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April 2007

April 30, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 30, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:59 PM | Permalink

Ebay: Now Portable

TechCrunch reports on eBay's new widgets that let any seller take their listing "to go" and plant it on a blog or website.

The widgets are mostly flash based and have animation that you can't find on eBay's own network. This could represent an effort to test new flash based functionality before the company integrates it throughout its own network. This seems unlikely however, given the very conservative interface evolution path eBay has taken over the past nearly 15 years.

This is also uncharacteristic move of eBay in that it's a usually a closed system that is relatively averse to distribution through new channels and formats. But this seems like a good move which will could push out eBay listings and give them more exposure than they would only on eBay proper.

It's also very similar to the line of widgets recently launched by vFlyer. And like those, eBay could gain significant traction within its very strong autos vertical, where many dealers will likely jump on the opportunity to plant their eBay listings on their own sites in a new and interesting way.

Autos and real estate are verticals generally quick to adopt new technologies because of the margins involved and the traditional pressure to get leads. Leads in fact are highly inelastic in these industries which is why they hold the best upsell opportunities for paid classifieds tools.

This is why vFlyer focuses on these verticals, and eBay can likewise drive business to its own site by further putting itself and its listings "out there" in the marketplace with these free tools that will serve as tentacles into the blogosphere.

Screenshots of the new widgets are at TechCrunch.

Posted by MikeBoland at 8:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Yahoo Is Better: Or That's What They Are Branding

Following their push to build niched portals, Yahoo announced the start of a new campaign: "Be A Better ..."

I like this, mainly because it will constantly group Yahoo and Better, going beyond being a better Fanatic (sports fans), Guru (knowledge from Yahoo Answers), Fashionista, Shutterbug, Traveler and Best Friend.... it constantly reinforces Yahoo with Better... hey if conventional weapons are not working go for subliminal advertising.

The scrolling words that roll like a slot machine suggest other categories to come... or maybe Jetsetter, TailGater and Explorer have positive thoughts and were used for effect.....

Either way I think Yahoo's best chance to make inroads into the Google search numbers are from creating large scalable communities and have the loyalty move to them.

For more about the new branding campaign check the site out. They have cool commericals.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 5:04 PM | Permalink

Yahoo, Comcast Partner on Display Ads

Yahoo and Comcast announced today that they will partner for displaying advertising on the Comcast website. Interesting when Comcast recently joined FastMedia who is looking to take on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

In a ZDNet article, "FAST claims, optimistically, that within two years the FAST Media Network of sites will surpass Google in search and advertising activity. It is an expression of the long tail of search, according to Perry Solomon, vice president and general manager of FAST's Media Solutions Group. "More and more people are building specialized search, with local ads and moving out the evil empire guys [Google, Yahoo and Microsoft]".

Should be interesting to find out if Comcast is still part of the FastMedia partnership.

The rest of the Comcast, Yahoo press release read:

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSK, CMCSA), the nation’s leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, today announced that Comcast Interactive Media and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide, have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership for online display and video advertising services on Comcast.net. Comcast.net is a top 10 online site with more than 2.5 billion page views, more than 80 million videos viewed and 15 million unique visitors per month.

“We are delighted with our new long-term strategic partnership with Yahoo!. Their scale, experienced sales force, advertiser relationships and industry leading display advertising capabilities will bring significant new monetization opportunities to Comcast.net.,” said Amy L. Banse, president, Comcast Interactive Media. “As Comcast continues to grow its online presence we will monetize our other online sites while driving innovative cross-platform services and creating new business models.”

Yahoo!'s advertising sales organization will be the primary marketing and sales channel for Comcast.net display and video advertising. Comcast.net will tap into Yahoo!'s extensive network of leading brand advertisers and benefit from Yahoo!'s sophisticated ad-serving, targeting and inventory management capabilities to enable the pricing, targeting, delivery and reporting of display and video advertisements. Comcast Spotlight will continue to bundle Comcast.net in cross-platform and locally-targeted advertising packages to its growing base of local, regional and national advertisers through its existing sales force of over 3,000 sales executives.

“This announcement is consistent with our goal to create the leading advertising marketplace and give our advertisers the ability to connect with their target customers wherever they are on the Internet,” said Hilary Schneider, executive vice president of the Local Markets and Commerce Division and the Yahoo! Publisher Network Division at Yahoo!. " With Comcast’s high quality broadband audiences, trusted brands can effectively extend their reach and impact as we continue to deliver our advertisers’ most relevant marketing messages to the most highly qualified audiences at the right place and time."

Yahoo! and Comcast Interactive Media will collaborate to create and market new sponsorships and custom advertising packages that are supported by Yahoo!'s platform. Yahoo!’s advertising services will be integrated within the redesigned Comcast.net planned later this year. The redesigned Comcast.net will include enhanced features, user experience and new advertising opportunities across the site. Search services and Comcast Interactive Media’s other properties are not part of the partnership.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:53 PM | Permalink

Google News adds button to Google Finance

If you search for a publicly traded company on Google News, you'll find a small button on the lower right of each cluster of results to Google Finance. Last fall, a new link in Google News started significantly increased traffic to Google Blog Search. It appears that this new button is designed to boost traffic to Google Finance, which lags Yahoo Finance by a wide margin according to Hitwise.

070430-GoogFinc.jpg

Posted by GregJarboe at 12:33 PM | Permalink

PBS Content Now Searchable on blinkx

Video search engine blinkx has added PBS streaming
video content to its index. Now blinkx users will find hours of PBS educational, news and public
affairs streaming content online. The searchable content that has been added includes documentaries and other popular PBS programs of high value to consumers and educators. With the addition of this content with its strong public service and educational focus, blinkx adds to the inventory of searchable video content available to and useful for educators. blinkx uses speech recognition technology to deliver results rather than standard metadata-based keyword searches. This approach is quite compatible and complementary to PBS’s content-rich documentary and educational content.

