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June 18, 2006 - June 24, 2006

June 24, 2006

Mind-Blowing/Expanding AdverGame

Honda.jpgBoy, is this thing hyper-cute, not to mention insane.

The game takes forever to load, and the promotional links don't work, presumably because it's on the production company's site (London's unit9).

Note to self: when the weekend's over, find out what the Honda tie-in is.

Update: Of course! Zach reminds me it's based on Honda's award-winning Grrr! campaign, which ran on U.K. television last year.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 23, 2006

Search Headlines & Links: June 23, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

  • Daily SearchCast, June 23, 2006: Google Sells Baidu Stake While Expanding Its Own Numbers In China; Google Testing Ads In Video; & More!
    Today's search podcast covers Google selling its stake in the Chinese Baidu search engine; Google planning to expand employees for its own Chinese efforts; Google testing ads in video content; looking at issues with filtering adult content in video and web search and more! Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See...
  • Yahoo Says Searchers are Better Patients
    New research from Yahoo tells us that the majority of people who searched for health information subsequently visited their doctor (61%) and that 71% of these folks went equipped with pointed, action oriented questions. Searchers also use twice as many resources to learn about health issues than the average consumer. Other key findings include:...
  • 'Social Directory,' 'Directed Blogging'?: Whatever You Call It Yelp Has Got It Down
    The odds were against Yelp when it entered the local search/directory market just under two years ago. (As an aside, I am using a the label "social directory" for sites like Yelp, InsiderPages and Judysbook because they layer community on top of a traditional directory advertising model.) Two years ago the market was already relatively mature with sites like the venerable Citysearch, the search engines and portals offering local search and/or online yellow pages. In addition, all the yellow pages publishers had sites themselves. Then there were online communities like Craigslist, not to mention newspaper sites with their local content....
  • PhotoBucket Has 44% Share of Photo Sharing Sites: Beating Yahoo & Flickr
    The Hitwise blog posted what I found to be surprising statistics on what is the most popular photo sharing site. I would have thought Yahoo Photos or Flickr would be a one of the most popular services, but it looks like PhotoBucket has almost 44% of the share, compared with Yahoo Photos with only 18% share in the number two spot. Even more surprising, to me at least, is that Flickr has barely 6% share, ranking number six in the list. Hitwise tells me that Photobucket surpassed Yahoo! Photos in January 2006, and its share of visits increased by 34%...
  • Technorati Betting: New Link Bait Idea
    Omar emailed me that he has posted a Technorati Blog Betting competition. Basically, you bet as much as you like, on the chances that a particular blog will be at the number one spot. As ThreadWatch notes Matt Cutts has 6 to 1 odds in this competition. They currently have Matt Cutts, Robert Scoble, Engadget, and some others in the competition. This site, nor is my site in the running. Currently, the Technorati top 100 shows me at #35, Philipp at #29, ShoeMoney at #52, John Battelle at #63 and Danny (SEW) at #69....
  • Google To Have 1000 Employees In China By 2007
    Pacific Epoch reports that Google expect to have over 1,000 employees in Google China by 2007. By the end of this year, Google hopes to have 200 employees based in China. Google will have three research and development centers in China, they will be based in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan according the article....
  • Ask.com Too Strict With Child & Sex Keywords?
    The Hammer of Trust writes that Ask.com is way too strict for searches on keywords about sex and children. For example, a search on Ask.com on [laws against pedophilia] brings back a message that reads, "This query does not comply with Ask.com Terms of Service." The "Go" button following the message links you to Ask.com Terms of Service. Other similar searches do the same thing, such as , talking to your children about sex, blocking porn from kids and warning your kids about sex offenders. I also tried searching on preventing child pornography and that also was blocked. It is...
  • Japan's Softbank Mobile Phones To Use Yahoo As Content Portal
    MarketWatch reports that Softbank, who acquired Vodafone, will be using Yahoo to "bring the broad world of the Internet" to their mobile users. The mobile phones will have some sort of direct link to the Yahoo portal, to bring the content of that portal to Softbank's mobile users....
  • Google Mixes Up Referrals Buttons
    I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google has mixed up the referral buttons with the Google AdSense referral program. For example, I have inserted the code to display the Google Pack referral button on this page but instead it is displaying the graphics and materials for the Google Firefox referrals. This was first reported at WebmasterWorld yesterday at 11:50am (EST). It continues to be a problem to this minute....
  • Child Porn Suit Dropped Against Google
    The Associate Press reports that the suit brought against Google for profiting on child pornography has been dropped. Jeffrey Toback, of the Nassau County Legislature, filed the suit in early May. Toback said he dropped the suit because "Google has offered to sit down and discuss the issues. They didn't want to do that while litigation was pending, so we're taking them up on their offer."...
  • Search Forums Roundup: June 23, 2006
    Today's SearchDay, Search Engine Forums Spotlight, features our weekly links to this week's hot topics from search engine forums across the web: Google AdWords Scheduling/Day Parting Now Live - SEO Training- Is It Worthwhile? - Age of Links - Quality and Authority: Relevance Alone Is Not Enough, and more....
  • Google Testing Ad Supported Premium Video
    Google is running a test offering about 2,000 premium videos available for free streaming viewing, inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming. The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business product manager, Google Video. , inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming. The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business...
  • Video Search, Smut and Censorship
    Earlier this week, ZDNet News published an article discussing the presence and availability of explicit content on video search sites like, YouTube, Yahoo Video and Google Video. "A weeklong review of some of the top user-generated video sites by CNET News.com unearthed scenes of beheadings, masturbation, bloody car accidents, bondage and sadomasochism," wrote the reporter, Greg Sandoval. He did say that this review found no child pornography....
  • Specialty Search Roundup #4
    Another week has gone by and the world of databases of special interest to the web researcher have appeared on ResourceShelf. Here's a look at a few of them along with a couple of database news items via ResourceShelf. By the way, the ResourceShelf site itself has also been updated and enhanced with a new look this week....
  • AdWords Tweaks & Bug Fixes Documented
    I reported this morning at the Search Engine Roundtable on Small But Important New Google AdWords Features & Fixes. eWhisper at WebmasterWorld tracked the small, sometimes unnoticed, changes within Google AdWords and put together a list. Here is that list. + Local time zone added to MCC reports. + Bug fixed where the 'account' box didn't show on sub mcc reports. + Add your GAP business to Google Local (although, not sure why this wasn't attached to base so the pin was unnecessary) + HTTPs errors fixed on internal help pages (note, the only place I can tell the error...
  • Google Disposes Of Stake In Baidu
    Reuters reports that Google has sold its "modest investment in Baidu." Google owned about two-percent of Baidu.com, worth about $63 million, and "disposed" of that investment on May 25th. Google spokesperson, Debbie Frost said, "It has always been our goal to grow our own successful business in China and we are very focused on that."...

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

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:15 PM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, June 23, 2006: Google Sells Baidu Stake While Expanding Its Own Numbers In China; Google Testing Ads In Video; & More!

Today's search podcast covers Google selling its stake in the Chinese Baidu search engine; Google planning to expand employees for its own Chinese efforts; Google testing ads in video content; looking at issues with filtering adult content in video and web search and more!

Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the Daily SearchCast FAQ.

