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August 2007

August 31, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 31, 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 11:54 PM | Permalink

Tighten the Coupling: Text Ads and Videos

As online videos and their consumption continue ramping up, we should consider this coupling as more than an afterthought. There must be ways to display text ads in a more targeted and user-friendly manner.

Almost all consumers willingly accept ads with their videos. They would rather have free access and put up with any ads. Also they are actively complaining about the length of video ads, and almost a quarter feel ads could be more relevant. All these findings reflect sentiments surveyed from January-June 2007.

According to Emily Riley, a Jupiter analyst, many consumers would prefer text versus even a shorter 15-second pre-roll video ad. She says “text ads don't interrupt the user experience as much.”

However, there’s a real gap between accepting text ads and optimizing how they will get delivered -- when adjacent to videos.

-- Ad targeting will need to evolve. Semantic approaches are getting applied, but don’t literally capture the whole experience. Certainly behavioral interests are also important, even when viewers are anonymous. The nature of what’s appropriate for commercial purposes should come into play here.

-- Ads will need to become more dynamic. Think about what to advertise during long-form videos. Some programs stay on topic and appeal to viewer interests consistently, yet showing the same ads seems like lost opportunity. Other videos, like newscasts, vary over time and thus their ads should too.

-- Ad displays will need to change. We’re all used to the flat approach to displaying ads, and that’s a start. However, videos create a more dynamic experience. Should text ads be considered as something that is shown before or after videos? Or are they always about a sidebar?

Let's give our ad opportunities more careful consideration. At least we know that viewers are ready for us, the advertisers.

Posted by debbyr at 8:33 PM | Permalink

"Prom Queen: Summer Heat" – the blinkx interview

Grant Crowell interviews Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of the video search engine blinkx, on their partnership announcement today with media studio Vuguru to exclusively broadcast the Emmy-nominated video series "Prom Queen," and on the future of professional-grade, internet-only scripted and produced video content with search.

SEW: Suranga, you mentioned in blinkx's press release that the Prom Queen series is a "pioneering format" for online video which “has proven tremendously successful in the new media landscape.” What, in your opinion, has made this series most popular with online viewers? The short length? Subject matter? Professional production quality and studio backing? Or a combination of all those things?

It’s a really interesting question. I don’t really know, but its proven to be immensely popular. A couple things that do work is that its just really good content; it's watchable and creative, because you have professionals at every stage – writing, acting, producing – exclusively for online viewing. And I think the short length works extremely well. It’s a type of “snack mentality” that you get, which also matches the structure of the blinkx home page. So I think the physical format plus the show length has been critical for making it so popular.

One smart thing that the show producers, Vuguru, did is they picked a demographic that works online. If you look at all the stats in video, there’s obvious a bias towards a younger audience – high school, college – that sort of thing. The content specifically fits that demographic. Its not to say there aren’t people who are middle age or older who watch video or whatever else, but rather than try to sell a smaller audience on a certain piece of content, it makes sense to go for the audience that’s already there. All of those things have helped in its success.

SEW: Do you believe this will lead to a market for more exclusively Internet-scripted/produced drama? And if so, would blinkx be featuring similar pieces from this studio? Other studios?

Yes, definitely. We think there is a great audience out there for this type of content; and we think that Vuguru has tapped into it, they've done a good job with it, and we expect there to be a lot more. You can look at what’s happened at a similar video site, Funny or Die – a lot of its video content there is short-form, scripted, and with a professional background. There are other video sites that do similar things as well.

Until now, a lot of the professional or semi-professional stuff has come from Silicon Valley-style companies. You’ve seen things like Revision3 and so on, which is great in that it taps into the tech audience very well, but it hasn’t really tapped into the mainstream audience. I think the success of Prom Queen is going to lead to a lot more people paying attention to this and doing work on this area.

SEW: Will these episodes also show up concurrently on the promqueen.tv website, or does blinkx have an exclusive “first run”?

Its concurrent (running alongside promqueen.tv), so its more of a super-distribution [through the blinkx network]. The video series will now be findable through all of the usual network sites that we power along with the blinkx video search space.

SEW: What type of advertising will this content be supported by? How will it appear on the web page?

Both blinkx and Vuguru can serve our own advertising on the content. In this case, we’ll be doing short pre-roll and post-roll ads. They’ll be produced in various points and various campaigns during the showing. We’re also going to be showing overlay ads down the road. There’s a lot of interest in overlay ads from our advertisers, so we’re going to be trying them out over the next couple months.

SEW: What kind of revenue-sharing program have you worked out with Vuguru?

We will be sharing revenue with Vuguru based on the number of views.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 4:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Jim Hedger Leaves SiteProNews

Jim Hedger has been involved in the search industry for many years. He took on the editorship of SiteProNews for Jayde-Online 12 months ago.

