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February 2008

February 29, 2008

Baidu Search Engine Launches IM in Beta - Baidu Hi

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Search engine Baidu has launched instant messaging (IM) in beta, the first formal foray into the Chinese IM market. The "Baidu Hi" service won't be expected to generate revenue in the short term. But the Chinese search titan must find a way to diversify its revenue base.

The Chinese language search engine recently launched a Japanese portal.

Baidu, China's most popular search engine, has more than 60 percent of the search engine industry revenues, according to Analysys International, a Beijing-based research firm.

Google China holds second place with about 26 percent share.

Yahoo China site remains in third with a little less than 10 percent share.

Baidu considers the service a strategic product, according to the Chinese search engine's press release issued tonight.

As with Google, search drives revenue for the fast-growing Baidu. For the past three years Baidu has doubled in size every year. The growth rate may drop to 30 percent in the next five years as Baidu's revenue base grows.

The beta is restricted to Baidu employees only. No word on how long the beta will last or when the product will officially launch.

One company, Tencent, based in Shenzhen has about 80 percent of the IM market share in China with its QQ service. How large is Tencent's customer base? QQ has 580 million users. The company earned 1 billion yuan in the Q3 last year through Internet services.

In second place, Microsoft's MSN Instant Messaging runs far behind Tencent's QQ platform.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:06 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: February 29, 2008

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 7:00 PM | Permalink

Aaron Wall Shows Yahoo Lagging On Indexing Sites

Seems Yahoo has really been falling behind in updating their databases, according to Aaron Wall's article today.

This is something all people who work in the SEO area should be taking notice of since Yahoo has had good conversion numbers for many of us and if the efforts to add more content are not being recognized by Yahoo then efforts may be better spent improving existing pages - though even this may not be possible.

Yahoo has gone through a number of changes both to its system and its personnel lately so hopefully this will soon be remedied.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 6:58 PM | Permalink

Would Ask be Ask?

Ask.com If Ask dismantled its Teoma engine, would Ask still be Ask? The simple answer to this existential question is no.

The Ask search is based on the concept of expert opinion, and there are many refinement options shown in the interface based on clustered or categorized results.

So if Teoma were shut down, we think the ability to narrow or expand searches would likely disappear -- as shown in the chocolate options here.

On the other hand, it's possible to port these algorithms elsewhere if there's enough time for Ask engineers to prepare transitions. That means these search refinements could be layered on top of a different engine, albeit slowing down the response time.

According to PaidContent, the ad deal between Google and Ask includes "a clause allowing Google to engage more deeply with Ask’s algorithmic search." If the algorithms from Joisey were connected inside of Google, then these functionalities live on.

Not sure what's planned here, but we can't take the user-interface for granted with a simple plug-in.

Posted by debbyr at 3:32 PM | Permalink

SEMPO Running Agency Salary Survey

Having successfully completed an in-house search marketers' salary survey in the fall (with results in January), SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is conducting an online salary survey of agency-based search marketers.

The survey presents less than 30 questions and can be completed in an estimated 12 minutes. It's open now and will run through mid March. Results of the survey will be published in connection with ad:tech San Francisco in April.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:53 PM | Permalink

Google Content Network Ads Performing Better?

An informal poll by Enid Burns at ClickZ News finds that many agencies that advertise on Google's content network have seen improved results over the past six months.

Some credit the changes Google has made to improve the network, such as placement targeting, performance reports, and new ad units on Google's search, content, and mobile networks. Google also shrank the clickable area of AdSense ads to to limit accidental clicks.

Incidentally, that shrinkage is attributed by some as the cause for ComScore’s report of flat click growth for Google, among other declining click volume theories.

This fits with the trend of decreasing AdSense income being reported by publishers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:00 PM | Permalink

The Google Killer - comScore (SCOR) Doomsday Scenario

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ComScore did what Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and Digg only dreamed of.

ComScore killed the search engine star.

ComScore data on Google paid clicks rocked the world this week. The proprietary comScore qSearch report was analyzed to death by Wall St. analysts and media pundits. Data: summarized and judged; Google, convicted, flogged and sentenced to an early demise.

It wasn't hit and run, though: comScore's SVP of Media and Search, James Lamberti, and CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Magid Abraham delve deep into the data to correct the rush to judgment in the marketplace. It's a must-read. Great analysis; surprisingly lifeless title: "Why Google's surprising paid click data are less surprising."

It should've been "Data doesn't kill Google, people do."

QSearch showed a 7 percent decline in January '08 vs. December ‘07. Paid click annual growth? Flat for Google.

Month-over-month the number of paid clicks per search on Google dropped by 8 percent (December '07 to January '08). Consumers clicking less on search ads? Maybe. A weaker buying appetite?

Google's share price took a hit and rebounded. Reports of Google's early demise? Greatly exaggerated. That doesn't mean the momentum-driven Google shares won't take a hit if Google fails to impress the Street this quarter.

Wall St. analysts - looking for clues where Google gives no guidance - had accomplices: mainstream media and bloggers hoping for a Google stumble.

No one wants to miss the Hindenburg. The only problem? The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly when Google news goes viral.

The Google backlash reared its ugly head and this time it wasn't just Valleywag.

LendingTree whose multimillion dollar paid search campaigns are managed by search marketing firm Efficient Frontier, made public its new online marketing strategy: cutting back on PPC or paid search.

LendingTree spokesperson Allison Vail was quoted in CNET News.com by Stefanie Olsen.

"With the Fed changes in January, we were driving natural traffic. It's smarter for us," said Vail.

Our readers know it's always smart to optimize for natural search. I'm not sure anecdotal evidence from a financial services pure play in the throes of a global subprime mortgage crisis proves paid search revenues are declining.

Statistics from search marketing firms, though, would lend credence to the argument.

For average CPC (Cost Per Click) by industry vertical (Financial Services, Mortgage, Credit, Auto), click here.

Efficient Frontier Chairman Ellen Siminoff, chairman told CNET that paid search advertising spendi in financial services has typically risen between 30 percent and 50 percent annually.

So far this year it's either flat or down for some companies. credit and mortgage advertisers raised their spending by 24 percent, but this year, their spending has risen only 3 percent year over year, according to Efficient Frontier data.

Coming soon: Efficient Frontier / Search Engine Watch Average CPC data for February.