Below are links to items discussed:

  • Google Disposes Of Stake In Baidu
    Reuters reports that Google has sold its "modest investment in Baidu." Google owned about two-percent of Baidu.com, worth about $63 million, and "disposed" of that investment on May 25th. Google spokesperson, Debbie Frost said, "It has always been our goal to grow our own successful business in China and we are very focused on that."...
  • Google To Have 1000 Employees In China By 2007
    Pacific Epoch reports that Google expect to have over 1,000 employees in Google China by 2007. By the end of this year, Google hopes to have 200 employees based in China. Google will have three research and development centers in China, they will be based in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan according the article....
  • AdWords Tweaks & Bug Fixes Documented
    I reported this morning at the Search Engine Roundtable on Small But Important New Google AdWords Features & Fixes. eWhisper at WebmasterWorld tracked the small, sometimes unnoticed, changes within Google AdWords and put together a list. Here is that list. + Local time zone added to MCC reports. + Bug fixed where the 'account' box didn't show on sub mcc reports. + Add your GAP business to Google Local (although, not sure why this wasn't attached to base so the pin was unnecessary) + HTTPs errors fixed on internal help pages (note, the only place I can tell the error...
  • Google Testing Ad Supported Premium Video
    Google is running a test offering about 2,000 premium videos available for free streaming viewing, inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming. The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business product manager, Google Video. , inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming. The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business...
  • Child Porn Suit Dropped Against Google
    The Associate Press reports that the suit brought against Google for profiting on child pornography has been dropped. Jeffrey Toback, of the Nassau County Legislature, filed the suit in early May. Toback said he dropped the suit because "Google has offered to sit down and discuss the issues. They didn't want to do that while litigation was pending, so we're taking them up on their offer."...
  • Video Search, Smut and Censorship
    Earlier this week, ZDNet News published an article discussing the presence and availability of explicit content on video search sites like, YouTube, Yahoo Video and Google Video. "A weeklong review of some of the top user-generated video sites by CNET News.com unearthed scenes of beheadings, masturbation, bloody car accidents, bondage and sadomasochism," wrote the reporter, Greg Sandoval. He did say that this review found no child pornography....
  • Ask.com Too Strict With Child & Sex Keywords?
    The Hammer of Trust writes that Ask.com is way too strict for searches on keywords about sex and children. For example, a search on Ask.com on [laws against pedophilia] brings back a message that reads, "This query does not comply with Ask.com Terms of Service." The "Go" button following the message links you to Ask.com Terms of Service. Other similar searches do the same thing, such as , talking to your children about sex, blocking porn from kids and warning your kids about sex offenders. I also tried searching on preventing child pornography and that also was blocked. It is...
  • PhotoBucket Has 44% Share of Photo Sharing Sites: Beating Yahoo & Flickr
    The Hitwise blog posted what I found to be surprising statistics on what is the most popular photo sharing site. I would have thought Yahoo Photos or Flickr would be a one of the most popular services, but it looks like PhotoBucket has almost 44% of the share, compared with Yahoo Photos with only 18% share in the number two spot. Even more surprising, to me at least, is that Flickr has barely 6% share, ranking number six in the list. Hitwise tells me that Photobucket surpassed Yahoo! Photos in January 2006, and its share of visits increased by 34%...
  • Japan's Softbank Mobile Phones To Use Yahoo As Content Portal
    MarketWatch reports that Softbank, who acquired Vodafone, will be using Yahoo to "bring the broad world of the Internet" to their mobile users. The mobile phones will have some sort of direct link to the Yahoo portal, to bring the content of that portal to Softbank's mobile users....
  • Google Mixes Up Referrals Buttons
    I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google has mixed up the referral buttons with the Google AdSense referral program. For example, I have inserted the code to display the Google Pack referral button on this page but instead it is displaying the graphics and materials for the Google Firefox referrals. This was first reported at WebmasterWorld yesterday at 11:50am (EST). It continues to be a problem to this minute....
  • Specialty Search Roundup #4
    Another week has gone by and the world of databases of special interest to the web researcher have appeared on ResourceShelf. Here's a look at a few of them along with a couple of database news items via ResourceShelf. By the way, the ResourceShelf site itself has also been updated and enhanced with a new look this week....
  • Technorati Betting: New Link Bait Idea
    Omar emailed me that he has posted a Technorati Blog Betting competition. Basically, you bet as much as you like, on the chances that a particular blog will be at the number one spot. As ThreadWatch notes Matt Cutts has 6 to 1 odds in this competition. They currently have Matt Cutts, Robert Scoble, Engadget, and some others in the competition. This site, nor is my site in the running. Currently, the Technorati top 100 shows me at #35, Philipp at #29, ShoeMoney at #52, John Battelle at #63 and Danny (SEW) at #69....

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:12 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Says Searchers are Better Patients

New research from Yahoo tells us that the majority of people who searched for health information subsequently visited their doctor (61%) and that 71% of these folks went equipped with pointed, action oriented questions. Searchers also use twice as many resources to learn about health issues than the average consumer.

Other key findings include:

  • 20% of consumers were driven to search online because they saw an advertisement and wanted more information.
  • Searchers are 130% more likely to have seen an online display ad and view it as informational.
  • 70% of searchers will question their doctor if they are prescribed a brand different from what they searched for online.

The research was commissioned by Yahoo! in conjunction with Hall & Partners Healthcare to gain a deeper understanding of health searcher’s attitudes and behaviors, and how this impacts doctor visits and prescriptions. The study surveyed over 5,600 online health seekers with extra focus on those searching for Allergy, Depression and High Cholesterol information. Although demographics differed by condition, attitudes and behavior on search were essentially the same.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:12 PM | Permalink

Candidate Creates Special Video for E-Mail

devalpatrick.jpgThe Internet enables political advertisers unprecedented abilities to get their messages out quickly and unencumbered by media interpretation. And while political candidates have begun to show an interest in employing Web video, most have simply repurposed TV spots
for their Web sites and video ads.

Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick broke that mold recently with an attack e-mail linking to a video produced for that express purpose. In it, the candidate speaks from his campaign headquarters about his opponent Christopher Gabrieli's choice to not accept public funding in order to spend as much as he'd like on his campaign.

As a Boston Globe article described it, "The video shows Patrick sitting in his campaign office alongside busy campaign volunteers. He is slumped forward slightly, speaking directly, sometimes emphatically, to the camera. At the end, he asks the viewer to join the campaign's first canvassing effort this Saturday."

I spoke with Brian Reich, director of Boston Operations for political consulting firm Mindshare Interactive Campaigns about what he considered to be an innovative approach to video e-mail. "He could have put a TV commercial up, but instead he recorded something special for this e-mail."

There's very little cost for this type of effort in comparison to creating a TV ad, plus recipients have the ability to pass along an e-mail message to spread the word. It'll be interesting to see if other candidates this year take Patrick's lead here and use Web video in this compelling way.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

'Social Directory,' 'Directed Blogging'?: Whatever You Call It Yelp Has Got It Down

The odds were against Yelp when it entered the local search/directory market just under two years ago. (As an aside, I am using a the label "social directory" for sites like Yelp, InsiderPages and Judysbook because they layer community on top of a traditional directory advertising model.) Two years ago the market was already relatively mature with sites like the venerable Citysearch, the search engines and portals offering local search and/or online yellow pages. In addition, all the yellow pages publishers had sites themselves. Then there were online communities like Craigslist, not to mention newspaper sites with their local content.