He announced his contract was not renewed today.

Filling those shoes is going to be tough for whoever is hired in his place. Luckily we are not losing him from the industry.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 2:07 PM | Permalink

Who Makes Your SEO Dream Team

Rhea Drysdale blogged her SEO Dream Team including many of the usual suspects. I know it has been done before but not recently.

So who would you pick if limited to a team of seven? Remember social networking, link building, perfect page optimization and many other factors need to be considered in our current seo tactics.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:46 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: In-House Vs. Outsourced: What Is the Best Solution?

In today's Outsourced column, "In-House vs. Outsourced: What's the Best Solution?," Chris Boggs ponders the relationship between in-house and agency search experts, asking the question, "Can't we all just get along?"

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Crafting a Social Media Strategy Around Travel

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Crafting a Social Media Strategy Around Travel," Elisabeth Osmeloski tells travel site providers how to take advantage of social media and traveler reviews.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 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 11:54 PM | Permalink

Microsoft to Update Trademark Dispute Handling in adCenter

While Microsoft's trademark policy for adCenter advertisers is not changing, the way Microsoft deals with trademark infringement accusations against advertisers will change starting on September 10, according to the adCenter Blog.

Microsoft will stop generating its lists of advertisers approved by the trademark owner who can bid on trademarked keywords, but will continue to respond to complaints from trademark owners and investigate reported trademark infringement.

Microsoft is taking a step back from its involvement in compliance, but it is not leaving it up to advertisers and trademark owners to work things out on their own. The company promises to "support trademark owners in their efforts to protect their intellectual property," promising a faster response without the extra layers to review before acting on a complaint.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:49 PM | Permalink

The Economist Examines Google

Google is hated and feared by many, as The Economist outlines, but it seems it is their moto of "Do No Evil" that gets people annoyed.

The Economist outlines the rapid growth and numerous products Google has bought or developed and suggests much of the fear and hate comes from competitors in the new spaces the search giant is getting involved in.

"Google is often compared to Microsoft (another enemy, incidentally); but its evolution is actually closer to that of the banking industry. Just as financial institutions grew to become repositories of people's money, and thus guardians of private information about their finances, Google is now turning into a custodian of a far wider and more intimate range of information about individuals. Yes, this applies also to rivals such as Yahoo! and Microsoft. But Google, through the sheer speed with which it accumulates the treasure of information, will be the one to test the limits of what society can tolerate," The Economist opines.

In another article, The Economist notes "[i]t is rare for a company to dominate its industry while claiming not to be motivated by money. Google does. But it has yet to face a crisis."

Google's Chief Financial Officer Hal Varian is either shown to be glib or shows he is a little out of touch on average PPC costs when he says “[a]ll that money comes 50 cents at a time.”

But at least the brand has taken hold to the point that even Marge Simpson ultimately says: "And all this time I thought ‘googling yourself' meant the other thing.”

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 3:06 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Adds New Features To Panama

Yahoo announced new features for its paid search product and its interface, Panama, according to the Yahoo blog.

Twenty ads per ad group and the ability to view performance numbers, as well as edit, copy, delete and create new ads, tightens the user experience.

And you can now look at competitor ads if you need to get the writing started.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:10 PM | Permalink

Search engine to aid diagnoses

University of Virginia newspaper, The Cavalier reports on the development of a diagnostic search engine being used at the university hospital.

The diagnostic system is named "Isabella" after a three-year old who died from a multisystem failure following a misdiagnoses, the Cavalier reported.

The database is loaded with medical journal articles and any new diagnosis, the university newspaper stated.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:22 PM | Permalink

Searching For Sports Info? Try Enth - Just Added NFL Search

With the NFL season about to get underway, Enth.com has added NFL search on its site, SearchNewz announced today.

Enth is a source of sports statistics and even offers a tool bar that runs sports scores and fantasy results.

"Through a partnership with STATS LLC, the worlds leading sports information provider, Enth.com aggregates, filters, and sorts sports statistics based on the question you submit," SearchNewz reported.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:13 PM | Permalink

Google Adds China.com As Search Partner

Google announced it will partner with Chinese internet service provider, China.com to provide search results for the site's portal and China.com's search results.

The conversion of Chinese sites to Google reflects its growing popularity in the Asian market.

"By expanding our partnership with Google, we can further improve user satisfaction and encourage more robust growth for China.com," Xiaowei Chen, president of China.com, Forbes reported.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:50 AM | Permalink

NoFollow as an SEO Optimization Tool

Rand at SEOmoz published some great information based on questions he asked Matt Cutts. There were several interesting questions answered, but I think the biggest nugget was the suggestion that you can freely use NoFollow within your own site to control PageRank flow, including on your own internal links, without fear of it being seen as a poor quality signal by Google. The quote from Matt was as follows:

The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt'ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There's no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links; for Google, nofollow'ed links are dropped out of our link graph; we don't even use such links for discovery. By the way, the nofollow meta tag does that same thing, but at a page level.