Be the first investment banker or hedge fund manager on your block to see the stats.


Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:24 PM | Permalink

Google Yahoo MSN Live Sitemaps: Cross-Hosting Grokked by SEOs for SEOs

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With sitemaps cross-hosting (or cross-submission), Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft cracked open the door for corporations to outsource search engine optimization.

How big a deal is this?

Not enough to make Robert Scoble cry. Or join the circus.

When SEL broke the news at SMX (described in excellent summary by Vanessa Fox of vanessfoxnude fame), I was hoping for a revolutionary change. Then I read the blog posts at the Google Webmaster Central, Yahoo Search and Live Search Webmaster Center blogs so you don't have to. (I'm just kidding all you search engine PR gals … and guy.)

Robots.txt ruined my night. I felt like I was decepticonned - hoping for the breakthrough that would make outsourcing SEO much easier for major corporations. Or an announcement that might provide guidance for SEOs to improve rankings for their clients.

SEW Experts SEM Crossfire columnist Chris Boggs ended the robots nightmare: "I think it's a big step forward in making it easier for companies to outsource, but the caveat is having full access to the robots.txt. Some industries such as banking and pharma may still have issues."

Still, we don't want to beat up on the search engines (unnecessarily). In the past, search engines required companies with multiple Web sites to have "one set of servers to rule them all."

In short, search engines required sitemaps to be on the same host and path as the URLs they contained. That meant the same server needed to host both sitemaps and site content.

Google, Yahoo and Live Search put aside their fierce competition for a moment to make life a little easier for Webmasters and SEOs by standardizing sitemaps in November 2006, when the Big Three formed Sitemaps.org.

SEW Experts By The Numbers columnist, Eric Enge, CEO of Stone Temple Consulting, noted, "The announcement affects Web site owners who don't have the freedom to place a sitemaps file in the root directory of the domain. Historically, site owners without the ability to place a file in the root folder for their domain haven't been able to make use of sitemaps."

A cross-hosting sitemaps scenario or two?

"There are many scenarios. Shared hosting environments and people in large corporations who may be running subdomains of a much larger site," said Enge. "This now allows them to place the sitemaps file in a different location, even on another server or domain. The sitemaps file then needs to be pointed to by the robots.txt file for the original domain. The site owner will still need the ability to make that change."

Search Engine Watch, for example, has several domains and subdomains. Our main domain, searchenginewatch.com, features a few subdomains: blog.searchenginewatch.com, forums.searchenginewatch.com and jobs.searchenginewatch.com, for example.

Now we can host all our sitemaps in one location or subdomain: such as "notreally-oursitemaps.searchenginewatch.com."

So what does cross-hosting mean for the global SEO community?

"Ultimately this opens up the site maps protocol to a large number of site owners who couldn't make use of it before," said Enge. "The SEO impact really relates to that fact. SEOs may not have been able to use sitemaps on a site previously, due to the limitations of the prior implementation. Now those SEOs have the capability available to them."

Cool.

"The impact of offsite hosting for sitemaps? It will make it easier for sitemap management by allowing site owners to manage multiple sitemaps in one location," explained Lee Odden of TopRank. "It will also make it easier for those with sites that use subdomains."

So bottom line: will SEOs be able to leverage cross-hosting to improve rankings for targeted keywords?

"As for impact on rankings, it's no different than the effect of making sitemap data available previously," said Odden. "Providing a list of URLs to search engines serves as a supplemental source of information to what their spiders would find in the wild."

Here's how it works:

"Search engines make no guarantee that providing URLs in a sitemap will increase the number of pages indexed - but they might," said Odden. "So in that regard, making it easier for sites that previously did not provide sitemaps, especially subdomains, may help them get more pages indexed, but I see no effect on actual rankings."

For the Google Guy's take on sitemaps, nofollow and other great tips, read the highest ranked Matt Cutts interview ever done (by Eric Enge).

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:01 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now

The question comes up often in search marketing circles: Is now the time for search engine marketing standards? In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now," Chris Boggs outlines a proposal for standards that define common tactics and assign them a risk level to help search marketers make wise decisions about the most appropriate search marketing plan for their situation.

Do you agree with Chris? Please share your thoughts on establishing SEO standards at the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Drowning in Red Tape: SEO and Pharma Regulations

In many industries, regulatory issues can add considerable complexity to an SEO implementation. The challenge is not to let that complexity get in the way of a campaign's success. In today's Outsourced column, "Drowning in Red Tape: SEO and Pharma Regulations," William Flaiz describes some ways to navigate the waters of SEO for a pharmaceutical client.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 28, 2008

Search Headlines & Links: February 28, 2008

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

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:00 PM | Permalink

7 Ways Brands Can "Get Social"

Many brands are wary of exposing themselves on social media sites, but as anyone who's been involved in social media for more than five minutes knows, they're too late. In today's SearchDay, "The Role of the Brand in Social Media Marketing," Userplane's Mike Jones shares seven social marketing tactics to help your brand "get social" and join the conversation:

1. Boost the Fun Factor
2. See the Forest and the Trees
3. Widgets are Welcome
4. Conversation is King
5. Engage
6. Research and Listen
7. Don't Go It Alone

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:14 PM | Permalink

Schedule optimization for SES New York

The biggest Search Engine Strategies conference of the year will be held the week of March 17 in New York City. Whether this will be your first SES New York, or the fifth one in a row that you’ve attended since 2004, you might appreciate some free advice on schedule optimization.

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One look at the conference at a glance will tell you why. There are more than 70 workshops, keynotes, panels and sessions over the four-day Search Engine Strategies conference. And, on the fifth day, there are an additional six SEM training classes following SES New York.

Since there are five concurrent tracks during the four-day Search Engine Strategies conference and three concurrent workshops during the fifth day of SEM training, no one can attend everything. This is not daunting to the first-time attendee. It is also a challenge to someone like me, who attended SES New York in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. I’m looking at last year’s conference handbook and this year’s conference at a glance and more than 70% of the sessions are new!

Now, Danny Sullivan programmed last year’s show and Kevin Ryan organized this year’s agenda. But, that’s only one of the factors driving the dramatic changes in the content at the event.

