Back to Main

July 2007

July 31, 2007

Training a New SEO

One of the interesting challenges in managing an SEO company is training new people to be top notch SEOs. I find that this is the easiest way to expand the size of the business. After all, SEOs are in scarce supply, and many of the best have their own SEO companies already. Here are 8 aspects of training an SEO generalist to consider when taking on this training task:

  1. A good SEO has both business / marketing skills and technical skills. SEO inherently involves an understanding of the technical details of a site's implementation, but it's also a marketing activity. Quality SEOs know that they are only a component of the marketing picture for a web site, and they understand that there are compromises that will be made from time to time due to other aspects of the client's needs.
  2. Make sure your SEO in training has an entrepreneurial personality. SEOs are always going to be ask to deal with a wide variety of different problems, and need to be flexible and adaptable.
  3. Pick an initial area of focus. There are hundreds of things to learn in the SEO field. Don't bury the person at the start. Let them focus on and master a specific area.
  4. Start slow. Don't give them 5 clients to work on at once. Get them going on a single client, and help them to be successful with that client.
  5. Realize that your workload on that first client will go up. Training people is hard work, and you still need to make sure that the work gets done correctly for the client (first priority!). So in addition to doing almost the same amount of work, you will also be spending time educating your SEO in training. It might be the 3rd client or so before you get a net gain.
  6. Have all their work on the first 2 or 3 clients go through you. The client comes first. This will also give you the most visibility into what they have learned so far, and that they haven't
  7. Be patient. It's easy to under-appreciate the complexity of SEO. No single aspect of SEO is hard. What makes it hard is that the search engines keep their algorithms secret so knowledge is experience based, there are so many different details to learn, and the nature of search is constantly evolving.
  8. Lastly, in contrast to the title of this post, don't think about creating SEOs, think about creating web marketers. The mission is to increase site traffic for your client, and there is more than one way to do that these days (consider social media for example).

Posted by Eric Enge at 2:41 PM | Permalink

Google Analytics Up and Running Again

The Google Analytics blog announced on Monday that many users were subject to a Temporary Reporting Delay. Since this was in place since Saturday night, many of the affected users were already aware that something was up. The post reassures us that no data will be lost in the process.

An update on the situation late on Monday stated that this situation was almost fully rectified. I can confirm that the accounts I am aware of that were affected do seem to have up to date data at this point in time, so this update seems to be in place, for some of us at least. It does look, however, like there is still some data missing from this past Saturday.

Google has not commented on the cause of the down time. Perhaps the growth of new Google Analytics account was faster than they anticipated, but that's pure speculation on my part. In any event, all seems to be on its way back to normal.

Posted by Eric Enge at 11:55 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO

In today's au Natural column, "Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO," Mark Jackson explains why no two Web sites are created equal.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Think You're Done With SEO? Think Again

In today's Big Biz column, "Think You're Done With SEO? Think Again! ," Aaron Shear explains that search engine optimization is never a one-time process; it takes time and constant tuning to stay on top of the rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 30, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: July 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 11:21 PM | Permalink

SES, Local and The Kelsey Group

Today we (SES) announced a partnership with The Kelsey Group (TKG) that will enhance the content at both events by combining our collective focus and expertise.

I am very excited about the possibilities here and having spent a great deal of time with the Kelsey folks over the years, I know the partnership will be successful and will ultimately benefit conference delegates at both events.

For those of you who did not catch the press release, here's a snippet:

Under the agreement, SES will create and lead tactical SEM and SEO sessions for The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media 2007 (ILM:07) conference, which takes place Nov. 28-30, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, California. In addition, The Kelsey Group will program local content sessions for SES Chicago, which takes place Dec. 3-6, 2007, at the Chicago Hilton.

What does this mean for potential speakers? Well, you can send in your request to speak through the usual channels shortly. In the mean time, please join me in a very warm welcome for The Kelsey Group.

Posted by kevinryan at 5:29 PM | Permalink

Wikia Grabs Search Crawler Grub

The open search engine being developed by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has bought the search crawler Grub from LookSmart, according to IDG News.

"The Search Wikia project seeks to create a search engine based on open-source search protocols and human collaboration, drawing from the concept of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, which is written and edited by a community of volunteer collaborators." The IDG News reorted.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:58 PM | Permalink

AOL Rumored To Be Changing Name to TMZ

Bill Hartzer is reporting that AOL is moving towards changing its name to TMZ - the large entertainment site.

Though it is noted at this stage the information is only speculation, not doubt people will be scurrying to confirm this one.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 3:17 PM | Permalink

Latest From Google Blogs: Dead Links and Foreign Languages

I went through the various Google blogs and found little added content so far this week. Guess Mondays get a little busy at Google... I know it is the worse day to contact my PPC rep.

So what did I come across? Well at AdSense they have added two more Eastern European languages: Bulgarian and Serbian.

While over at AdWords blog the link offering info on optimization tips seems to be dead... well at least it is just redirecting to the home page.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 3:00 PM | Permalink

Google Finance Canada Launching Tomorrow

Despite a glitch in naming the date of launch on their blog, Google Finance will start in Canada tomorrow.

The finance vertical seems to be the start of Google adding content portals to their approach.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 2:51 PM | Permalink

Alexa Toolbar Accuracy and Uses

Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped posted yesterday about how the accuracy of Alexa data is really poor. The specifics of his post are really a spoof as all the "data" is made up. Philipp is in fact spoofing the Alexa methodology itself as he indicated that the data: "uses gut feeling from a selected sample group (me) as data source". Alexa's accuracy problems are well known.