This opens up some really interesting advanced SEO techniques. For example, do you really want to have PageRank flowing to that "Contact Us" page? Or that "About Us" page? Or a page that simply lists your clients? Now you can keep the page there for users, but tell Google that you don't want to spend any PageRank on them.

For that matter, you can do some research on your site using web analytics, and find out what pages are not providing any traffic any way, or which pages are not providing any conversions. Then you can take these pages and cut back on the PageRank flow to them, and increase the PageRank flow to the pages that matter the most.

If you have a large and complex site, this opens up some great dynamics. I suspect that this statement by Matt launched a few thousand experiments in understanding how to leverage this aspect of NoFollow.

Posted by Eric Enge at 11:45 AM | Permalink

More Exec Moves at Yahoo

Yahoo, which has undergone a few rounds of reorganization this year, is in the midst of more changes in its ad sales business. This time, Hilary Schneider will be tapped to head a group overseeing ad sales and publisher relationships, effectively replacing Greg Coleman as head of global sales, according to Kara Swisher at All Things Digital.

In an internal memo (posted by paidContent), Yahoo president Sue Decker describes the changes, describing a new Global Partner Solutions (GPS) division under Schneider that will have responsibility for all of Yahoo's “partners” – advertisers, agencies, resellers, publishers, ad networks, developers, or others.

Jeff Weiner, EVP of Yahoo's Network Division, will add to his responsibilities, currently including most consumer-facing assets, including search and social media sites. Weiner will regain control of many of the businesses previously under Schneider in the Local Markets and Commerce (LMC) division, including shopping, travel, autos, real estate and local. Weiner ran these businesses from 2002 to 2006 as SVP of search and marketplaces, before a previous reorg moved them under Schneider.

This reorg is not yet as big as the moves in June to oust Terry Semel, when Jerry Yang returned as CEO and Sue Decker was named president; or February's creation of three new operating groups (although much of that was undone by Semel and Decker). But since it's just about halfway through a 100-day plan by Yang to scrutinize the business, we can expect more changes to come in the next 50 days.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:08 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: The Great Link Buying Debate

In today's Link Love column, "The Great Link Buying Debate," Sage Lewis reviews the arguments for and against buying links, which was a hot topic at SES San Jose last week. Like all topics, buying credibility or exposure in any realm is never as black and white as we would all like to believe.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 29, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 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 11:56 PM | Permalink

Google Dominates SES News

If you evaluate the news stories and blog posts about Search Engine Strategies, then "universal search" beat "click fraud" as the top story to come out of the conference. If you analyze all the news coverage of SES San Jose, then Wednesday's keynote speaker Marissa Mayer beat Tuesday's keynote speaker Jim Lanzone as the top newsmaker at the event.

Greg Jarboe takes a look at some of the trends spotted via news search in today's SearchDay, "News Search Analysis: SES San Jose."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:16 PM | Permalink

All's Quiet On The Eastern Front ...

Wired tattles on Scoble for twittering behind Jason's back.

Is Scoble Calacanis's Rasputin?

Will Calacanis man up and march on Mountain View?

Searchenginewatching CivilWarLand In Bad Decline
War coverage starts here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:11 PM | Permalink

Google, Yahoo! and Server Status Codes 404 and 410

The “Meet the Crawler” sessions at SES are always high on my personal “not to be missed” list. The session at San Jose was as ever interesting and informative. One take-away was that both Google and Yahoo! treat server codes 404 and 410 as though they are the same. They are not the same; otherwise there would be no need for two codes. It was apparent from the discussion during the session that these codes are so often confused and misused that it is less problematic for the search engines to treat them alike.

So, what’s the difference, and what is the correct usage of each? Officially, the 4xx series of codes are used to indicate that the there is an error at the client side. This is often the result of a mistyped URL. In these instances, the server delivers the familiar 404 error. The 410 code on the other hand signals that the resource has been intentionally removed.

It is possible to trigger a 404 message by simply typing in the domain followed by random numbers and letters, such as www.mysite.com/fudsec. This behavior will not generate a 410 response. The 410 code is a code of intention, not just an error message. The server must be told to deliver the 410 code for the It is used to signal that a URL in fact existed at the server at the location requested but has been removed, stricken, eliminated, gone, don’t ask for it again gone.

