« June 2006 Search News Recap Posted | Main | More Money into Interactive Marketing »

July 5, 2006

Search Headlines & Links: July 5, 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...

  • June 2006 Search News Recap Posted
    The latest edition of my monthly Search Engine Report newsletter is now online, recapping top stories in search from the past month. You can read it online or receive it via email for free by signing up here. If you're a Search Engine Watch member, the latest edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has also been posted. That newsletter carries more items than the Search Engine Report newsletter and goes out twice per month....
  • Daily SearchCast, July 5, 2006: Google's Ranking Criteria Categories Exposed?; Lawsuit Over Rankings Might Go Ahead; Google's Not-So-Killer Products; Windows Live Local Click-To-Call & More!
    Today's search podcast covers Google's categories of ranking criteria accidentally exposed?; SEO tools to try; is Google a flop unless all of its products are winners?; Windows Live Local gets click-to-call 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:...
  • Report: Advertisers Lost $800 Million To Click Fraud Last Year
    The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a click fraud study that claims 14.6 percent of all clicks and $800 million worth of fraudulent clicks were charged to advertisers....
  • New Search Patent Applications: July 5, 2006 - Google Coming to a Shopping Mall Near You
    Google files patents for shopping offline with online assistance, a secondary map in Google Maps, and an updated review aggregator. Yahoo adds a patent application for search results PPC advertising, and managing blog content. Microsoft looks to anchor text to help train a machine learning classification system when user behavior data isn't available. AOL details a method of filtering search results using ontologies and expert domains for queries. IBM explains differences in how images can be indexed, and presents a method based upon the semantic meanings of pictures. Become, Inc., describes how different links can be assigned different values while...
  • Interactive Review Of SEOBook's SEO Firefox Extension
    Aaron Wall over at SEO Book released a Firefox extension for SEOs. The Firefox extension can be viewed here, it allows you to see on the Google and Yahoo search result pages the PageRank, the age, the links, the .edu links the .gov links, the del.icio.us numbers and Technorati rank, the Alexa rank a cached link and much more, right on the page. I decided it would be fun to do an other video cast. You can view the video cast by reading more....
  • Microsoft Running Out Of Room In Redmond
    A New York Times article looks into how Microsoft is running out of room in Redmond. The company is adding 12,000 new employees, which requires them to expand the headquarters 3.1 million square feet, more than a third of its current size. They will be adding fourteen new buildings and leases to fit all these new employees. The problem is, there is not enough room for them to expand at this pace....
  • Google's Spam Score Details Shown?
    Peter Da Vanzo spotted a DigitalPoint thread that found clues as to how Google scores spam results behind the scenes. Now, honestly, I have no idea if this is about spam or something else, it is just that the information posted in the forum, seems to appear like a spam score report by Google. How did it come about? The user was presented with this information after clicking on a cache URL in the Google results. The user was shocked to see the following information revealed to him....
  • SEOMoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool
    Rand posted an update to a tool named keyword difficulty tool. The tool's name is pretty descriptive enough, it tells you how competitive a keyword is to rank for. There is great detail on how it works here and here....
  • Yahoo Launches New Home Page Design In UK & Ireland
    Personal Computer World in the UK reports that Yahoo has finally released the new home page redesign that has been in beta since mid-February -- at least in the UK. The new design is visible for all at http://uk.yahoo.com/ and is described "as the biggest redesign in its history, and promised that the new homepages would focus on search, content, community and personalisation." Danny confirms that his Yahoo home page has switched to the beta version, and he is based in the UK, of course. I am based in New York, and my Yahoo home page has remained the same....
  • Google To Launch Book Search Service In China
    The People's Daily Online reports that Google will be launching an on-line book search service in China. Google signed agreements with publishing houses, instead of libraries (as Baidu has), including publishers named Tsinghua University Press and the Children's Publishing House. Google said that the books would be available on-line, "provide search links and grant free access to a segment of each work, but readers would have to pay to read the full content." Google plans on taking a 30 percent commission from the profit on selling books online....
  • Google Warns U.S. Legislators On Anti-Trust Complaints Over Net Neutrality
    The Washington Post reports that Google has warned the United States, that if telecoms abuse net neutrality principles it backs, through a new law that might go through, it could consider an anti-trust action. If you want all the details, check out the Washington Post....
  • Windows Live Local Integrates 'Call For Free' Into All Business Listings
    The intrepid Gary Price called my attention to the quiet integration of "click to call" functionality into Windows Live Local over the weekend. I couldn't determine whether this was homegrown or whether Microsoft was working with a partner such as eStara or Ingenio to offer the service....

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

Posted by Danny Sullivan at July 5, 2006 4:03 PM