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June 2007

June 29, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: June 29, 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 11:42 PM | Permalink

Powerset Meets the Press

Powerset, the most talked about semantic search engine that no one has seen, is slowly opening its doors to scrutiny. Last night, the company hosted an event for bloggers and tech media at its San Francisco headquarters.

Some coverage of the event:

The company gave attendees a look under the hood, and introduced a new developer platform called Powerlabs. Both the search engine and partner program are expected to launch in September. “We want as many people in Powerlabs to help us build and test the product. Powerlabs tells us when we are ready to go. We could have 50,000 people QAing our product,” said Steve Newcomb, COO and co-founder of Powerset. So far, Powerlabs has 10,000 users, according to ZDNet's Farber.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:55 PM | Permalink

'Short Tail' Analytics: Getting to the Meat

SEO and web analytics company Engine Ready reminds us that while the 'long tail' is not something to forget about, the 'short tail' of search provides the majority of your conversions. And as such should be of major concern to all search marketers. Their report shows how the top 10 terms get as much as 60% of the conversions.

The San Diego-based company provides a quick case study that is worth the read.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:49 PM | Permalink

The Day The Music Died: Internet Radio Goes Silent

In protest of the increase in royalty fees internet radio stations had a 'day of silence' yesterday. Instead of finding their regular music channels, many web radio listeners were told about the increase in fees and were asked to contact their Congressmen in support of the Internet Radio Equality Act, and they did. Servers were overloaded and Congressional switchboards were constantly busy.

WebProNews has a videocast covering the protest.

http://videos.webpronews.com/2007/06/27/radio-update/

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:26 PM | Permalink

Spock - The People Search Engine

People search engine Spock is still in invitiation only beta, but I had a chance to review the product. One of the first things that becomes evident is that all of its search results are about people. This is a vertical search engine through and through. This approach gives Spock substantial leverage. For example, if you enter in the query "NFL", you will get a list of people that have been tagged "NFL".

Spock appears to use a combination of algorithmic tagging, where it develops tags for people based on web crawling, and people powered tagging, where users can add their own tags. So the crawler will be a driving force in populating the search engine data set pre-launch, but over time input from people will have an increasing impact on the results.

As this article by Alex Iskold on ReadWriteWeb observed, the result will be that famous people will receive far more tags than others. This leaves the question as to how much information you will receive on the less famous.

This question aside, Spock provides a remarkably clean and efficient people search engine. The results are easy to interpret, and you can navigate among people who are "related" (i.e. that share the same tag, as in my NFL example above). I look forward to its public release.

Posted by Eric Enge at 11:02 AM | Permalink

Presidential Candidates Need Some Help with their Reputations

The majority of U.S. Presidential candidates have a negative reputation on search engines, according to a new study by Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim. The 2008 Presidential Election Candidate Reputation Study found that 15 of 18 candidates had negative results within the first 20 when a user searched for their names on Google and Yahoo.

Democrats Barack Obama and Mike Gravel, and Republican Ron Paul were the only candidates with no negative search engine results.

“The study demonstrates that with more than a year to go until the 2008 presidential election, candidates are not fully managing their search engine reputation,” said Beal, founding principle of Marketing Pilgrim. “As the election race heats up, voters will be influenced by what they discover on the web. A single negative Google result could be enough to lose the election.”

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:51 AM | Permalink

WSJ's Mossberg Likes Ask3D

Wall Street Journal columnist and All Things Digital organizer Walt Mossberg compared Google's Universal Search with Ask.com's Ask3D, and found Ask3D to be a better way of presenting search results. In Ask.com Takes Lead In Designing Display Of Search Results, Mossberg writes:

Now, Google and Ask each have rolled out new ways of presenting search results. Google’s approach, which it calls “universal search,” is a modest thing, a first step in what it says will be a long effort to break down barriers between different types of information a user may be seeking, such as Web links, images and news.

But Ask’s new system, called “Ask3D,” is a much bolder and better advance in unifying different kinds of results and presenting them in a more effective manner. It shows, once again, that Ask places a higher priority than its competitors do on making search results easy to navigate and use.

Ask.com is currently trying to become a legitimate contender in search, with a new ad campaign and new features like Ask3D. A favorable review from Mossberg can help spread the word to the masses, but it will take much more than that to get users to change their behavior.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:16 AM | Permalink

Google Maps Gets Click-and-Drag Functionality

Users of Google Maps have been able to click and drag a map to move about the area, but now they can also change their destination and route by clicking and dragging as well. According to Google's Lat Long Blog, the new feature allows users to pick a destination on a map by right-clicking, and move that destination by clicking on it and dragging it to a new location. For driving directions, users can specify that the route includes a certain bridge or highway by clicking on the route and dragging it to a new path.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:00 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Upgrades Panama's Tools

The keyword selector tool is offering suggestions, copying and moving keywords amongst groups, and an improved help section have been added to Panama's features.

The changes are detailed at the Yahoo blog.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 8:21 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Stop In-house SEO Disasters Now!

In today's In-House column, "Stop In-house SEO Disasters Now!," Kevin Ryan pens an ode to the in-house SEO practitioner, with a few best practices and a guide to identifying problematic personalities.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Video Search Optimization Tech Tips – Knowing the 4 P’s

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Video Search Optimization Tech Tips – Knowing the 4 P’s," Grant Crowell explains the technical aspects of video optimization and viral linking.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 28, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: June 28, 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 11:22 PM | Permalink

Testing the Kid-Friendly Search Engines

Are kid-friendly search engines worth using, or are they better served by the major engines? Debby Richman put them to the test, comparing them in categories like visual appeal to a child; relevance to a child; commercial vs. educational results; and ease of navigation for 7-10 year olds.

See how the kid-friendly engines stacked up against the majors in today's SearchDay, Savvy Little Searchers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:15 PM | Permalink

AdSense Rolls Out Referrals 2.0

Beyond the text and image ads AdSense offers - the release of Referrals 2.0 now incorporates products that you can sell on your site. The product that had been in beta previously is now being launched globally - well I did see instances in French, German and Italian.