Posted by amandawatlington at 12:16 PM | Permalink

Adam Lasnik Interview

Last Wednesday I had a chance to speak with Adam Lasnik about paid links, duplicate content, and a few other issues. Adam provided some great insight into Google's thinking on paid links, what their objectives are, and how they view Nofollow.

We also talked about duplicate content problems. One interesting thing is that Adam confirmed my long held notion that one of the big problems with duplicate content pages is that it wastes some of your "crawl budget". The Googlebot comes to your site with an indea about how many pages it is going to crawl.

If it spends some of the time crawling pages that are duplicate, and therefore will be filtered out, you are wasting a portion of your crawl budget. For sites that are not fully indexed, this is really unfortunate, because these duplicated pages got crawled instead of having the bot go deeper into the site and get new pages, and resulting in those pages getting into the index.

We also talked about what is going on when sites are popping in an out of the index. It seems that the algorithm tweaking is a constant process at Google. Sites that pop in and out of the index are simply those that are "on the edge" of some Google criteria. When they tune the algorithm one way, you're in, and then they tune it another way, you're back out.

If this is happening to you, this is a clear sign that the Googlebot has detected something that is a signal of poor quality in your site. Unfortunately, this can be any one of a number of factors, so it leaves you in the position of having to figure that out.

Posted by Eric Enge at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Google, Yahoo Respond to Click Quality Council Guidelines

Last week, the Click Quality Council issued a list of 8 Principles of Click Quality that its members feel are necessary to deliver adequate quality in pay-per-click advertising campaigns.

I spoke to Tom Cuthbert, CEO of Click Forensics, the anti-click-fraud firm that created the CQC, who said the list was less a list of the search engines' deficiencies, but rather was intended as a starting point that could be easily agreed upon. According to Cuthbert, many of the items on the list are either already being addressed by search engines, or are expected to be addressed by them soon.

The list was compiled by members of the CQC, which includes advertisers, SEM agencies, and tools providers, he said. The group came up with about 15 principles originally, but pared the list down to those things that could be immediately agreed upon, he said.

"We wanted to make it a reasonable list that we could all agree on," he said. "Some of the items were just not things that could be committed to today."

Google's Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for trust and safety, said he agrees in theory on all of the issues, but has concerns with the possible definitions the CQC is using.

"Overall, depending on how they would define some of these items, it looks like we’re already doing most of them. Although some of these requests are not defined in specific terms, we agree with their general spirit, and are always interested in hearing from advertisers. We will continue to work hard to listen and make sure that we're providing great service."

Ghosemajumder published his individual responses to each of the eight principles on his blog, in a post called Advertiser Requests on Invalid Clicks.

Yahoo's Reggie Davis, VP of marketplace quality, also said the principles seem reasonable: "We believe it's essential to listen to input from advertisers, and we think the principles outlined by the Click Quality Council today are an important step in furthering industry dialogue about traffic quality. Yahoo will consider these principles carefully as we develop new features and provide additional transparency to help advertisers better understand the value of their search marketing campaigns."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:46 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Search VP Leaves for VC Firm

Yahoo's VP of consumer Web search Andrew Braccia has left Yahoo for the greener pastures of venture capital, joining Accel Partners this week as a principal, according to Venture Beat. Accel investments include Brightcove, Coremetrics, Facebook, Medio, and Trulia.

Braccia, who had reported to EVP Jeff Weiner, helped launch Yahoo Answers, and integrate its acquisitions of consumer-facing tools like Delicious and Flickr.

He's been replaced by Vish Makhijani, who most recently served as VP of Yahoo Search Marketing International. Makhijani joined Yahoo with Inktomi, where he was VP and GM of Inktomi Web search.

Back in December, Yahoo saw sweeping changes to its management team, creating three operating groups and shuffling top execs.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:03 AM | Permalink

Google Helping State Government Sites Get Indexed

Google has teamed up with four state governments – Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia – to make public information on their Web sites more searchable. The four states have made their public databases more accessible to Google's crawler by using sitemaps to identify the structure of their sites. They have also used Google's Custom Search Engine service to include the Web sites of various state agencies in a site search.

"Connecting citizens with their government by offering the public better access to public sector information and services is consistent with our broader vision – to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "These partnerships are among many that Google is pursuing with government agencies to better serve the public."

Google has a page on its site dedicated to helping public sector groups to use Google services.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:09 AM | Permalink

Yahoo to Acquire Right Media

Yahoo is planning to acquire the remaining 80-percent interest in Right Media, according to a New York Times report. The deal, expected to close by the end of July, will cost Yahoo $680 million in stock and cash.

If Google completes its acquisition of DoubleClick, it will also have an ad exchange for buying and selling display ads on remnant inventory.

Back in October, Yahoo announced that it had acquired a 20-percent stake in the auction-based ad marketplace, and would take a seat on the Right Media Exchange to help monetize its non-premium inventory.

“The acquisition, to us, is a key step toward executing our long-term vision to build the leading advertising and publisher ecosystem both on and off the Yahoo network,” Yahoo CEO Terry Semel told the Times.

Incidentally, this acquisition will apparently bring former Did-It CEO Bill Wise to Yahoo, as he recently joined Right Media to head its Remix Media ad network.

Yahoo has also issued a statement regarding its plans.

UPDATE: While many people are spinning this as a defensive move sparked by Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick, Forrester analyst Charlene Li points out that this is more of an offensive strike:

"The acquisition makes it difficult for Google/Doubleclick to start its own ad exchange, which Doubleclick announced earlier this month. Right Media has been running its ad exchange for over two years, giving it the management and technical experience to run a successful exchange."