The underlying problem is that the Alexa data is derived from users who use the Alexa toolbar. At the end of the day, the audience is just not large enough, and the dependency on a willingness to install the toolbar introduces a natural bias into the date. My own experience suggests that these problem become worse and worse as you deal with lower and lower traffic level sites. Have a site that gets 20,000 visitors per day? You are not really on the map with Alexa at that level.

However, I still use Alexa as a tool. It was a blog post by Avinash Kaushik that taught me how to still use it as an effective tool. Quite simply, use the Alexa feature that shows comparative traffic levels to compare your site's traffic to that of your competitors.

Because your competitors are in the same business as you are, the bias problem no longer is a factor to worry about (because the bias will affect all the compares sites equally). For most businesses this will provide a quick way to compare the relative web site traffic levels in their industry. So the accuracy problems are real, but there is still a way to use the tool to extract useful information.

Posted by Eric Enge at 1:32 PM | Permalink

Spock, Inc. Launching People Search Engine Not Going to the Dogs

Do a search for boxer on Google and you get a bunch of dog sites - reasonable unless you are looking for people. Do a search on Spock Inc.'s soon to be released engine and you get info on California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Muhammad Ali.

This search engine works the people niche and plans to launch with 100 million people in their database, the AP reported.

The site relies on public records so some of the information may be inaccurate but it seems like a good start.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:31 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Mashup Tool PopFly Examined

John Montgomery, group program manager of Popfly - Microsoft's MashUp application - told eWeek that he thought if he did not start the non-prgrammer development tool no-one at Microsoft would have.

Montgomery is interviewed by eWeek and gives some interesting insights into how the product was developed and what it aims to achieve.

Montgomery describes Popfly as a fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages and applications. Popfly consists of two parts: Popfly Creator, which is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups, and Popfly Space, which is an online community of creators who can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:15 PM | Permalink

Google Has Fastest Growing Brand

Interbrand, the brand monitoring company, has found Google to have the fastest growing brand of 2007. Google had a 44% increase in brand recognition from the previous year. Overall Google placed 20th for global brand recognition. Coca Cola was one and Microsoft was two.

This is the second consecutive year Google has been the fastest growing brand.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:08 PM | Permalink

Search marketing to Latinos – Interview with Manny Ruiz of Hispanic PR Wire

hmpr_manny.jpg
Grant Crowell interviews Many Ruiz, President and CEO of Hispanic PR Wire on optimizing news releases for the Latino market.

How does Hispanic PR Wire (HPRW) distinguish itself from other news wire services? How does your company compare with the services these other new wire companies offer for targeting Latinos through search?

There really is no comparison between us and the. We have built a Latino-exclsuive network for almost 4 years now, building alliances with Hispanic news websites, most of which are print publications that are online, but we include other media outlets like radio and TV that will guarantee a news feed to Hispanic’s AdWire that we do in exchange. We have almost 100 Hispanic news web sites that give our clients preferred visibility on their websites. In many cases, you will see our clients on the front page of the news websites. In nearly 80 of those alliances, we actually power their news websites. We give them the news websites totally free – we design the website, we host the website, we do an advertising web share with them. We are actually business partners with a lot of the locations where we can immediately place press releases. This is something that other news wire services can’t do, nor can any other business. We have exclusive partnerships that prohibit our competitors from having that same advantage.

Tell us about your “Interactivo Release” and how it relates to search

The Interactivo Release has all the components of the Web 2.0 press release – hyperlinks, high res photographs, quote box, photographs, related info, pdfs, and a website preview. In the next month or two, we will also roll out the ability of putting in a video feed.


Your website advertises that you can reach over 2,400 media outlets, with a minimum of 100 guaranteed online placements. Could you name a few sites of particular importance?

We work exclusively with many of the crème de la crème of the news services. In Miami we have diariolasamericas.com, the second most important Hispanic publication in the Market. In Chicago we have LaRaza.com. Across the country we have many others, and we also have some that are very well known in English, such as Hispanic Business and Yahoo Telemundo. We have the majors, but we also have a lot of publications that may be overlooked, in places that are not the biggest Hispanic market, such as publications in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma. If there are Hispanic media outlets across the country, it is likely that we have online alliances with them. That is one of the things we love about what we have set up, is that we are in a lot of places that are commonly overlooked. We have worked really hard at getting great representation across the country. We have networks with them through our other divisions, like the Hispanic Digital Network, and we do an advertising network. It helps to get some dollars behind the press releases.

Being that the US Hispanic market is still more limited by comparison to the entire U.S. population, how are you helping your both your customers make sure that their press release are going to the right media outlets, and that those media outlets are receiving the most relevant press releases to their own business model?

The Hispanic media numbers is much more limited. There are like 1500 Hispanic media outlets across the country, and we are discovering others every week. Our goal is to reach all media that are interested in Hispanic news, wheatear they are Hispanic or not, English, Spanish, Bilingual. What we have done is identify those media outlets. We have 16 categories of news that ranges from arts and culture, automotive, business and finance, immigration, etc. We have a team of professionals that are media relations experts who contact media outlets and ask them to opt into the news categories that they want to receive. These news categories, some subscribe to one, some subscribe to all 16. We have had a lot of work behind the scenes making sure that you send news that is relevant to the market. We have a system that will filter which stories should go to which media outlets, and we distribute by email, fax, Web and RSS feeds. We are working with evolving formats, so whatever comes down the pipe in the future, we are ready for it. We also have the benefit of having BusinessWire, the world’s largest press release distribution service as our partner. We have been able to learn a lot from them, they have shared staff, resources, insight to be able to do Hispanic distribution with a Business wire standard.

You do provide an RSS feed every one of your target news categories. Does that mean if a customer selects a targeted category they want their press release to be featured in, does that mean their press release will show up in the RSS feed as well?