Like the text ads, the Referral product looks at the content on your page to determine a good product fit.

The press release issued today is below.

This past March, we launched a referrals beta to test the feature and
iron out some wrinkles. Now that we've finished our testing, we're
pleased to announce that referrals 2.0 will soon be available to all
AdSense publishers.While some of you may already be familiar with
referrals for Google products, this launch will greatly expand the
inventory and functionality of referrals for AdSense publishers. Below
we've highlighted a few of the key benefits of referrals 2.0:

- Expanded product inventory: While many of you have had success
referring one of our Google products, some of you weren't able to find
a product that fit the context of your site. Referrals 2.0 offers
products from thousands of AdWords advertisers, so you can find the
right ads for your sites.

- Category and keyword targeting: With thousands of products available,
it can be difficult to decide which ads will perform best on your site.
That's why we give you the option to refer products by category and
keyword. You can narrow down the types of ads you want to display and
let AdSense figure out which ones will perform best on your site.
Whether you want ads for a specific category, advertiser, or product,
referrals 2.0 will give you the control to decide.

- Ad unit optimization: It can be tricky picking the best ads for your
site, so we've included ad unit optimization for referrals. When you
create a new referral ad unit, simply select the Pick best performing
ads option. We'll then compare your selected ads to other relevant ads,
and serve the ads we expect to perform best on your site.

- Better targeting for pages with multiple themes: With standard
contextual targeting, ads may not match up directly with the text
around them if there are a number of themes on the page. With
referrals, you can select unique "keywords" for each ad unit to narrow
the targeting directly to the theme you want. Better targeting means
higher earnings for your site.

- Greater compensation for high-quality traffic: Since referrals are
paid on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis, your traffic matters. If the
traffic you send to advertisers is more likely to turn into a completed
sale or lead, you will earn more with referrals.

- Add your seal of approval: Unlike AdSense for content ads, our
program policies allow you to make specific references to referral ads
on your site. If you endorse the product that you are referring, feel
free to let your users know. By adding your personal review of the
products you refer, you can help your users make more informed choices.


To get started with referrals, click the AdSense Setup tab in your
account, then click Referrals. If you don't see referrals 2.0 right
away, please check back in a few days, as the feature will gradually
become available in all accounts over the next few weeks. Please also
keep in mind that for some languages, advertisers are just getting
started so ad inventory may be limited at this time. We encourage you
to check back frequently to see new offers.If you have any questions
about how to add a new referral unit to your site, be sure to check out
the updated referrals section of the Help Center.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:37 PM | Permalink

9 Tips for Getting Started with Link Building

Putting together a strategy for get links to a site is one of the hardest parts of SEO. Too many people jump right in to trying to get people to link to their site, when they should be taking the time to lay the proper groundwork in place to have a link worthy site. Here are 9 quick tips on how to approach the task:

  1. Understand the anatomy of getting a link - Since we shy away from buying links, or pursing link swaps, you are left with the task of getting someone to provide you with a one way link. I.e. getting something from them, and providing nothing in return. Or is that true? Not really. What you end up giving out, is your expertise and knowledge. This can be embedded in articles, tools, or special promotions. People who care about their visitors will link to good content, and this ends up being a fair trade. It also gets you links that are unassailable in the eyes of the search engines, and it's the best way to get links from authoritative web sites.
  2. Understand your target audience - Who are your prospective customers? What type of content would they like to see on a site like yours? Since relevant links count most, answering this question is a big key to success.
  3. Develop a map of the places where you are going to get links - Blogs, magazines, trade organizations, industry associations, distributors, resellers, colleges and universities, government sites, ...? Be creative in coming up with ideas. A potential target for linking to you is ANY site which is related to your site's content, or that can reasonably publish an article related to your business. For example, if you run a sailing web site for the Massachusetts area, Boston.com is a great target. They could certainly run an article about sailing in the Boston area, and if they cover your site as a resource, you get a great link.
  4. Develop a content plan for your site - Now that you know your audience, and where you are going to get links from, come up with a plan for the great content that you are going to put on your site. To succeed, you need to put things of value out there. People will not link to you to help you make money. But they will link to you if your content, or tools, or promotions provide a truly unique value to the visitors to their site.
  5. Develop a content syndication plan - Here you can broaden your thinking even further. The concept here is to write high quality articles and give them to other web sites for placement on those sites. You only do this type of work to get very high quality links. But you can get some awesome links this way.
  6. Consider social media sites - While these are great sources of huge spikes in traffic, the traffic is not always of the best quality (although this varies from site to site). The big win is in the links you get out of it. A really well structured campaign can bring you lots of links, and in some cases, high quality links, including links from traditional media sites. To do this well, you need to really understand the audience on the social media site you are targeting. You will need to develop content that targets that audience, while keeping it related to the theme of your site.
  7. Implement a PR campaign - This is much, much more than simply sending out press releases. You need to have a plan to reach out to traditional media and bloggers as a follow up to your press releases. Unless you have lots of contacts and a great reputation with the media in your space, our recommendation is that you do this with the help of a PR agency, and leverage their contacts.
  8. Understand the investment cost - All of this takes resources. In particular, developing content on an ongoing basis, building relationships with related sites, syndicating content, pursuing social media sites, PR campaigns, ... It's a lot of work. Make sure you build into your plan the resources to execute your plan.
  9. Be in it for the long haul - Link building is not a start up activity, it's a permanent one. It is an ongoing cost to your business that never goes away.

Posted by Eric Enge at 10:55 AM | Permalink

MySpaceTV – Look Who’s Chasing YouTube

Today MySpace re-launched its video sharing site, renaming it MySpaceTV. The New York Times reports that this is a serious attempt by News Corp, the owner of MySpace, to challenge YouTube. Users of the new service do not have to be signed in as members of the MySpace community to share their videos. This feature should in fact attract new users to MySpace and expand its reach for quality video content and viewers

The site will emphasize professionally done videos selected by the MySpace editors. In a move toward showing more professional content, last week MySpace became the exclusive outlet for Sony’s “Minisodes.” Sponsored by Honda, these are five-minute clips are from 15 vintage sitcoms including “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Silver Spoons.” This type offering will surely expand as more deals are worked out for content from sources such as News Corp owned Fox.