"But more importantly, I believe the acquisition puts pressure on Google's AdSense network to be more transparent."

Also, by inserting itself as the broker for both buyers and sellers of ads, Yahoo can outflank Google, with DoubleClick only serving as the delivery mechanism for ads, she said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

April 29, 2007

Google and DoubleClick's Integration Hurdles

The New York Times is picking up on the fact that Google's potential DoubleClick acquisition gets more difficult when you consider Performics, DoubleClick's search and affiliate marketing agency. In The Pangs of Two Becoming One, reporter Dan Mitchell notes that the DoubleClick deal is facing antitrust challenges from Microsoft and IBM (oh, the irony), as well as worries from privacy advocates. But the biggest challenge may well be what Google should do with Performics.

There's just no way that a conflict of interest would not arise, or at least the appearance of a conflict, which would be just as bad for Google. Every time a Performics client's site showed up at the top of the SERPs, competitors would cry foul. And every time a Performics client's site did not show up first, it would be assumed that Google is being too tough with those clients, and so those clients would eventually leave to find an agency that actually helped them improve their rank.

As we noted last week, Google appears to already be moving toward the possibility of selling off the division.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:31 PM | Permalink

Utah Legislators Doing Research -- After They Passed the Law

After passing a misguided Trademark Protection Act that will ban advertisers from using the trademarked terms of their competitors to target ads to Utah users, Utah legislators are now apparently talking to the companies involved and realizing they may have made a mistake.

Technology law blogger Eric Goldman points to a report from the Salt Lake Tribune:

Senior executives from Google, eBay, Microsoft, America Online, Yahoo, 1-800 Contacts and Overstock.com met with lawmakers in an impressive show of force. And while nothing was resolved during the 90-minute sit-down, lawmakers seemed to accept the inevitable. "I don't know that we'll repeal it, but we understand we've got some work to do," said Rep. David Clark, House majority leader and co-sponsor of the suddenly controversial legislation. Curtis was a little more circumspect. "It looks like an all-or-nothing proposition to me," he said.

The law is set to go into effect on Monday.

The money quote comes from Clark: "I wish we had had this interaction with industry 60 days ago," Clark said Wednesday. "We would have all been better off."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:01 PM | Permalink

NoFollow, or MightFollow?

Loren Baker has asked Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com to explain just what nofollow really means in a comprehensive post at Search Engine Journal, "How Google, Yahoo & Ask.com Treat the No Follow Link Attribute."

Google is the only one to actually not follow the links, while Ask ignores the attribute, and Yahoo will follow the link but not give attribution to the source. So basically, the anchor text and "link juice" will not pass through a nofollow link in Yahoo, but the linked page will be crawled and indexed.

Microsoft has not yet replied to Baker's request for clarification, but had said when nofollow was introduced 2 years ago, "Any link with this tag will indicate to a crawler it is not necessarily approved by this page and shouldn’t be followed nor contribute weight for ranking."

The attribute, which was originally intended to curb blog comment spam, is now a central part of the paid links debate sparked by Google's Matt Cutts.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:55 PM | Permalink

Yes, Virginia, there is a natural and paid search synergy

“Does running a natural search campaign and a paid search campaign together create more value than running them in a non-integrated manner?” In other words, does one plus one equal three?

Back in August 2003, I spoke at Search Engine Strategies San Jose on a panel about “Balancing Organic and Paid Listings.” I presented a case study from the University of the Pacific, which indicated that getting top ranking in both organic and paid listings had tripled our click-through-rates (CTRs). I surmised that finding both an organic and a paid listing from the same site was like getting a second opinion.

This case study quickly became an urban legend and I was frequently asked for a copy of my marketing research. When I explained that the “3X effect” I had seen was based on anecdotal evidence, people would invariably say, “Please let me know if anybody ever does such a study.”

Well, now I can.

iCrossing recently published a Search Synergy Report, which found a “symbiosis” between natural and paid search. The report “conclusively demonstrates that running an integrated natural and paid search campaign leads to improved online performance over running either a natural search or paid search campaign alone.”

iCrossing used a random sample of approximately 200 keywords, including branded and non-branded terms spanning both natural and paid search. According to the digital marketing agency, “These 200 keywords are representative of 2,000 unique keywords, engines and medium (natural, paid, or both) data point combinations used in paid search as well as ranked in the first three pages of natural search results on the major U.S. engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask, MSN, and AOL).”

So, what did they find?

iCrossing found “online performance is dramatically improved if keywords purchased for a paid search campaign are also ranked in natural search.” For example, when the digital marketing agency incorporated natural search into an existing paid search campaign and compared its performance to the performance of the sole paid search campaign:
-- Clicks in creased 91.80%
-- Actions increased by 45.00%
-- Orders increased by 44.92%
-- Page views increased 43.63%
-- Visitors increased 40.69%
-- Time on site increased by 38.91%

Go to http://www.icrossing.com/research/ to download a PDF version of the full report.

Okay, so the “search synergy effect” isn’t quite as dramatic as the “3X effect” I reported seeing four years ago. Nevertheless, these results strongly support the theory that a positive synergy exists between natural and paid search.

Yes, Virginia, there is a sanity clause.

Posted by GregJarboe at 6:50 PM | Permalink

April 27, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 27, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:12 PM | Permalink

Is Zunch Communications' Bankruptcy a Sign of Things to Come?

Zunch Communications has declared bankruptcy, but Zunch Worldwide lives on. The new entity bought the assets and took on some of the debts of SEM firm Zunch Communications in October 2006, and that company finally filed for bankruptcy last week.

While clients that stayed on with Zunch Worldwide were not affected, any unsecured creditors were basically hung out to dry, left to muddle through a bankruptcy process that is bound to be fruitless, since the Zunch Communications entity has no assets to speak of, other than the payments that Zunch Worldwide will make over a period of time.

