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November 22, 2006

November 22, 2006

Google Book Search Catches Victorian Plagiarists

We tend to assume that plagiarism is a reasonably modern day phenomena but a fascinating article from Paul Collins "Dead Plagiarists Society" illustrates that is not always the case. In fact it would appear that Victorian authors stole work from earlier authors who in turn had stolen it from even earlier ones, and the article gives some nice examples of this.

More importantly, it provides a fascinating use for Google Book Search, which I'd certainly not considered before, and it's actually a rather interesting experiment - take a partial sentence, plug it into book search and add words onto the end, and very quickly you arrive at a short number of results, allowing researchers to get a very clear view of the 'history' of a small passage of text. This in turn could then be expanded to provide an insight into a particular authors reading and research habits. Consequently we can all start to play literary detective quickly and easily; now where did I put my Sherlock Holmes?

Posted by Phil Bradley at 7:46 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: Nov. 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...

  • Thanksgiving Programming Note
  • Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States, and Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating! Barry and I will be off the blog because of the holiday, so there will be no postings from us or a daily search headlines recap. Barry may be back to do light postings and/or headlines on Friday, unless he takes my advice to relax and take that day off as well! I'll be back on Monday....
  • Mid-November 2006 Search News Recap Posted
    If you're a Search Engine Watch member, the latest edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has been posted. It recaps top stories in search from the first part of this month....
  • SEM Certification & Training Courses
    The move toward offering certification and training in search marketing is accelerating. Here's a rundown on some new courses and developments I've heard of recently....
  • Google Finance's Untrusted Links & Spotting Nofollow
    For several months, I've been using the Search Status plug-in for Firefox to highlight links that are flagged with the nofollow attribute, a way for site owners to say they don't vouch for or necessarily trust a link. You see the web in a entirely new light after discovering how often and where people are saying "I don't trust this." And today, I finally noticed it happening over on Google Finance. The image above show how Google Finance looks when links with nofollow are highlighted in red, for the page on Google stock price. All the news stories --...
  • Search Popularity Stats, Sliced & Diced
    Catch up time on search engine popularity stats. comScore and NetRatings put out October 2006 figures this week, plus Hitwise released those earlier this month. Google's still tops, Yahoo still strong, Microsoft is still dropping and Ask surpasses AOL's search share, according to comScore. Below, the trend from all of them over the past year, plus my long-promised compare-and-contrast charts....
  • Baidu Wins Copyright Case Against Music Companies
    Melanie Colburn writes that Music Labels Lose Copyright Suit Against Baidu, which started back when Five Music Companies Sue Baidu in September of 2005. Baidu was previously ordered to stop these music downloads but it appears the ruling was overturn because all Baidu is providing are links to 3rd party sites that facilitate the music downloads, whereas Baidu does not participate in the downloads themselves. More details at the BBC News....
  • Link Exchanges Are Spam Links According To Microsoft
    The other day I reported that Microsoft Banning Sites from Live.com For Link Exchanges, where I uncovered an email sent to a Webmaster. The email stated that a particular site was removed from the Live.com Search index because the site was "acquiring links through posting to or exchanging links with sites unrelated to your site content." The email also added that these types of links are "spam links," and is the reason the site was delisted from the index....
  • Google Says AdWords Not Basing Keyword Prices On Conversion Metrics
    I reported this morning at SERoundtable that AdWordsAdvisor Denies Google Uses Conversion Tracking & Analytics To Determine Minimum Bids. Yes, Google has come out on the Internet to make it clear to everyone that Google is not using data from their conversion tracking scripts of Google Analytics to determine the minimum price of keywords. This was a recent rumor that began with the new AdWords algorithm coming into play....
  • Social Search Manipulation: Case Study
    Niall Kennedy has one of the most thorough write-ups on why search spam exists with his article "The Spam Farms of the Social Web." The article explains how he stumbled upon a spam site, researched the site to death, guesstimates on how much money they can make and services that help you make it rank well. This includes a look at blogs, digg, del.icio.us, other social sites, link building tactics, directory inclusion, content writing, and more....

Headlines & News From Elsewhere

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:00 PM | Permalink

Thanksgiving Programming Note

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States, and Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating! Barry and I will be off the blog because of the holiday, so there will be no postings from us or a daily search headlines recap. Barry may be back to do light postings and/or headlines on Friday, unless he takes my advice to relax and take that day off as well! I'll be back on Monday.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:47 PM | Permalink

Mid-November 2006 Search News Recap Posted

If you're a Search Engine Watch member, the latest edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has been posted. It recaps top stories in search from the first part of this month.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:17 PM | Permalink

SEM Certification & Training Courses

The move toward offering certification and training in search marketing is accelerating. Here's a rundown on some new courses and developments I've heard of recently.