These moves should put MySpace in a more competitive position vs.YouTube. The stakes are high, particularly as YouTube is testing social networking features on its TestTube test platform and is expected to challenge MySpace in the social networking arena.

Posted by amandawatlington at 9:26 AM | Permalink

Search Ad Sellers Should Help CTRs More

Where are Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and others when you really need them? We think that they ought to be helping their customers even more actively. Right now, it’s mostly up to the advertisers and their SEM agencies to improve clickthrough rates and buying efficiency.

Of course, creating strong paid search systems is not a trivial matter. There are, however, a variety of ways in which the ad sellers can provide incremental boosts for both advertisers and themselves.

1. Show ads when you know they work. Currently, advertisers buy keywords and ads are delivered to them. This seems fair and creates a smoothly functioning marketplace…or does it?

MSN example: I searched “chocolate” and saw that Godiva showed up in organic results and suggested searches, but not in ads. Some sponsored ads seemed appropriate while others appeared to be backfill. Of course, Godiva ads showed up when searching for “Godiva chocolate” directly.

There seem to be missed opportunities for advertisers. Perhaps Godiva advertisers only bought their brand name. Still, the suggested searches alone could help trigger and serve more appropriate Godiva ads, even without any refinements to user queries. We're sure these placements would be welcomed.

2. Prevent unnecessary buys. The ad sellers know what gets searched actively and how those terms are connected to the query tails. Maybe there is a way to share this intelligence, and bridge the gap between broad match and backfill buys.

Yahoo example: I searched "running" and found many appropriate sites to learn about it. Most ads were tied directly to the sport, such as running shoes. One exception came from Art.com, which featured "running" pictures; it linked to people or animals in motion.

Another Yahoo example: I clicked on one of the “top searches” shown about puppy names. There were plenty of great sites to find names for my future Fido. At the bottom were two sponsored ads, including a classic eBay backfiller: Puppy Name For Less.

Imagine if advertisers could eliminate less productive (or pointless) placements and clicks, via new performance models. In addition, advertisers might be attracted to different backfill tiers if they became more refined and reliable low-end buys.

3. Help with contextual buys. We’re fond of the snafus that are easy to uncover while checking out ads shown on content pages. There are real disconnects, even when the subjects or terms seem quite clear.

Google example: I clicked on a Washington Post article about religious pilgrimages and saw two ads -- one about Catholic pilgrimages and another about Pike’s Peak. By the second page of the article, there were unrelated backfills for accident lawyers.

There should be enough logic (and inventory) to show ads for other religious information or similar travel locations, right? Buyers would welcome this kind of opportunity, if their ads were connected to related interests. We're looking forward to improved matching algorithms.

4. Consider portfolio cooperation. The largest buyers and agencies are lucky -- they have sufficient resources to create portfolios and get coveted keywords. It's the smaller advertisers who can get stuck in the middle.

Ask example: I searched for “DVRs” and appreciated the mix of commercial and non-commercial organic results. The ads were predictably from big spenders including TIVO and NexTag.

Additional marketplace opportunities are already getting created. For local advertisers, geocoding makes these kinds of buys possible now. What about specific products that seem limited in scope but are related to a broader topic or search? For these advertisers, there should be new mechanisms that power cooperative buying.

5. Offer related searches for ads. Today, search providers create active coaching for end-users based on their queries. In their role as sellers, they leave it up to the advertisers to come up with their own approaches to inserting dynamic keywords. Perhaps there is a better way to help advertisers, rather than letting them "sink or swim".

The search engines have all the capabilities to suggest a term or two for each of the sponsored ads. These terms can connect what was searched to what was shown in sponsored results. It seems like a natural fit -- helping the advertisers and even the end-users who click on ads.

The marketplace won’t be in this hyper growth mode forever. Even with a handful of major ad sellers, it’s a matter of time before they will need to provide more than just the standard inventories being offered today. Servicing customers and helping them succeed isn’t revolutionary thinking. It's generally the next evolutionary phase in differentiating your business, once certain processes have become commonplace.

Posted by debbyr at 3:10 AM | Permalink

10 Cool Things to Do with IndexTools

Over the course of his Web Analytics Shootout, Eric Enge found IndexTools Web Analytics to be a powerful tool available at a relatively low price. He also found ten cool things to do with IndexTools:

  1. Customize Reports
  2. Customize Dashboards
  3. Ad Hoc Scenarios
  4. Filters
  5. Merchandising
  6. Path Explorer
  7. Alerts, Events, and Color Coding
  8. Segmentation
  9. Campaign Management
  10. Custom Fields

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:02 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: 7 Ways to Promote Your Content as Link Bait

In today's Link Love column, "7 Ways to Promote Your Content as Link Bait ," Justilien Gaspard offers seven ways to promote a new site project for links and exposure. If your site is already established, these links can help raise your rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 27, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: June 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 9:06 PM | Permalink

Search Engine Marketing Council

I spoke with Lee Odden yesterday, and got an update on things going on at the Search Engine Marketing Council (SEMC), which is a special interest group within the Direct Marketing Association. Direct Marketers are the folks that have mastered the traditional art of direct response marketing, using a variety of techniques, including e-mail, (snail) mail, telemarketing, and other related methods.

Direct Marketers are becoming increasingly interested in search engine marketing. The SEMC is working to provide educational programs to direct marketers to help them climb the curve more quickly. For example, the SEMC is sponsoring tracks at the upcoming DMA '07 Conference in Chicago in October. This conference will include substantial sessions on search, and also on social media.

The SEMC also offers a Search Engine Marketing Certification Program. This program provides direct marketers with training in organic search marketing and pay per click search marketing. Courses are broken into two levels, Level 1, and Level II. The Level 1 courses cover the basics of search marketing, and Level II gets more advanced. Once you complete the Level II course you are eligible to seek a certification.