So if one were to have handicapped Yelp in the beginning, one would have said it's a long shot (including this one) to achieve usage, visibility and scale. Cut to two years later and Yelp is doing it. The site started out in the San Francisco Bay Area and is now rolling out nationally. While not the most heavily trafficked local search/directory site, it arguably has one of the most engaged audiences of any of the companies in its space.

The site looks like a party. It's got lots of personality compared to some of its competitors, which seem "cold" by comparison. And it's not uncommon to find 10, 20, 30 even 40 or more reviews of numerous businesses vs. the typical one, two or five reviews on many of Yelp's competitors.

Sitting with executives from one of the big search sites several years ago, we discussed the challenge of getting user reviews from a base of zero. It's been proven that if a site has lots of community content or reviews, more will follow – people are more inclined to go into a crowded restaurant than an empty one. But building that base of content and developing that momentum is the challenge.

Yelp has found a "formula" that appears to have worked. The site has MySpace-like profiles (its users are somewhat older on average) that offer a fairly wide range of personal expression, including photo sharing. In that way it resembles a blogging site. But that profile content sits on top of local business and entertainment content, built on a conventional directory advertising model. The "culture" and subject matter of Yelp is "directed." Thus one could describe it – and they do internally – as a "directed blogging" site.

In addition, Yelp has held local parties to build offline community and awareness. I've not attended any of those but my understanding is that they've been popular and quite successful for the site. And apparently these "Yelp parties" continue in some cases without the active involvement of the site.

In addition, Yelp has one of the best map-based local search tools. There's no "flyover" or zoom from space capability, but the user experience is generally very good.

If you want more information on these social directory sites, including how to gain access as an advertiser, read Phil Stelter's Local Search column this week in ClickZ.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Google Tests Ad-supported Video

Google is running another ad test this week, this time for Google Video. Under the Free Today program, selected clips from the Google Video Store will be available for free download, instead of the usual fee, which ranges from $0.30 to $14.99. The current free offerings were previously priced as high as $4.95.

The catch, of course, is the free videos include ads. There is a persistent text and image branding unit above the video content, which links to the advertiser's site. There is also a :15 to :30 post-roll video ad. Ads are from a single advertiser; the winning bidder in an auction, according to a Google spokesperson.

The ad-supported clips will not be able to be saved to a file, as the paid downloads are. The free videos are promoted on the Google Video home page

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PhotoBucket Has 44% Share of Photo Sharing Sites: Beating Yahoo & Flickr

The Hitwise blog posted what I found to be surprising statistics on what is the most popular photo sharing site. I would have thought Yahoo Photos or Flickr would be a one of the most popular services, but it looks like PhotoBucket has almost 44% of the share, compared with Yahoo Photos with only 18% share in the number two spot. Even more surprising, to me at least, is that Flickr has barely 6% share, ranking number six in the list. Hitwise tells me that Photobucket surpassed Yahoo! Photos in January 2006, and its share of visits increased by 34% in the four months from February 2006 to May 2006. Flickr increased 44% in the past four months, which explains why I thought Flickr was more popular then its current rank. More details at the Hitwise blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:10 AM | Permalink

Technorati Betting: New Link Bait Idea

Omar emailed me that he has posted a Technorati Blog Betting competition. Basically, you bet as much as you like, on the chances that a particular blog will be at the number one spot. As Threadwatch notes, Matt Cutts has 6 to 1 odds in this competition. They currently have Matt Cutts, Robert Scoble, Engadget, and some others in the competition. This site, nor is my site in the running. Currently, the Technorati top 100 shows me at #35, Philipp at #29, ShoeMoney at #52, John Battelle at #63 and Danny (SEW) at #69.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:00 AM | Permalink

Google To Have 1000 Employees In China By 2007

Pacific Epoch reports that Google expect to have over 1,000 employees in Google China by 2007. By the end of this year, Google hopes to have 200 employees based in China. Google will have three research and development centers in China, they will be based in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan according the article.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:59 AM | Permalink

Ask.com Too Strict With Child & Sex Keywords?

The Hammer of Trust writes that Ask.com is way too strict for searches on keywords about sex and children. For example, a search on Ask.com on [laws against pedophilia] brings back a message that reads, "This query does not comply with Ask.com Terms of Service." The "Go" button following the message links you to Ask.com Terms of Service. Other similar searches do the same thing, such as , talking to your children about sex, blocking porn from kids and warning your kids about sex offenders. I also tried searching on preventing child pornography and that also was blocked.

It is important to note that all these queries bring back results at both Google and Yahoo. Is Ask.com way too strict here? It appears that way. But is it better than being hit with a child pornography suit like Google was?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:09 AM | Permalink

Japan's Softbank Mobile Phones To Use Yahoo As Content Portal

MarketWatch reports that Softbank, who acquired Vodafone, will be using Yahoo to "bring the broad world of the Internet" to their mobile users. The mobile phones will have some sort of direct link to the Yahoo portal, to bring the content of that portal to Softbank's mobile users.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:00 AM | Permalink

Google Mixes Up Referrals Buttons

I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google has mixed up the referral buttons with the Google AdSense referral program. For example, I have inserted the code to display the Google Pack referral button on this page but instead it is displaying the graphics and materials for the Google Firefox referrals.

This was first reported at WebmasterWorld yesterday at 11:50am (EST). It continues to be a problem to this minute.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:46 AM | Permalink

Child Porn Suit Dropped Against Google

The Associated Press reports that the suit brought against Google for profiting on child pornography has been dropped. Jeffrey Toback, of the Nassau County Legislature, filed the suit in early May. Toback said he dropped the suit because "Google has offered to sit down and discuss the issues. They didn't want to do that while litigation was pending, so we're taking them up on their offer."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:35 AM | Permalink

Search Forums Roundup: June 23, 2006

Today's SearchDay, Search Engine Forums Spotlight, features our weekly links to this week's hot topics from search engine forums across the web: Google AdWords Scheduling/Day Parting Now Live - SEO Training- Is It Worthwhile? - Age of Links - Quality and Authority: Relevance Alone Is Not Enough, and more.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 7:34 AM | Permalink

June 22, 2006

Google Testing Ad Supported Premium Video

Google is running a test offering about 2,000 premium videos available for free streaming viewing, inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming. The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business product manager, Google Video.

Currently, premium content on Google Video is available via a pay-to-own model that allows users to download and replay ad-free programming at any time. These videos usually cost between $0.99 and $14.99, but you own them once you pay for them. The test program only allows users to stream the content in real-time, and you can't save videos once viewed.

For this test, Google has allowed advertisers to choose the content that their ads are sponsoring. Likewise, content owners have the option to vet an advertiser to make sure the ad is appropriate for the content. Over time, Chane expects that this human-intensive process will become much more automated.