Yes. We do filter out some of the information in the feed, like contact information. This is because there are people out there who will try to use our system to try and get leads and call our clients, and we want to prevent that. There are very specific things we do and don’t do through RSS feeds. You have to be a certified, bonafide media outlet to receive the full unfiltered version of the story that our clients want us to push out.

What are the services and features that allow for a press release to be optimized for the search engines, and better able to reach Hispanic markets through the search engines?

When we launched our service in 2000, we never intended for the audience that would be visiting our web site to be anything other than media and Marketing. That is who we had focused on for most of our trajectory. Then about two years ago we noticed a huge spike in our traffic. We would get calls from just anybody, we were getting a lot of regular people who were not reading the whole press release, and they would contact us not realizing there was another contact. What we discovered was that search engines, especially Google, were leading a lot of people to our site. Our web site is embracing that. With Web 2.0, no longer are our press releases just a vehicle for marketing to the media, we want to make the press release appear in all its glory for the regular visitors. We are uploading PDFs, we are hyper linking, and we just began doing this last year. If you have a Google alert, you can pick up our stories for free, every day. We ourselves have a SEO expert that works with us.


Do you also target Latin America?

Our focus at HPRW is in providing our clients with U.S. Hispanic distribution. Whenever we do work in Latin America, we work with Business Wire Latin America, and they have a way of guaranteeing placement on websites of many leading Latin American Web pages and Portals. They have partnerships with all the major wire services, and major publications in Latin America as well. They also have partnerships with major publications in Mexico, Argentina, etc.

How would someone submit a release for Hispanic PR wire?

It is a little different than other services. They would submit a word document with an order form, through an email. The process takes about 5 minutes. We will get it out to the media outlets, usually within about 2 hours. There is a little more of a process than for traditional wire services, because we have to review it, and sometimes we’ll have an English version and a Spanish version. It takes twice the work to send a release through us than with a normal service because of the two languages.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 1:01 PM | Permalink

Google Adding Copyright Filters To YouTube

Friday during a copyright-infringement lawsuit hearing involving Viacom and Google, a Google attorney told the judge the company was working "very intensely" on a video recognition technology, the AP reported. The technology, that could be used to filter for copyright infringements, could be added to YouTube as early as September, it was reported.

Viacom sued Google in March in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement from YouTube and seeking $1 billion in damages.

Using the recognition programming, copyright owners can provide a digital fingerprint that within a minute or two will trigger a block from YouTube whenever someone tries to upload a copyright video without permission, the AP reported.

"We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by some time in the fall, but this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken, and as always with cutting-edge technologies, it's difficult to forecast specific launch dates," a YouTube spokesperson told IDG News.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:40 PM | Permalink

Large Scale Bulk Spam Uploaded to Google Maps

Mike Blumenthal has uncovered a case where a computer repair company is using mass uploads to Google Maps to generate national business. While the methodology can be seen as spam, the company is offering national repair services - though it is questionable if they have offices or employees everywhere.

It is difficult to reach the company directly - their phones are manned by a service at all times, the contact info when you do a domain lookup is buffered by Domains By Proxy - who incidentally proclaim they are protectors from spammers.

As is pointed out in the Google Groups covering Google Maps the local nature of this app seems to be diverted. The listing of an 800 number and a post office box address should be two things Google blocks in the Map API.

This is starting to get some press and should be interesting to see what happens.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:41 AM | Permalink

Metacrawler Obovo.com Goes Mobile

Obovo.com, a metacrawler search portal, which searches and returns results from MSN Live Search™, Gigablast™, LookSmart™, and Alexa™ is now available through mobile devices. The just released mobile version of Obovo.com provides users Web search capabilities, image search capabilities and local business search capabilities from their mobile phone or PDA. Obovo’s mobile Web search automatically provides users misspelling suggestions, along with indented sublistings. After searching for an image on their mobile device, Obovo users have the ability to choose whether to go to the website hosting the image or directly to the image itself. Obovo’s mobile image search also makes it possible for users to download images directly to their phone or PDA.

Posted by amandawatlington at 10:32 AM | Permalink

Microsoft to acquire Social Media Sites?

Dave Naylor speculated late last week that Digg will be bought by Microsoft. This is based on a statement by Kevin Rose that Digg had "signed on Microsoft as our new partner to sell and serve the ads on Digg". Dave admits that it's pure speculation and also observes that Microsoft has a similar deal with Facebook, and then speculates that Microsoft might buy Facebook too.

Having spoken with Robert Scoble recently, Microsoft's former technical evangelist, I am not sure that either of these are too likely. Don't get me wrong, I think both would be fabulous moves for Microsoft, which needs to look past short term revenue potential when looking at acquisitions, and start looking at the bigger picture of getting a strong foothold on the web, which they currently sorely lack.

It was Robert who pointed out to me the problem. Microsoft management has trouble understanding how to deal with these types of companies that are highly under-commercialized. He tried to persuade Bill Gates to buy Flickr at a time it did not have a set value yet (Yahoo! later bought it for $30M), but was soundly rejected. Robert pointed out that businesses to Microsoft generate $4B in revenue, not a few million with lots of upside potential.

That aside, it would be a very smart move for Microsoft to acquire Facebook, and potentially Digg as well. It would give them a strong foothold in the social media space, which, as Dave points out, they just don't have right now. You can see why it might make sense for Digg to sell, because it's no longer climbing like a rocketship. It's still a very important site, but it's peaked.

Facebook is another matter. Facebook is one of the hottest things in the valley right now, and this is likely to make the Facebook management team very patient in terms of selling out. That adds up to even higher pricing expectations. That makes it even less likely that Microsoft will step up to the plate with the more than $5B that such an acquisition is likely to require to get such a deal done.