On the last day of last year’s Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City, Google announced its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, which is still pending. A couple of weeks later, Yahoo! acquired the remaining 80% of Right Media for $680 million. Then, last May, Microsoft acquired aQuantive for $6 billion. Last July, Microsoft acquired AdECN for an undisclosed amount of money and in September, Yahoo! acquired BlueLithium for $300 million in cash. Then, on Feb. 1 of this year, Microsoft proposed to acquire Yahoo! for $44.6 billion.

That’s a lot of M&A news for the industry to digest – and our search engine marketing definition needs to be rewritten this year.

And our search engine optimization definition needs to be totally rewritten, too.

About a month after last year’s SES New York, Google announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model that offers users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online. It was the biggest thing to hit the search engine marketing industry since Google’s Florida Update in November 2003.

In June 2007, Ask3D was launched. In September 2007, Microsoft launched its biggest update to Live Search since its debut in January 2005. And in October 2007, “an all new Yahoo! Search experience” was launched.

Meanwhile, comScore reports that YouTube, Google Image Search, Google Maps and Google News are approaching 1.6 billion searches a month, which is more than Live Search. In other words, Google (6.2 billion searches a month) is the #1 search engine, Yahoo! (2.4 billion) is #2, YouTube and all other Google “expanded” search sites (1.6 billion) would be #3, and Microsoft’s Live Search (1 billion) is #4.

So, is it any wonder that even SES alumni are heading back to New York?

So, to help industry veterans as well as search newbies, I’ve put together the optimized schedule below for the Search Engine Strategies conference that starts on Saint Patrick’s Day in the Big Apple.

Now, when you get to SES New York, you’ll make adjustments on the fly. As Bob Shirilla of Keepsakes Etc. told me at SES Chicago back in December, “I had a detailed game plan when I came to SES, but I’m calling a lot of audibles.”

Nevertheless, schedule optimization will help you get the return on marketing investment that you’re looking for. Here are the workshops, keynotes, panels and sessions that I’d recommend:

Day 1 - Monday, March 17, 2008

9:30-10:45am
Creating Compelling Ads
Organic Listings Forum

11:15am-12:30pm
Analytics: Data Into Action
Igniting Viral Campaigns

2:00-3:15pm
Web Analytics: Measuring Success
Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues

3:45-5:00pm
Orion Panel: Getting Vertical Search Right

Day 2 - Tuesday, March 18, 2008

9:00-10:00am
Conference Welcome and Opening Keynote
Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google


Nick Carr, SES New York 2008, The Big Switch

11:00am-12:15pm
Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
Ads in a Quality Score World

1:30-2:45pm
Orion Panel: Universal Search

3:15-4:30pm (Sponsored Sessions)
Hitwise: Know about Your Competitors' Paid and Organic Traffic
Google: What's new with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer?

4:45-6:00pm
Search Engine Friendly Design
Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic

Day 3 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008

9:00-9:45am
Morning Keynote
Gordon McLeod: Search Has Changed Everything... And So Can You

10:15-11:30am
Link Building Basics
Ad Testing: Research & Findings

1:00-2:15pm
Search Advertising 101
Top Search Trends

2:30-3:30pm
Afternoon Keynote
Jason Calacanis, Founder & CEO of Mahalo.com, Inc.

4:00-5:15pm
The New Face of In-House Search
Social Media Research: Informing Search Strategies

5:30-6:45pm
The Business Case for SEO Content Development: Turning Words Into Action!
Ad Exchanges Are Changing Everything

Day 4 - Thursday, March 20, 2008

9:00-9:45am
Morning Keynote
Andrew Tomkins, Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Research

10:00-11:00am
Usability & SEO: 2 Wins For The Price of 1
Podcast & Audio Search Optimization

11:15am-12:15pm
Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions
Images & Search Engines

12:45-1:45pm
Meet the Crawlers
Video Search Optimization

But wait! There’s more!

On Friday, March 21, there are six half-day SEM training classes, which can be taken in addition to the SES New York conference or independently – at an additional cost.

Again, look over the descriptions of each workshop to see which ones are for you. But, here are the SEM training classes that I’d recommend:

8:00am-12:00pm
Link and Reputation Workshop
Optimizing for Universal Search

1:00-5:00pm
Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness
The 7 Step RSS/Content Syndication/SEO Strategy

If you register for the Search Engine Strategies conference by tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 29, you can save $150. Conference attendees get free access to Market Motive training and Bruce Clay tools. And, if you attend SES New York, you could win a Scion xB! A free drawing will take place on Wednesday, March 19, in the Expo Hall.

I should disclose that Search Engine Strategies is now a client, but I’ve been writing about SES since 2002, when the March event was still held in Boston.

The search engine marketing industry has been totally transformed since then. For example, the keynote speaker at my first Search Engine Strategies conference was from Terra Lycos.

Remember them?

That’s why both industry veterans as well as search newbies will be heading to SES New York in a couple of weeks. The newbies will want to learn everything they can. And the veterans need to relearn most of what was being taught just a few years ago.

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Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR and Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit at SES London 2008

Posted by GregJarboe at 1:42 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Changes Minimum Bid Policy on Search Ads

Yahoo this week changed the way it will set minimum bids on some keywords in Sponsored Search ads in the U.S., bringing it closer in line with Google's policy. Instead of setting all minimum bids at $0.10, Yahoo will now allow the market to set a variable minimum bid. That means that in some cases, the minimum will be above $0.10, and in other cases it could be lower.

The minimum bids will be set based on the relevance of ads to a keyword, the number of bidders and their bid amounts. It will not be based on advertiser conversions. These kinds of factors are already used by Yahoo to rank ads based on a quality score, but the difference now applies to the minimum bid, or reserve price.

Google changed its minimum bid structure in July 2005. Many advertisers were not happy with the move at the time, but so far there does not seem to be much outcry in blogs or search marketing forums.

A key difference between Yahoo's new method and Google's is the institution of alerts and a grace period when the bid on a given keyword is about to fall below the minimum. Yahoo will notify advertisers in their Account Dashboard if a bid is about to drop below the minimum, and will offer a grace period of up to a few days to allow the advertiser to raise their bid to keep the keyword active.