Zunch is spinning this bankruptcy as a part of a larger trend coming to the industry, but others say that's not the case.

Zunch Worldwide spokesperson James Sadler said this was a direct result of a slide in business precipitated by the departure of six key executives in October 2005. When they left to start Kinetic Results (now Dexterity Media), Zunch lost some clients, including one spending more than $1 million a year.

"Essentially, Zunch Communications never fully recovered from that split. Zunch Communications fell further behind both in paying its obligations and in servicing its clients," Sadler said.

The other side of that story is that those executives left because they saw that it was headed toward this path. According to Tony Wright, VP of client services at Dexterity Media and one of the six, "We left because we saw the company was doing some things that we didn't agree with. For them to infer that the bankruptcy is the result of us leaving is absurd."

Others left the company before those six, notably Mark Jackson, Zunch's former president, who's now president and CEO of Vizion Interactive. Jackson left Zunch in March 2005, and similarly expressed his differences of opinion with Zunch CEO John Sanchez.

"There were some decisions made with the finances that I did not agree with," Jackson said. "At one point in time, we had a great company, doing great work for great clients."

Sadler said that given the SEM landscape today, more bankruptcies like this should be expected. That could mean consolidation, if there's value to be had. Reprise Media is the latest SEM firm to go that route. But Sadler says he expects the more common fate to be dissolution.

"I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of shakeout over the next couple years," he said. "The trend seems to be that people go to work for an SEM company for a while, then think they've got it all figured out, so they go start their own company. That's a lot of diluted talent chasing after the same ad dollars."

While there is certainly something to the idea of an over-saturated market, that doesn't appear to be the cause of Zunch's problems. Both Vizion Interactive and Dexterity Media are doing well in the same Dallas-Fort Worth market that Zunch is based in, as are many other SEM firms.

"There's a small percentage of companies out there engaging in search marketing, and many of them are using agencies that don't understand how to manage their campaigns to ROI goals," Jackson said. "We continue to add to our team and add clients. It's not been an issue for us."

Dexterity Media is also thriving, according to Wright. "If you look at the growth of the search market overall, there are so many people out there whose Web sites really need help. We don't have any problems finding business," he said.

Disclosure: Jupitermedia, former corporate parent of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies, is an unsecured creditor in the Zunch Communications bankruptcy, as are Wright and Jackson.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:26 PM | Permalink

Google Adding Print Purchasing to AdWords Interface

To improve their sales numbers for print media, Google is adding a Print Tab to AdWords accounts. Scheduled for an extended beta beginning Monday April 30th (the first 100 potential advertisers had access late last year), the intent is to provide access and possibly spark more interest in this product that has been slow catching on.

Google Print Ads is a new way to buy newspaper advertising, bringing innovation to the entire process: planning, buying, billing, reporting, and pricing. You use an AdWords-style interface to find newspapers. Then you extend bids to newspapers for the insertions you want. About 75 top U.S. daily newspapers are in the system now, including papers like the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and LA Times. In the next month Google will more than double the number of papers offered. You can specify insertion date, section, and ad size.

"The ads are just like traditional newspaper ads, but much easier to buy," Google explains.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 2:06 PM | Permalink

Today's Outsourced Column

In today's experts column, Chris Boggs gives you An Insider's View of what life is like at Avenue A/Razorfish, and breaks down some common roles within agency teams, and explains the approach to working alongside others.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 1:51 PM | Permalink

6% of Web Sites are Real Estate Related

RISMedia recently published an interesting article about How the Internet is Reshaping Real Estate. The article quotes a February 2007 survey by Netcraft Web Server Survey as saying that there are 108 million web site on the web, and that academics estimate that 6% of these are about real estate. That would mean that there are 6.5 million web sites about real estate out there.

One of the interesting points that article makes is that real estate is an information focused industry, and that the realtors used to be the keepers of that information. But now, that focus is shifting to the web. The big thing now is sharing information and collaboration with other consumers. There are lots of players jumping into the real estate space, including Zillow, Trulia, PropSmart, LiveDeal, Point2, and Oodle.

Consumer demand for this type of information is only going to grow. The modern web consumer expects answers and service, they want it for free, and they want it now. Oh, and don't make them spend more than 10 seconds trying to find it either, or they will be gone. And there are few consumer decisions that are more important, or bigger, than buying a house.

Posted by Eric Enge at 1:30 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Ad Revenues Up 23%

Microsoft reported its Q3 earnings yesterday, announcing overall revenue of $14.4 billion, up 32-percent year-to-year. Net income of $4.93 billion, a 65-percent increase over the previous year's quarter.

Revenue from its online services business, which includes its Live Search and MSN businesses, rose 11 percent year-to-year to $623 million. It also saw an operating income loss of $200 million, compared to a $24 million loss the year before.

During a conference call with investors (Transcript available from SeekingAlpha.com), investor relations manager Colleen Healy said advertising revenue grew by 23 percent, and the company is actually ahead of last year's monetization goals for adCenter.

"We are now monetizing more effectively in the U.S. on our own adCenter platform than we had under third-party Overture at this time last year. Our display growth was in line with what is a healthy market, driven by an increase in page views," Healy said.

Search revenue benefited from a higher number of search queries, and increased revenue per search on both a year on year and consequential basis, she said.

According to CFO Chris Liddell, Microsoft is happy with the growth it's seeing in display ads and the relevancy of its search product, though it's not happy with its market share. It also plans to continue to invest in these areas.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:48 PM | Permalink

Genie's Searching For Gamers

While we’re all inundated with new vertical searches, the Gaming vertical is an interesting one. This isn’t as common as the myriad offerings we all see in health, travel or business.