Google intends to run many similar tests over the course of the coming year. The goal is to find ways to expand the amount of premium content available on Google Video and see if free, ad-spondored content attracts certain types of viewing audiences, said Chane.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:41 PM | Permalink

Video Search, Smut and Censorship

Earlier this week, ZDNet News published an article discussing the presence and availability of explicit content on video search sites like, YouTube, Yahoo Video and Google Video. "A weeklong review of some of the top user-generated video sites by CNET News.com unearthed scenes of beheadings, masturbation, bloody car accidents, bondage and sadomasochism," wrote the reporter, Greg Sandoval. He did say that this review found no child pornography.

There are a number of issues that the article directly and indirectly raises. (I spoke to Sandoval during his interview process.) Perhaps the primary issue for marketers and the video sites that want their ad dollars is a practical one. There has been considerable press and discussion about the reluctance of mainstream brands to associate themselves with user-generated video content that they can't control. And there have been celebrated cases, for example on MTV-owned iFilm, where "run of site" video ads for mainstream brands have appeared as pre-roll in front of adult content.

To attract more advertising and address this criticism and the hesitation from marketers, MySpace, for example, has recently created "safe content areas" – safe for marketers that is – where no questionable content appears. Companies are chomping at the bit to reach the massive MySpace audience but do not want their brands associated or juxtaposed with violent, pornographic or otherwise questionable content.

As of today, Google is testing advertising on premium video content but doesn't offer it where user-generated content is involved (to address this same issue).

It's not completely fair to lump all sites together. Not all video search sites have the same range and types of content and, again to be fair, on those video sites where adult content is available, it's typically behind a warning or "safe search" filter. But those filters can be easily changed. And, somewhat shockingly, violent content (e.g., beheadings) is not similarly gated.

Video sites need to determine whether and how to treat explicit or "over 18" content in terms of the advertiser proposition. But beyond this, there are practical "enforcement" issues as well. If you've many thousands of videos coming into your site on a daily basis, like YouTube, there's time and cost involved in mounting an effort to screen all those videos before they're posted. One approach would be to monitor the tags and flag those streams that indicated questionable content for later human editorial review.

The simple approach, of course, would be to simply ban all "non-family friendly" content and thus create a video site that was safe for advertisers and kids. But then there's that little thing called the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

All pornography is not illegal; child pornography is. Yet pornography is offensive to many people. However, the discussion of what constitutes "pornography" takes us down a complicated and winding path that invariably invokes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 quote in Jacobellis v. Ohio about the difficulty of defining pornography in the abstract: "I know it when I see it."

As a parent I'm not eager for my two young daughters to discover explicit content online when they years from now simply, out of curiosity, start entering sexually oriented words in a search box or video site. (I did the quaint equivalent as a kid in middle school looking up "sex words" in the dictionary.) But as a former lawyer with sensitivity to the complexity of questions of censorship and free expression I recognize that there's a practical and philosophical quagmire for Google, Yahoo and others around whether to show adult and other non-mainstream content on video sites. It's somewhat analogous to the question of whether to go into China and participate in the censorship of websites.

If you start "banning videos" what do you allow and what do you omit? Do you allow violence but not sex – I just as equally would like to protect my daughters from beheading scenes. Do you allow sexual content but not extreme violence? Beheading videos from Al Qaeda are arguably "news content." And if you permit nudity, where is the line?

Monitoring and making judgments about the content of videos is not unlike the challenge of monitoring trademark infringement within paid search advertising: difficult, time consuming and inherently flawed.

I'm not suggesting there is no line and no limits but Google, YouTube, AOL, Yahoo and others need to find that line carefully, balancing the competing interests (legal, philosophical, financial) that weigh on this cluster of issues. I certainly don't have the answer and right now, apparently, neither do they.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:28 PM | Permalink

Jambo Tests Radio Pay-Per-Call Ads

Jambo is testing pay-per-call ads in the radio environment, buying up remnant spots from a newish reverse auction firm called Bid4Spots. Business categories covered under the tests include DIRECTV installers, mortgage lenders, and attorneys; and advertisers can specify such targeting factors as market, daypart, demographic and station format.

If this test and others like it go well, radio advertising may eventually migrate to a scenario where marketers, the lead-focused ones anyway, will pay only for pre-qualified calls. (link to press release)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Specialty Search Roundup #4

Another week has gone by and the world of databases of special interest to the web researcher have appeared on ResourceShelf. Here's a look at a few of them along with a couple of database news items via ResourceShelf. By the way, the ResourceShelf site itself has also been updated and enhanced with a new look this week.

Past specialty search roundups:

+ Specialty Search Roundup #3
+ Specialty Search Roundup #2
+ Specialty Search Roundup #1

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:56 PM | Permalink

AdWords Tweaks & Bug Fixes Documented

I reported this morning at the Search Engine Roundtable on Small But Important New Google AdWords Features & Fixes. eWhisper at WebmasterWorld tracked the small, sometimes unnoticed, changes within Google AdWords and put together a list. Here is that list.

+ Local time zone added to MCC reports.
+ Bug fixed where the 'account' box didn't show on sub mcc reports.
+ Add your GAP business to Google Local (although, not sure why this wasn't attached to base so the pin was unnecessary)
+ HTTPs errors fixed on internal help pages (note, the only place I can tell the error now occurs is on the help home page).
+ Possible negative keywords under the AdWords keyword tool.
+ Ability to add keywords to an AdGroup when accessing the keyword tool from the tools menu.
+ 'add custom text' under the site spidering section of the keyword tool.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:46 PM | Permalink

Google Disposes Of Stake In Baidu

Reuters reports that Google has sold its "modest investment in Baidu." Google owned about two-percent of Baidu.com, worth about $63 million, and "disposed" of that investment on May 25th. Google spokesperson, Debbie Frost said, "It has always been our goal to grow our own successful business in China and we are very focused on that."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:13 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: June 22, 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:

From The SEW Blog...