When Google and Yahoo! encounter a 404, they do not immediately remove the page from the index but rather will revisit multiple times before taking the drastic step of dropping the page from the index. By treating the 404 and the 410 similarly, the search engines make it more difficult to cause the accidental removal of pages. As the discussion during the Q & A at SES indicated, search marketers should be aware that delivering a 410 code will not result in more rapid removal of these pages from the search indices and will not prevent Yahoo! and Google from re-crawling the URLs.

Posted by amandawatlington at 9:09 AM | Permalink

New Yahoo! Shortcuts Announced

Yahoo! announced the addition of 3 new enhanced shortcuts designed to aid the consumer search experience. These enable users to refine their searches more rapidly, as the shortcuts help them understand the most common options used by others. The shortcuts announced by Yahoo! are focused on NFL players, consumer electronics, and medical conditions and medications. Here are some sample searches:

  1. Tom Brady
  2. digital camera
  3. colon cancer

This is extremely similar to what we saw from Google when they launched the "Topics" functionality and the Google Coop program. Here are some sample searches for how this works with Google:

  1. Parkinson's
  2. diabetes

As you can see, the structure is very similar. Google has not placed that much emphasis on the Google Topics program, but they have continued to show the Topics links for medical searches, so presumably they have gotten good user feedback on the functionality.

Overall, it's a nice enhancement by Yahoo!

Posted by Eric Enge at 8:24 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Waiting for Google to Exhale

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Waiting for Google to Exhale," Kevin Ryan asks what universal search and refined paid search are really changing.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Segmenting Site Visitors to Enhance Conversions

In today's By the Numbers column, "Segmenting Site Visitors to Enhance Conversions," Eric Enge tells you how to segment your site visitors for actionable analyses that are so important for Web site success.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 28, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 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 11:39 PM | Permalink

Scoble Marches Mahalo Off To War

All's Quiet On The Eastern Front.

John Battelle weighs in here and escapes to the Vineyard. As for a GOOG Death By Facebook...Battelle says, might could, sort of. No dice on Techmeme-Mahalo.

Jason Calacanis is in the Catskills when he claims an F bomb drops and he doesn't mean Facebook.

After all the comments are in, Calacanis will decide whether to play Czar Alexander to Scoble's Rasputin.

Will Calacanis man up and march on Mountain View?

Or are we searchenginewatching CivilWarLand In Bad Decline?

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:15 PM | Permalink

Yahoo!, Now with More Local Listings

Directory Publisher R.H. Donnelley announced today that it will partner with Yahoo! to give its advertisers more substantial presence on Yahoo! Local. This is part of its "triple play" effort to gain local listings distribution in print (Dex Directories), IYP (DexKnows) and through online partners.

Analagous to the long term triple play efforts of cable providers and telecos (bundling voice, data, and video products), this works towards gaining better distribution of existing content. In this case, the content is the listings that RHD's sales force brings in through traditional yellow pages ad sales.

According to the press release, this will come in three flavors:

Featured Listings — Sponsored listings with guaranteed placement on the first or second search results pages for broader exposure in a specific geography or category

Enhanced Listings — Sponsored listings that offer the ability to add a detailed business description, photos, tagline and coupons to create greater online visibility for businesses and enhance their appearance within organic results

Yahoo! Maps Business Listings — Sponsored listings within the context of a map-based view

The new addition gives the sales channel another tool in its toolbelt -- one that advertisers are increasingly asking for -- for a better cross-platform product. Direct distribution on Yahoo! Local also augments the general effort at RHD towards better online distribution, similarly accelerated a year ago when it acquired LocalLaunch.

This also joins other similar deals that have been formed in the past such as that between Superpages and Google; and you can expect directories/IYPs to increasingly develop online distribution and better ad bundling efforts.

As examined in the Kelsey Group's Local Search and IYP forecast released in March, IYPs will see a greater CAGR than the aggregate local search market, because of their physical sales channel, and the ability to execute more effectively on cross platform sales strategies.

For RHD, This deal applies to the 14 state region (Western and Midwestern states), where it distributes print directories, and where its sales force roams.

Posted by MikeBoland at 7:10 PM | Permalink

Keep an Eye on Image Search

Image search is playing an increasingly important role in search engine optimization, and SEOs should develop strategies for optimizing a web site to receive this type of traffic. In today's SearchDay, "Image Search in the SEO Picture," Eric Enge looks at some of the trends and tips on image search optimization that he picked up at SES San Jose last week.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:46 PM | Permalink

Yahoo! Support for Dynamic URL Rewriting

Last week at SES, Yahoo! added support for dynamic URL rewriting. Basically, this is a new feature in Yahoo! Site Explorer, that allows you to specify parameters on your URLs that you would like the Yahoo! crawler to ignore. After years of helping people get rid of Session IDs on their URLs, this is a really great thing to see. You can read the details on Dynamic URL Rewriting by Yahoo! here.

