« From Poli/Tech Conference: V-Blogging, Control or No? | Main | Google Loses New Chef »

May 16, 2006

Search Headlines & Links: May 15, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:

Today From The SEW Blog...

  • eBay To Test TV Ad System; Not Google
    MediaPost reports that eBay was awarded the bid to test an online auction system for buying and selling TV ads. The Association of National Advertisers announced today that they "will work with its membership to explore opportunities around the development of an Online Media Exchange." Those on the testing committee are listed here. Forbes has a nice recent article from last week on the possibilities of this happening. What happened to Google providing this system? I guess eBay was more qualified....
  • Planet Discover Acquisition a Potential 'Turning Point' for Newspapers
    I spoke this morning with Terry Millard, CEO of local-search vendor Planet Discover. As has now been widely reported, the company was purchased last week for an undisclosed sum by Gannett, which is now the nation’s largest newspaper publisher in terms of number of publications and revenues. Millard and his brother, who is the CTO, will stay on. Gannett intends to operate the company like PointRoll, as a separate entity. Planet Discover is behind “integrated search” at three Gannett publications and many more newspapers, as the industry tries to confront adoption of the Internet for lookups that used to be...
  • Indeed Job Search Moves Ads Out Of Beta & Q&A With CEO, Paul Forster
    Indeed, a job search engine, announced last week that it officially launched its pay per click network (the system had been in beta since mid-2005). CEO Paul Forster sat down with me for an introduction to the company: "The job search market is very fragmented. There are 1000s of different places to search which makes it very difficult for seekers to do a comprehensive search. Indeed saves people time, enables people to find unique jobs, and also to find sources of jobs that they normally wouldn’t have heard of. We’ve put a lot of work into the search algorithm." Read...
  • Snap.com's New User Interface & Adds New Features
    Snap.com has released a new user interface for its search results page. As you begin typing your query, it does the whole Google Suggest, LookAhead, AllTheWeb LiveSearch auto complete AJAX thing. Then you submit your query and the interface snaps (literally) into a two column view. On the left are the search results and on the right is a preview of the landing page of the result selected on the left. This is a more, in your face approach to Ask.com's Binoculars, that allows you to mouse over to see a site preview. For the full release, download the PDF...
  • A SEO Crossword Puzzle
    SEO Scoop posted a link to a fun SEO Crossword Puzzle that I thought you guys would enjoy. I am flying through the answers as I type this....
  • Yahoo Answers Hits 10 Million Mark; Answes Creeping Into Regular Search Results
    Yahoo patted themselves on the back for reaching the 10,000,000 answer posted on Yahoo Answers. Part of that announcement was the fact that Yahoo Answers are appearing both organically and through vertical means into the search results. As SEO Book also points out a search on best dog for apartment will show few results from Yahoo Answers in the organic listings. Also a search on harley davidson will show a Yahoo Shortcut at the bottom of the results page to Yahoo Answers....
  • Google Hires SEM For "Better Conversations" With Webmasters
    Matt Cutts, the bridge between Google & SEMs, has announced the hire of Adam Lasnik, an old time affiliate marketer and SEO, to help Matt with the communication between Webmasters and Google. Adam said his role will be the "Webmaster Advocate" at Google, pushing for Webmaster needs and concerns. He calls himself the "MiniMatt," attending SEM conferences, replying to Google-related blog or forum posts, responding to some Google e-mails, and more. So now Matt can finally take a vacation....
  • Advertise Google Base Listings in AdWords
    Google Base blog announced that you can now advertise your Google Base results "right from the Google Base edit item page." You create the ad creative and Google will use your content and geo information to automatically target the appropriate keywords and geographic users for the items you are selling on Google Base. You can see a screen capture of this in action by clicking here....
  • Google Releases Version Four of AdWords API
    The Google AdWords Blog announced the release of version four of the Google AdWords API. Part of this update is that the new terms of use goes into affect, that we discussed earlier about using the API for commercial purposes. If you are an API user, you must update to v4 by July 12th....
  • Google Ad Tools, For Newbies
    We tend to assume our SEW audience is made up of fairly sophisticated search marketers, but from time-to-time we get requests for pointers from people just starting out with SEM. For those of you who are new to search marketing, I've reviewed a book in today's SearchDay article, Learning Google's Advertising Tools, that offers a solid introduction to getting started with Google's AdSense and AdWords programs....
  • IE7 Default Search Given Approval By DOJ
    Hot News! After all the debate the Department of Justice has approved IE7 to default to MSN Search. The news report says that Microsoft's search feature "respects users' and OEM's [original equipment manufacturers] default choices and is easily changed." Is that the end of that debate? I doubt it....

Other Things We Read, Didn't Blog But You Might Want To Read...

Posted by Danny Sullivan at May 16, 2006 2:58 AM