Now Gaming has become GenieKnows' lead offering, and is even presented as the default search on their site. After entering your search, Genie presents specific drill-down options including articles/reviews, cheats/guides, community, developers, fans, software and blogs.

CEO Barbara Manning thinks it’s a natural and wants GenieKnows to become a destination. She's selected several verticals and has focused on spit shining them since last fall.

The verticals are a point of inflection for the company. As she explained to me, Genie isn't just a CPC ad network anymore.

Posted by debbyr at 11:28 AM | Permalink

Active Athletes In The Lead

Maybe there is a point where verticals can be connected to create critical mass. During this week’s Ad-Tech, I learned about a company named Active Athlete. The company unifies advertising opportunities for about 100 sites, ranging from SlowTwitch to LaxPower.

Here’s what caught my attention: 10 million unduplicated uniques; 4.5 visits per month; 10 page views per visit; 9.5 minutes per session.

Active Athlete’s CEO, Robert Tas, was visiting his favorite triathlon site two years ago and noticed there were no meaningful national advertisers. The light bulb went on, and he created this business and network. He’s targeting the endemic advertisers like Nike or Power Bar, the non-endemic advertisers outside sports, and smaller-tier sports advertisers who may have a local bent.

Setting up an ad network takes brute force. He’s putting vertical search and search advertising plans into place, and will launch these soon. For display sales, he’s begun hiring ad executives who are known in their sports. After all, even the biggest names could stand to make a living after retirement.

Tas explains that Active Athlete’s a lifestyle company and that “90% of this is passion.” The other 10% sounds like good effective CPMs, when a critical mass is reached.

Posted by debbyr at 10:31 AM | Permalink

April 26, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 26, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

  • The Search Neighborhood is Changing
    Greg Jarboe compares the changes in the search industry to gentrification of old neighborhoods, where a working-class area becomes suddenly trendy and all sorts of new folks move in, often pushing out the old inhabitants.
  • DoubleClick Takes Ad Exchange on the Road
    Apparently DoubleClick's new ad exchange is a bit more than vaporware, or a pretty bow to put on the package to entice potential acquirers.
  • Click Quality Council Outlines 8 Principles of Click Quality
    The Click Quality Council, an anti-click fraud group created by PPC auditing firm Click Forensics, has issued a set of eight principles it feels are necessary to produce quality clicks.
  • Superpages.com Revises Ad Algorithm
    Using an algorithm that makes it more closely resemble Google's AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing's Panama platform, Superpages will begin ranking ads based on criteria like relevance and performance, in addition to bids.
  • Images and videos appear at top of Yahoo News results
    Over the past two days, images and videos have started to appear at the top of results pages for relevant queries on Yahoo News.
  • NearbyNow in 100 Cities by the Holidays
    Local search company NearbyNow has built a unique model that helps shopping mall retailers bring in foot traffic by putting their product info and inventory online.
  • The Simpsons on Search
    This YouTube clip shows Marge Simpson googling herself, and engaging in a variety of search-related activities.
  • Meet the Newest Link Love Columnist, Sage Lewis
    In his first contribution, Prevention is the Best Medicine: Don't Let Viral Campaigns Get Sick and Die, Lewis diagnoses problems with the most feverish trend in link building -- viral marketing campaigns.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:50 PM | Permalink

The Simpsons on Search

A quirky item for your Thursday afternoon: This YouTube clip (hurry before it's gone) shows Marge Simpson in a variety of search related activities. It pokes fun at everything from online shopping, to Googling oneself, to banner ads, to Google Earth.

Now if Google Maps can only find Springfield and settle the longstanding debate over what state it's in (rumored to be settled in the upcoming Simpsons movie). My money is on Oregon, near Matt Groening's hometown of Portland.

Posted by MikeBoland at 6:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

The Search Neighborhood is Changing

The search industry is changing at a rapid pace, that's clear. Many people and companies that were relevant just a few years ago are now gone or acquired, and many of the important people and companies of today were not around just a few years ago.

Greg Jarboe compares the changes to gentrification of old neighborhoods, where a working-class area becomes suddenly trendy and all sorts of new folks move in, often pushing out the old inhabitants. In today's SearchDay, The Gentrification of the Search Industry, Greg looks at the many changes in the Search Engine Strategies New York event that have taken place in just the last three years to illustrate that the old neighborhood is indeed changing.

Have you seen similar things going on? What can old-school search residents do to stay relevant amidst their new neighbors? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:47 PM | Permalink

Images and videos appear at top of Yahoo News results

Over the past two days, images and videos have started to appear at the top of results pages for relevant queries on Yahoo News. For example, do a search for news video, and here's what you see:

070426-YNews.jpg

Posted by GregJarboe at 1:54 PM | Permalink

Meet the Newest Link Love Columnist, Sage Lewis

We welcome aboard a new SEW Expert, Sage Lewis, in today's Link Love column, where he will be sharing commentary and expertise on link building from the social aspect. Sage will be splitting time in Link Love with columnist Justilien Gaspard.

In his first contribution, Prevention is the Best Medicine: Don't Let Viral Campaigns Get Sick and Die, Lewis diagnoses problems with the most feverish trend in link building - viral marketing campaigns.

Sage Lewis is President of the consulting firm, SageRock.com and will be speaking on measuring the impact of social media and viral marketing at our next SEW Live in Columbus, Ohio - taking place on May 9th.

Posted by at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Superpages.com Revises Ad Algorithm

Idearc's Superpages.com, a local search service based on Verizon's yellow pages directory, is changing the way it displays ads. Using an algorithm that makes it more closely resemble Google's AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing's Panama platform, Superpages will begin ranking ads based on criteria like relevance and performance, in addition to bids.