Yahoo! has continued to push on these types of features, and so has Google. I would like to urge the search engines to collaborate on these features. Ultimately, it's the availability in all the search engines that makes them powerful. As it stands now, if I had a client with a dynamic URL parameter problem, I would have them setup the new feature in Yahoo! as a stop gap, and still be working with them to get them removed because this feature is not supported by Google.

Props to Yahoo! for adding the feature, but now I need it from Google too. There are plenty of areas in which to compete, most notably that of search quality, or in new frontier areas of search. In the area of making the webmasters job easier, I believe that all the engines will derive the most benefit by collaboration.

Posted by Eric Enge at 10:27 AM | Permalink

What People Reveal

What people reveal…depends on the venue. When you attend a family gathering, your discussion is surely different than among business colleagues. The updates you share at college reunions would be different than your chats with daily running buddies. Likewise, your communications on social sites seem to vary too.

Recently, Facebook announced their new ads based on your social connections. They plan to target text ads based on your expressed interests as well as what your friends find interesting.

Let's assume that other social sites adopted this approach. The targeted ads would differ by site and your unique, changing connections there. That's probably a good thing. Why?

-- Different network, different act. Let’s say that my Facebook friends are within the Bay Area group, and we share local haunts. Over at MySpace, I’m parading around as a world-class alpinist and that’s my declared persona.

-- Different network, specific connections. In this case, I’m sharing my Flickr photos with family. Even if my family members have interesting careers, I’m more interested in checking out their vacation and kids. I might get a kick out of looking at their bungie-jumping experience too.

-- Different network, specialized purpose. Over on LinkedIn, I’m pretty sure my first degrees are work colleagues, suppliers or customers. I don’t have a really tight handle on my second degree connections, though I have managed to re-connect with old colleagues there.

If I’m expecting to see different ads because of my own interests, then that makes sense. It's almost business as usual. However if I see ads that would interest others in my different networks, would they resonate with me? Well, the jury’s still out, but at least we'll be able to find out as participants -- and future advertisers -- on Facebook and other networks to follow.

Posted by debbyr at 1:37 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Tools of the Trade

In today's au Natural column, "Tools of the Trade," Mark Jackson recommends several useful tools for running an effective search engine optimization campaign.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Scaling Your Big Business Internationally

In today's Big Biz column, "Scaling Your Big Business Internationally," Aaron Shear tells you what to expect when expanding your business internationally.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 27, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 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 11:15 PM | Permalink

Scoble Predicts Google Death By Facebook

Notify the SEC.

Analyst blogger Robert Scoble predicts the demise of Google within four years. He boldly outlines a Future Search engine combination of Facebook-Techmeme-Mahalo technology that will spell doom for Google. The Naked Conversationalist has become the Naked Shorter.

In a video worthy of the best linkbait, Scoble predicts SEOs -- those reviled search engine marketers and search engine optimizers he hates with a passion -- will be walled out of the digital fortress.

"No SEO goddammit," he cries out. "No noise!"

Scoble's theory is powered by the search algorithm underlying Facebook: social graphed-based search, In simple terms, social search is based on the concept of six degrees of separation. We’re all separated from anyone in the world by six people or less. We belong to social groups of varying sizes and different functions. In a social graph, those online connections can help people do things: make new friends, rediscover old ones, network for business purposes or share their preferences in music, film, TV, sports, shopping and other quasi-terrestrial activities.

As with any apocalyptic prediction, Scoble knows he's going to be wrong. In 2011, the Googleplex won't be the Pan Am building of Silicon Valley. As New Influencer valleygirls and gamers say, he's just wrong on so many levels.

Scoble gets one thing right, though. Facebook is a search engine.

Advertisers and marketers refer to Facebook and MySpace as “social media.” To some, they're social networks. Sure it's more web 2.0, but Facebook is a vertical search engine. As Scoble notes, the vertical is people search. What makes the search functionality different? It's driven by people, content can be proprietary, search engines can't see inside video streams.

Check out the video anyway. Scoble rises to the defense of Matt Cutts whom he feels was savaged by SEOs at Search Engine Strategies last week in San Jose.

Viewers may not be mesmerized by algorithms that weave the digital fabric of social search. However, Scoble’s whiteboard explanation is a valiant attempt at explaining a complex subject to a general audience. It’s fun to watch because he’s so passionate about his argument.

The three part video begins with a seemingly nervous Scoble, not really sounding quite sure of himself, proclaiming the death of Google. A pro vlogger, perhaps he's having second thoughts about the accuracy of his prediction. His confidence, however, increases as he builds his anti-Google argument.

What's getting his goat?

In short, he's having a Twelve Monkeys moment. Scoble worries Google will suffer the same fate as Microsoft, unable to transform its infrastructure to compete with more nimble platforms. Scoble left Redmond after Micosoft failed to heed his warnings. Now he walks in the Valley of the shadow of Google and fears no evil.