One of the interesting things from my conversation with Lee was his pointing out how important it is for direct marketers to obtain a direct measurement of results. In the world of search marketing the way you get that accountability is through the use of web analytics. In fact, a growing understanding of web analytics is helping accelerate the direct marketing industry's engagement with search marketing.

Posted by Eric Enge at 12:24 PM | Permalink

SEMPO Institute Adds Advanced Search Advertising Course

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, has added another advanced course to its SEMPO Institute initiative. Joining the Fundamentals of Search Marketing and Advanced SEO courses is an Advanced Search Advertising course.

"Advanced Search Advertising gives marketers the ability to get more return on their ad buys by providing them with a deeper level of strategy as well as hands-on tactics they can implement," SEMPO President Jeffrey Pruitt said in a statement.

The 14-lesson course covers PPC models, keywords & campaigns, copywriting for ads, bidding & ranking, landing pages, success metrics, PPC program specifics, reporting & analytics, click fraud, alternative PPC search engines and feeds & feed advertising.

All courses are available online, and students can complete lessons at their own pace. Students are tested and graded on each lesson, and must pass all lessons with a passing grade to receive a certificate of completion.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:53 AM | Permalink

Marchex Launches Content-Rich Direct-Navigation Strategy

Marchex today launched 100,000 local and vertical Web sites, all with unique content. The sites include yellow pages listings, user-generated and expert ratings and reviews, and of course plenty of ads. The content is generated by Marchex using technology it acquired from Open List last May.

The portfolio contains sites like videocameras.com, chicagodoctors.com, newyorkdining.com, and hundreds of zip code sites, such as 90210.com. Traffic comes from users who type the URL directly into their browser, or from search engines that index these sites.

Marchex expects to expand the Open List content to more of its 200,000 direct navigation sites in coming months. It will also link all of these sites back to OpenList.com in the fall, creating a huge local search engine and ad network.

"Our portfolio of sites up until very recently was, in essence, all ads," Matthew Berk, lead search architect at Marchex and a founder of Open List, told ClickZ. With the new changes, he said, "It's walking someone through the decision process, so you can help them ask the questions they didn't necessarily know to ask up front. The Open List experience has always been about refinement."

Open List started as a travel-centric network of sites, with listings for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Marchex has expanded the categories over the last year to include more business listings in dozens of categories. Last month, Marchex partnered with Fox to develop a set of Spanish-language Web sites owned by Marchex.

Ads are served by Marchex's own Marchex Network ads, supplemented by Yahoo ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:30 AM | Permalink

Google Not Added to Microsoft AntiTrust Case

Google's attempt to be added to the list of plaintiffs in the Microsoft antitrust trial was ignored by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly yesterday.

"Google is not a plaintiff in this case," the judge stated.

The federal government, 17 states and the District of Columbia are involved in the case. As major portions of the landmark 2001 antitrust settlement are due to expire in November, Kollar-Kotelly suggested the judicial oversight of Microsoft be extended.

Google tried to join the case Monday, in order to further press its complaint about the desktop-search feature built into Windows Vista - though Microsoft - a week earlier - had committed to make changes that would allow users to set similar products from Google and other competitors as their default choice.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 10:24 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: ZoomInfo – People Finder and Company Intelligence Tool

In today's By the Numbers column, " ZoomInfo – People Finder and Company Intelligence Tool," Eric Enge checks out Zoominfo, a tool you can use to find a long lost buddy or to get business intelligence when your company is small and data is hard to come by.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: June 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:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:15 PM | Permalink

Quigo To Serve Time Inc. Contextual Ads

Quigo has signed a multi-year with Time Inc. to provide contextual ads for the publisher of such sites as CNNMoney.com, Time.com, People.com and SI.com.

Time chose Quigo's AdSonar platform due to its flexibility and the fact that “many of our advertisers are very response-driven,” Time Inc. Business and Finance Network’s president of digital publishing, Vivek Shah stated.

"Our partnership with Quigo underscores Time Inc.'s strategic focus on becoming a powerful force in digital media. Quigo was the partner that could enable us to sell a Time-branded solution directly to our own advertisers so we can become a leader in performance-based advertising," said Ann Moore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Time Inc. "After a rigorous evaluation, we came to the clear conclusion that Quigo's custom platform provided the best solution for us to own our advertiser relationships and generate significant incremental revenue."

"We're excited to welcome Time Inc. to the AdSonar network. This partnership is a milestone for Quigo and a clear trend we see in the online advertising industry where sophisticated media companies are increasingly demanding more tailored and innovative monetization solutions," said Mike Yavonditte, Quigo's Chief Executive Officer. "Time Inc. has some of the crown jewels on the Internet and together with Quigo's technology and unique approach, we will be able to create a new ad marketplace designed to further Time Inc.'s brands in the digital age. In doing so, Time will capture the full value of their brands while also building their own advertiser asset base. We look forward to launching the new program in July and to expanding our partnership in the coming years."

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 5:09 PM | Permalink

Ingenio Data Attempts to Crack the Code on Mobile Usage

Pay-per-call provider Ingenio and market research firm Harris Interactive released results of a survey today that shows interesting data around consumer preferences for mobile devices and advertising.

Like any up and coming area, knowledge or consumer preferences is important to lead product development; and nowhere is this more relevant than in mobile search, where there is a great deal of experimentation and speculation and no clear cut models for content or ad delivery.

Though mobile search and advertising are different than the PC environment, Ingenio chief marketing officer Marc Barach contends that there are similar opportunities to build ad models, although there is also a need to adapt content delivery methods and ad formats to the specific needs of mobile users.

A few data points from the survey are:

-- 63 percent of respondents claim their cell phone is very personal to them while 49 percent indicate that they use their phones for more than just calls including sending and receiving text messages (36 percent), and taking, sending and receiving photos (24 percent).

-- 74 percent of those 18-34 meanwhile use their cell phones for more than just making phone calls. This is compared with 20 percent of those ages 55 and up.

-- Over the next three years 57 percent of respondents anticipate using their phones for more than just making and receiving phone calls. Among those 18-34 the numbers are greater (75 percent) compared with ages 55 and up (33 percent).