Idearc has been very busy over the past few months since it spun off from Verizon. Besides revamping its ad offering, it's launched a national TV campaign to court advertisers, and began offering SEM services to small business advertisers earlier this month.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:49 PM | Permalink

DoubleClick Takes Ad Exchange on the Road

Apparently DoubleClick's new ad exchange is a bit more than vaporware, or a pretty bow to put on the package to entice potential acquirers. DoubleClick announced plans for the exchange in April, shortly before Google announced its plans to acquire DoubleClick.

The product is apparently still in the works, as it was trotted out this week at Ad:tech in San Francisco, according to DMNews. According to the report, "DoubleClick would not mention which publishers are using the exchange, but there are 35 combined publishers and advertisers currently using the service."

If the exchange does get built, and Google does acquire DoubleClick, that will make one more way for Google and Yahoo to compete head-to-head. Yahoo put its money behind Right Media, and announced plans to participate in the Right Media Exchange, last October.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:27 PM | Permalink

Click Quality Council Outlines 8 Principles of Click Quality

The Click Quality Council, an anti-click fraud group created by PPC auditing firm Click Forensics, has issued a set of eight principles it feels are necessary to produce quality clicks. The list, issued today at Ad:Tech San Francisco, is the result of a six-month effort by CQC members to identify the key elements needed to deliver adequate quality in pay-per-click advertising campaigns:


  1. Advertisers should never pay for double clicks or repeat clicks from the same session.

  2. Advertisers should never pay for traffic from bots.

  3. Advertisers should have control over where, when and to whom ads are distributed.

  4. Domain and IP exclusion lists from search providers should be easy to use and maintain.

  5. Search providers should provide advertisers detailed referrer information on all traffic that is billed.

  6. Advertisers should never pay for traffic originating outside the specified geo-targeted settings.

  7. Search engines should adopt third-party validation for click quality as other media companies have done for their audience validation.

  8. Search providers should provide an easy mechanism to reconcile paid clicks on a monthly basis.


Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:16 PM | Permalink

April 25, 2007

NearbyNow in 100 Cities by the Holidays

Local search company NearbyNow has built a unique model that helps shopping mall retailers bring in foot traffic by putting their product info and inventory online. A longer description of the company's model is in a previous post on The Kelsey Group blog.

Building off of this, the company has developed a mobile (SMS based) tool that lets mall shoppers search for deals while they are in the mall. This not only has the benefits of proximity and captive audience, but it utilizes a mobile medium that is well suited towards the very demographic it is targeting - the mall rat demographic (for lack of a better term).

Surprisingly, this has also proven to catch on among another large demographic of mall shoppers, according to CEO Scott Dunlap: the soccer mom.

"Moms are learning how to text message," he said. "Either American Idol has taught them, or in some cases, It's the only way their kids will talk to them over cell phones, so they've learned how to do it out of necessity."

The company's main offering is a private label local shopping research and inventory search engine that powers mall partners' websites. The gating factor to its expansion has thus partly been the malls that it signs on as partners. It has been able to do this at a steady clip over the past six months with a handful of major shopping center corporations such as Westfield. It is currently present in 20 U.S. cities and it plans to be in 103 cities by November.

It also places kiosks within these malls that let shoppers look up deals or print out coupons. There are also display ads on these terminals for actual products or stores that can be steps away. This proximity factor leads to unusually high CPM rates according to Dunlap

"With a banner ad for a pair of jeans that is 100 yards from the store, I've seen CPMs north of $125," he said. "People understand the value of proximity."

The next steps for the company include building in social and personalization features to its online and mobile products that let users search for and save items they want, and also share them with friends.

"Someone can form a back to school list and send to their parents," said Dunlap. "This summer we’ll be experimenting with that."

This could also involve alerts, where a shoppers are notified via text when an item becomes available or a sale happens with a particular item or store. With this type of alert, users explicitly state what they want and implicitly state that they are ready to "pull the trigger" if the item is available. This implies a very strong and clear intent to buy which, combined with the proximity factor, helps Dunlap continue to prove the company's value proposition to mall retailers.

The company is moving in some interesting directions and also raised $5 million earlier this week. It should be able to hit its goal of 100+ cities by the '07 holiday season.

Posted by MikeBoland at 6:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 25, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:06 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Live Search Loses Another Exec

Dane Glasgow, general manager for Live Search, is leaving the company to work for various nonprofits and spend more time with his family, according to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley. Last month, Christopher Payne, VP of Windows Live Search, left to start his own company. He was replaced by Satya Nadella, who had been heading the Microsoft Dynamics team in the Microsoft Business Division.

Foley quotes from an internal memo Nadella sent yesterday which she gained access to:

With the Search team's exit from planning complete, Dane Glasgow has decided to leave Microsoft to pursue non-profit interests and spend time with his family before taking on a new entrepreneurial challenge. Dane has worked in the services business at Microsoft for nearly 8 years, joining the company in 1999 through the acquisition of Jump Networks. During his time at Microsoft, Dane has worked on large scale services like Hotmail and Search as well as clients such as our Toolbar and Gadgets platform. Dane helped launch our Windows Desktop Search offering, worked to deliver our first release of Windows Live, and has been a strong advocate for incubation within the company. I thank Dane for his contributions, and wish him all the best in his future pursuits.

I am working with my leadership team and Dane's existing directs to identify the right successor. During this time, Dane's team will report directly to me. I have asked Ramez Naam to step in as the interim Director to ensure we streamline decision making and making sure that we stay on track with our Fall Release roadmap."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:09 PM | Permalink

Will Blogs Be The Death Of News

Today is National Call In Day for The Freedom Of Choice Act. But I did not learn about it in the newspapers or other mainstream media, it was a blog entry that sparked my interest.