As for Digg, this could be a step in the right direction for Microsoft too. They just need to do a lot more than acquire one company right now to establish themselves as a serious long term player on the web.

Posted by Eric Enge at 9:41 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: PR Pros Make Great Search Marketers

In today's Search Ads column, "PR Pros Make Great Search Marketers," Tony Wright tells you why public relations pros make the best search marketers and wants to convince more of them to participate in "The Search."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 29, 2007

Sun Microsystems to release news first on the Web

Sun Microsystems says it will start to release important corporate news first over the Internet, in what is thought to be the first time a US company will use the Web as its main channel for sensitive information. According to the Financial Times, the move could point to a day when companies stop issuing press releases.

Posted by GregJarboe at 10:43 AM | Permalink

BBC launches Internet TV service

On Friday, the BBC launched its online television service iPlayer, which allows viewers to download programs from the previous seven days. BBC head Mark Thompson described the launch as big a milestone as the arrival of color TV. UK online TV services are forecast to "explode."

Posted by GregJarboe at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Deloitte media-consumption study finds user-generated content spans generations

According to a new study by Deloitte, about 51% of US consumers are interested in watching and reading content created by others, not just stuff crafted by the big Hollywood companies and TV networks. And Baby Boomers (42 to 60) and older Matures (61 to 75) are also taking part in the user-generated-content phenomenon, not just the under-25 crowd, Deloitte found. You can read more about the study at Advertising Age.

Posted by GregJarboe at 10:25 AM | Permalink

July 27, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: July 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 4:48 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Committed to Advertising Success

At its annual Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond yesterday, Microsoft laid out its plans to succeed on multiple fronts. Notably, CEO Steve Ballmer said the company needs to do five things to succeed:

  1. Hire and keep the right people
  2. Drive innovation in the company
  3. Embrace disruption
  4. Build and maintain multiple competencies
  5. Take a long-term approach

Going forward, Microsoft will continue to focus on advertising and devices:

We're investing today in two new capabilities. We are going to be an advertising company, and we are going to be a devices company. Being an advertising company means learning about online and operational efficiency. Advertising is a new business model. Now we don't just talk about ISVs, we talk about publishers. What's a publisher? It's an ISV in the modern world who also wants to accept advertising. That's kind of the definition. Different business model, different concern. We need to embrace that. We need to be world-class at that.

He later added:

We are hell-bent and determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, the innovation, to absolutely become a powerhouse in the ad business.
The good news is, we're the number three seller of Internet advertising today. We sell primarily on our own sites, but we also sell Facebook, we now signed a deal to sell Digg, and a variety of other people. But we're number three; number three is better than number four, but not as good as number two or number one. And yet I think we'll bring this kind of tenacity that will enable us to, let's just say, make great strides.

Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, went into further detail in his presentation. Speaking about the adCenter platform, Johnson said:

The ad platform is really about four key things: It's about the buy-sell process, connecting buyers with sellers, sellers that have inventory with buyers who are looking to buy ads. It's about the ad serving, having the data and having the algorithm to do the appropriate ad serving to meet those particular needs. It's about tools for publishers and advertisers to help improve workflow and help improve their planning and their entire workflow. And it's about doing this across multiple IP-based devices.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:29 PM | Permalink

Google Now Implementing "unavailable_after" Meta Tag

Today at the Google Blog, product manager Dan Crow formally introduced the "unavailable_after" meta tag, which can be used to identify a temporary page with a set shelf life.

In "Robots Exclusion Protocol: now with even more flexibility," Crow explains:

For example, to specify that an HTML page should be removed from the search results after 3pm Eastern Standard Time on 25th August 2007, simply add the following tag to the first section of the page: <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="unavailable_after: 25-Aug-2007 15:00:00 EST">

Use of this tag will be treated by Google as a removal request, which should take effect the day after the removal date passes.

Crow first spoke publicly about the new tag earlier this month at an Getting Into Google — Best Turnout So Far!">SEMNE event, which SEMNE co-founder Jill Whalen wrote about in the High Rankings Advisor.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:49 PM | Permalink

Search Wikia Launches Open Source, Distributed Crawler

Wikia, the commercial site led by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is taking the next step toward launching its open source, human-assisted Web search tool, Search Wikia.

Speaking at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), Wales announced that Wikia has acquired Grub, the distributed search spidering technology previously owned by LookSmart, and will begin using it to build an index for the Search Wikia project.

Grub, which LookSmart bought in January 2003 for $1.4 million, is a distributed crawling service that LookSmart had implemented as a screensaver that would use idle CPU time on a user's PC to crawl the Web. The data was used to supplement its own centralized crawler's indexing efforts.

Wikia will immediately release Grub to the open source community, and make both the crawler and source code available at Grub.org. Users who download the application can run it either as a screensaver or a background process while other applications are running.

Specifics of the deal were not revealed, though it is part of a larger advertising deal between Wikia and LookSmart which was announced last week.

Under the deal, LookSmart will provide text and display ads in Wikia's freely hosted wiki communities, and eventually on the Search Wikia site, Wales said. Ads will be sold by Wikia on either a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) model. Inventory not sold by Wikia will be back-filled by ads from LookSmart's distributed ad network.

Share your thoughts on Search Wikia in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:30 PM | Permalink

Business.com sold for $345 Million

Did you ever wonder how Business.com was doing? Well enough evidently. According to Forbes, the company just sold to R.H. Donnelley (NYSE: RHD) for $345 million. The company was put up for auction last month, and other bidders included Dow Jones, IAC, New York Times, and News Corp (NYSE: NWS). Here is a copy of the official news release on the acquisition.