The first batch of keywords goes live in the U.S. with the new reserve pricing model over the next few weeks, with more keywords to be added internationally in the future.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:36 AM | Permalink

The Search Engine Watch List, Part 1

Tamara
Chris
Ron
Patrick
Liana
David
Lauren
Jeffrey
Jordan
Greg
Jacob
Joan
Greg
Kevin
Heather
Brian
Perry
Paul
Lee
Mark
Steve
Ed
Phil
Eric
Jill

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:42 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Google is an Optimist. Newspapers are Pessimists.

The Internet is a speeding freight train. If newspapers, and for that matter all traditional media, don't begin immediately to think drastically different, the train will pass them by. In today's Link Love column, "Google is an Optimist. Newspapers are Pessimists.," Sage Lewis explains why today's newspapers have to stop making incremental moves while expecting gigantic results. They simply must become the center of innovation, courage and change.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Online SEO Training Options

There are both benefits and drawbacks to taking an online SEO training course. In today's SEM.EDU column, "Online SEO Training Options," Ron Jones outlines several options available across the Web, making it easy to learn SEO online.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2008

Search Headlines & Links: February 27, 2008

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 6:46 PM | Permalink

"Googlewash" Is Googlewashed by Online Reputation Defenders

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Googlewashing is now the domain of live nude girls.

SEO PR and online reputation management companies officially co-opted the word "Googlewashing" today with the help of KUSA, a Denver NBC TV station. Yesterday the local news affiliate broadcast a story about "cleaning up negative information on the Internet."

The story on embarassing photos and digital dirt resurrected the googlewash meme. Googlewashing now appears to be the domain of online reputation management companies like ReputationHawk.com, DefendMyName.com and ReputationDefender.com that charge to clean up your digital dirt.

Why else did googlewashing become such a hot topic on the day William F. Buckley Jr. died?

KUSA's report and Web site video features nude and topless young women (covered by black bars for TV and Web audiences). No doubt that sent viewers racing to the search engines - and spawned follow-up stories at other local TV Web sites and blogs.

Googlewashing started as a threat to free speech and not a solution to personal indiscretions.

Andrew Orlovski of The Register UK coined "googlewash" from the word "greenwash" - a spot of paint that "transforms" something rotten into something new. The reality? Nothing's changed.

The phrase that spurred Orlovski's imagination originated almost five years ago to the day (Feb 17, 2003). Patrick Tyler in a front page story in the New York Times wrote that global anti-war protests had become "the second superpower." Yet within 42 days, a small group of A-List tech bloggers had co-opted the phrase to mean something much more benign, pushing the anti-war slogan in the Times story further down in Google rankings.

That led Orlovski to realize Google had been "gamed" - and, he noted, the English language perverted - by the power of inbound links. The "meaning" of the phrase "second superpowers" had changed almost instantly.

Googlewashing soon morphed into googlebombing. The famous "miserable failure" ranking for President Bush (since eliminated by Google). Marissa Mayer responded to the controversy on the Official Google Blog in September of 2005 in her post "Googlebombing failure."

Only months later Brian Livingston blogged Googlewashing' Makes Your Site Invisible.

Livingston changed googlewash to mean the practice of scraping and stealing Web content on another blog. The result? Duplicate content appearing above your own.

He called it an example of "Googlewashing" -- a term that combines Google and brainwashing.

In the ultimate irony, former war correspondent Kevin Sites, recently did a report on googlewashing: not for its Orwellian role in the anti-war movement but in a multimedia profile for Yahoo News of paid search advertiser ReputationDefender.com.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:43 PM | Permalink

Google News UK Sorting News Without Bias?

Can the flap of a butterfly's wings in the Googleplex set off a tornado in the top UK news and media sites? In today's SearchDay, "Stop Press 2: Hitwise Data Shows Google News UK Unbiased," Greg Jarboe looks at some Hitwise UK data showing that Google News is getting more traffic from Google UK, but it's also sending more traffic to other sites, including competitive news aggregators.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:44 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: The TV Writers -- And the Buzz -- Are Back

Learning to use the tools we have before us is an integral part of online marketing success. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "The TV Writers – And the Buzz – Are Back," Kevin Ryan shows how the end of the TV writers' strike holds some meaningful lessons for search marketers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2008

Spamalot? Yahoo! Buzz Is Not Your Holy Grail

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Yahoo! Buzz promises to squash spammers with a team of spam cops: the Yahoo! Buzz Editors.

Yahoo! has a team of editors who program links on Yahoo.com. These same editors will now be reviewing all top-ranked stories on Yahoo! Buzz for possible feature placement on Yahoo.com homepage.

How many? Your guess is as good as mine. Yahoo doesn't share specific numbers on the size of their teams. Or their secret identities.

During the initial beta Yahoo! tested with a limited group of publishers that represented a broad range of content types, large and small. How you can get in the game:

Yahoo will open up to more publishers over the course of the beta. Interested publishers can join the mailing list via this link for updates.

Here's how Yahoo plans to keep spammers out and their buzzworthy results from being manipulated:

Users will need to login to Yahoo to vote which should help keep spammers out. Yahoo! Buzz plans to insure the integrity of the votes by combining user voting on-and-off network with a proprietary search ranking algorithm.

From initial Buzz results, very little censorship and keyword cleansing.

PopSugar and GiggleSugar join the entertainment category eaderboard dominated by Yahoo O&O properties. Voting? Fast and furious.

So what do Yahoo! Buzzters yodel?

Warning: Adult Content including the V-C words after the jump ...

Yahoo Buzz! omg!: "Fonda, The C-Word," "V-A-G-I-N-A" on The Today Show? You bet.

GiggleSugar scored 1,000 buzz points with that one in a closed beta.

A vid of Letterman's Top 10 Jane Fonda excuses for using the four letter word didn't hurt.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:59 PM | Permalink

Search Headlines & Links: February 26, 2008

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

From the SEW Blog:

Headlines & News from Elsewhere:

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:24 PM | Permalink

Google Maps User Reviews to Neighborhoods: Google Rat Pack!

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Google Lat Long Blog announced Google Maps and Google Earth teaming up to provide User Reviews and refinement by Neighborhood in local search results.

Move over Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr!

Start spreadin' the news. There's a new Google Rat Pack in town.

That's right. As Bubby's restaurant will soon find out local search lives and dies by user reviews. It's not all about the stars, bubby.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA, Rocco Dispirito, and Anthony Bourdain never had to deal with the wrath of Googlers.

