existing one, you'd just put a space between it and the other attributes of sweetheart, date and met, like this:
<a href="http://jane-blog.example.org/" rel="sweetheart date met nofollow">Jane</a>
Google also said upper or lower case is usage of the attribute is fine and that the creation of this new attribute is believed to meet W3C standards on markup, as they allow for anyone to create new attributes.
Causes Of Link Spam
Why would you want to use the attribute? Blog publishers, forum operators, sites with guest books and others who allow anyone to contribute in some way to their web sites have suffered when people have used these systems to spam them with links.
For search engine purposes, getting a link to your site from someone else's site can serve as a "vote" that your site is seen as good. In Googlespeak, getting a link increases the PageRank value of your page -- sometimes a tiny bit, sometimes much more.
In addition, getting a link may help better ensure that your page is indexed by the major search engines. Finally, getting a link with words you want to be found for embedded in the anchor text can help you not just be seen as popular but also help you rank better for particular words.
Here's an example of comment spam in action. I did a Google search for texas holdem comment to find some candidates and focused on this page as an illustration. From PoliPundit.com, it's a blog post from Nov. 2002 about a political development.
Below the post is the comment area. The area has been link spammed heavily -- 30 entries containing links to web sites promoting casinos, poker, dating and other topics, like this (I've removed the links):
http://www.-texas-holdem-poker.us holdem poker texas holdem poker
Comment by texas holdem poker | Email | Homepage | 12/26/2004 - 12:31 pmYour blogg is smashing! Payday Loans http://www.payday-express.com
Comment by Payday Loans | Email | Homepage | 1/15/2005 - 4:04 amYour blogg is full o information. HGH http://www.hgh-express.com
Comment by HGH | Email | Homepage | 1/15/2005 - 12:40 pmGreat article and great website. I wish you could update if more frequently.
You’re also welcome to visit my websites: Checks, Cigarette, Dating, Honda,
Insurance, Las Vegas, Lawyers, Lexus, Online Poker, PDA, Toyota.
It's not just a Google problem. Do a Yahoo search, an Ask Jeeves search, or a search at MSN Search. All bring up examples of pages that contain link spam, which have been indexed by these search engines. As a result, they also might find their ranking systems impacted by the activity.
Google, nevertheless, often gets the blame -- which is why it was under the most pressure for coming up with something for the problem. The hope is that by allowing web authors to flag links in this manner, it will make blogs, forums, guest books and other places accepting contributions less attractive to spamming.
What Nofollow Means
Below I'll cover what Google says it does, if it sees a link with the nofollow attributed associated with it. Yahoo and MSN are likely to react in a similar fashion, though I haven't yet spoken with them to get exact details since news of their support only just emerged.
If Google sees nofollow as part of a link, it will:
- NOT follow through to that page.
- NOT count the link in calculating PageRank link popularity scores.
- NOT count the anchor text in determining what terms the page being linked to is relevant for.
That's the situation at the moment. Google is going to evaluate how the attribute works, and it could decide to make other changes down the line, it says.
Now let's look at the impact of each action:
1) Not following the link to the page it points at means that potentially, Google might not index the page at all. As said, the more links that point at a particular page, the more likely it is that Google (and generally the other major search engines) will include that page within its index.
The nofollow attribute DOES NOT mean that someone will prevent a page they do not actually control from being indexed, however. If Google finds even one ordinary link pointing at a page, it may then index that page.
In addition, people can submit their pages directly to Google (and most major search engines). So it's crucial to understand that just because someone might place nofollow in a link pointing at your site, this WILL NOT prevent your page from getting indexed.
2) As for PageRank calculations, it's important to remember that PageRank is a pure popularity score (other search engines have similar scoring mechanisms, just not catchy names other than Yahoo's Web Rank). The nofollow attribute means that a link will not be counted as a "vote" in this popularity contest. That can have an impact on ranking, in cases where the impact of other factors beyond pure popularity come into play.
Huh? Say there are two pages, one with a PR score of 6, the other a PR of 7. Even though the PR7 page is more popular from a link counting point of view, it could still get outranked by the PR6 page if other factors such as the words on the page, or the anchor text pointing at the PR6 page, make it more relevant for a particular search.