-- 85 percent of adults own a mobile phone compared to 71 percent who have a land line. Among those aged 18-34, 89 percent own a mobile phone, while only 57 percent have a land line.

-- Among mobile ad formats, 26 percent of respondents favored sponsored text links that appear as a result of searches (ads relevant to a search query). 21 percent favor audio ads that play instead of ringing while waiting for a call to answer, followed by 20 percent that find text message ads acceptable.

-- In each category, younger generations found ads more acceptable than their older counterparts (i.e. 28 percent of mobile phone users ages 18-34 find text messages from companies to be at least somewhat acceptable, compared to only 14 percent of those ages 45 and up).

-- Among those who have ever called 411 from their mobile phones, commercial (74 percent) and restaurant (72 percent) phone and address listings are the most frequently sought after types of information.

So what does all of this mean?

A sizable opportunity exists with mobile advertising in standard and universal formats such as voice and SMS (more robust search on smartphones and WAP browsers meanwhile have lower -adoption, although this could be accelerated by some mobile usage trends and the market penetration of the iPhone).

Users' need to find local information and act on it is presumed to be greater with the mobile use case, than with online search, given mobility and in some cases immediacy. This also lets advertisers reach users at vital decision points when intent to buy is at more desirable levels.

Targeting advertising effectively, in a way that satisfies user preferences shown in this and in other studies, is where the strategy will lie on a tactical level. There are lots of implications in the demographic segmentation of these findings, and the stated threshold for enduring different formats of mobile advertising. Multi-modal search and ad serving technologies being developed by Tellme and others show a great deal of promise in having the user-centric qualities that these data highlight.

Push-to-talk functionality further this utility; and the pay per call ad models that can sit behind this functionality could have a great deal of appeal to advertisers that wish to get in front of mobile users at the right times. This is even more so than online pay-per-click models where, by comparison, there is physical (and, arguably mental) disconnect between the PC and phone. But when you're dealing with mobile technologies, "It is, after all, a phone," says Barach.

High Consideration Mobile Search

It's also interesting to note that these findings are in line with previous Ingenio data that show impulse local searches (i.e. restaurants, entertainment, hotels, etc.) represent two-thirds of mobile pay-per-call volume. The remaining amount is comprised of more considered purchase categories such as real estate and debt management.

So what this these new data tell us, according to Barach, is that combined with the steady growth in financial and real estate categories that he is seeing, mobile users' intent to use their phones for more than just calls will equate to an increasing portion of searches in these more considered purchase categories.

Lastly, In addition to the ad serving strategies that these data can help model, they have also been valuable, according to Barach, to step back and see the overall opportunity that exists, due simply to the lack of a clear and prevailing ad model in the local environment.

"What we didn’t realize was how open the model is from a monetization perspective," he says. "What hit us on the side of the head here was that only 30 percent of users could recall seeing an ad on their phone. People view their cell phones as a communication device that strengthens their personal relationships that they use all the time, yet the ad model has yet to find itself in this environment if so few people can ever recall seeing an ad."

Posted by MikeBoland at 5:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

How Do You React to a Media Blitz?

Ups and downs in search activity and success metrics are often related to activity in other media channels, such as TV, radio, print, and online. One common finding is that as media activity increases, impressions and clicks go up as well. Does that mean that we should up our search budgets and add keywords during an external media blitz? Not always.

In today's SearchDay, "Coordinating Search with External Media: Can Less Be More?," Impaqt's VP of analysis & decision support Pat Stroh explains that lowering your bids may actually be a better plan. Doing so could increase conversions and ROI.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:53 PM | Permalink

Skrenta Steps Down at Topix

Rich Skrenta, CEO of news aggregator and local search site Topix since its launch five years ago, is stepping down from his position, but retain a seat on Topix's board. He'll be succeeded by Chris Tolles, who has been VP of marketing at Topix since 2004, and who worked with Skrenta to build the Open Directory Project before selling it to Netscape in 1998.

Earlier this year, Topix revised its news aggregation model to become more of a citizen journalism site.

You can read more about Skrenta's decision on his blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:27 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Keeps Creating its Own Troubles

Yahoo is having a spin problem lately. It's going through some changes, as everyone is well aware. Finding a way to keep and build its search share and build out its display ads and other properties in the face of growing competition is enough of a challenge. But a bigger problem may be its propensity to shoot itself in the foot with recent media relations efforts.

Last week, it was Chairman and CEO Terry Semel getting ousted. It was portrayed as a love-fest between Semel, the Board of Directors, and founder and new CEO Jerry Yang, which clearly was not the case. Semel had been under fire from investors just days before, where he said he still had a passion for the job.

Yet, last week, he said that he was clear in telling the board of his "desire to take a step back sooner rather than later." In return for his graceful exit, the board gave him the soft boot, instead of a swift kick, by making Semel the non-executive chairman instead of severing ties completely.

This weekend – yes, it was so important they couldn't wait until Monday – Yahoo announced that it would combine sales forces for its search ads and display ads, making search sales SVP David Karnstedt the head of North American sales in the unified organization. This left chief sales officer Wenda Harris Millard, widely credited with giving Yahoo major Madison Avenue credibility, out in the cold.

Millard went to work for Martha Stewart Omnimedia, and all might have been well, except the botched PR job by Yahoo included a quote from Millard's former boss, Gregory Coleman, basically saying that she wasn't qualified to do her job anymore, so she was let go: "While Wenda was a big contributor to our success in the past, the industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward. We appreciate her dedication during her years of service and wish her well in the next chapter of her career."

Millard spoke to Kara Swisher at All Things Digital, where she told her side of the story, which was that she resigned of her own accord, rather than take a job as head of Yahoo's international sales.

I don't know who's telling the truth here. Semel clearly either lied to shareholders when he said he still wanted the job, or to everyone when he said he had been wanting to leave for a while. Either Millard or Coleman are not being truthful, and judging by Swisher's talks with insiders, I'd say there's some of that on both sides.