Ratz n the Hood. It's enough to make Iron Chefs yelp.

Yup - Yelp reviews can be found in Google Maps along with Zagat, CitySearch and UGC so restaurant owners: Start bribing your favorite Yelpers, Zagatics, CitySearchers, Gothamists and Gawkers.

From the search results for Pinkberry in New York, all traces of rat infestation have been removed from the Google Maps local search results. (Not so in the Google SERPs - keyword "pinkberry rats" - where the popular yogurt shop's rat infestation will live in infamy.)

Kudos to Pinkberry for their stellar online reputation management - or for just being lucky.

SEOs of the World unite in thanking Google for unearthing a gold mine of online reputation management opportunities.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:53 PM | Permalink

Many See AdSense Income Dropping

I have been hearing and reading a lot of reports about decreased income from AdSense. A recent detailed post on the topic was done over at WebMasterWorld.

Barry Schwartz and the SERoundtable crew polled publishers at the beginning of the month and found that 63% have noted a drop in their AdSense income.

Add to that the changes in the T&Cs where sites that don't meet impression and click numbers will be terminated from the AdSense program and you have some serious changes to the AdSense landscape.

Has Google finally gotten to the point where they feel they can cut back their publishers? Have they started to thin the herd by making the pay outs lower? Or have the bigger publishers started to take all of the higher paying ads, leaving the rest of the publishers a much lower paying pool of ads to run?

Other possibilities are Google is pushing their newer ad styles such as video - with drops in text maybe publishers will feel more inclined to run the other options....

Is Google not getting enough people embracing the new ad types?

Have the little publishers served their purpose now that Google has many of the once suspicious large publishers?

Has policing small sites become too much work?

The future direction of AdSense seems to be changing. Where it now plans to go is something they should be sharing with the people who helped get them to where they are today.

I would love some input.... losing AdSense income, tried the newer ad formats, have an opinion? Post comments here.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 1:03 PM | Permalink

Matt Cutts' Google NoIndex Discussion Gets Interesting

The ongoing discussion of the ways you can stop search engines from indexing specified pages and the use of the noindex meta tag was the topic of Matt Cutts blog the other day. Matt started a poll of what people would like the noindex tag to do: A: Don't show the page at all; B. Find some middle ground; or C:Show a link to the page.

The results have been massively in favor of not showing the page at all, 617 to 61 and 53.

Interestingly Matt argued that Google needs some discretion of what pages the noindex tag stops from being listed in the search results. He uses a couple of instances of government essential sites that have been dropped because they mistakenly used that tag.

"The vast majority of webmasters who use NOINDEX do so deliberately and use the meta tag correctly (e.g. for parked domains that they don’t want to show up in Google). Users are most discouraged when they search for a well-known site and can’t find it. What if Google treated NOINDEX differently if the site was well-known? For example, if the site was in the Open Directory, then show a reference to the page even if the site used the NOINDEX meta tag. Otherwise, don’t show the site at all. The majority of webmasters could remove their site from Google, but Google would still return higher-profile sites when users searched for them," Matt blogged.

The post lays out the difficulties Google encounters when errors by site owners use the tags incorrectly and stop people from accessing information that should be available to the web.

The comments have a solid cross section of well known marketers from our industry and present some good insights.

Joost de Valk, search strategist for Onetomarket notes "The fact that some websites get the noindex wrong by accident is a problem, I can understand, but you don’t solve a problem a minority of websites has by forcing a majority of people to change their ways. You solve that problem by educating the people maintaining those website."

Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped added: "I think it’s a pretty clear-defined case: webmasters put “noindex” in their page because they don’t want the page indexed or shown. As you can’t know whether a webmaster perhaps accidentally put the noindex there, you have to err on the safe side and do what you’re told. Or how would you feel if people started to interpret Google terms of services in terms of, “oh maybe their lawyers just misspelled this and really mean something else, I’ll ignore it.”

Also, please do not try to push webmasters to always use a Google tool — like a URL removal tool — to do stuff; while Google search is close to a monopoly there are still other engines out there, and webmasters have better things to do than toggle a dozen tool’s configurations."

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:28 AM | Permalink

Hilary Clinton Accused of Obama Turban Warfare in Universal Search

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Universal search has changed the course of history. Blended search - the combination of the universal searches for Obama turban photo, Barack Obama news stories, YouTube Obama Girl videos and buzz-worthy blogs have created a political firestorm ignited by Internet search.

Forget the official YouTube debates and lofty and admirable aspirations of Google's Sergey Brin. Welcome to the grim, new Making of the Internet President.

Once again the conservative anti-Clinton Drudge Report blog created an onslaught of Internet searches for the Obama photo - Muslim turban and Somali robes - traditional African dress and not a reflection of Obama's religion.

The New York Post - arguably the best headline writers in the free world - call it "Turban Warfare" and a "Bum Wrap."

That's funnier than Hilary's ill-fated lines mocking Obama - the trademark violation “change you can Xerox” and “Shame on you, Barack Obama" -- one that has surely come back to bite her and her alleged leaking campaign.

Comedian, American Express pitchwoman and TV host Ellen DeGeneres appeared via satellite at a Clinton fundraiser on Monday to banter with Hilary. The segment will be aired on DeGeneres’ show this week. (A follow up to comedian Tina Fey and her SNL b-word rant.)

Is Obama Photo Worth 1000 Keywords? That's the topic of Search Engine WarGames in politics this week - an in-depth look at how keywords and keyword phrases have shaped the political debate: from "bitch is the new black" to "raisin in the sun;" from former crack cocaine addict and Oliver North (Iran Contra) secretary "fawn hall" to "obama turban" -- politics will never be the same.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Yahoo! Buzz Launches! April Fools!

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Yahoo, in desperate need of good buzz these days, today launched Yahoo! Buzz, promising to uncover and deliver the most interesting and relevant content from Web sites across the Internet to the Yahoo homepage.

Sounds like a search engine! Social search anyone?

The only problem: Y Live! redux. This was the message on Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo's official corporate blog:

"Not Found ... Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here. How did I get here?"

I know how I got there, Yahoo. The question is, How did you get here?

We saw your new Y! buzz logo on TechCrunch but not on Yahoo!