  • Daily SearchCast, June 22, 2006: Ask Not On Google Answers About Google; Should Google Dump Results Counts?; Google And Adobe Partner & More!
    Today's search podcast covers Google Answers not allowing questions about Google; Google's inaccurate results counts; Google partnering with Adobe on distribution; the Matt Cutts vacation countdown and more! Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the Daily SearchCast FAQ.
  • When's Matt Cutts Back From Vacation Countdown Clock
    Thomas Bindl does what I was hoping someone would do -- make a countdown clock for when Google's Matt Cutts is returning from his vacation, spotted via Threadwatch. I've seen a number of posts in various places suggesting that Google has been having its recent spam and indexing problems because Matt's finally taken a nice, long break. Bull. Matt's great, a huge resource to Google, but the problems going on seem far more fundamental than Matt being away. If they really are due to him being gone, then Google has even bigger issues to deal with. Still, plenty of us...
  • Google, Kill The Web Search Counts!
    Number one on my 25 Things I Hate About Google list from March was "web search counts that make no sense." This week's fiasco with the "5 billion spam pages" in Google only underscores that those counts really are a big issue that can be noticed by more than a few tech heads. Fix them or get rid of them, I say....
  • Google Search Appliance Now Available In Australia and New Zealand
    The Google Search Appliance is now available in Australia and in New Zealand. The Google Search Appliance starts at $74,486 AUD in Australia and starts at $87,702 NZD in New Zealand or $30,000 US in America. The full release can be found here....
  • Google Updates Toolbar Privacy Policy
    It appears to me that Google updated the Google Toolbar Privacy Policy yesterday. I know the dates do not reflect that on the page, but if you take a look at the current version and compare it to the cached version from Jun 16, 2006 you will notice a lot of changes. Below are some of the larger changes to the privacy policy....
  • What the Critics Said
    The web has made it easy to seek out criticism to help us decide what to watch, listen to or read. But as with web search in general, finding the best sources of criticism can sometimes be a frustrating experience. In today's SearchDay article, Searching for Critical Acclaim, I take an in-depth look at a service that aggregates reviews of movies, books, music and more and assigns a unique score that represents the collective critical opinion on the quality of each reviewed title....
  • More Stats & Features From Google Sitemaps
    The Inside Google Sitemaps Blog announced more features and statistics added to the Google Sitemaps product. The features mainly include additional statistics, but you can also find additional tools. Here is a quick rundown of the new items you can find at Google Sitemaps. + Unlimited crawl errors in reports + More query stats, a lot more, including reporting on subfolders + Common words report increased to show 75 words from 20 + Submit up to 500 sitemaps under one Google Account, up from 200 + Adsbot-Google useragent added to robots.txt tool + Added a rate this tool poll. That...
  • Google Answers: Ask Whatever You Like, Except About Google
    We wrote earlier about Google pulling a question at Google Answers about Google. Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped followed-up further and found that Google officially disallows people to ask questions about the company because the researchers at Google Answers aren't Google employees. Got that? Freelance researchers are apparently qualified to answer questions about any other company in the world, but when it comes to Google, special treatment is required. Incredible....
  • Google Partners With Adobe For Toolbar Distribution In Shockwave, Other Product To Be Named
    Both Adobe (PDF link) and Google have announced a new deal where Adobe will distribute the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer as part of Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player downloads. That was supposed to begin yesterday, and bundling with other Adobe products will happen in the future. Wait a minute? Weren't Yahoo and Adobe buddy-buddies? Yes -- a special version of the Yahoo Toolbar is built into the popular Adobe Acrobat Reader program, through a deal dating back to October 2004....
  • New Search Patents: June 22, 2006 - Google File System, Microsoft Blocks, and Yahoo Autonotifications
    Google patents the Google File System, Microsoft claims a Functional Object Model for mobile devices, and Yahoo! (Overture) describes an autonotification process to inform advertisers of when a certain condition has been met concerning one of their ads....
  • Wall Street Journal Piece On Tracking
    Mylene Mangalindan of the Wall Street Journal wrote a solid piece on Monday that was unfortunately buried at the end of the annual All Things Digital section. If you're a multi-channel internet marketer, read her article, Ad Vantage (Paid reg. required). The piece looks at potential pitfalls of advertising online without proper analytics tracking and covers such topics as Garden Harware’s difficulties tracking which search advertising or comparison shopping clicks actually convert (PriceGrabber and Shopping.com are singled out), eBay’s solution for search marketing (seems they developed a system in-house after leaving Efficient Frontier), Alibris‘ problems with affiliate sales (not all...

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

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:41 PM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, June 22, 2006: Ask Not On Google Answers About Google; Should Google Dump Results Counts?; Google And Adobe Partner & More!

Today's search podcast covers Google Answers not allowing questions about Google; Google's inaccurate results counts; Google partnering with Adobe on distribution; the Matt Cutts vacation countdown and more!

Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the Daily SearchCast FAQ.

Below are links to items discussed:

  • Google Answers: Ask Whatever You Like, Except About Google
    We wrote earlier about Google pulling a question at Google Answers about Google. Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped followed-up further and found that Google officially disallows people to ask questions about the company because the researchers at Google Answers aren't Google employees. Got that? Freelance researchers are apparently qualified to answer questions about any other company in the world, but when it comes to Google, special treatment is required. Incredible....
  • Google, Kill The Web Search Counts!
    Number one on my 25 Things I Hate About Google list from March was "web search counts that make no sense." This week's fiasco with the "5 billion spam pages" in Google only underscores that those counts really are a big issue that can be noticed by more than a few tech heads. Fix them or get rid of them, I say....
  • More Stats & Features From Google Sitemaps
    The Inside Google Sitemaps Blog announced more features and statistics added to the Google Sitemaps product. The features mainly include additional statistics, but you can also find additional tools. Here is a quick rundown of the new items you can find at Google Sitemaps. + Unlimited crawl errors in reports + More query stats, a lot more, including reporting on subfolders + Common words report increased to show 75 words from 20 + Submit up to 500 sitemaps under one Google Account, up from 200 + Adsbot-Google useragent added to robots.txt tool + Added a rate this tool poll. That...
  • Google Partners With Adobe For Toolbar Distribution In Shockwave, Other Product To Be Named
    Both Adobe (PDF link) and Google have announced a new deal where Adobe will distribute the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer as part of Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player downloads. That was supposed to begin yesterday, and bundling with other Adobe products will happen in the future. Wait a minute? Weren't Yahoo and Adobe buddy-buddies? Yes -- a special version of the Yahoo Toolbar is built into the popular Adobe Acrobat Reader program, through a deal dating back to October 2004....
  • Google Updates Toolbar Privacy Policy
    It appears to me that Google updated the Google Toolbar Privacy Policy yesterday. I know the dates do not reflect that on the page, but if you take a look at the current version and compare it to the cached version from Jun 16, 2006 you will notice a lot of changes. Below are some of the larger changes to the privacy policy....
  • New Search Patents: June 22, 2006 - Google File System, Microsoft Blocks, and Yahoo Autonotifications
    Google patents the Google File System, Microsoft claims a Functional Object Model for mobile devices, and Yahoo! (Overture) describes an autonotification process to inform advertisers of when a certain condition has been met concerning one of their ads....
  • Wall Street Journal Piece On Tracking
    Mylene Mangalindan of the Wall Street Journal wrote a solid piece on Monday that was unfortunately buried at the end of the annual All Things Digital section. If you're a multi-channel internet marketer, read her article, Ad Vantage (Paid reg. required). The piece looks at potential pitfalls of advertising online without proper analytics tracking and covers such topics as Garden Harware’s difficulties tracking which search advertising or comparison shopping clicks actually convert (PriceGrabber and Shopping.com are singled out), eBay’s solution for search marketing (seems they developed a system in-house after leaving Efficient Frontier), Alibris‘ problems with affiliate sales (not all...
  • What the Critics Said
    The web has made it easy to seek out criticism to help us decide what to watch, listen to or read. But as with web search in general, finding the best sources of criticism can sometimes be a frustrating experience. In today's SearchDay article, Searching for Critical Acclaim, I take an in-depth look at a service that aggregates reviews of movies, books, music and more and assigns a unique score that represents the collective critical opinion on the quality of each reviewed title....
  • When's Matt Cutts Back From Vacation Countdown Clock
    Thomas Bindl does what I was hoping someone would do -- make a countdown clock for when Google's Matt Cutts is returning from his vacation, spotted via Threadwatch. I've seen a number of posts in various places suggesting that Google has been having its recent spam and indexing problems because Matt's finally taken a nice, long break. Bull. Matt's great, a huge resource to Google, but the problems going on seem far more fundamental than Matt being away. If they really are due to him being gone, then Google has even bigger issues to deal with. Still, plenty of us...