  • Kalena Jordan's Search Engine College has launched "Certification Pathways," a bundle of courses designed to get people up to speed in the space.
     
  • Wondering if you should even be in search marketing? SEMPO's got a webinar designed to help, Starting a Career in Search Marketing, happening on November 30 at Noon Eastern time.
     
  • SEMPO is also offering the SEMPO Institute, a distance learning program designed to provide search engine training. The group says it will go live in January 2007 with a course on fundamentals, followed by an advanced SEO and advanced paid search curriculum. Do the training, and you get a certificate.
     
  • My DMA Offering Search Marketing Certification Program post from September covers how the DMA was going to offer their own training and certification course. Why We Need Search Standards from iMedia Connection provides a bit of an update on that. Courses are to launch in January -- more information can be found here.
     
  • Incisive is offering training courses following the SES Chicago 2006 show. This page outlines what's being offered. You can attend these classes in addition to the show (more info on the entire show here) or separately, if you want.
     
  • Training courses from Bruce Clay aren't new, but he's been offering them longer and more consistently than anyone I can think of. So you might want to check those out here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:58 PM | Permalink

Google Finance's Untrusted Links & Spotting Nofollow

Google Finance Closeup, Nov. 21, 2006: Nofollow Links Highlighted

For several months, I've been using the Search Status plug-in for Firefox to highlight links that are flagged with the nofollow attribute, a way for site owners to say they don't vouch for or necessarily trust a link. You see the web in a entirely new light after discovering how often and where people are saying "I don't trust this." And today, I finally noticed it happening over on Google Finance.

The image above show how Google Finance looks when links with nofollow are highlighted in red, for the page on Google stock price. All the news stories -- which come from Google News -- are flagged as effectively untrustworthy. But if they are untrustworthy, why are they in Google News to begin with?

Down below (see the whole page here), Google Blog Search results are also flagged that way also. Google Blog Search is effectively open to anyone, so I can understand the use of nofollow there more. But it still feels kind of odd, for this entire swath of the page to be considered untrustworthy in some way -- even if that way is invisible to virtually all visitors to Google Finance.

FYI, this isn't a new change. I did a search and found others talking about it earlier this year when Google Finance launched.

Go get Search Status and select the "Highlight Nofollow Links" option. Believe me, it's an eye-opening experience.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Search Popularity Stats, Sliced & Diced

Catch up time on search engine popularity stats. comScore and NetRatings put out October 2006 figures this week, plus Hitwise released those earlier this month. Google's still tops, Yahoo still strong, Microsoft is still dropping and Ask surpasses AOL's search share, according to comScore. Below, the trend from all of them over the past year, plus my long-promised compare-and-contrast charts.

First, let's do a compare-and-contrast table with the basic figures from each service. These show the estimated share of the number of searches that happened in the United States in October 2006.

Month

comScore

NetRatings

Hitwise

Google

45.4%

49.6%

60.9%

Yahoo

28.2%

23.9%

22.3%

Microsoft

11.7%

8.8%

10.6%

Ask

5.8%

2.8%

4.3%

AOL

5.4%

6.2%

0.5%

Others

3.5%

8.7%

1.2%

Across the board, all the services put Google in the lead, Yahoo second and Microsoft's Windows Live third (sorry, I still say MSN on the chart). Two of the services put Ask over AOL in the fourth place spot. More analysis on all this in the service trend charts, below.

Here's comScore figures over the past year:

comScore Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Remember that Google drop back in July, when lots of people started freaking out about the demise of the Big G. I warned not to focus on month-to-month changes. Since then, Google's recovered according to comScore and keeps going.

Yahoo's seen declines since July, but not enough to send up the alarm bells. They are well within the usual ranges that I've discussed are the things to watch. That range is the 25 to 30 percent slice of the chart.

In contrast, Microsoft continues on its long, steady drop in popularity. It will especially be interesting to see the figures in the next few months, as IE7 rolls out and potentially gives Microsoft Live Search a bump. Or not. My Searching Via Internet Explorer 7 & The Battle To Be The Default Search Engine article talks more about the changes in IE7 that might help drive traffic.

Unnoticed, as far as I can tell, is the fact that in September, Ask overtook AOL for the fourth slot in the search engine share battle. That's a big deal. In fact, according to comScore, AOL is on track to plunge out of the 5 to 10 percent band it has occupied over the past year. Ask is hanging in there.

Of course, the traffic for Ask isn't just for Ask.com. It's for the combination of sites that Ask owns or controls, including places like Excite, iWon, MyWay.com and My Web Search. Still, as a network, Ask remains controlling a significant chunk of the search space.

That's what comScore says. Now let's see how it looks at NetRatings:

NetRatings Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Basically, NetRatings shows status quo. Google and Yahoo keep ticking along at the same levels. So does Ask. AOL hangs in roughly the same general range. It's Microsoft Windows Live (MSN on the chart) that catches my eye most with consistent decline.

