Search Month is a
monthly newsletter that recaps stories covered on
Search Engine Land over the past
month. It's also available by feed
here. Below, news
about Search Engine Land itself, then our 10 most popular stories from May
2008, then a major story for various search topics along with other stories
related to those topics since our last monthly newsletter through today.
==============================
Search Engine Land News
==============================
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SMX LOCAL & MOBILE COMES IN JULY! As expected, our
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tickets for our upcoming SMX Local & Mobile
show. Coming to San
Francisco this July 24 & 25, it focuses on local and mobile search. Yahoo's
Frazier Miller was just announced to keynote. More about that and the show via
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========================================
Top 10 Most Popular Stories: May 2008
========================================
1) Playing With
Live Search Cashback - Microsoft launched Live Search Cashback, and this
takes you through the experience of using Cashback as a searcher. It has been a
rainy week here in New York, and I figured I would start my search and shopping
experience looking to buy an umbrella using Cashback.
===================
2) Microsoft's
Worldwide Telescope Application Blasts Onto The Desktop - Microsoft
has launched (an appropriate metaphor this time) its Worldwide Telescope
desktop application. You must download the software, but then you're treated
to a beautiful array of images and "guided tours" of the cosmos (see
screenshots below). Intended for science education, "Worldwide Telescope
stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies, and
displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky."
===================
3) Powerset
Launches "Understanding Engine" For Wikipedia Content - After nearly
two years in the making -- and plenty of hype -- Powerset has finally rolled
out a "natural language" search engine. It's not a Google killer. It's barely
a business model right now. But at least it's something the world can finally
play with, and under the hood, there's lots of potential. By the time you read
this, the Powerset site should have changed into a tool that allows you search
against material within Wikipedia. Why bother using Powerset rather than using
Wikipedia's own search tool or even Google set to look only within Wikipedia
pages? The Powerset pitch is that you'll get better results because Powerset's
technology has read and understood what every word within Wikipedia actually
means.
===================
4) Google Logo:
First Laser Logo - Google has a special logo up on the home page today,
a laser logo. The logo links to a search results for first laser, which shows
image results at the top, followed by search results from University of Chicago,
Wikipedia and then Propeller.com. Why does Google have a laser logo up today?
Theodore Maiman, 48 years ago - demonstrated the first laser on May 16, 1960.
===================
5) Twitter Beats
(Wow, By 3 Minutes) The USGS With China Earthquake News - Hey, I like
Twitter, but this entire thing Robert Scoble started about how Twitter had
news of the Chinese earthquake before the US Geological Survey seemed absurd.
Did it really? As it turns out, probably so -- by about three minutes. Reading
some of the accounts, you'd get the impression Twitter seemed to alert the
USGS to the news. See also:
===================
6) Hey Microsoft:
Bribing Searchers Is Fine; Frustrating Them Is Not! - I've got no
problem if Microsoft wants to "bribe" searchers to use its search engine. Even
Google has done the same. But the Live Search Cashback program rolled out today
seems a pretty inept way to do it, far more likely to disappoint and frustrate
than woo searchers.
===================
7) The Big List Of
Major B2B Search Engines - Most search marketers focus on Google,
Yahoo, and Microsoft. But B2B search marketers also have a growing number of
vertical search options. Clicks and leads from these vertical search sites may
not yield the same traffic as general search engines, but the percentage of
qualified traffic and conversions can increase dramatically with leads from
these specialized and vertical business-oriented engines. Here's a roundup of
the most important search sites and resources B2B search marketers should be
targeting. See also:
===================
8) Eight Keyword
Research Mistakes That Are Costing You Money - One of the reasons search
marketing is so effective is that it delivers information on products and
services to people who are actively seeking them out. People enter search terms
into a search engine and the engine provides sites and ads that are relevant to
the terms. The process of identifying keywords is wrought with pitfalls which
can reduce the effectiveness of online campaigns. Here are eight common mistakes
companies make in selecting keywords for their campaigns.
===================
9) Yahoo Glue Pages
Launches In India - Yahoo has launched Glue Pages Beta in Yahoo India.