Still in beta, the new Yahoo! Buzz allows consumers to vote (Digg) and even submit to Digg and other social media sites.Yahoo! Buzz also uses search patterns to identify stories and videos from news sources and blogs.

The prize? Editorial consideration for feature placement on Yahoo.com.

The audience? More than 500 million users. The final judge? Human editors.

Yahoo! Buzz ranks the most popular content using what Yahoo terms "a unique approach that combines consumer votes with search popularity" to give a story a Buzz Score. The Yahoo initiative creates a lens (Squidoo!) on what people are most interested in to enhance relevance on Yahoo.com, and help publishers deliver content to a wider Yahoo audience.

The goal? To make Yahoo the gateway to the Internet again. The world's home page.

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In its beta phase, Yahoo Buzz has content from nearly 100 publishers, ranging from large online publishing brands to small, influential blogs. It will open up to all publishers interested in having their content included in Yahoo! Buzz.

Participating publishers are given an online 'badge' enabling their readers to vote and submit stories to Buzz in real-time. Stories with the highest Buzz Scores will be highlighted via direct links to the publishers' sites from http://buzz.yahoo.com and submitted to Yahoo.com's editors for possible coverage on the Yahoo! homepage.

Yahoo "allows" users to submit Buzz stories to social news sites including delicious, Digg, Facebook, Propeller, Reddit and Stumbleupon.

We'd like to see Yahoo try to stop 'em!

Yahoo Buzz promises to form the basis for an open ecosystem of publishers, advertisers and consumers.

Coming soon: new syndication and monetization tools that enable publishers to share relevant content, connect to more advertisers and reach a broader audience. For example, a Yahoo! Buzz API will enable publishers to add customized Yahoo! Buzz modules or shortcuts to their sites to showcase their own most buzzed items or other popular stories on relevant topics.

Over time, Yahoo expects this to extend into a powerful content exchange that connects owners of content with distributors of traffic.

Adsdaq anyone?

So who were the mystery beta testers? The proponents of the "Free-conomics." Find out what Yahoo and fire hoses have in common after the jump.

"Getting a link on Yahoo!'s Front Page is like connecting to a fire hose," said Evan Hansen, editor-in-chief, Wired.com. "Thanks to this program, we got more than 2 million page views in less than two hours from a single headline, helping to drive a 1400 percent increase in Yahoo! referral traffic versus the previous month and enabling us to reach a vast audience that may not otherwise see the stories we publish on Wired.com."

Another Buzz-timonial from People Digital:

"Yahoo! Buzz builds on an openness initiative Yahoo! launched last year in which editors began highlighting third-party content from across the Web in the "Featured Today" module on Yahoo.com. This effort has already provided tremendous value for consumers and publishers, representing a first step in the creation of a more open system for Web content. "When Yahoo! linked to People.com's Sexiest Man Alive coverage, referrals from Yahoo! increased by over 11 times versus the average day," said Fran Hauser, President, People Digital.

And another official press release statement:

"Yahoo Buzz is a good example of how we are continuing to innovate and open up our key starting points to third party publishers, making Yahoo! more social and personally relevant for our half a billion consumers," Jeff Weiner, executive vice president, Yahoo! Network Division said in a statement. "In addition, we recently announced that we will be opening up our user interface for Yahoo! Search, as well as creating a smarter inbox by opening up Yahoo! Mail, two other key ways that consumers start with Yahoo!."

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:14 AM | Permalink

Yahoo to Allow Publishers to Improve its Search Results

Yahoo Open Search - Yelp In another move toward openness, Yahoo is creating a platform to allow site owners to create plug-ins that its visitors can add to their Yahoo search accounts to see enhanced listings from that publisher in Yahoo Web search results. The plug-ins are intended to expose structured information, and provide more deep links into a site, images, or ratings and reviews, for example. In today's SearchDay, "Yahoo Opens Up Search Results," we'll take a closer look at the move.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:05 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Global SEO Strategy: Advanced Search for Large Enterprises

Many companies have chosen to expand overseas with the growing global economy. With this, each multinational must develop a search marketing strategy for each new international market, which also fits into a holistic global search strategy. In today's Big Biz column, "Global SEO Strategy: Advanced Search for Large Enterprises," Aaron Shear explains that advanced global SEO requires more than just keyword research, translation, and localization. He offers a primer on key issues to consider when developing global search engine strategies.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO Site Clinic: American Express

You'd expect large companies to adhere to basic best practices in SEO, usability and accessibility. But you'd be wrong. In today's au Natural column, "SEO Site Clinic: American Express," Mark Jackson discusses ways in which the site is in need of SEO help, so that we can all learn from their mistakes.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 25, 2008

Search Headlines & Links: February 25, 2008

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 6:24 PM | Permalink

Flickr photo sharing awards for SES London 2008

Search Engine Strategies London wrapped up last week and the 2,000 attendees have returned to work with a new understanding of how Google’s universal search is incorporating images as well as videos, news, maps, books, and websites into a single set of results. And, demonstrating that they aren’t the cobbler’s children, some of the speakers at SES London 2008 have shared their news photos, party pictures and professional event photography with the rest of us.

As I mentioned in my previous post, “Tag your Photobucket, Picasa and Flickr photos: SES London 2008,” I have selected the Best Photo of SES London 2008, the Best Photos of SES London, and Best Photography of SES London 2008.

The envelope, please.

And the winner of the Best Photo of a market trend at SES London 2008 is … Mel Carson, adCenter Community Manager, Europe, Microsoft adCenter. The winning entry can be found on Mel’s Biog in a post entitled, “SES London 2008 - A Few Pictures.” Mel captured the Orion Panel All-Star Analytics Team – Jim Sterne, Bryan Eisenberg, Ian Thomas, and Steven Jackson – all on their mobile phones! Coincidence? I think not.

Mel wins one static text link to his blog: DigiTales & Other Stories.

As of this afternoon, there were 451 photos from sessions, panels, exhibits, the night life, and everything in between in the SES London 2008 Flickr pool. Now, you might think this would make it extremely difficult to select the winner of the next award. But, you would be wrong.

The envelope, please.

And the winner of the Best Photos of SES London 2008 posted to a photo sharing site is … Liana “Li” Evans, Director of Internet Marketing at KeyRelevance. With 300 photos, Li (aka storyspinn) was the top contributor to our group photo pool on Flickr.