It's also important to note that nofollow DOES NOT mean you are flagging a link as being bad in some way. Google isn't going to say, "Aha -- nofollow is on this link -- that's a bad link." Or as Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer who helped develop the attribute, said:
"It doesn't mean that it is a bad link, or that you that you hate it, just that this link doesn't belong to me."
Instead, nofollow effectively will cause Google to ignore the link, to pretend it doesn't exist. This also means you shouldn't worry that people will link to you and use nofollow as a way to hurt you -- Google says that won't happen.
3) This leads to anchor text. Generally much more important in ranking well for a particular term is to get the words you want to rank well for put into a link that points at you. With nofollow added to a link, Google won't associate the anchor text in the link with the page the link is pointed at. This, more than anything else, will sour things for link spammers.
Stop Spam? No. A Start, Yes!
The new attribute won't stop link spamming. Many people may still spam simply because they hope human beings will see the links, click through and perhaps convert. As with email spam, maybe only an incredibly tiny number will do so. But since there's no heavy cost to the spamming, that might still be enough.
In particular, much blog spamming is done through automation. So even with the new system in place, some of that automation will keep rolling along. It will no doubt even evolve to spot blogs and other areas that aren't making use of the nofollow attributes, just as smart spammers currently focus on blogs that have been abandoned, rather than irritating active bloggers.
This means other types of systems of blocking spam will likely still have to be used, such as forcing people to input characters from graphics (captchas), registration and so on (The Solution To Blog Spamming at ThreadWatch has a nice rundown on these, and also see Six Apart's Guide to Comment Spam).
While link or comment spamming isn't going away, it's still heartening that it will be less attractive. Site owners have been given an important new tool that lets them control indexing -- something they've not had offered for years. Perfect or not, I'm glad it's emerged.
Vendor Support
Google started developing the idea of a nofollow attribute several weeks ago and quietly shared it with a number of the major blogging vendors. Many of them have now signed on, pledging to support and implement the tag in the future, if they've not already done so now.
As a result, those using systems provided by one of the major vendors such as Blogger or Movable Type (see here for support news) should find that implementing the tags to be associated in links in comments is a matter of flipping a switch. OK, maybe clicking a radio button or drop-down box! Google provides a list of those supporting it here.
Google said it will soon begin talking with other companies, such as those that making forum software. But makers of these packages or any packages could implement support when they are ready.
Uses For The Attribute
The tag can be used by anyone anywhere, of course. It's not just for use with blog comment areas or forum posts. For example, Cutts said people might use it if they publish dynamically generated referrer stats and visitor information.
"Wherever it means that another person placed a link on your site, that would be appropriate," Cutts said.
Because of this, some page authoring tools will likely add support in the future, if it is widely adopted as will likely be the case. Some tools may allow adding it right now -- and those who know HTML code can do an easy insertion.
That might be handy if you need to link to a site but are worried that a search engine might consider it a "bad neighborhood," as they've often described them. In reality, the chances are very small that the typical person might link to a site that would actually hurt them with a search engine. But if in double, nofollow could offer peace of mind.
Of course, those who are swapping links with other sites now have a whole new thing to look out for. If someone offers to link to you, you'll want to make sure they don't make use of the nofollow tag -- at least if you were hoping for some search engine gain. Otherwise, the link's not going to count.
Don't forget -- there are other good reasons to still get links even beyond search engines, of course. My Golden Rules Of Link Building article covers this more.
You definitely DO NOT want to use the attribute on links to your own pages. Do that, and you'll deprive your own pages from the chance of influencing how your other pages rank.
Having said this, I've no doubt some people will try playing with the new tag as a means to "hoard" PageRank that's passed on to only a few pages in your site. For example, your home page might link to 25 of your internal pages. Using the new attribute, you could exclude all but five of these pages. Do that, and you might possibly cause Google to give those five pages more credit (see the Link Building & Link Analysis article for Search Engine Watch members for more about this).