So I did a little research to see how prevalent this shift has become.

First newspaper circulations are at their lowest in nearly 40 years. The number of daily newspapers is also dramatically shrinking.

But blogs with news stories and commentary are flurishing. The coverage of disasters (like the Virginia Tech murders) gets immediacy from blogs that is hard to beat.

I used Google search to get some additional numbers. I chose three news items: Yahoo Panama, the Freedom of Choice Act, and the French elections.

Doing a Google news search they had 1,062, 1,010 and 6,091 stories respectively. But using the blog search these numbers went through the roof. Panama had 34,023, FOCA had 55,836 and the French elections 65,858.

There are caveats obviously. News items are dedupped (not totally but it impacts) while blogs mix news and comments so are all different. Readership of the blogs may not reach the numbers that grab news stories directly from various news sources.

We are becoming even more of a 'global village' and are moving back to a form of oral tradition that may be high tech and interactive but also has alot of the allure of the old village storytellers passing on the history of the community around a fire.

Maybe the web has become the new 'global campfire' and the bloggers are the oral historians of old.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:55 AM | Permalink

Google Builds AdWords Storefront for Intel Resellers

Beginning next week, Intel's channel partners will be able to plan and buy AdWords campaigns via a custom storefront created by Intel and Google. The "online marketing storefront" lets licensed resellers, which are often small businesses, buy AdWords ads by filling out a simple form, which Intel and Google will use to " facilitate the production and execution" of the ad-buying process.

While many of these partners are already buying AdWords ads directly from Google, this program will facilitate the coordination of ads with Intel and other partners, an Intel exec told News.com.

The storefront also includes tools for offline marketing by channel partners, allowing them to place print ads, order merchandise and services, and customize collateral with their company information or logo.

Google has been working with Intel over the past year to create a suite of tools and services for Intel's existing and new small- to mid-size channel partners, according to John Topping, Google's director of the tech/B2B vertical. These tools are designed to provide an intuitive interface to help create and manage brand-compliant AdWords campaigns efficiently, with pre-approved ad templates, he said. Channel partners also get customized AdWords education, training and support.

"In essence, this is Google's first collaboration to help quickly and easily integrate AdWords into distributed marketing programs like Intel Inside," Topping said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:36 AM | Permalink

After a Few Financial Hoops, Blinkx Plans to Go Public

After navigating a series of financial hoops with enterprise search player Autonomy, privately held video search engine Blinkx will wind up as a public company on the London Stock Exchange.

The relationship between the two has always been murky at best. Blinkx, which is led by former Autonomy CTO Suranga Chandratillake, licenses unnamed portions of Autonomy's search technology. Apparently, those license agreements will now allow Autonomy to acquire Blinkx, which it will then spin off into its own public company, along with some R&D related to Autonomy's IDOL technology.

Autonomy's technology should also help Blinkx develop its own ad program, something it has planned for years, but delivered on only through partners like Miva and Eyeblaster.

The Financial Times story doesn't make things any clearer, though an Autonomy press release is a bit better, and Danny Sullivan has further sorted through some of the complexities.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Book review of How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders by Catherine Seda

Industry and SES veteran Catherine Seda has authored a new book published by New Riders entitled: How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders. Written for the small to mid-sized business owner or entrepreneur, this book provides a clear roadmap for how these businesses can leverage the Web to boost their business performance. This book goes beyond search into blogs, podcasting, social media, email and affiliate marketing. it covers a broad sprectrum of Internet marketing tactics. The chapters are peppered with case histories and valuable insights from industry veterans. The book is clearly for the business owner audience. It was not written for the professional search engine marketer; however, search pros will want to recommend the book to small and mid-sized business clients struggling with how to navigate the online marketing waters.

An experienced author and columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, Cat knows her audience well. Having read her work for a number of years, I find myself marveling yet again at her breezy can-do writing style. Cat makes tough topics seem easy. The content is very accessible with lots of easy-to-read bulleted lists and highlighted tips. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributing author of this book and Chris Sherman was the technical editor.).

Posted by amandawatlington at 8:03 AM | Permalink

Ask to Launch Contextual Ad Network

Advertisers buying search ads in Ask.com's Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) program will soon have the option of buying contextually-targeted ads on IAC-owned sites and third-party publishers.

The program will launch at the end of May on several IAC-owned properties, such as Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch. Ads will also appear on a few trusted publisher sites, most likely starting with some of the 90 publishers that syndicate Ask.com search results and search ads. Mid-sized publishers are able to sign up for the program now, and a self-service platform for smaller publishers is expected later this year.

Ask.com is trying to differentiate its offering from AdSense by offering more control and transparency to both advertisers and publishers. For example, Ask.com will provide publishers with tools to tweak ads displayed on their sites to find a balance between ad relevance and page yield. On the advertiser side, that comes in the form of separate bids for contextual ads and site blocking capabilities.

"We're trying to solve the full equation for advertisers and publishers. Advertisers can expand their existing Ask Sponsored Listings campaigns with the same features, function, and control when they target the content network. For publishers, we've tried to differentiate it from what's out there," said Paul Vallez, head of Ask.com's search marketing product division. "We're going to offer a lot more levers to let publishers manage the monetization of their sites."

The ASL program launched in 2005, and was expanded last fall. It now includes more than 90 publisher partners showing ads from more than 30,000 advertisers. Ads are distributed in search results for sites like Lycos, Infospace, Mamma, Hakia and Eons.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

April 24, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: Apr. 24, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:55 PM | Permalink

Local.com Joins the Webification Trend

Today, online local search destination Local.com launched a free version of its Local Promote. The full version is $39.95, which lets businesses create a landing page and choose between various distribution, pay-per-click and featured placement options.