Li wins one static text link to one of her blogs: Search Marketing Gurus.

The final award is for Best Photography of SES London 2008 by a professional photographer.

The envelope, please.

And the winner is … Edward Klaus of ProPictures. Now, I should disclose that SES London is a client and that I hired ProPictures to help document the event at the Business Design Centre in Islington. But, I hope there's no debate over the quality of the 113 photos that they took at SES London 2008. Make your own judgment by looking at five of Edward's photos below.

Still, it would be wrong to link to someone that I hired. It would appear to be a conflict of interest. So, instead, let me donate one static text link to The Scientist Photographers Group's Annual Charity Project, which supports Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders.

Which raises an interesting question: Why doesn't the search engine marketing industry have a similar charity projectt? If you're going to SES New York next month, let me know what you think of this idea.

And don't forget to bring your camera or cameraphone.

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The Business Design Centre in Islington

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Audience listening to the Orion Panel: All-Star Analytics Team

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Left to right: Kevin Ryan, Fredrick Marckini and Mike Grehan at SES London 2008

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Catching up with the office between sessions at Search Engine Strategies London

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The Landing Page Testing & Tuning session at SES London 2008

Posted by GregJarboe at 5:11 PM | Permalink

Media Spend on Search, Verticals, Continues to Grow

Search made up 31 percent of the $735 million in media billings in 2007 by Microsoft-owned Avenue A | Razorfish, second only to ads on vertical sites at 39 percent of spending, according to Jeff Lanctot, senior VP of Global Media, who published details of the agency's spending in the latest Digital Outlook Report. That's up from search's 28-percent share of billings in 2006.

Search, at $227.8 million, and verticals, at $286.6 million, were the big winners last year, while the agency's media spending slowed in both portals, at $139.6 million, and ad networks, at $80.8 million.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:11 PM | Permalink

Kelsey Group Predicts Growth in Interactive, Directional Ads

Interactive advertising revenue in the U.S. will grow from $22.5 billion in 2007 to $62.4 billion by 2012, according to a new Kelsey Group report. Interactive advertising revenue, which Kelsey defines as search (including local search), display advertising, classifieds and other interactive ad products, grew its share of global advertising revenues from 6.1 percent in 2006 to 7.4 percent in 2007. By 2012, Kelsey Group analysts expect the interactive share of global ad spending will reach 21 percent.

"Growing from 7.1 percent to 21 percent is a lot. We're saying that there will be a big shift to digital advertising markets," Matt Booth, SVP interactive local media for Kelsey, told ClickZ News. "The global shift to digital products will be the most interesting and we'll see what kind of global company start-ups will go after that acceleration of dollars moving to digital products."

Directional advertising, which comprises local search, print Yellow Pages and Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), is forecasted to grow from $33.3 billion in 2007 to $41.4 billion globally in 2012, a 4.5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Local search revenues will grow from $2.1 billion to $6.6 billion (25.5 percent CAGR), IYP revenues will grow from $3.7 billion to $9.2 billion (20.1 percent CAGR), and Print Yellow Pages revenues will decline from US$27.5 billion to $25.6 billion (-1.4 percent CAGR).

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:55 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Google AdWords Contextual Advertising Mystery Solved

Readers have tried running placement-targeted campaigns, and found many AdSense publisher sites don't seem to be available to them. In today's Content Advertising column, "Google AdWords Contextual Advertising Mystery Solved," David Szetela shares a way to work around issues with the tool Google offers to discover new sites to advertise on.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 24, 2008

How It Came To This: Virals vs. Microsoft

Microsoft recently published a letter from Kevin Johnson, President of Microsoft's Platforms & Services Division, to his team. The letter details Microsoft's interest in the Yahoo! merger, and the benefits the company and its employees will gain if the deal goes through. The letter seems to focus entirely on a friendly purchase, though Microsoft has already authorized a proxy fight for Yahoo! NYTimes.com DealBook looks at the letter as a "pep talk" to employees in preparation of a protracted and dirty fight, despite the letter's gentle nature. I'm inclined to agree.

But how did it get to this? How was such a huge, and by many accounts, generous, offer so roundly rejected by Yahoo? Let me propose a novel answer; you're to blame.

Yes, you - the average Flickr user, Digg poster, YouTube browser. You embraced virals that broadcasted the "evil empire" stereotype of Microsoft and directly appealed to Yahoo to either reject the deal--or to hold out for more money. You flooded Flickr with images opposing the purchase, pledging to keep Microsft's "evil grubby hands" off of Flickr. You Dugg a video of Sphigler advising Jerry Yang to pull out an iPhone during his meeting with Microsoft as a negotiating technique. In fact, you Dugg it twice. According to Ran Harnevo, CEO of 5min.com, which created the Sphigler viral (below), the video may have been directly responsible for the decision by Yahoo's board. "I received a mail from someone at Yahoo that everyone had seen the video," he said, "including Jerry Yang."

In short you lived up to your honorific as Time's Person of the Year. You tanked the biggest deal of the decade. At least for now.


Posted by EliFeldblum at 5:58 PM | Permalink

February 23, 2008

Searching for Gotti in the Brave New JackassWorld

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So I was reading Techmeme, clicked thru to the Times of London story on Apax Partners bidding on Reed Business Information (£1.25 billion publisher of Variety, New Scientist, Computer Weekly et.al.) to merge with eMap (bought for a cool £1 billion) and Incisive Media (that would be us).

Then I noticed another TL story on the power of search in the jackass world: "Microtrends: gangsta spray tans."

U.S.-based sports blog (more of an online lad mag) barstoolsports.com posted pix of spray-tanned Guidos. If only the barstool blogger had googled the Gotti-wannabes before labeling them "New Jersey Freakshows."

The London Times reporter Tom Whitwell asked, "What makes a young man paint himself orange, put on a skin-tight T-shirt and pose like a supermodel?"

Whitwell called the pix "a window on a bizarre and unexpected underworld." (Not if you had mobsters in your extended family, as I did. Or grew up in my neighborhood, as I did.)

The barstoolsports blogger thought the pix were taken in Jersey clubs. Jersey guys said no way, "Long Island." (I would've guessed Staten Island.)

