May 4, 2007

From the SEW Blog:

• Yahoo and Microsoft Planning Merger Talks?
  A little unfounded speculation for a Friday: Microsoft is asking Yahoo to consider a merger.
• Yahoo Photos Shutting Down, But Who's Telling the Users?
  Yahoo is shutting down its Yahoo Photos service, and encouraging users to migrate to its Flickr photo-sharing service, but they still haven't told their users.
• Is Microsoft Driving Low-Quality Traffic to its Search Ads?
  Microsoft is running ads through IntelliTXT, the much-maligned inline text ad provider. Traffic from those ads does not seem to convert well for some.
• YouTube to Pay Top Users
  Google's YouTube will begin paying top users for the video content they submit under a new revenue sharing partner program that will let the creators share in AdSense revenue generated by their videos.
• Local.com on a Roll
  Local.com has announced new enhancements to its SERPs, days after it launched its Local Verified ad placement product and weeks after the LocalPromote landing page product launch.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

• Does Microsoft Need an Ad Network?, ClickZ
• Breaking: Yahoo To Shut Down Yahoo Photos In Favor Of Flickr, TechCrunch
• Why Microsoft + Yahoo! makes sense – and why it won’t work, Charlene Li
• Microsoft Prevents Ask.com from Running Ads on Facebook?, ClickZ
• Does W3C compliance and accessibility impact your Search Engine Optimization, Graywolf's SEO Blog
• Web Metrics That Actually Add Up, ClickZ
• SEO: The Difference Between SEO and Search Engine Positioning, 15 Degrees North
• 6 Common Retail SEO Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)
• Back from WebSearch University, Google Librarian Central