This is a fascinating outcome for the business that first became famous for its $7.5 million dollar purchase of its domain name. Conventional SEO wisdom has considered Business.com to be one of those directories in which you should attempt to get listed. This is because it is believed that the editorial policies of the directory are strong enough that search engines place value on their links.

Revenues for Business.com are projected to be $50M in 2007 with an EBITDA of $15M. About 6000 customers list their web sites with Business.com.

Posted by Eric Enge at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Names Former Microsoft SVP To Board of Directors

Maggie Wilderotter, former senior vice president at Microsoft, was named to the Yahoo Board of Directors. She is currently the CEO of Citizens Communications Company - the second largest local exchange telephone company in the United States and has worked extensively in the communications and media industries.

The Yahoo press release on the event states:

Yahoo! Inc., today announced the appointment of Maggie Wilderotter to the company's Board of Directors. Wilderotter brings extensive experience in technology, communications and business operations to Yahoo!. Currently she is chairman and chief executive officer of Citizens Communications Company, a full-service communications provider and the second-largest local exchange telephone company in the country. Wilderotter oversees all functional areas of Citizens Communications and is responsible for its overall corporate strategy and execution of its vision, mission and business priorities.

"With more than 25 years of experience in telephone, wireless, cable television, computers and interactive media, Maggie's broad range of leadership qualifications and proven track record make her an extremely valuable addition to our team," said Jerry Yang, chief executive officer, Yahoo!. "Her unique and in-depth understanding of consumers, business, and technology will make her instrumental in helping to provide valuable insight for Yahoo!'s key initiatives across the entire organization. We're excited to welcome her to the Board."

Wilderotter remarked, "Yahoo! has the technology, talent and resources to make every customer experience a great one. I believe that the company is committed to specific, strategic, customer-focused actions that will enable it to build on its position as one of the most powerful and influential companies on the Internet. I look forward to working with Jerry Yang and the rest of the team at Yahoo!."

Previously Wilderotter served as senior vice president of the worldwide public sector division at Microsoft Corporation, where she was responsible for strengthening customer and partner outreach in the government and education markets, as well as working across Microsoft's business divisions to develop and coordinate forward-looking strategies.

Prior to Microsoft, Wilderotter was president and chief executive officer of Wink Communications Inc., executive vice president of national operations for AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and chief executive officer of AT&T's Aviation Communications Division. She also served as senior vice president of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. and was a regional president managing the company's California, Nevada, and Hawaii regions.

Wilderotter has received national recognition for her contributions to the communications industry. She was twice honored with the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership awarded by the National Cable Television Association, the 1999 Outstanding Mentor Award from the Women in Cable and Telecommunications Foundation and its Top 10 Women in Cable & Telecommunications Award.

She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Xerox Corporation and holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and Business Administration from the College of the Holy Cross.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 10:01 AM | Permalink

Can the Search Marketing Industry Grow Up Fast Enough?

The search marketing industry is immature, both in the sense that nearly all the players are under 10 years old, and in the way partnerships are created and maintained. That's the argument presented by Did-It chairman Kevin Lee in his ClickZ column today, "SEM Immaturity Threatens Industry Future."

The fault lies on both the client and SEM/agency sides, Lee says. Clients should leave their "serial dater" mentality behind, and own up to a history of poor agency choices, unreasonable expectations, unwillingness to pay an equitable price, a "dating mentality," and an unwillingness to communicate.

SEMs should be sure they're providing competitive service levels, especially by addressing their labor shortages and dedicating the appropriate resources to clients. Making time to foster the relationship is just as important as planning and implementing an SEM strategy for the client.

Do you agree with Lee's argument? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Look After Your Brand and Your Brand Will Look After You

In today's In-House column, "Look After Your Brand and Your Brand Will Look After You," Rob Kerry explains that an in-house SEO's work doesn't stop with optimizing page elements. He tells you how to put out fires before they spread by defending your brand.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:02 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Pimp My Vertical Search

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Pimp My Vertical Search," Michael Boland tells you about the future of local search in a verticalized world. See how Vehix uses the strength of video advertising and online search to give consumers local search on steroids and advertisers better direct response.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:01 AM | Permalink

July 26, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: July 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 11:33 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Wants an Ad Exchange Too

Not to be left out of the ad exchange party, Microsoft plans to acquire AdECN, an online ad exchange similar to Right Media (acquired by Yahoo) and DoubleClick's (soon to be acquired by Google).

The idea of an ad exchange is similar to a stock exchange, where buyers and sellers work through a broker. Similarly, AdECN does not do business directly with advertisers or publishers; it works instead with ad networks, ad brokers, and a few ad agencies that maintain relationships with buyers and sellers, acting as a network themselves.

If you're keeping score, that leaves newcomer ContextWeb and its ADSDAQ exchange as the last independent player standing in the ad exchange space.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:01 PM | Permalink

AdSense Offers Help For Forum Marketing

Inside AdSense, the Google blog dedicated to information about their publishing advertising product, posted an article "Getting your forum site to perform well with AdSense" today.

Though it offers only three suggestions (four counting the bonus tip), it is a great start. The three areas covered are the Welcome box ad, the forum post ad and blending colors and borders. While the bonus is about improving ad relevance through sectioning.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 2:56 PM | Permalink

Internet TV Startup Veoh Networks Names ex-Yahoo Mitgang as CEO

Veoh Networks, an Internet TV startup that launched in February, has named former Yahoo SVP Steve Mitgang as CEO. He replaces founding CEO Dmitry Shapiro, who will assume the role of "chief innovation officer," with an active role in the business.