The truth? Europe. The Old Country. One more reason theworld needs Google Universal Search.

The pix were from PartyPhoto.hu a Hungarian Website showing musclehead, spray-tanned club kids in Vienna, home of Sigmund Freud and more tellingly, erstwhile home of Governor Schwarzenegger. Ahh-nuld. That explains it.

Of course barstoolsports might've been tipped off by the .hu domain in the big red PartyPhoto.hu letters imprinted on one jpg they published.

As the astute Times reporter noted, the club kids were no doubt inspired by the grandchildren of the late (reputed) Mafia boss John Gotti.

(Like Michael Corleone and the Italian American Anti Defamation League we deny the existence of any organization by the name of Mafia or La Cosa Nostra.)

We do believe in the 24 hour takeover of MTV Studios today by Jackassworld.com, the just-hardlaunched Johnny Knoxville blog Frederick Marckini tipped us off to at SES London (at the cocktail reception, not during his SEO keynote address, natch).

But that's another bizarro world search story ...

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:29 PM | Permalink

SEO Shenanigans Bury Digg, Trip StumbleUpon, Poison Delicio.us?

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If you read only one blog post this weekend, let me micropersuade you to read Steve Rubel's SEO Shenanigans Pose a Clear and Present Danger to Social Media.

Before engaging in the debate, I'd like to invite Steve to expand on his Micropersuasion post in Search Engine Watch, home of Sergey Brin's Internet Doomsday Scenario.

Hey, we don't hate debate. We like controversy. We love search engine optimization, SEOs, social search, SMM and search engine marketing.

Steve: help our readers around the world understand what specific search engine strategies are "SEO shenanigans." You listed this Search Engine Watch blog post first: Boost Organic Results. Link Build with Social Media.

I think it's a brilliant guide: How to earn more money, improve online reputation and build brand equity online -- goals, Steve, you share for your clients?

Even so our blogger received death threats. Marty's blazing new SEO and SMO trails and that takes courage.

Wikipedia (Slate's new BFF) defines a shenanigan as a "deceitful confidence trick, or mischief causing discomfort or annoyance."

I don't think your brilliant linkbait blog post is a con game. It's a great SEO shenanigan!

Anonymous Wikepedian(s) go on to say, "However, in some regions, shenanigans can merely refer to harmless mischievous play, especially by children. It should be noted that the word itself is considered humorous, because of its unique sound."

So Steve were you - a PR maven - just joking around? Let me know. I think I may agree with you to a certain extent but I'm not sure.

So let's dynamically insert "search engine optimization" and "social media" keywords into Dictionary.com's definitions from the Random House Unabridged Dictionary:

1. SEO mischief; prankishness by SEOs: Halloween shenanigans.
social media marketing deceit; SEO trickery.
2. mischievous or deceitful SEO trick (Googlebombing?) practice, etc.

Here's the revised American Heritage Dictionary version of SEO shenanigan:

1. A deceitful SEO trick; an underhanded SMM act.
2. Online social media remarks intended to deceive; SEO PR deceit.
3. A playful or mischievous search engine optimization act; an SMM prank.
4. SEO mischief; SMO prankishness.

None of the above seems to pose a clear and present danger.

Graywolf points out in your post's comments that everyone's playing by Google's rules. Here's what The Google says:

Google's number two SERP (search engine results page) suggests shenanigans engaged in by couples present a clear and different danger.

Shenanigans - Indiana - Midwest's Premier "Couples Only" Club for ...
The Midwest's Premier "Couples Only" Club ! Shenanigans "Where Adults Come for Fun". Couples Only!

For inquiring minds, that's shenanigans.net. Since the keyword's in the title, it's not SEO shenanigans at work (or in play).

Google's paid search algorithm matches "shenanigans" with the "biggest losers" crowd: diet, fat and weight loss tips and tricks:

Sponsored Links
10 Rules to Cut Belly Fat
Lose 9 lbs every 11 Days with these 10 Idiot Proof Rules of Fat Loss.
www.FatLoss4Idiots.com

Steve, did your database of intentions intend SEO shenanigans to encompass a Google broad match/Thesaurus.com semantic search? For example, did you mean:

SEO antics, SEM capers, SEO dirty trick, fooling around with SEO, social media optimization frolicsomeness, search engine optimization funny business, SEO gag, search engine optimization hanky-panky, SEO high jinks, SEO PR horseplay, SEO PR horsing around, social media misbehavior, social media marketing mischievousness, monkey business*, SM naughtiness, SEO nonsense, search marketing prank, SEO trouble, social media marketing vandalism

If so, Google contextual advertising (content advertising) seems to think shenanigans are just a joke: Super Trooper-style (see YouTube result for keyword "shenanigans") or in a Superbad Knocked Up kind of way.

Here's another AdSense ad matched to "shenanigans" on Thesaurus.com:

Readers, your results may vary - my Google results? Not personalized:

Sponsored Links
FreshTurd.com
What's in Your Bowl? Turd-O-Gram, send one to your Boss.
www.FreshTurd.com

Whether that's "funny or die" funny is a matter of taste. What it is: Google's algorithm at work in the Google Ecosystem.


Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:53 PM | Permalink

February 22, 2008

Search Headlines & Links: February 22, 2008

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 11:53 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Says “You Like Me, Right Now, You Really Like Me”

Well, that seems to be the case for both Sally Field and Yahoo.

When Sally won her second Oscar, she felt the love and respect of The Academy. All those years of TV acting, training with Actor Studio's Lee Strasberg, and towing the line had paid off. She had been cast in strong dramatic roles, and won two Oscars. It was not a fluke.

Yahoo recently felt the love and respect of Keynote Academy. They worked hard, and had ups and downs. Then they focused on Search Assist, and jumped to #1 Keynote rankings for “Search Assistance and Suggestions” and "Homepage Appeal." It was not a fluke.

With the Oscars ahead, I wanted to investigate other similarities between Sally and Yahoo -- and there were more than I expected.

Sally: She has delivered some Hollywood hits, including Smokey and the Bandits which drew $59 million (per Box Office Report). That same year, Star Wars was released and earned $271 million.
Yahoo: They also have delivered big numbers, and drew 2.5 billion searches last month (per comScore). That was eclipsed by Google’s 7.7 billion searches.

Sally: She’s