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:32 PM | Permalink

Yahoo E-Mail - Send Verification

Y verification.jpgAlthough this has apparently been around for a few months, I hardly ever use my Yahoo e-mail account, so it was news to me.

When I hit 'send,' a verification page intercepted the process. While we're all familiar with services from companies such as SpamArrest and Vanquish that ask non-whitelisted senders to verify themselves before a message can be delivered, this is the first time I've had to verify myself as a sender on my own e-mail provider's site.

Naturally, to get this far in the process, I was already logged in to Yahoo e-mail as a registered user. And my Yahoo e-mail account dates all the way back to practically my earliest days on the Web -- the post-Mosaic era.

Hey, Yahoo. Don't I get any credit for over a decade of good behavior?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Review This Shoe

shoes.com.jpgWho's not getting into CGM?

Shoes.com is encouraging customers to review shoes with a weekly $250 gift certificate offer. Get ready for shopping sites in all sorts of categories to follow suit. Comparison engines, local search plays and, of course, Amazon, are all solidly on the bandwagon.

In the future, everyone will write at least 15MB of user reviews.

Right?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

American Apparel in Second Life: Driving Gamers to the Web Site

aa.jpgI just spoke with Wes Keltner of The Ad Option, the firm that brokered American Apparrel's much blogged integration with Second Life. An interesting tidbit he shared, which I haven't seen discussed elsewhere, is that AA will eventually run two promos offering savings on real world orders from its Web site.

Here's how it'll work: virtual American Apparel clothing -- the shirts, lingerie, etc. bought in game space -- will come with note cards that have Web promo codes written on them. One will give in-game customers 15 percent off a shirt in real life. Another will give them free shipping from the company's Web site. Each of the campaigns will run for roughly one month inside Second Life to drive traffic to the site.

One interesting aspect to the promos is they'll let American Apparel track some of the bottom line impact of its new brand presence in the virtual world.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When's Matt Cutts Back From Vacation Countdown Clock

Thomas Bindl does what I was hoping someone would do -- make a countdown clock for when Google's Matt Cutts is returning from his vacation, spotted via Threadwatch. I've seen a number of posts in various places suggesting that Google has been having its recent spam and indexing problems because Matt's finally taken a nice, long break. Bull. Matt's great, a huge resource to Google, but the problems going on seem far more fundamental than Matt being away. If they really are due to him being gone, then Google has even bigger issues to deal with. Still, plenty of us will be happy to see him return and jump back into the search conversation.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Google, Kill The Web Search Counts!

Number one on my 25 Things I Hate About Google list from March was "web search counts that make no sense." This week's fiasco with the "5 billion spam pages" in Google only underscores that those counts really are a big issue that can be noticed by more than a few tech heads. Fix them or get rid of them, I say.

Adam Lasnik from Google's search quality team has been running around to various public forums explaining that it really wasn't 5 billion pages that got indexed from one master domain but instead a counting glitch that makes the problem seem worse than it was. We noted Monday that he commented over at Threadwatch:

We have noticed that some site: queries are showing bizarre results and it's turned out to be tied to a bad data push. We're fixing it now....

I'm saying that the results counts are drastically off.

Adam's also been at Digg:

Our engineers recently noticed that our site: queries (number of results listed for a search) were showing bizarre results. This has turned out to be tied to a bad data push, and we're fixing this right now.

In the case being discussed above, the number in "about [x billion]" is currently incorrect. We haven't indexed anywhere close to as many pages of these sites as is currently suggested. It's a significant results estimation error, thankfully limited in scope but clearly pretty stark when it appears.

And over at John Battelle's blog:

Compounding the issue, our result count estimates in these contexts was MANY orders of magnitude off. For example, the one site that supposedly had 5.5 billion pages in the index actually had under 1/100,000th of that.

John's post is probably the most important illustration of why those counts really do matter, given that he took them at face value -- and so many others will, as well.

When I saw the story on Monday, I doubted Google really had indexed so many pages, especially given the known problems with the site: command recently. While Google doesn't report the total number of pages it indexes any longer, it wasn't that long ago when 5 billion pages would have been over half the reported size, as John noted:

5 billion pages is the entire size of the Google index just a year or so ago. The last claim, before they stopped MAKING claims, was 8 billion...think about that.

Now sure, maybe Google really did index that many pages. Maybe they've expanded so much that there's plenty of room. More likely, adding that massive amount of pages really should have caused a lot more good pages to go missing, to make room for them. There would have been a ton of screaming *widely* across the web from site owners big and small.

I know, I know -- some believe Google's running out of space, and Eric Schmidt even commented on a "machine crisis" which the company later denied was an issue with web search. Certainly many webmasters have long been reporting missing pages in the wake of shifting to Google's BigDaddy crawling infrastructure. But many webmaster also have not been having problems.

Maybe Google is so screwed up that it IS picking up billions of spam pages from a few sites and dumping good stuff. However, I think that's unlikely. I think lots of pages did get in from this site, though maybe in the millions rather than billions. And perhaps collectively, millions of pages of spam from a number of sites are pushing good stuff out. But that 5 billion figure for this particular site (and its subdomains)? I do think it was a counting error.

That counting error is a big problem in and of itself. As said, many people take the counts at face value, even trying to use these meaningless figures in court cases as Fox News once did or the US Attorney General once did before the US Supreme Court.

Enough is enough. Make the figures accurate or stop reporting them at all. Last year, I lobbied for Google to drop the index count on its home page, something that eventually happened. Now they should strongly consider doing the same thing with results count.

Time For Results Counts / Number Of Matches To Go? from Gary Price last year talked about this perhaps being a good next move for Google and the other search engines to make. Certainly the time now seems right.

Google, like Yahoo won't let you go past the first 1,000 matches anyway (Ask goes to 200; MSN to 250). So who cares about showing how many matches there are? Counts like these are remnants of the days when search engines first appeared and showing that they had lots of matches helped perhaps make you think they must be good or comprehensive. But if the counts mean nothing, why keep using them?

Ah -- but it's only an issue with the counts if you do a site: command, you might say. Certainly we've known about a bug with that since May. We've been told some of it has been fixed, but clearly bugs are still being worked out.

But are regular search counts accurate? If I search for djkfdkjfdkjddfdfdd, I get told there are no matches. So if I shift to -djkfdkjfdkjddfdfdd, I should get a count of all pages in the index that don't contain that word -- and since we know there are no pages with it in the index -- I should get a count of ALL pages Google has indexed. And that count?

Results 1 - 10 of about 25,270,000,000 for -djkfdkjfdkjddfdfdd. (0.07 seconds) 

So there we have it -- Google has 25 billion pages indexed. Maybe. Or maybe not. This type of search sometimes has produced figures in the past that you knew couldn't be right. Plus, as I wrote before, Google's long had counting problems. I don't know whether to trust that count or not. And if I can't trust it, why offer it to me? Especially why offer it to me if after a glitch, you have to run around doing damage control to say the count is wildly inaccurate. Just get rid of it.

Instead, this is what I want to see in the future:

Results 1 - 10 

OK? And how about giving an option to have a number show up next to a result, for those who want it. That would be nice if I want to refer to the exact position of a particular listing to someone else. But the total number of matches? It's meaningless. And the time it took to search? Chest thumping we don't need anymore.