Mitgang joins other ex-Yahoos at Veoh: Ted Meisel, former president of Overture and Yahoo Search Marketing, is Veoh Networks' chairman; and Josh Metzger, former SVP of business affairs at Overture, is Veoh's SVP of corporate development. Veoh has also named former VP of interactive at Sirius Satellite Radio Jennifer Betka as SVP of marketing.

Veoh reported 14.3 million unique users in June, more than triple the 4.4 million it had in February. Its VeohTV product, currently in beta, "acts as a specialized video browser and DVR (digital video recorder) for discovering, viewing and managing online video." It includes a personalized recommendation engine to help users discover new online video

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:52 PM | Permalink

Business.com Acquired by Yellow Pages Publisher

Print and online Yellow Pages publisher R.H. Donnelley Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Business.com for $345 million in cash and deferred payouts. Donnelley reportedly beat out Dow Jones and the New York Times, according to the Wall Street Journal.

RHD will add Business.com's business search engine and directory and pay-per-click advertising network to its interactive unit, RHDi, which will now include DexKnows.com, LocalLaunch search engine marketing company, Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network.

Business.com founder and CEO Jake Winebaum will lead RHDi from Santa Monica, Calif., and will report directly to Swanson. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2007.

Kate Kaye at ClickZ has more details from RHD and Kelsey Group analyst Neal Polachek.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:42 AM | Permalink

Web Analytics Shootout: Unica's Affinium NetInsight

Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting (and SEW Expert and blogger), continues his 2007 Web Analytics Shootout series with a review of Unica’s Affinium NetInsight Web analytics package.

As with the other packages he's reviewed, Eric came up with a list of "cool things" that can be done with it:

  1. Creating custom dashboards
  2. Ad-Hoc Analysis
  3. Drag, Drop, and Drill, Drill, Drill Down
  4. Correlate Data
  5. A/B Analysis mode
  6. Integrate Offline Customer Data
  7. Examine Individual Click streams
  8. Robot/Spider analysis
  9. Remarketing
  10. Ask NetInsight Wizard
  11. Heat Map Overlay
  12. Date Comparison Reporting

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Nominate Now - ClickZ's Decade of Achievement Awards

czmea07_nominations.jpgJust a reminder that nominations are open for The ClickZ network's Decade of Achievement Awards.

We want you to weigh in on the 10 companies, products, services and people who have made the greatest contribution to interactive marketing and advertising (including search, of course). Nominations are open until August 3. Let us know who you think should win!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Behavioral Targeting Trots Along

For search marketers, Behavioral Targeting (BT) ads may be viewed as “that other advertising” some people try. It’s a valid perspective, as Jupiter Research reported that only 16% of advertisers bought BT last year. At a recent Behavioral Marketing Forum, publishers said that only 2-10% of their revenues came from BT sources.

Search is essentially a direct marketing vehicle, text-based and sold in a CPC economy. BT is essentially a branding vehicle, banner-based and sold in a CPM world. So why does BT matter to searchers?

Maybe they aren’t as radically different as you think. Both contextual text and BT banner ads respond to visitor browsing behaviors. Text ads are shown when you visit, while BT impacts what you see after your visit. These ad types also reflect content displayed on web sites. While text ads are targeted to unique page content, BT ads cater to higher-level category interests.

BT takes things a step further, beyond the domain. The BT providers tap into visitor interests as they navigate all domains in their respective ad networks. It’s a matter of opinion as to whether this is seen as useful or obtrusive, but providers take great pains to enable people to “opt out” if they desire. When participating publishers see better rates than from run-of-network ads, there’s no apparent downside for them.

Until the latest consolidation announcement, it’s been difficult to bet on one BT horse or another. This week, AOL announced its planned acquisition of Tacoda (see ClickZ coverage). The mainstream reaction is that AOL's deep pockets and network can begin to close the challenging distribution gaps. Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz says he expects to triple revenues quickly. Is an ownership change going to change his company's fortunes that quickly?

The horserace gets more interesting when we look at what the Search and Portal providers are offering now. Yahoo SmartAds sound like an innovative response to the BT offerings, by delivering customized banner ads based on live interests. Microsoft has been promoting its own behavioral offerings for a while, where search and other data are optimized for targeted display ads too. Both are making progress, and these efforts have similar goals as the BT networks.

We’re just opening the doors to behavioral targeting. Neither Search nor BT today actually responds to visitors in a fully-customized fashion. All things being equal, everyone sees the same ads when they visit particular pages or are tagged with specific interests. In addition, the text and banner ad networks haven't intersected much either. Some company is bound to test these boundaries and economics along the way.

Posted by debbyr at 2:45 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: 7 Tips for Training Link Developers

In today's Link Love column, "7 Tips for Training Link Developers," Justilien Gaspard offers 7 tips for training link developers that range from promoting creativity to teaching negotiation tactics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: July 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:

  • Click Quality Council Holds First Steering Committee Meeting
    With over 20 people in attendance to this webinar meeting, representatives from Google and the IAB spoke with the committee about elements of click fraud.
  • How To Determine What A Link Passes
    Aaron Wall over at SEOBook wrote a great overview article the other day about how to see if a link passes "Reputation / Authority / Equity / Juice / etc..."
  • Digg Goes with Microsoft for Ads
    Social media site Digg has entered a deal with Microsoft to sell and serve display and contextual text ads on Digg, and to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives. The move displaces Federated Media and Google.
  • Brand Owners Unite Against Domain Squatters
    A group of big-name brand owners has teamed up to form CADNA: the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse.
  • Intent and Extent
    The premise is that there are a variety of tactics that are perceived to be spammy. However, there is general agreement that for nearly every tactic associated with black hat behavior, there are also scenarios where the same tactic might be used on your site in a legitimate manner.
  • Search and Affiliates Coming to London
    Search Engine Strategies and Affiliates4U.com will host a one-day SES Forum at the A4U Expo coming to London in October.
  • SEW Experts: Turning Local Inside Out
    Kevin Ryan takes a look at what local search looks like today, and why one-stop technology and search providers have an advantage over the big sales forces and more heavily regulated telephone directory advertising.
  • SEW Experts: Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors
    Eric Enge shows you why you might want to broaden your horizons beyond Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with your PPC campaigns.