The new free version will have the basic functionality of posting and updating business name, description and contact info in a basic listing. The key here is that this is a move to make it easier for more small businesses to get online with a simple landing page. Then the upselling can begin.

This is very much in line with a growing trend in the local search marketplace which we've explored in a past SearchDay article, known as the webification of SMBs. This is based on the premise that a majority small businesses don't currently have a web presence. A growing number of those are coming around, but for the many borderline cases, a free offering can sway them to start a basic landing page or micro site.

Once they're on board, they are hoped to evolve into paid marketers. That could involve subscription services like Local Promote, featured placement, or paid search (in the case of Google's and Yahoo!'s free landing page services among others).

I was able to sit down with Local.com VP of Marketing Jennifer Black and COO Bruce Crair during SES New York, who both endorsed this strategy as central to Local Promote and relevant to Local.com's general direction. Local.com is, in fact, going in many interesting directions coming off of its $8 million investment from Hearst.

This will include development on a number of Web 2.0 fronts including (undisclosed) mobile integration, as well as social media.

“We’re excited about the opportunities with ratings and reviews,” says Crair. “We will start to partner to bring in content from sites such as Judy’s Book and Insider Pages, and will eventually generate our own content.”

We'll keep an eye on all of these developments.

Posted by MikeBoland at 7:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Microsoft Accused Of Patent Violation In .Net Methodology

Computing.co.uk reported that Microsoft is being sued by Vertical Computer Systems for patent infringement of their SiteFlash product.

According to the suit, Microsoft's .Net framework uses many of the elements of VCS's patented system.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 5:08 PM | Permalink

Google Buys Web Conferencing Software

Google tried something different the other day. Instead of buying the company - Google bought the software the company makes. They purchased Marratech's web conferencing software - used by Microsoft among others.

"Privately held and based in Sweden, Marratech develops downloadable conferencing software for Microsoft and Apple platforms, including chat, document-sharing, and online videoconferencing", according to the Motley Fool.

The Google blog distinguishes the fact that Google did not buy the company this time.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:30 PM | Permalink

Yahoo, Gracenote Provide Lyrics For 100,000s of Songs

Yahoo and Gracenote annouced a joint venture that will provide hundreds of thousands of song lyrics through Yahoo Music.

Yahoo! Music (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Gracenote(R) today announced a new licensing deal allowing Yahoo! Music to offer the largest catalog of legal, licensed song lyrics from Gracenote to Yahoo! Music's consumers. Beginning today, song lyrics for hundreds of thousands of songs from all five major publishers will be incorporated into Yahoo! Music through Gracenote's growing database. The agreement with Gracenote makes Yahoo! Music the first mass-market Web service to make licensed song lyrics available to consumers.
- the press release stated.

Through the agreement, consumers can search for song lyrics from the Yahoo! Music Search bar, simply by entering even a partial lyric from the song. Consumers will have viewing access to lyrics from nearly 100 music publishers, including the top five: BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, and dozens of prominent independent publishers. The addition of a comprehensive lyrics library complements existing Yahoo! Music products and services such as radio, music videos and on-demand music offerings, while reaffirming Yahoo! Music's reputation for providing its consumers with the most innovative, robust and complete music experience on the Web.

"You mean Bob Dylan isn't actually saying 'The ants, my friend, are in a bowling pin?'" asks Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo! Music. "Finally, a free, legal and definitive way to settle a bet with the guy sitting next to you at the bar who is certain the Ramones' most famous anthem declares, 'I wanna piece of bacon.'"

Gracenote began developing its Lyrics program more than two years ago, with the goal of building the first and most comprehensive database of legal, accurate song lyrics for consumers. The deal between Yahoo! Music and Gracenote is an important step toward enhancing the digital music experience of the consumer while protecting the legal and artistic rights of songwriters and music publishers.

"Song lyrics are continually among the top 10 searches performed on major search engines, though the results often provide consumers a frustrating experience filled with inconsistent and incomplete lyrics, and annoying pop-ups," said Craig Palmer, president and chief executive officer of Gracenote. "With Gracenote and Yahoo!, consumers will have access to the largest database of high quality lyrics linked directly to the rich album and artist content available throughout Yahoo! Music."

Gracenote Lyrics are integrated into Yahoo! Music in three unique ways:

-- Yahoo! Music Search - Consumers can search for lyrics from the Yahoo! Music Search box and receive highlighted links that take them directly to Yahoo! Music and the lyrics they want.

-- Yahoo! Music Artist Pages - Each Artist section within Yahoo! Music offers a lyrics page, allowing users to easily browse all song lyrics for that artist.

-- Yahoo! Music Top Songs - Consumers can quickly find lyrics for the most popular music today.

-- Yahoo! Search - Yahoo! will be adding lyrics to its index, allowing users to search for and find lyrics from any Yahoo! Search box.

-- Yahoo! Audio Search - Yahoo! users will soon be able to find links to lyrics pages through Yahoo! Audio Search, which helps consumers find music from a wide range of services, as well as non-music audio files from across the web. Audio Search will also provide the technology that will allow users to search for songs by typing in snippets of lyrics to find matching song titles.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:10 PM | Permalink

Want Your Site Featured on Search Engine Watch?

I write a weekly column for Search Engine Watch known as "By The Numbers", which is published every Wednesday (you can always see the latest article on the home page).

And I need data.

I want to publish a series of great case studies that demonstrate success stories in SEO, web marketing, social media, or analytics. Good case studies would be something that includes this type of information:

  1. A before "picture", detailing the state of a site before any changes were made to the site.
  2. A summary of what was done.
  3. An after "picture", detailing the state of a site after the changes were made to the site.
  4. Hard core numbers that show how this grew traffic, indexed pages, revenue, margin, or whatever data seems most relevant.

If you think you have a case study that qualifies, please