Maybe. Perhaps. And perhaps the search engines may make other changes down the line. Rather than get tricky with this tag, I'd recommend using it as intended for now -- as a means to flag that there are certain links on your web site that you didn't place there.
Support From Other Search Engines
How about the other search engines? MSN and Yahoo are onboard. In fact, Yahoo beat Google out of the gate in blogging its support of the new tag first. A Defense Against Comment Spam offers a few details, an example and news that the change will be implemented in the coming weeks.
As for MSN, Working Together Against Blog Spam explains how the company made a snap decision today to support the tag, though the idea was something it had considered during its Search Champs meetings with bloggers and search marketers several months ago. It promises that its crawler will begin respecting the attribute in the coming weeks.
Google, of course, has been onboard from the start. It provides more details on its blog in Preventing comment spam.
So how about Ask Jeeves, the remaining major crawler? They're still looking at the new option and weighing it up.
"We'll consider it for the future, but because we use local [link] popularity and not global popularity, we are not going to rush into anything today. It has more impact for Google and Yahoo because of their similar methodologies. The upside for us is much more modest," Lanzone said.
By local popularity, Ask Jeeves is referring to how its Teoma search engine will calculate the popularity of pages and do ranking only after culling a subset of pages deemed relevant, rather than looking at all links from across the entire web. My Make Room For Teoma article explains this more.
More Info
Google To Add "Nofollow" Tagging Of Links To Fight Spam? is where I explain more about how the news of the new attribute emerged, plus provides some background on the difference between it and the nofollow attribute of the meta robots tag.
Comment Spam? How About An Ignore Tag? How About An Indexing Summit! is my post wishing for an "ignore" tag similar to what's emerged here and how others have been wishing for this even longer.
It also looks at how it has been literally years since we've had an advancement in the type of indexing control given to site owners. This new attribute -- whether you love the idea or hate it -- is welcome move for at least giving site owners themselves some choice in the matter.
The New Nofollow Link Attribute is a thread in our forums where you can discuss the new attribute.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
For Your Google Video Archive: A 2003 Lecture by Eric Schmidt
Since I know many of you like having a complete record of "all things Google," I just tracked down this video of a keynote presentation by Google CEO Eric Schmidt from the March 2003 "Berkeley in Silicon Valley Symposium" conference. Enjoy!
Posted by Gary Price at 7:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Yahoo, MSN Join Google In Supporting Nofollow
While we wait for Google to post official notice of its support for the new nofollow attribute, Yahoo's already chimed in on its blog that it will do so as well. And apparently, the Google announcement may come here, as Yahoo is already linking to it. MSN tells me directly it also will support the tag, and plans to post on its blog as well. As with Google, Yahoo's linking to where that will likely show up. Ask Jeeves tells me it is still considering the tag. More to come in a long story I'm about to post!
Postscript: Support has now been officially announced by everyone. See the Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links for further details.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Dogpile Adds New Features
I spotted this news release today announcing that Dogpile has added a few new features that build on the IntelliFind technology that launched last November (see: Dogpile Enhances Search Results). What's new?
+ The integration of yellow pages entries (beta release) on web search results pages if the yp info is relevant to a query.
+ Web Site Match
WSM matches every query against a database of the most popular Web sites and "suggesting" exact matches at the top of serp.
Posted by Gary Price at 5:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Yahoo's 4Q Profit Nearly Triples on Ads
Yahoo! has just released their Q4 2004 earnings. You can find the numbers and highlights in this news release.
Bambi Franscisco at Marketwatch.com reviews the numbers and more in this AP article: Yahoo's 4Q Profit Nearly Triples on Ads.
Also available:
Slides from the Yahoo conference call.
Posted by Gary Price at 4:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
A Look at a Few Boston Area Search Companies
Robert Weisman's article in the Boston Globe: In the shadow of Google takes a look at a few Boston search area companies including:
+ Eliyon
Note: This tool uses open web data (be careful) and AI to build profiles about people. Although Eliyon still has a ways to go, I've seen a great deal of improvement over the past few months. Some of their services are free, while others are fee-based.
+ EasyAsk
+ Dotomi
Endeca, Fast, Northern Light, and iPhrase are also briefly mentioned.