Yahoo needs to come clean and own up to its problems, and make the changes that everyone knows it needs to make. Do it all at once now and get it over with, instead of letting things continue to get out of hand, and then ham-handedly trying to spin the news in a positive light.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Google Earth Outreach Non-Profit Initiative Launches

At the Googleplex East this afternoon, Google's introducing Google Earth Outreach, "a new program designed to help nonprofit organizations around the world leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the important work that they do." The room is packed with mostly representatives of non-profit organizations

The program allows non-profits to layer content and applets over Google Earth to tell stories about their work. Non-profit organizations are invited to apply for Google Earth Pro grants (an annual subscription normally costs $400) to receive technical support from Google to kick-start their online programs using Google Earth.

Pilot partners here at the 'plex include Dr. Jane Goodall, Kathy Bushkin Calvin of the United Nations Foundation and Earthwatch President and CEO Edward Wilson.

John Hanke, director Google Earth and Maps, says the program grew out of the company's 20 percent time employee program (in which staffers dedicate that percentage of their work time to independent projects). The project is in KML, "the HTML of the earth." The company has posted online tutorials to help novice users get started, and to teach them best practices in creating earth-related content.

Jane Goodall, via a video link, is looking mighty embarrassed at the lengthy introduction ennumerating her achievements, awards and honors. "When I began my work we only had paper and pencils." She's telling us how recently, villagers in Tanzania didn't understand flat maps researchers showed them, but quickly began to cooperate with her organization's water conservation efforts once they were shown electronic 3D maps of their area from which they recognized the local terrain. And she just treated us to a heartfelt greeting in chimpanzee - what a treat!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:15 AM | Permalink

ThreadWatch Closing on Friday

ThreadWatch, one of the first major industry blogs, is ceasing operations on Friday, Aaron Wall announced today.

The site, originally started by industry luminary Nick Wilson, had grown into a major source of industry news. With no alliances, the blog had a biting style that many people appreciated. It became the spot where most of the news in our industry was aggregated, an essential read for anyone trying to keep up with our industry.

I did a brief stint as a blogger there and was and am proud to mention the affiliation. Many of the best people in our industry have posted there, and at times many of the worst as well. It was what made it a good read - but also may have caused the site's demise.

Aaron I love you mate but.... girlfriend/ThreadWatch ThreadWatch/girlfriend - you can always find another girl friend.....

Just joking... thanks for keeping it going as long as you have. It will be sorely missed.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:10 AM | Permalink

Google Apps Adds Mail Migration

The Google Apps group is continuing to put out interesting updates. Just yesterday they announced the addition of mail migration capabilities. What does this mean you ask? Google now offers a way that users can migrate existing email data from an IMAP server into their Gmail accounts on Google Apps. Gmail will then organize the messages into conversation threads, and will be able to display the original sender, recipient, and date of messages; and convert existing mail folders into labels.

One of the big benefits of all this is that old messages become instantly searchable, using the Google powered search capabilities built into Gmail. This could be a big feature for companies that have large reams of archived email data that is generally hard to access.

Companies that could benefit might include those that are subject to governmental regulation in all their communications with their customers, such as stock brokerages. Fast easy access to all of that information could dramatically reduce costs in showing their compliance.

Posted by Eric Enge at 9:13 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Five Fundamental Questions of Keyword Research

In today's au Natural column, "Five Fundamental Questions of Keyword Research," Mark Jackson reviews five fundamental questions to ask of your site when performing keyword research.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 1

In today's Little Biz column, "Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 1," Carrie Hill tells you how easy it can be to use WordPress to build or maintain your Web site or blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 25, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: June 25, 2007

Want a snapshot of the day's search engine 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 10:05 PM | Permalink

Interview with blinkx on new video search distribution partnerships with Lycos, InfoSpace, and Real


crowell_grant.jpg

Grant Crowell, video search columnist for SearchEngineWatch.com, conducts an audio interview with the founder and CEO of blinkx, Suranga Chandratillake, on their new contextual advertising model (AdHoc) and new distribution partners – Lycos MIX, InfoSpace, and Real Networks' RealPlayer. (Recorded on Monday, June 25, 2007.)

Links to the files may be download here:

blinkx AdHoc (7 min 40 sec)

blinx's new distribution partnerships (3 min 24 sec)

Posted by Grant Crowell at 7:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Local.com Gets Location-based Search Patent

The local search space is becoming a patent battleground. in the third local search patent to surface in the last month, Local.com today announced that it's been awarded a patent for "indexing and retrieving web-related information by geographical location."

Last month, Jingle Networks won a patent for elements of its 1-800-FREE-411 service, which serves targeted voice ads from related businesses and competitors when a user looks up a local business on its service.

Earlier this month, London-based Geomas sued Verizon and its Idearc spin-off, claiming that Idearc's Superpages.com infringes on a patent it owns for location-based search.

It's not likely that all of these seemingly overlapping patents, and other emerging patents, can all be enforced. The local search space is certainly overcrowded with start-ups, so a little bit of patent-enforcement might help with consolidation in the market. On the other hand, it can also stifle the growth of the industry, if the major players get involved in an all-out patent war. It would be best for the industry if these issues could get sorted out swiftly and decisively, but that's rarely the case in situations like these.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Yahoo! Names Hastings, Nebraska Greenest City

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) today announced that Hastings, Nebraska, has won its "Be a Better Planet" Greenest City in America challenge. The birthplace of Kool-Aid, Hastings will receive a grand prize of $250,000 to be dedicated toward city greening projects, developed in conjunction with Global Green USA. More than 350 cities participated in the "Be a Better Planet" (http://better.yahoo.com/planet) program, which challenged Americans to take action against climate change and use tools such as Yahoo! Green, Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! oneSearch to become better planetarians.

Yahoo! also announced the challenge's top ten cities, which ranged from Mill Valley, Calif., to Fairfax, Va.

"The determined green spirit demonstrated by the people of Hastings, Nebraska, underscores Yahoo!'s belief that individual actions can add up to significant change," said Yahoo! Co-Founder David Filo. "Cities from the coasts to the heartland rallied together to participate and we're encouraged by how the citizens came together around this important cause."