“Finally I have something that does something better than Google,” he writes in a blog comment. Deus ex machina. Plus, if he's right, the FTC will rubber stamp the Google-Doubleclick-Performics merger.

The catch? It's not just Google's technology that created the most popular brand in the world.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:01 PM | Permalink

Compete announces Best-In-Show SES 2007 Awards

Alex Patriquin has posted the winner's of the Best-In-Show 2007 SES Awards on the Compete Blog. Selected by Compete, it honors "our fellow exhibitors who impressed us with their awesome marketing genius."

(The envelope, please.)

For Best Short-Attention-Span Toy, the winner was No More Landing Pages! They gave away the classic Paddle Ball game. According to Compete, "The retro toy landed in the tchotchkes totes of SES 2007’s most discriminating schwag masters."

In the category of Best Tongue-In-Cheek Giveaway, the winner was Omniture! The company handed out chocolate chip cookies for SES. "The web analytics company, which cookies visitors for tracking purposes, served up persistently tasty treats for attendees with a sweet tooth for incisive data," said the judges from Compete.

The winner in the Best Giant Gold Panhandle category was iProspect! Compete thinks, "iProspect struck it rich with a larger-than-life recreation of every search marketer’s ultimate dream: a pan full of gigantic gold nuggets."

The Best “Show Me the Money” Experience award went to Adapt! According to Compete, "Adapt offered adventurous SES attendees the chance to grab thousands in search marketing promotions, if they dared to become an 'SEM-in-a-Box' by stepping into a wind chamber where discount flyers flew fast and furious."

Finally, the Best On-The-Spot LifeHack went to Jingle Networks 1-800-Free411! According to Compete, they were winners for "offering out-of-town SES attendees a free connection to local services from a bevy of translucent tangerine phones."

Now, I don't know if PricewaterhouseCoopers ensured the secrecy of the Best-In-Show 2007 SES Awards voting process. But I do think it's high time that the exhibitors at SES started to get a little more attention from the small army of online journalists and bloggers that now cover the show.

Hey, even I found some "news nuggets" on the trade show floor. But, that's an article for another day.

Posted by GregJarboe at 4:56 PM | Permalink

Search and Offline Converge

At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose last week, ClickZ editor Matthew Nelson saw lots of evidence of the interaction between search with other media, including offline media. He shares his experiences at ClickZ News in "Search and Offline Marketing Converge at SES San Jose."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:08 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Tips for Being a Great PPC Client

In today's Search Ads column, "Tips for Being a Great PPC Client," Tony Wright tells you what it takes to be a great PPC client, getting the most out of the client-agency relationship.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 24, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 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 11:49 PM | Permalink

Microsoft Changing Trademark Policy For PPC Advertising

The Microsoft adCenter announced it will be changing its trademark policy in September.

While "[t]he heart of the trademark policy is unchanged". adCenter reported, but they will not keep lists of approved affiliates etc.

They seem to be moving towards the Google model.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 4:41 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: A Tale of Two City Guides

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "A Tale of Two City Guides," local search expert Michael Boland reviews recent plans announced by Yahoo Local and CitySearch to enhance features and content, making local search a more competitive landscape.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Playing Dirty With PPC

In today's In-House column, "Playing Dirty With PPC," Rob Kerry gives in-house SEMs a few black hat PPC tricks, to help them keep up with competitors that choose to play dirty.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 23, 2007

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

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:59 PM | Permalink

SES San Jose Coverage

Tagged Posts & Pictures

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:51 PM | Permalink

Paid Links Discussions at San Jose

SES San Jose has come to a close. It was another memorable event. One of the more interesting impressions I have of the whole event are the various flavors of the paid links debate.

For example, Michael Gray, aka Graywolf, assured his fame by starting his presentation in one of the link related panels with a slide that said "Google is not the government". At this point, Michael was just warming up.

In another links session, one person got the microphone, and kept control of it for 20 minutes. They just would not let go of one aspect of the paid links issue. Specifically, there were insistent that one problem with Google's stance on paid links is that Mom and Pop sites might buy links without knowing that this was not something that the search engines want them to do. The person then persited in stating that they might get banned and that this might not be fair.

Let's get real folks. The person with the mic did not care about Mom and Pop sites. That person was angry. People (generally) do not get angry about what happens to other people's web sites that they never heard of.

Danny Sullivan was moderating this session, and offered up a more reasonable concern, which was that Google should find a better algorithm so that whether or not someone bought links was not at issue. It's a fine idea, and I am sure that Google will implement it as soon as they can think of a way to do so. Let me assure you, there is no one at Google who is in love with the problems related to paid links.