Glue Pages are specialized pages that contain an enhanced visual search result
page for select search queries. The search results that trigger the special
"Glue Pages" run across searches in health, sports, entertainment, travel,
technology, and finance categories. The Glue Pages combine classic search
results on the left hand column with more visual information related to your
query in the middle and right section of the page. The results contain images,
videos, articles, and more. For example, a search on diabetes returns standard
search results on the left, in the middle we have WebMD results, followed by
HowStuffWorks.com results, then results from Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo
News, and even Google Blog Search. See also:
===================
10) Supercharge
Your URLs For Maximum SEO Impact - When optimizing URLs for high
rankings, little attention is given to optimizing the URL for maximum
clickthrough. Yet the URL undeniably affects searcher clickthrough rates in the
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). You could conclude from this that the long
URL distracts the searcher from viewing the listing's title and description. Not
a great outcome.
============================
Ask.com
============================
Ask.com Buying
Lexico, Owner Of Dictionary.com - In a move that is interesting and
perhaps even surprising for several reasons, IAC/Ask is buying Lexico Publishing
Group, which owns and operates "iconic" domains Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com
and Reference.com. These sites get most of their traffic through direct
navigation and will increase Ask's reach by 145 million unduplicated users (or
11 percent). Ask is saying this will make it the ninth most visited property
online, ahead of Facebook.
============================
B2B
============================
Take Off The
Blinders! Your Competitors Are Killing You, Whether You Realize It Or Not
- The guy was in a panic. His ROI had been in a nose dive for the last few
months, and he couldn't figure out why. With no major changes to keywords, copy,
landing pages, bids or budget, he was dumbfounded about the decline. But when I
asked him what his competitors were doing, his response was telling—he looked at
me like I was from another planet. Suffice it to say, he failed to see the
connection. Unfortunately, he's not alone. Many marketers fall into this trap.
And this trap can be lethal to your paid search success. See also:
============================
Business & Revenues
============================
All Things D: The
Search Edition - There's a ton of search-related news and intrigue
coming out of the Dow Jones "All Things D" conference in Southern California.
Let's start with the ridiculous remark from IAC's chief Barry Diller that "Google
is irrelevant to us." That's only true if Diller doesn't care about search
revenue. Google is essentially the source of that revenue for IAC. See also:
============================
Business & Revenues: Microhoo!
============================
Microsoft And
Yahoo Apparently Back At The Bargaining Table - What would Sunday
afternoon/evening be lately without more intrigue in the MicroHoo drama? Today
was no exception as Redmond issued a cryptic statement that says it's offering
to join forces with or acquire some of Yahoo -- potentially the search business
-- in a deal short of the total acquisition previously contemplated. See also:
============================
Business & Revenues: Popularity
============================
Search Share
Compared: Ratings Service Faceoff, June 2007 To April 2008 - With the
latest search popularity stats now in from Hitwise, Nielsen, comScore, and
Compete, it's time to pit them against each other and see what they agree -- and
don't agree -- about in terms of search engine popularity. See also:
============================
Google: AdSense
============================
Google Enables
Third Party Tracking For Content Network - Google has announced that
they will now support the ability for advertisers to track their ads using
third party advertising tags. This new feature is only available within
Google's content network (aka AdSense) and only available for North America
based advertisers. In the past, the only way to track your impression data was
to trust Google's AdWords reports. Now, it appears you can use third party
tags to track content network ad impressions and clicks. The supported and
certified ad tracking tags include:
============================
Google: AdWords
============================
Google AdWords
Adds Landing Page Load Time Metric To Reports Starting Mid-June - As
expected, Google has announced that landing page load time will become a quality
score factor in Google AdWords starting mid-June. In preparation for that
launch, Google has started showing advertisers their metrics for the landing
page load time for each keyword's landing page. Here is a picture of what an
okay landing page load time score would look like. See also:
============================
Google: Business Issues
============================
Fortune On
Google's Challenges: Employee Retention, Innovation, Maintaining Its Culture
- There's a famous B.B. King blues tune called "The Thrill Is Gone." I was
recently on the phone with a Google employee (director level) who was
expressing that very sentiment about his experience there. I was surprised to
hear that from this particular individual. However, Google has seen some high
profile departures and, dare I say it, "defections" to Facebook. Now Fortune
takes a long look at Google in what might be called "Act 2." Where does Google
Go Next?, interviews former Google employees and examines the state of all
things Google, amid some indications that the company's ability to continue
unimpeded growth and maintain the excitement of its culture are under
pressure.