Yahoo! will declare Hastings the "Greenest City in America" at a Yahoo!-hosted Nebraska-style BBQ and celebration this evening at 6:00pm at Hastings' Chautauqua Park. Residents of Hastings are invited to join Mayor Matt Rossen as he accepts the award on behalf of the city. Nebraska Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy will also be in attendance, as well as other state government officials and surrounding city mayors.

"Hastings is honored to be a part of Yahoo!'s 'Be a Better Planet' program and to be crowned as the greenest city in America," said Mayor Rossen. "This achievement has spurred us to become even greener, and we thank all of the citizens in central Nebraska who have supported us and helped promote this great city and state in which we live."

Better City, Better Planet

Following the month-long campaign, the top ten Greenest Cities in America were determined as:

1. Hastings, Nebraska
2. Pelzer, South Carolina
3. San Carlos, California
4. Mill Valley, California
5. Topeka, Kansas
6. Dover, Delaware
7. Spring, Texas
8. Lawrence, Kansas
9. Walnut Creek, California
10. Fairfax, Virginia

In addition to the top prize awarded to Hastings, the top five cities are being rewarded today with deliveries of thousands of energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), compliments of Yahoo!.

Green-minded citizens participated in the "Be a Better Planet" Greenest City in America challenge by earning participation credits in the following ways:

-- Yahoo! Answers: Helping save the planet by earnings the best answer for
an environmental question and contributing to the growing body of
knowledge and advice on Yahoo! Answers;
-- Yahoo! oneSearch: Learning more about living a greener life by
conducting "eco-friendly" mobile searches ("organic food," "public
transport," "recycle center," "bike," "ride share") on Yahoo!
oneSearch, a new search service with results optimized for the mobile
phone;
-- Yahoo! Green Pledge: Visiting Yahoo! Green and committing to lowering
their carbon diet by pledging such actions as changing light bulbs,
taking public transportation, using reusable shopping bags, properly
inflating tires, and recycling more.


The Greenest City Gets Greener

The winning city was offered the choice of either a fleet of hybrid taxi cabs, similar to those donated to New York City during the campaign's kickoff on May 14th, or the equivalent cash donation. Hastings, which has signed the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, selected the latter in order to further its city environmental programs. Current initiatives include conversion of methane to energy at its pollution control center, local production of Ethanol E85, extensive networks of parks and hiking and biking trails, and installation of energy-efficient street lighting. Global Green USA will help Hastings identify potential city greening projects, such as expansion of renewable energy programs and energy-efficient renovations for city buildings.

"We are so excited that the residents of Hastings have helped demonstrate their outstanding commitment to smart, sustainable solutions that save money, improve health, and protect our environment," said Global Green USA President Matt Petersen. "We look forward to working with the Mayor, the Chamber of Commerce and all of the city's residents to help recommend the green policies and projects that will benefit the people of Hastings even further and serve as an example for cities across the country."

Inspired by the winning answers contributed by Hastings residents during the challenge, Mayor Rossen will also solicit thoughts and advice for how to invest the $250,000 prize by using Yahoo! Answers, the leading Q&A site on the Web.

Yahoo!'s Commitment to the Planet

Yahoo! has a long track record of supporting environmental sustainability both in its operations and on its global network. Yahoo! has committed to become carbon neutral this year. The company also uses renewable power, hydroelectric energy, and passive cooling at its various facilities and data centers. Its award-winning commute alternatives program offers incentives such as Wi-Fi enabled biodiesel shuttles and generous public transit subsidies. The company has also launched several sustainability-focused product initiatives, including its Yahoo! Green eco-site, the Yahoo! Autos Green Center, and 18Seconds.org, dedicated to educating Americans about the cost-savings and environmental benefits of CFL bulbs.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 10:34 AM | Permalink

Human Input and Algorithmic Search

The subject of human edited search is hot again. Many factors are driving this, but I believe that the basic reason for this resurgence is that we are all getting a bit more sophisticated about the challenges faced by search. Some of the recent articles about this include a New York Times article by Randall Stross called The Human Touch That May Loosen Google's Grip, The role of humans in Google search by Matt Cutts, and a series of posts by Michael Gray about Jason Calcanis' Mahalo, with the most recent of them being this one.

It's a really important topic, because all of the existing search engines remain susceptible to spam sites. Many people believe that human input can play a big role in cleaning up the remaining spam problems the search engines have. Certainly, you can imagine ways in which this would be quite effective. But the most scalable technique is to implement social search algorithms, where search engine users vote on content quality, and this then affects site rankings.

But this technique is also subject to wild inaccuracies. You can't vote on the truth. As an example of this, Wikipedia may be a great resource for researching certain types of information, but don't rely on it for making major life decisions regarding your health and finances. You have no idea of the knowledge and background of the people who created the articles you are reading there. Or look at the current Mahalo output for a domains by proxy search which reads like a full page add for GoDaddy (read the Michael Gray post above for more discussion about that).

So it will go with social search. You just don't know enough about the authoritativeness or motives of a person's vote or input when you receive it. You are also subject to mob mentality and unpredictability. My point is that social search can be used in some interesting ways, but it is not an instant solution for improving search results.

I do believe that social search can play a significant role in the search engines of the future, but, I also believe that the search engines would be wise to build up an internal staff of human reviewers. These human reviewers would have categories where they would be responsible for reviewing the quality of the results, and detecting patterns of spam. Where necessary, they could make manual corrections, perhaps as a weighting factor into an algorithm.

They only need to focus on the major categories, because these are the categories where the spammers stand to make the most money if they succeed. Drive them out of these categories, and you will have a huge impact on the spam problem. After all if the total potential return is driven way down, then the spammers will lost interest. This is, in fact, the big lesson that I think that the search engines should learn from the social media sites.

Spam is much less of a problem on social media sites because the potential return from a successful campaign to rank for something is much less. Whereas success in a search engine can be worth millions of dollars. The way to drive the spam from a search engine is to eliminate the big potential returns. Given that you only need to focus on the high dollar categories, I might even suggest that this approach was "scalable".