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:00 PM | Permalink

Click Quality Council Holds Steering Committee Meeting

Kevin Embree, of Click Forensics, headed a Click Quality Council Steering Committee meeting today. With over 20 people in attendance to this webinar meeting, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Trust and Safety at Google, and Erica DeLorenzo, Director of Industry Practices at IAB, spoke with the committee about elements of click fraud.

Google is always working on improving their filters, Ghosemajumder said. "We are always looking at why it is these clicks get through," he added.

Both companies watch click bots, people sitting at an AdSense site and clicking or "anything manipulated or not in the way of natural behavior."

DeLorenzo said the IAB's Click Measurement Working Group is finishing up a detail report on the subject that should be released in the near future.

The concept of advertisers getting a 'phone bill-like' document for what they are paying is something being discussed and worked on by Google, Ghosemajumder said.

Google is working with the IAB to come up with standards so that people are better aware of what is being addressed. "We are striving to have the most powerful system possible," he added.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:52 PM | Permalink

How To Determine What A Link Passes

Aaron Wall over at SEOBook wrote a great overview article the other day about how to see if a link passes "Reputation / Authority / Equity / Juice / etc..."

It really is a good read and very informative. It provides some "white hat" and some "black hat" methods.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 3:33 PM | Permalink

Digg Goes with Microsoft for Ads

Social media site Digg has entered a deal with Microsoft to sell and serve display and contextual text ads on Digg, and to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives.

"Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true innovator in user-generated content," Steve Berkowitz, senior VP of Microsoft's Online Services Group, said in a statement. "We believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg's combined strengths to forge more meaningful connections online."

Digg's current partner of 18 months, Federated Media, will continue to work with Digg and Microsoft in a limited capacity, "focusing on integrated sponsorships and custom programs like the Arc project in labs," according to Digg founder Kevin Rose.

"Federated Media has unique advertising sales assets that dovetail with our efforts, and we look forward to working with them," Berkowitz said.

Google AdSense ads, which formerly ran on the site, will be replaced by Microsoft-served ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:01 PM | Permalink

Brand Owners Unite Against Domain Squatters

Domain squatters, who buy domains that are typos or variations of a popular company or brand name and then put ads on the site, have a new foe. A group of big-name brand owners has teamed up to form CADNA: the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. CADNA is a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. Members include Yahoo, Dell, Verizon and Marriott.

According to a CADNA statement, "the coalition’s goals are to pursue Congressional legislation that would increase the statutory damages set forth by the existing Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and to work with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to introduce an international anti-cybersquatting treaty."

The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), introduced in 1999, made it easier for brand and trademark owners to prosecute the unauthorized registration or use of their trademarks as domain names.

"As a result of the automation of the registration process and the monetization of domain name portfolios, the policing burden placed on brand owners has become almost insurmountable," Susan Crane, group VP of intellectual property for Wyndham Worldwide, said in a statement. "We have joined CADNA in this fight because we believe a coalition of companies from across multiple industries will be a more effective voice to address this issue than any one company or industry standing alone."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:20 PM | Permalink

Intent and Extent

One of the themes that has emerged at the recent conferences I have been to, is the notion of "Intent and Extent". The premise is that there are a variety of tactics that are perceived to be spammy. One of these is using hidden text and/or keyword stuffing as recently blogged about by Matt Cutts. Other well know no-nos include cloaking, swapping links en masse, purchasing links, etc.

However, there is general agreement that for nearly every tactic associated with black hat behavior, there are also scenarios where the same tactic might be used on your site in a legitimate manner. Let's give four examples of black hat techniques that are sometimes used for legitimate reasons:

  1. Cloaking, also known as IP delivery: By definition, this is the delivery of different content to users than the search engine bots. However, IP delivery is a common method for delivering foreign language versions of sites to visitors come from foreign IP addresses.
  2. Swapping Links: As we know last Summer's Big Daddy update resulted in the demotion of sites that had a high percentage of sites implemented as reciprocal links. This was not a penalty, so much as a discounting of link value. Net-net - you should trade links with sites that are highly relevant to yours if it makes sense from a business and editorial prespective on your site.
  3. Purchasing links: Nothing wrong with it, but, if Google determines that are doing it for purposes of manipulating rankings, look out. Outright banishment is a possibility for this one. However, buying advertising for traffic and/or branding reasons is a legit practice.
  4. Hidden text: How I am going to justify this one? Simple, there are CMS systems out there that use coding methods that tend to embed hidden text in the web pages they create. This is not intended as a spam technique, but it is a coding technique of some sort. Point is that it emerges from the CMS implementation, not any bad intent.

There are many more examples of these types of scenarios. So what is a poor search engine to do? The answer is that they attempt to evaluate the intent of the use of the technique, and the extent to which it is used. If their evaluation leads them to believe that the intent is not bad, then that counts in your favor. They also evaluate the extent of the use of such techniques. In principle, one small transgression carries a lot less risk than massive and continual transgressions.

Regardless of what they might say, in my experience the search engines attempt to make the right decision. But the key word here is "attempt". Using these techniques does come with significant risk, no matter what your intent is, or the extent to which you use it. Even if your use of "spammy techniques" is in fact for completely legit reasons, I'd still proceed with extreme caution.