One exception, however. Google Sitemaps has just added a bunch of expanded reporting. I want them to go further and let site owners get accurate index counts through that system.

Keep in mind that a site: command is incredibly processor intensive. It's not something most searchers do, so spending the time, energy and machine power to get hyper-accurate results for regular Google searches isn't a priority.

Instead, move site: searches to work within Google Sitemaps, and you take the burden off your main machines. It's also something you can perhaps have scheduled to run as a report, something generated en masse during slower periods for anyone who wants to get that type of data. If three people all want site:amazon.com data, you run that once and give all three the info on a scheduled basis.

Yahoo rolled out a similar Yahoo Site Explorer tool last September. It was a good move. It would be a good move for Google to also make, along with dropping the general results counting on Google results pages.

Want to comment? Please join our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Get Rid Of Results Counts On Google?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:32 AM | Permalink

Google Search Appliance Now Available In Australia and New Zealand

The Google Search Appliance is now available in Australia and in New Zealand. The Google Search Appliance starts at $74,486 AUD in Australia and starts at $87,702 NZD in New Zealand or $30,000 US in America. The full release can be found here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:23 AM | Permalink

Google Updates Toolbar Privacy Policy

It appears to me that Google updated the Google Toolbar Privacy Policy yesterday. I know the dates do not reflect that on the page, but if you take a look at the current version and compare it to the cached version from Jun 16, 2006 you will notice a lot of changes. Below are some of the larger changes to the privacy policy.

+ Removed a bullet that read;

We do not associate any of the information that Toolbar sends with other personal information about you. However, it is possible that a URL or other page information sent to Google may itself contain personal information. For information about how some web sites embed personal information in web requests, click here.

+ Added/Changed Significantly the following bullets;

(1) Toolbar Features that give you access to other Google services such as Blogger and Gmail are subject to the separate Privacy Policies of those products. Features that require use of a Google Account, like Bookmarks, store information with your Account as explained in the main Google Privacy Policy. Other features, like SMS This, that let you transmit data from the Toolbar may log that data transmission, as explained in the FAQ.
(2) Third party site custom buttons send information such as search queries to sites that are not operated by Google or covered by Google's Privacy Policy.
(3) If you have Google Toolbar Version 4.0 or above, your copy of Google Toolbar includes a unique application number. When you install Google Toolbar, this number and a message indicating whether the installation succeeded are sent back to Google. Also, when Google Toolbar automatically checks to see if a new version is available, the current version number and the unique application number are sent to Google. The unique application number is required for Google Toolbar to work and cannot be disabled.
(4) Except for information sent through Toolbar for use with a separate Account-based service such as Gmail, we do not associate any of the information that Toolbar sends with other personal information about you. However, it is possible that a URL or other page information sent to Google may itself contain personal information. For information about how this may happen, click here.

Those are the changes I noticed.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:03 AM | Permalink

What the Critics Said

The web has made it easy to seek out criticism to help us decide what to watch, listen to or read. But as with web search in general, finding the best sources of criticism can sometimes be a frustrating experience. In today's SearchDay article, Searching for Critical Acclaim, I take an in-depth look at a service that aggregates reviews of movies, books, music and more and assigns a unique score that represents the collective critical opinion on the quality of each reviewed title.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:36 AM | Permalink

More Stats & Features From Google Sitemaps

The Inside Google Sitemaps Blog announced more features and statistics added to the Google Sitemaps product. The features mainly include additional statistics, but you can also find additional tools. Here is a quick rundown of the new items you can find at Google Sitemaps.

+ Unlimited crawl errors in reports
+ More query stats, a lot more, including reporting on subfolders
+ Common words report increased to show 75 words from 20
+ Submit up to 500 sitemaps under one Google Account, up from 200
+ Adsbot-Google useragent added to robots.txt tool
+ Added a rate this tool poll.

That is it.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:32 AM | Permalink

Google Answers: Ask Whatever You Like, Except About Google

We wrote earlier about Google pulling a question at Google Answers about Google. Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped followed-up further and found that Google officially disallows people to ask questions about the company because the researchers at Google Answers aren't Google employees.

Got that? Freelance researchers are apparently qualified to answer questions about any other company in the world, but when it comes to Google, special treatment is required. Incredible.

In Google Answers Question Removed, Philipp says he was told:

Questions about Google, Google Search, and search engine optimization are not allowed because Google Answers researchers are not employees of Google. Researchers don’t have access to any “inside” information. The information they do have access to is available for free on the Google help pages or by writing to Google support.

And Steve Hall, who started this all when his question was rejected earlier this week, was told:

We'd like to clarify the reason for removal of this question. Please note that Google Answers researchers are not employees of Google. They are independent contractors, and they only have access to information about Google and Google Search that is publicly available. Therefore, all users with questions about Google and/or Google Search are directed to these Google support pages.

In the comments to Steve's post, someone raises a good point that Google might have this policy to help keep those getting responses from thinking they are getting "official" information from Google. I can understand that. But that can also be dealt with differently than just removing questions wholescale. And no questions on search engine optimization, as Philipp was told? Please.

For the record, the Google Answers FAQ says this about questions that aren't allowed:

Google Answers discourages and may remove questions that:

  • request private information about individuals
  • want assistance in conducting illegal activities
  • are meant to sell or advertise products
  • refer or relate to adult content
  • are homework or exam questions
  • seek specific information about Google or Google Answers (email answers-support@google.com instead)

Fair to say, I think that last line should go. People should be able to ask about Google and Google Answers, at the very least because such restrictions make the entire system seem silly.

More important, the Google help pages and other information about Google do NOT have everything you'd want to know about Google. Consider:

  • How does Google technically perform censorship in China? (Answer -- see this good New York Times article, with info not on the Google web site that I know of)
     
  • How did a web site recently get so many spam pages indexed so quickly in Google? (Answer -- our article is one of many that explains its both a glitch with Google's site: command plus probably just a big problem with Google's spam control pages, something not covered on the Google web site)
     
  • Is it cloaking if the New York Times puts up a page in front of those clicking from Google to reach paid articles? (Answer -- it's a matter of debate, as going on in our Search Engine Watch Forums. Google has general guidelines, but there's no agreement on whether these apply. And there's nothing on the Google site giving a definitive answer).

Out of curiosity, I did a little searching at Google Answers to see if much was getting through about Google. Not much, that I could see. But this question caught my eye, Mod Rewrite code for the .htaccess file. It asks:

I have a website called www.greathostels.com it is written in php i need to know the code to put in the htaccess file to make it search engine friendly using mod_rewrite as at the moment its not effectivly spidered.

The answer was a list of pointers to other sites, all of which look pretty useful to me, someone who is not an expert. But the person asking also raised a good point:

If asking a Php code question i think the answer should be provided by someone who knows PhP code.

Which got him this over-the-top response:

Apparently you negelected to read the FAQs for the Google Answers service:

"Are Researchers experts in their field?"

"All Google Researchers are tested to ensure that they are expert searchers with excellent communication skills. Some of them also have expertise in various fields. Your question may be answered by an expert in a particular field or by an expert searcher. Either way, if you are unsatisfied with your answer for any reason, you may apply for a full refund." http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#experts

Our job is to provide an answer to your question. If we personally lack the expertise to do so, we seek out authoritative resources on the internet.