Fundamentally, the problem is that using uncompensated links to a given site as votes for that site represents one of the best ways to evaluate which site is the best site. No simple alternative exists for this basic algorithm. Don't get me wrong - there is tons of money being spent by all the engines to investigate alternative algorithms. The big push on personalization is a just one example of this.

At the end of the day, my crude outsider's understanding of the Google policy on paid links is this:

  1. Buying links is NOT evil.
  2. It is against their Webmaster Guidelines to buy links for purposes of influencing Page Rank and your search engine placements.
  3. As a result, buy links for traffic and branding, not for search engine ranking purposes.
  4. They reserve the right to assign no Page Rank value to any paid links they uncover.
  5. If you engage in egregious or deceptive practices, they may ban you.

Note that Yahoo! and Ask echoed similar sentiments in the session.

Posted by Eric Enge at 10:45 PM | Permalink

What's Your Mobile Search Strategy?

Mobile search is set to explode with the entry of the iPhone and its competitors to the market. Instead of worrying about building a WAP-enabled site, Michael Boland suggests that webmasters should get their sites ready for mobile search via mobile browsers by engaging in tried and true SEO tactics, and providing as much relevant business information as possible to internet yellow pages and local search providers. Learn more in today's SearchDay, "Mobile Search and SMEs: Stay Right Where You Are."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:40 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Training Link Developers to Become Marketing Gurus

In today's Link Love column, "Training Link Developers to Become Marketing Gurus," Justilien Gaspard continues his link training theme with a focus on training link developers to use marketing tactics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 22, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 22, 2007

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

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:55 PM | Permalink

Can PPC Help Your Organic Rankings?

Often the question is asked "Do PPC listings affect your organic rankings?" or "Will Google apply bonus points to your organic rankings if you spend money on their paid listings?" The simple answer is no. Despite this, one of the best ways to increase your organic traffic is to start an aggressive PPC campaign.

In today's SearchDay, "Can PPC Listings Affect Organic Rankings?" Craig Paddock outlines some of the benefits a PPC campaign can bring to your organic SEO, including:

  • Generating Keyphrase Data
  • Increasing Link Popularity
  • Branding to Increase Organic Click-thru Rate

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:30 PM | Permalink

How Many Vandals?

Exactly 187,529 different organizations have made at least one anonymous Wikipedia edit. That seems like a very large number of editors who wanted to hide their changes -- but were they all vandals?

Grad student Virgil Griffith created WikiScanner recently to uncover surreptitious editors. He’s certainly raised awareness of these activities, as reported by Wired and amplified by the NYTimes last Sunday. Some pretty well-known companies and even the CIA are making these edits to Wikipedia entries.

On his site, Griffith identifies three kinds of vandalism and disinformation. “Without naming names, I’ve found three types of common vandalism: (1) Wholesale removal of entire paragraphs of critical information; (2) White-washing -- replacing negative/neutral adjectives with positive adjectives that mean something similar; and (3) Adding negative information to a competitor's page.”

He used publicly available information, starting with Wikipedia’s database dumps between early August 2007 and February 2002. He discovered over 34 million anonymous edits in that time period. Then he identified organizations based on IP addresses, using IP2Location tools.

Why does it matter? Simply put, Wikipedia attracts traffic that's interested in your organization. Craig Paddock reported that "despite its current use of no-follow tags, Wikipedia’s ability to generate high-quality traffic can be equal to or better than that of most search engines."

Like any social community, organizations and their marketers should pay attention to this user-generated content and to their online reputations. However, the marketers should not be hiding in plain sight. My hope is that this “revealing” process will drive down anonymous posters. Correct things publicly, and let your customers speak for themselves too.

Posted by debbyr at 3:41 PM | Permalink

Yahoo to Offer Dynamic URL Rewriting

Yahoo is addressing the needs of site owners with dynamic URLs with new dynamic URL rewriting features in Site Explorer. The new feature lets webmasters identify the dynamic parameters in URLs that Yahoo should ignore, such as parameters that don't affect the content of a page, but that have other important uses. Yahoo can then strip the dynamic parameters in URLs and rewrite them, making crawling more efficient, and making display of URLs in search results easier to read. It can also improve a page's ranking in results, since it will counteract the dissipation of "link juice" from links to different URLs linking to the same page.

In addition, Yahoo has made improvements to its crawling and indexing systems. The changes are intended to create a fresher, more comprehensive index, while also reducing load requirements on Web sites being crawled.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:56 PM | Permalink

Some tidbits from SES San Jose

SES San Jose is now into it's third day. As always, it's a great show. There is lots of stuff happening with search and web marketing, which is the juice that drives these events. One of the most notable things is the fact that the show has evidently set an attendance record.