============================
Google: Maps & Local
============================
Interview With
Google's Carter Maslan About "Mapspam" - After noticing a steady
increase in the amount of mapspam (also documented by Mike Blumenthal) appearing
on Google in universal search results, we decided to ask the company about the
phenomenon and what measures it's taking to combat the problem. Earlier this
week I posed a series of questions to Google's Director of Product Management
for Local, Carter Maslan via email. The unedited text of his responses is below.
See also:
============================
Google: Mobile
============================
Google's CEO
Talks Up Mobile Ad Opportunity, Skyfire Browser Pushes For "The Real Internet"
On Mobile Devices - Google very clearly recognizes how strategic the
mobile internet is both for revenue growth and the company's future. Hence the
Android mobile platform, the bidding in the 700MHz auction and all the effort
Google is directing toward mobile generally. CEO Eric Schmidt repeatedly
emphasizes mobile as the next big frontier and opportunity. He also points to
the advent of the iPhone as a breakthrough mobile internet device. See also:
============================
Google: News
============================
Google News Now On
Earth - Earlier this week, Google added Google News to Earth. This
follows the earlier addition of the NY Times to Earth. Other companies plotting
news on a map include MetaCarta, Everyblock, Outside.in, YourStreet and a couple
of others. See also:
============================
Google: SEO Issues
============================
Yes, Truthiness
Is A Credibility Factor Google Cares About - Doing A Fake Story For
Linkbait? Disclose -- Or Face The Wrath Of Google from last week is still a
hot topic of discussion in the industry. In fact, Google's Matt Cutts posted a
more detailed explanation of why a fake story without disclosure is something,
in some cases, Google cares about. Matt says, "if a site says that they
completely made up a story to get links, Google doesn't have to trust the
links to that site as much." But is that about intent of the author? Does the
intent have to be about influencing your search results for Google to trust
you less or is it something larger? See also:
============================
Google: Searching
============================
The "Google
Factory Tour": Display Ads Coming In Image Search, Google Health Live -
I'm at the "Google Factory Tour," which is presenting bloggers and the press
with an update on the state of search and search-related product development at
Google. Apparently there are going to be some updates on Google Health later.
The first announcement today, however, is about the integration of image ads
(with text) in Google image search. See also:
============================
Google: YouTube
============================
YouTube Adds
Search Suggestions, Demographic Stats, Google Contacts Import & More -
Over the past week, YouTube has announced the addition of several features. In a
recent YouTube blog post, YouTube announced the addition of search suggestions
on YouTube.com, the import of your Google contacts and a new and improved
notification system for video comments. Plus, the Google Blog announced the
addition of demographic statistics to YouTube Insights. See also:
============================
In House SEM
============================
Why You Need To
Know SEO Basics, Even If You Outsource - When you outsource SEO, you
don't outsource responsibility and accountability for getting the job done and
driving more traffic. Even though you may outsource SEO completely, you really
should invest the time understand SEO basics to best manage your SEO firm, your
strategy and provide greater value to your SEO program. Relying entirely on an
agency is not an adequate strategy, for a variety of reasons. See also:
============================
Link Building
============================
Don't Call Me
Linkbait - When use of the phrase "linkbait" first started to achieve
critical mass, some dismissed it as nothing more than a fad that would be dead
in a year. Some truly understood linkbait and tried to explain it while some
of those who grasped it ran with it and went on to profit from it (and still
do). Below, what linkbait really is and where its value lies. See also:
- An
Embarrassment Of Dead Link Riches - Sometimes link building is more
difficult and painful than a root canal, and sometimes it's so easy it happens
in spite of us. It can be especially frustrating when you are trying to build
links for a site that is perfectly deserving of the links you are requesting,
yet your link requests are not answered or even acknowledged.