Key Quotes:
"There's a lot of business to be had in search in the next few years, and it's not all going to Google," said Susan Aldrich, senior vice president at Patricia Seybold Group, a technology research and consulting firm in Boston. "I think several of the local companies have the potential to become wildly successful and get very big."
"Some of the things that Google does so well, like page rankings, are irrelevant in the enterprise," said Sue Feldman, vice president and search analyst at International Data Corp., a research firm in Framingham.
Posted by Gary Price at 4:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Microsoft Tells Google To Cease and Desist
It's always interesting to review the collection of Cease and Desist Notices sent to Google (and others) via the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. Today, a few new C&D letters were made available including several from Microsoft that request Google remove several posts on Blogger weblogs that are hosted by Blogspot. In addition to browsing the list of letters, you can search for all of the notices sent to Google (451 as of today) by using this search engine, and search for the term "Google" in the "Recipient" field. Some notices deal with Google Groups (Usenet archives) and Google Images.
Posted by Gary Price at 2:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Confirmed: New Google Nofollow Link Attribute Is Coming
Robert Scoble has posted confirmation that Google will introduce a new link attribute. OK, then I'll confirm it as well -- I've been told the same by my contacts at Google. Since official confirmation has now been leaked out, I see no need to hold back.
As Robert notes, the information is supposed to come out later today on the Google Blog. What will be the new attribute? Well, I could say "wait and see," but Dave Winer already leaked that part out. He didn't say it came from Google (it did), but he provided enough clues and follow up confirmations for people to know this is the nofollow attribute that will be introduced.
Exactly how Google will interact with the nofollow attribute remains to be seen. I'll be posting a follow up with those details. For background on it, see my Google To Add "Nofollow" Tagging Of Links To Fight Spam? post.
Postscript: Support has now been officially announced. See the Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links post for more.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
An In-Depth Look at Ask Jeeves UK
The UK publication Internet Works has published an in-depth look at Ask Jeeves UK. The article is titled: The Butler Speaks. It features comments from Tony Macklin, Ask Jeeves’ UK director of product and Aylin Sakvan, VP of marketing.
Posted by Gary Price at 1:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
A Controlled Vocabulary to Assist in Describing Images
Tagging photos for your own personal use is both a great idea and a must do. Danny shares plenty of examples why in his SearchDay article: Photo Search: Google Picasa 2 Vs. Adobe Photoshop Album 2.
It's one thing to create a set of terms for your own personal use. However, when creating and using tags to build a shared database of images or text, problems can quickly come into view. Synonyms are a problem (ie. pop vs. soda, torch vs. flashlight, bag vs. sack) Another example, if I tag an item "Treo" does it mean images taken by a Treo camera? Images of Treos? What do the tags "From" or year mean? As categories grow larger, can they be subdivided? What are the subdivisions? What about pluralization? Vocabularies should quickly bring like things together, help the user conduct a thorough search, and hopefully help save the searcher time.
I believe controlled vocabularies still have plenty of value especially when trying to add verbal subject access to materials (both image, video, print).
Are controlled vocabularies the perfect solution? No. First, they can be expensive to build and maintain. Second, they take time and effort to update (add new terms, remove old terms, map old to new, etc.) Second, localization can still be an issue. Third, scalability can pose problems. Finally, it's one thing to build a vocabulary, but it's another thing to apply the terms it contains properly. Deciding the "aboutness" of an item in just a few words can be a real challenge.
Ask working librarians and library school students what they found the most challengeing part of their MLIS education, and you'll likely here that cataloging (aka adding metadata) was it.
With that out of the way, I thought some of you might be interested in learning about a few of the many controlled vocabularies out there.
Let's begin with a look at the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials II: Genre and Physical Characteristic Terms (TGM II) from the Library of Congress. This searchable thesaurus contains more than 600 agreed upon terms to describe graphic materials.
The terms in the TGM II provide the cataloger (who chooses to uses this thesaurus) with agreed upon terms to describe both the genre and physical characteristics of an image or other type of graphic material (posters, line art, etc.) For example:
+ What does a "birds eye view" mean?