Therefore, I referred you to an authoritative site which provided information which was extremely specific to your question. To imply that the authors of The SEO Toolset website are not experts in their topic, when they authored precisely the information you requested, and created precisely the URL Rewriting Tool which you so badly need, is the heighth of insolence and absurdity.

I would request that my answer be removed by the editors, simply to remove the taint of my association with you, but they tend not to remove answers which have satisfactorily answered the question.

If you ever plan to use this service again, I suggest you register under a different username, given the fact that other researchers will be more than reluctant to deal with someone who doesn't bother to inform themselves about what to expect from the service.

Ouch. I can understand the researcher feeling slighted. But it's also a fair opinion to have, that it would be nice if an actual expert in the area answered the question. Which brings it back to Google's censorship of questions about itself. It's OK for people to research things like PHP and rewriting, even if they have no expertise in them -- but Google itself is too sensitive a topic?

Oh, but remember, people can write to Google Support to get real expert advice. You mean like I did when Gmail went down for me last week? You mean like Tom Foremski did over at Silicon Valley Watcher when Gmail went down for him yesterday? I don't think he got a response. I know I didn't -- and this is now a week after I had my problem.

Instead, I hunted and hunted through support areas and eventually guessed that a solution for an entirely different problem might work for me. It did. But go read my Getting Gmail To Resume POP Access With Captcha Unlock article, because it explains just how lame the Gmail support documentation is in terms of helping people with this problem. And yet, that's what Google Answers thinks is fine for people to use instead of being able to ask questions?

And as for company questions, while asking about Google is off limits, these are fine:

Apparently, having researchers answer questions about other companies without inside information is OK. It's only Google itself that needs special protection.

What do you think? Should the policy change? I'm going to ask in two places and will postscript links here. The first will be our Search Engine Watch Forums. The second will be Yahoo Answers, where there are no restrictions about asking about Google -- or Yahoo -- that I can see. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it's growing by leaps-and-bounds, as covered in my recent article, Look Out Wikipedia, Here Comes Yahoo Answers!

Want to comment? Come join:

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:15 AM | Permalink

Google Partners With Adobe For Toolbar Distribution In Shockwave, Other Product To Be Named

Both Adobe (PDF link) and Google have announced a new deal where Adobe will distribute the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer as part of Adobe Macromedia Shockwave Player downloads. That was supposed to begin yesterday, and bundling with other Adobe products will happen in the future.

Wait a minute? Weren't Yahoo and Adobe buddy-buddies? Yes -- a special version of the Yahoo Toolbar is built into the popular Adobe Acrobat Reader program, through a deal dating back to October 2004.

In January of this year, Google began distributing Adobe Reader as part of the Google Pack without the Yahoo Toolbar being part of it. Google told me (article for SEW members) then that the Adobe-Yahoo agreement only covered the distribution Adobe did.

So is the Yahoo-Adobe deal completely over? No. Reuters reports that Adobe says that will continue:

Adobe previously included Yahoo Inc.'s toolbar as an option with the Shockwave Player, Adobe spokeswoman Katie Juran said. Adobe still offers the Yahoo toolbar as an option for its Flash Player and Adobe Reader products, she said.

I just uninstalled Acrobat Reader and downloaded a fresh copy. I definitely see the Yahoo Toolbar as part of the latest installation.

As for the Abobe-Google deal, the bundling with Google Pack wasn't based on payment, Google told me at the time. This latest deal is a financial arrangement, though exactly how much money is changing hands is not disclosed.

As for the distribution, I downloaded Shockwave and got no prompt for the Google Toolbar to be added. Of course, I already had it in Internet Explorer, and that seems to be why I didn't get a separate install. The Shockwave FAQ suggests that you should see a separate install process and that this won't happen if you have the Google Toolbar already.

That FAQ also notes that the Yahoo Toolbar, previously bundled with Shockwave, has now been dropped. In addition, it says that that third parties that distribute Shockwave do not have to bundle the Google Toolbar with those distributions.

The Google Blog post also says:

Starting today, Adobe is offering the Google Toolbar to its customers as a free download -- a great way to take Google search with you anywhere on the web.

So far, that seems to be true within Shockwave. But it's also a bit overstated. The Google Toolbar on its own is not offered anywhere on the Adobe products page, nor does a search for "google toolbar" flag any page for those who just want the toolbar on its own

The best, most specific information is part of the Shockwave FAQ that I've mentioned. There is at least a direct link to the Google Toolbar download page. But that's much different that the idea the Google Blog suggests, that people visiting Adobe might be getting a pitch for the Google Toolbar on its own. Not yet, not so far.

Postscript Barry:

I was sent a screen capture of this in action, you can view the screen capture at tcal.net.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:48 AM | Permalink

New Search Patents: June 22, 2006 - Google File System, Microsoft Blocks, and Yahoo Autonotifications

Google patents the Google File System, Microsoft claims a Functional Object Model for mobile devices, and Yahoo! (Overture) describes an autonotification process to inform advertisers of when a certain condition has been met concerning one of their ads.

Google

The authors of a paper on the Google File System (pdf) are listed as the inventors of this patent filing. Another similarity between the two documents is that both cite mostly the same reference documents. The patent and paper appear to cover much of the same ground. This looks like the patent for the Google File System.

Leasing scheme for data-modifying operations
Invented by Sanjay Ghemawat, Howard Gobioff, and Shun-Tak Leung
Assigned to Google
US Patent 7,065,618
Granted on June 20, 2006
Filed on June 30, 2003

Abstract

A system may facilitate performance of a data-modifying operation in a file network that includes multiple servers that store replicas of data. One of the servers may serve as a primary replica for one of the replicas of data and at least one other one of the servers may serve as at least one secondary replica for the replica of data. The system may send data associated with the data-modifying operation to the primary replica and the at least one secondary replica based on a network topology and independently send a data-modifying control signal that requests execution of the data-modifying operation using the data associated with the data-modifying operation to the primary replica and the at least one secondary replica.


Microsoft

When presenting a web page on a mobile device, it's sometimes best not to display the whole page. But trying to decide which parts to show, and which not to display can be difficult. More information is sometimes needed about the web page.

Microsoft has been experimenting with ways to identify what different parts of a web page do based upon the layout and functions of parts of pages, and a paper from Microsoft that has seen some popularity recently on this type of analysis has been one on Block-level Link Analysis (pdf).

It wasn't a surprise to see Wei-Ying Ma's name on this patent application, as one of the authors of that paper, and an earlier paper on VIPS: a Vision-based Page Segmentation Algorithm.

Another Wei-Ying Ma paper on that topic is Efficient Browsing of Web Search Results on Mobile Devices Based on Block Importance Model (pdf). It cites a function based analysis like the one described in this patent, and points to a document that explains some of the concepts - Function-Based Object Model Towards Website Adaptation (pdf). The other inventor listed in this patent, Jin-Lin Chen, is one of the authors of that paper. Taking a look at those papers may make understanding this patent easier.

Segmenting and indexing web pages using function-based object models
Invented by Jin-Lin Chen and Wei-Ying Ma
Assigned to Microsoft
US Patent 7,065,707
Granted on June 20, 2006
Filed on June 24, 2002

Abstrac