Also note that with NetRatings, AOL is well above Ask. That's because NetRatings is only reporting the share for Ask.com. If other Ask-owned properties were combined, then the Ask figure would be higher. Much of that traffic instead flows into the "Other" line.

Next to Hitwise:

Hitwise Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Hitwise doesn't go back as far as NetRatings and comScore, so it's harder to feel confident about trends. But the trends are similar to comScore, a slight Google rise, Yahoo holding steady, Ask above AOL and that decline of MSN.

Now back to what I promised ages ago, the old-style comparison charts I used to do. Here are all three services together, showing share score for October 2006:

Search Popularity,Oct 2006

Now let me explain what I think is unique in charting the figures this way. Usually, you'd see a comparison using a bar chart. Shares for Google from all three services would be shown as three bars next to each other, then the same for Yahoo and so on.

I like doing these as line charts, because it makes the gaps more noticeable and gives you a trend as well.

For example, you can see how all the services rate Google tops, though the amount Google is above the others may vary. Conclusion? While Google's exact popularity is uncertain, it's clearly more popular than anyone else, the services agree.

Notice that with Yahoo, they all agree it is in second place and the general range of popularity is closer (roughly between 25 to 30 percent). For MSN (Windows Live), the all come together. When you hit AOL, Hitwise is the big player that's way off the mark from the other two. I've covered this before, that I don't think Hitwise is getting accurate information about AOL that causes this. But seeing the two big skews -- that Hitwise puts Google so high above the others and AOL so low -- makes me think that if AOL was counted correctly, then Hitwise would be reflecting the same general trend as the others.

Now let's trend each of the major search engines using figures from all three services. Here's Google:

Google Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Fair to say, Google's pretty much continuing to grow, despite the hiccups you might see from time-to-time on various services.

Here's Yahoo:

Yahoo Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Generally, I think it's fair to say that Yahoo had a spike in popularity earlier this year but has settled down more to its usual levels. That's not bad. It has healthy, long-term traffic. What remains to be seen is if it can grow that traffic more in the long term.

Here's Microsoft:

Live Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

Slice it how you want, no one is reporting a pretty picture for Microsoft. Unlike Yahoo, they haven't held share. It's drop, drop, drop.

Here's AOL, which similar to Microsoft, shows drops:

AOL Search Popularity, Oct 2005-Oct 2006

I'm sorry I don't have the similar chart for Ask. I'll try to add it later, but I shut my spreadsheet (argh) before saving my comparison numbers, so I have some more copy and pasting to do to get that chart back.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:19 AM | Permalink

Baidu Wins Copyright Case Against Music Companies

Melanie Colburn writes that Music Labels Lose Copyright Suit Against Baidu, which started back when Five Music Companies Sue Baidu in September of 2005. Baidu was previously ordered to stop these music downloads but it appears the ruling was overturned because all Baidu is providing are links to 3rd party sites that facilitate the music downloads, whereas Baidu does not participate in the downloads themselves. More details at the BBC News.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:37 AM | Permalink

Link Exchanges Are Spam Links According To Microsoft

The other day I reported that Microsoft Banning Sites from Live.com For Link Exchanges, where I uncovered an email sent to a Webmaster. The email stated that a particular site was removed from the Live.com Search index because the site was "acquiring links through posting to or exchanging links with sites unrelated to your site content." The email also added that these types of links are "spam links," and is the reason the site was delisted from the index.

It struck me that this is why Google and Yahoo remain very vague when telling Webmasters why their sites are deindexed or penalized. Simply, people may look at this email and figure that exchanges links with your friends is a bad thing. If you have a personal blog about your life and you wanted to link to your dad's dental practice web site, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you do run huge link exchanges, then you need to be worried. The email sent to this Webmaster might not be clear enough to explain the difference, and get other Webmasters worried.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:28 AM | Permalink

Google Says AdWords Not Basing Keyword Prices On Conversion Metrics

I reported this morning at SERoundtable that AdWordsAdvisor Denies Google Uses Conversion Tracking & Analytics To Determine Minimum Bids. Yes, Google has come out on the Internet to make it clear to everyone that Google is not using data from their conversion tracking scripts of Google Analytics to determine the minimum price of keywords. This was a recent rumor that began with the new AdWords algorithm coming into play.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:20 AM | Permalink

Social Search Manipulation: Case Study

Niall Kennedy has one of the most thorough write-ups on why search spam exists with his article "The Spam Farms of the Social Web." The article explains how he stumbled upon a spam site, researched the site to death, guesstimates on how much money they can make and services that help you make it rank well. This includes a look at blogs, digg, del.icio.us, other social sites, link building tactics, directory inclusion, content writing, and more.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:54 AM | Permalink

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