Posted by Eric Enge at 10:25 AM | Permalink

blinkx launches contextual online video search ad platform

The video search engine blinkx today announced its new advertising platform, AdHoc, billed as "the first contextually relevant video advertising platform." The program is designed to offer all media companies and advertisers a more flexible solution for customizing the timing and appearance of video ads to run alongside their published content online.

According to blinkx’s press release, AdHoc is search technology that improves on how content can now be matched to relevant advertising. Blinkx explains that this is achieved by using their proprietary speech-to-text transcription and visual analysis technology, allowing better dynamic placement of the most pertinent advertising alongside published video.

“Online video presents an extremely attractive opportunity for advertisers and media companies: targeted distribution with the potential for immediate action, and the availability of real-time metrics to assess the effectiveness of a given campaign," citing blinkx' press release.

Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx, lists the advantages of the AdHoc program :

• Creative. More options are available for display ads, including pre-, post- and mid-roll placement, as well as dynamically-selected banners, in-video mini-banners and a unique, post-roll catalog view. Advertisements in the program are now running to both the right and bottom of the published video content.

• Ad database leverage. Partners can select their own ad database, the blinkx AdHoc platform, or even external ad systems, such as Google’s AdWords.

• Open participation. The AdHoc program is an opt-in progam available to all advertisers, media companies and other partners today. By contrast, YouTube, currently the most trafficked online video search engine, restricts its own ad leverage program to professional partners and a small group of highly popular “preferred” partners.

“The AdHoc platform is revolutionary because it was built from the ground up to address rich media, resulting in higher monetization for media companies, more effective marketing for advertisers and, most importantly, a useful, non-disruptive experience for users.” adds Suranga.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 9:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

SEW Experts: Can Google Analytics Be Evil?

In today's Search Ads column, "Can Google Analytics Be Evil?," Tony Wright is looking for feedback on Google Analytics. Like many search marketers, he has recommended that clients stay away from Google Analytics because of concerns about data privacy and some of the ways Google has used AdWords data in the past.

Is he right to be wary, or are the benefits of a free and easy to use analytics application worth any potential risks? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:36 AM | Permalink

June 24, 2007

Google May Stop GMail in Germany Over Privacy Issues

The German government's proposal to monitor and record email usage in their country has Google threatening to stop Gmail service to the country, according to a SlashDot report today.

Gmail had to rename itself in Germany recently as Google Mail, similar to events in the UK.

Seems Europe is not the friend of the Mountain View behemoth. The German legal changes would not take effect until 2008, reports stated.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 3:24 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Combining Search And Display

Yahoo has announced it is combining search and display under one department. Heading up this newly formed division of North American Sales is David Karnstedt - presently senior vice president of Yahoo!'s Search sales business. He will report directly to Gregory Coleman, Yahoo!'s EVP of Global Sales.

This has also happened at Yahoo International with Kris Thoren heading this division.

The details of this change is given in their press release today:

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company, will combine its Search and Display advertising sales teams in the US, and has appointed David Karnstedt, currently senior vice president of Yahoo!'s Search sales business, to lead the unified organization as Head of North American Sales. Karnstedt, a long-time Yahoo! executive and industry veteran will continue to report to Gregory Coleman, Yahoo!'s EVP of Global Sales. This transition continues the steps Yahoo! has been taking since the beginning of the year to organize product management, engineering, and distribution around marketing customers rather than advertising products.

"Integrating our world-class search and display sales teams under David's leadership will allow us to better serve all of our advertisers' marketing objectives ranging from brand awareness to direct response," said Sue Decker, President, Yahoo! "This is one of many important steps we're taking to re-invigorate our display business, further build on our industry-leading position in advertising, and drive thought-leadership in the online advertising marketplace."

Advertisers are increasingly seeking solutions that span a wide variety of ad products, such as search, display and video, that when combined can deliver significantly better results than when used independently. As a result of these changes, Yahoo!'s integrated sales organization will be the first of its kind to offer the widest selection of advertising products coupled with the broadest scale of search and display inventory to customers. By organizing around marketers and their needs rather than advertising products, the company will be better positioned to provide marketing customers with the most comprehensive set of end-to-end solutions that achieve a wide range of marketing objectives. Yahoo!'s leading position in display and strong position in search give it an advantage to offer integrated marketing solutions to its marketing partners.

"The future of advertising isn't about choosing between search and display, but about leveraging the breadth of advertising products to more effectively reach your customers with the right message, in the right context, at the right time, and on the right platform," said Coleman. "David Karnstedt has done great things for Yahoo!'s Search Sales business, and it's his leadership skills, business acumen and keen understanding of the new media landscape that make him the perfect person to help shape the future of Yahoo!'s advertising sales business."

Karnstedt joined Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) in September 2001. Since joining Yahoo!, Karnstedt has built and managed the company's North American search sales force. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Karnstedt was a key member of the management teams at a number of pioneering internet companies including Wired Digital Lycos and Alta Vista where he developed revolutionary online advertising methods that are still in use today. Karnstedt was also a catalyst for developing products and marketing strategies that leveraged the auction-based search environment for many of the world's leading marketers. He has also been responsible for developing and administering some of the Internet's earliest research regarding the impact of branding through the use of online advertising.

"By taking a more holistic approach to advertising sales, Yahoo! will become a more consultative seller, which should make buying complete solutions easier for our customers across Yahoo! and our partner network," said Karnstedt. "These moves will also enable our world class sales team to more effectively meet the needs of our advertisers - not just today but well into the future."

As part of the reorganization, Wenda Millard, Yahoo!'s Chief Sales Officer in the US will be leaving the company effective immediately.

Coleman added, "While Wenda was a big contributor to our success in the past, the industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward. We appreciate her dedication during her years of service and wish her well in the next chapter of her career."

In December 2006, Yahoo! announced the findings of a Web-wide study conducted by comScore that measured the impact of display and search advertising campaigns. The study, entitled "Close the Loop: Understanding