Posted by Eric Enge at 11:20 AM | Permalink

Search and Affiliates Coming to London

How are affiliates using search engine marketing? Search Engine Strategies and Affiliates4U.com will find out at a one-day SES Forum at the A4U Expo coming up in London on October 25-26. The search side of the event will be chaired by Kevin Ryan, global content director for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies. SES will also be announcing a dedicated Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Training Day on Wednesday, October 24.

Have no fear, the full three day SES London is still scheduled for February 19-21, 2008. In fact, it was just announced that Mike Grehan has been named chair and host of the event.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:30 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Turning Local Inside Out

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Turning Local Inside Out," Kevin Ryan takes a look at what local search looks like today, and why one-stop technology and search providers have an advantage over the big sales forces and more heavily regulated telephone directory advertising..

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors

In today's By the Numbers column, "Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors," Eric Enge shows you why you might want to broaden your horizons beyond Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with your PPC campaigns.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 24, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: July 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 11:46 PM | Permalink

Is DMOZ Delisting Sites Up For Sale?

There is a discussion going on at DigitalPoint that suggests DMOZ is delisting sites they find to be for sale. Interesting if true.

The impact on the sales price could be effected as soon as it is listed. Guess you want to sell it fast and edit the posts.

Mike McDonald over at WebMasterWorld found this link as well.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:50 PM | Permalink

iRazoo: Human-Powered Search Engine With Prizes

Okay incentivized search is not new, but it usually was a bugus engine asking people to click and share some minor income. The newly launched engine iRazoo seems to be a different model (not unique), though it has some initial detractors over at Digg.

The engine is human-powered. As the site explains:

"A person goes to the iRazoo website and uses it to perform a search query. The search engine produces it's search results. The user then clicks on a search result. The resulting website that comes out of the click is opened up on another web page. That web page has the header of the original iRazoo search engine with the resulting website page beneath it. That header has the following wording “Do you recommend this site, yes or no.” If the user clicks yes, that website url is placed into a database and is cross-indexed to the search term the user entered. After the url and keyword have been recorded by the database, then the next time a user goes to the search engine and types in the same search term, a “user recommended” heading will show in the results page with the indexed url shown below. These “user recommended” results will be shown above the regular search results that are returned by our regular search engine."

Whether this has legs only time will tell. Mahalo - another human powered engine - seems to be struggling. ChaCha has a live chat session where you can ask someone for help. This human touch seems to be a popular notion right now.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 3:12 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Europe Beta Testing PPC Quality Score Ranking

I just received an email letting me know that Yahoo Panama is starting to beta test the Quality Score rankings in Europe.

The email states:


Dear Advertiser,

Yahoo! Search Marketing is constantly striving to improve both the advertiser and customer experience, with the goal of providing the most relevant and targeted listings as users search, click and travel across the Internet. To accomplish this, we constantly test new implementations and matching technologies.

To help ensure we launch our new ranking model successfully, we will start running a limited test across our European advertiser listings in which the display order of Sponsored Search listings in some keyword markets is based on factors other than bid. In determining listing position, the test will take into account a particular ad's click-through rate, as well as other relevancy factors.

The total amount of Sponsored Search traffic that we are providing to you should not change, but due to optimisation of certain keywords you may see traffic volume increase or decrease depending upon the relevancy of your offers and other optimisation factors.

As always, we encourage you to track your results from individual keywords, so that you can manage your bids and creative for maximum return-on-investment.

We have begun upgrading advertisers to the new system and will continue to do so in waves to ensure a smooth transition to the new system. Once all advertisers have upgraded, we will introduce our new ranking model. We will be contacting you with more specific information as the rollout date approaches.


Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:15 PM | Permalink

Google Earth Catches Chinese Sub, May Hurt With China Relations

Guess Google is officially that big that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. But you would think the left hand would be aware when righty is firing a gun at it!

The recent pictures taken of Chinese submarines by Google Earth and published for the world is a great example. Google and the internet in general has a delicate relationship with the Chinese government and this latest blunder will impact it.

That there are coordinates to the whereabouts of six subs according to the PC World article, including a new type never photographed before, also shows the automated nature of Google.

Is Google heading us into the Terminator-type future? Their planned purchase of DoubleClick has raised privacy issues, but let's forget about them sharing the information with anyone else... what can they ultimately do with it themselves.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 10:29 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Calls For Webmaster Central Features Ideas

I don't know if it is the popularity of Matt Cutts (undeniable if you have every watched the comet trail he has behind him at any search event) or a true desire to input ideas for Google's next Webmaster Central feature, but Matt has received over a thousand responses in under 24 hours and the news has not even been fully disseminated yet.

Matt added a poll to his call for feature suggestions and as of this blog entry there were over 1200 votes and 107 comments.

The poll options are:
* More information about penalties or other scoring issues

* Tools for detecting or reporting duplicate content

* Show links on your site that are broken

* Score the crawlability or accessibility of pages

* Show PageRank numbers instead of none/low/medium/high

* Tell Google the correct country or language for a site

* Tool to help move from one domain to a new domain

* Diagnostic wizard for common site problems

* Some type of rank checking

* A way to list supplemental result pages

* Show causes of 404 errors

* Option to "disavow" backlinks from or to a site

* Fetch a page as Googlebot to verify correct behavior

* Tell Google a parameter doesn't matter

* Show pages that don't validate

* Ability to show/download all pages from a site (e.g. if your server crashed)

* More documentation and examples

* Integrate "Add URL" feature

This is an interesting blog entry and many of the comments are well worth reading.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 10:12 AM | Permalink

New Report from WebAnalyticsDemystified

WebAnalyticsDemystified has released an important new repor