+ Is the image a portrait? Is it a cityscape?
+ Who created the image?
You can read more about how terms were selected here and review changes/additions made to the thesaurus here.
Spend some time browsing and searching TGM II and you'll see how terms relate to one another plus find "scope notes" to explain what certain terms mean.
Finally, if you want to see the TGM II in action, check out the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. All of the records contain subject access and more than 65% of the holdings in this database have been digitized.
Much more on controlled vocabularies (both pluses and minuses) and many more examples of tools to visit, coming soon. Again, my reason for sharing is not to say that one specific tool or method (controlled vocabulary vs. folksonomy) are better than the other but rather to introduce resources you might not know about and perhaps promote some thought and discussion.
Posted by Gary Price at 12:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Building Roomba's Brand Through Search
Roomba Cleans Up With Search Engine Marketing from AdAge is a good read on how the makers of the Roomba automatic vacuum cleaner helped built their brand through search. The company became the seventh most popular brand name search on Google in 2004. The company didn't rely on search alone. Heavy TV and radio ads were run, with the assumption that this would drive consumers onto the web to do research. There, search-targeted ads awaited them.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Google Heading Into Telecommunications?
A job ad for a fiber optic contract negotiator has some wondering if Google's planning a jump into telecommunications. Details in Google wants 'dark fiber', from News.com.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Report: Paid Search Still Hot In 2005, But Growth Will Slow
MediaPost's Report: Rich Media's The New Paid Search looks at eMarketer's predictions that 2005 will see rich media overtake paid search in terms of growth. But paid search spend will still dwarf rich media, $4.7 billion predicted versus $1 billion for rich media. Paid search will make up 42 percent of the predicted online advertising spend this year.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Yahoo Doesn't Need Six Apart Or Blog Ownership For Ad Purposes
It's kind of obvious that Yahoo will gain some type of blogging solution in the future. It's the only major portal not to offer this, as I've written before: MSN's Third Portal To Gain Blogs; Where's The Blog Search?
David Jackson has a write-up in Yahoo to acquire Six Apart? on why he thinks Yahoo will gain blogging capabilities by acquiring the makers of the popular Movable Type platform.
MovableType's great -- we use it ourselves -- and so would be of interest to anyone who wants to own blogging technology. But the idea Jackson has that Yahoo needs blogs to fuel its pay-per-click growth? Nah.
Google bought Blogger because it was cheap and it figured it could make money but putting its contextual ads out on many of the Blogger sites. But Google later pulled those ads and make them optional. That's wise, because you aren't going to make friends by forcing anyone to carry your ads. So much for needing to own the platform to build ad revenue.
In addition, blogs can be hard to target with ads, given that they often have different types of content mixed onto the same page. MediaPost just had an article looking at this: Blog Ads Hit Rough Patches.
Google's real success with AdSense hasn't been in owning the blogging platform. First, it has signed partnerships with major publishers. Second, it offers an easy-to-use self-serve system that anyone can tap into. Google rolled that out last year, and now you all but stumble over its AdSense placements.
If Yahoo really wanted to turn the web into its billboards, in the way Google does, it would make more sense to have a similar type of paid listings program that any publisher could use.
The downside is that in doing so, advertisers have less control over the targeting of their ads. Kraft wasn't happy to find itself showing up on a pro-white web site recently: Kraft Supports Pro-White Groups? Lack Of Search Ad Targeting Makes It So. Open the flood-gates of self-serve, and problems like this for Google could hit Yahoo as well.
Cory Kleinschmidt over at Traffick takes another swing at the targeting problem in his recent AdSense Faces Extinction -- Unless Google Shakes Things Up post. In it, he points out how uneven targeting is an issue that threatens AdSense. He also notes there are other programs out there to tempt bloggers and other publishers -- which means again, owning the platform doesn't guarantee you the billboard space.
There are good reasons for Yahoo to own a blogging platform, and maybe it will be Six Apart. But the assumption that paid ad placement as a key reason to do so isn't a major factor, from where I sit.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Shame On You: Tsunami Search Spammers
From Silicon.com, Tsunami scammers manipulate Google rankings explains that an alleged phishing site is ranking higher on Google than the actual China Charity Federation web site, potentially causing people donating to tsunami relief to send their money to the wrong place.