At least that's the rumor on the show floor, but it also looks that way based on the number of people walking around the convention center. This place is packed. In one of the sessions I sat in on, one of the speakers asked how many people were at their first SES. By my estimate about half the room raised their hands. It's an incredible testament to how the industry is growing.

One of the most interesting factoids I heard what that 15% to 16% of all searches are for images. If you haven't been looking seriously at image search, you really should think about this again. Particularly with the advent of universal search, as image results will have an increasing role in the web search results.

Speaking of universal search, one of the areas that is already pretty making great progress is the way they can key in on your location (by IP address for example) and show you relevant local results. This is another area that represents a huge opportunity for search marketers.

So many opportunities ... and so little time, but that, after all, is what makes it fun and interesting.

Posted by Eric Enge at 1:27 PM | Permalink

Microsoft to Offer Content Ads to All Advertisers

Microsoft's contextual ad units, previously available to a limited number of advertisers in a year-old pilot program, will soon be available to all U.S. advertisers.

Beginning August 29, all advertisers will have their ads shown in the Content Ads network of contextual ad placements on several Microsoft-owned sites, as well as partners Facebook and Digg. At launch, much of the inventory is in vertical areas like health, technology and finance. More third-party sites in those key verticals are expected to be added through partnerships in coming months. A self-service publisher sign-up similar to Google AdSense is expected to launch some time next year.

Bids for Content Ads will be set at an advertiser's current Broad Match bid for each ad group. If no Broad Match bid is present, the system will look for a Phrase Match bid, and then an Exact Match bid. In this way, the Content Ads will tend to use the lowest bid set for each group. New ad groups will include Content Ads by default, though advertisers can opt out of Content Ads at any time.

The pilot was expanded earlier this year with a new release of adCenter, and included several thousand advertisers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:12 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Public Relations Train Wrecks

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Public Relations Train Wrecks," Kevin Ryan reports in from SES on the press and search optimization controversy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Review of "Web Analytics, An Hour a Day" by Avinash Kaushik

In today's By the Numbers column, "Review of "Web Analytics, An Hour a Day" by Avinash Kaushik," Eric Enge reviews Avinash Kaushik's basic philosophy of Web analytics as defined in his new book, which helps you learn how to view analytics the right way.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 21, 2007

Search Headlines & Links: August 21, 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 11:08 PM | Permalink

We All Love Widgets

There’s plenty of exuberance about widgets.

As website publishers, we embrace widgets for many reasons. Let's count some of the ways:

1. They help us create social functionality.
2. They cut down on development cycles.
3. They allow us to share our published content.
4. They enable us to provide more external content.
5. They let us become more dynamic and relevant.

So, how do publishers decide which widgets matter? Seems to be based on differentiation. Some publishers choose to push the envelope -- incorporating widgets that enable them to offer services unlike their competitors. In most cases, it’s all about keeping up with the Joneses.

When hearing about the dizzying array of social tools, publishers have to determine if these tools really matter competitively or are merely representing a tech-wave.

Even when sold on widgets, many publishers express concern when trying to insert anything from external suppliers. Of course, these concerns emanate from control issues. What if inappropriate content or terms appear? How much branding do we need? What if the performance is slow, and the widget doesn’t load properly? All are appropriate concerns -- whether the widgets are freely available or obtained by cutting deals with specialized suppliers.

As competitors seek to increase their visitors and traffic flow, there’s no question that widgets enable publishers to move more quickly. No publisher can afford to specialize in all the content and sharing tools out there. It’s not a perfect world, but it's pretty nice that we have all of these amazing features at our fingertips. Let’s at least encourage a little risk taking out there.

Posted by debbyr at 5:50 PM | Permalink

Kevin Heisler Joins SEW as Executive Editor

We at Search Engine Watch are delighted to now be working with Kevin Heisler, who joins us this week as the site's executive editor. Kevin will be overseeing all editorial aspects of the site -- and we couldn't have hoped for someone with better qualifications or expertise in the field.

He's at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose this week. If you see him, say hello - and congratulations.

Most recently, Kevin was search analyst at Jupiter Research. He's also got hands-on expertise in the industry as an executive at Did-It and 360i. Kevin's articles have been published in The Charlotte Observer, Business North Carolina magazine, The International Business Chronicle, and Dow Jones’ local business newspapers, The Business Journal.

The downside? Well, he's going to be Kevin #3 around here. We've already got Kevin Newcomb as SEW's news editor, and of course, Kevin Ryan overseeing SES. Nickname suggestions greatly appreciated -- before all these Kevins start getting one another's e-mails and calls!

SEW's sister site, ClickZ, got a new executive editor this week, too!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:37 PM | Permalink

SES San Jose Coverage, Day 1

General Coverage

Session Coverage