The site in question, www.chinacharity.cn.net, is still ranking tops at Google despite the web site apparently having been closed down. The site is also ranked first and second at Yahoo, third at Ask Jeeves but not at all at the MSN Search beta.
Kudos to MSN? Well, the official web site of www.china.org.cn is second at Google, tenth at Yahoo and Ask Jeeves but not in the first page of results at all over at MSN. So MSN doesn't send you to the wrong place -- but neither do you get to the right one.
FYI, the story reports that the real site is at www.chinacharity.cn, but that domain isn't working for me. My assumption is that the correct address is the one shown above.
Postscript: A reader tells me chinacharity.cn is the correct site.Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Googlefone: Fast Way To Use Google's Phone Book
Google has a phone book search service, but you might not realize it. A new site, spotted via Google Blogoscoped, makes it easier to tap into it Google PhoneBook.
Visit Googlefone, and you can enter a name of a person or business, plus some location data, and you'll be shown any matching publicly-listed numbers that Google knows about.
Tara Calishain has a long-standing interface that works similarly. It will only check business listings, but the drop down box with US states is nice.
Courtesy of Tara, another write-up from her explains how you can also use some power commands or search syntaxes to tap into the phonebook. Do a query like:
phonebook: edwards california
That will show all business or residential listings that match. Use bphonebook to just check for business listings and rphonebook to just check for residential listings.
Meanwhile, Gary reminds that Argali is his current favorite tool for doing phone lookups. You'll find his review here: A Multi-Faceted Phone Directory Lookup Tool.
He also notes that Yahoo provides a way to check its own phone service, Yahoo People Search. Unlike Google, Yahoo conveniently provides its own direct interface right on its site, rather than leaving it for others to create.
The idea that people might find your phone number freak you out? Get an unlisted number, as these services pull from public sources. But you can use special forms at Yahoo and Google to get out of their listings, if you're currently showing.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Revenue Model For Free Products? We'll Figure It Out Later, Says Google
The new version of Picasa that Google rolled out today is offered for free -- and the old version lost its $30 price tag soon after Google acquired Picasa. So how's it making money? That's not something Google's worried about, for the moment.
Free-for-All Could Pay Off for Google from the LA Times looks at this Google model of building a quality product and figuring out how to monetize it later. Locking people into an array of Google services may prove profitable for Google's current ad-driven model, down the line.
Covering similar ground, Entrepreneur lets Google fly with his creation from USA Today looks at how Picasa general manager Lars Perkins was freed by Google not to worry about the revenue side of things. Google units include social networking, photos, maps from USA Today also recaps some of Google's many services that don't cost users but also don't necessarily earn money for Google right now.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Yahoo Profits To Rise On International Advertising
Bloomberg looks at how Yahoo may announce higher profits due to international expansion, in Yahoo May Say Profit Doubled on International Advertising Sales. Exactly what's the primary driver is unclear. Overture expanded to Brazil, Canada and China in the fourth quarter, but most of its European activity happened last year. The article itself looks at display ads, the Yahoo purchase of the European Kelkoo shopping search engine and online auctions.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Google Releases New Interactive AdWords Demos
I've noticed a couple of changes on the Google Adwords Demos page today.
First, most of the demos have new "blurbs" describing what they're about,
Second, new interactive guides that discuss Account Navigation and Understanding your Billing Statement are now available.
Posted by Gary Price at 8:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Google Releases Picasa 2 Photo Software
Last year, Google purchased the Picasa photo software company. Today, Picasa's now released the second version of its software. The SearchDay article Photo Search: Google Picasa 2 Vs. Adobe Photoshop Album 2 now posted looks at how the latest release measures up from a photo search and management perspective, with me pitting it against my current favorite, Adobe Photoshop Album.
It's still Album for me, though I'll be upgrading to Photoshop Elements for IPTC keyword export capability. IPTC what? Check out the story and get organized with your pictures!
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