============================
Local Search & Maps
============================
EveryScape
Improves, Beefs Up Community Strategy - Google and Microsoft have
invested huge sums in their competitive mapping platforms. Yahoo, for its part,
opted out of that arms race some time ago. But independent EveryScape is
building an interesting alternative platform and destination. Today at the Where
2.0 conference, the company announced upgraded site features and a new
"Ambassadors" program that augments its "scape artist" community initiative.
============================
Local SEM
============================
Small, Local
Businesses Taking Economic Downturn in Stride - The economic downturn
is a reality, but the specific ways that it affects businesses run the gamut
based on the size and type of business. During these times, small, local
businesses often feel the pinch more quickly and sharply, causing some to take
evasive maneuvers to keep afloat. Based on the Yellow Pages industry’s
experience, those who stick with proven advertising programs—-rather than
cutting them out of their budgets-—continue to find success with generating
new customers and retaining current ones.
============================
Microsoft: Mobile
============================
New Windows Live
Mobile Search Ads Beta, Homepage That Emphasizes Social Networking -
Microsoft this week has done a number of things in the mobile space, in addition
to its introduction of the Live Search Cashback program on the desktop (which
presumably will extend to mobile search/shopping). Windows Live launched a new
homepage for mobile and the company introduced graphical ads and paid search for
mobile.
============================
Microsoft: Search
============================
Microsoft "Cashback"
Program Aims To Lure Commercial Shoppers With Rebates, Marketers With CPA
Model - Microsoft has introduced a new program called "Cashback"
on Live Search. We were thoroughly briefed and are currently under embargo
about some details of the program. But, as others are reporting, it's now live
and you can investigate it from a consumer experience perspective. It also has
advertiser aspects and implications. It's a pretty smart and interesting
program for many reasons and when the embargo lifts later this morning we'll
have more to say about it. See also:
============================
Paid Search & Contextual
============================
Serial Clickfraud
Lawsuit Firm Strikes Again, This Time At Citysearch - Click fraud
lawsuit targets IAC's Citysearch from News.com reports the law firm of Kabateck
Brown Kellner is targeting IAC's Citysearch.com for allegedly "defrauding its
advertising customers of millions of dollars" by "turning a blind eye to click
fraud" and actually "encouraging" the click fraud. This Los Angeles-based law
firm has won suits against Google and Yahoo in the past on click fraud charges.
In addition, last month it filed a new suit (Google Sued For Undesired AdSense
Inclusion) against Google. See also:
============================
Privacy
============================
Internet Archive
Wins Fight Against Secret FBI Request For Records - When it comes to
search privacy, one of the biggest worries in my book has been the US
government's ability under the Patriot Act to make secret requests for
information that no one can know about. Last year this was ruled
unconstitutional by one judge. Today, news is out about the Internet Archive
winning against such a request. See also:
============================
Search Tools
============================
You Can Search
Techmeme - You can now search for past Techmeme articles directly on the
site or at http://techmeme.com/search/. Techmeme's founder, Gabe Rivera,
announced the new feature today at his blog. He explained that the Techmeme
search engine only searches full headlines on Techmeme, in reverse chronological
order but not "discussions" listed under the headlines.
============================
Searching
============================
Human Hardware:
The Subconscious Side of Search - In the last column, we explored some
studies that indicate that conscious will might not be the cause of our
actions, but instead might be just one of the effects of a motivator still
undefined. Conscious will could simply be a feedback mechanism that helps us
keep track of our actions and hides the degree of unconscious activity
involved in our day to day activities. Conscious will allows us to keep
thinking we’re rational, logical beings. See also:
============================
Search Marketing Industry
============================
Display Stumbles
As Search Remains Strong - The NY Times has a wide ranging article that
discusses online ad trends and the apparent weakening of the display segment,
which is roughly 21 percent of online ad spending. The article discusses how
marketers are looking for measurable results and concrete audiences and in that
context niche networks/sites are attracting ad dollars and general portals and
blind ad networks are suffering. Search remains a healthy segment because of its
perceived efficiency and efficacy.
============================
Search Marketing Tactics
============================
Essential SEO
Spring Cleaning For Your Website - It's Red Sox season again in Boston.
That means we're at that meteorological intersection of winter and summer: it
could very well be 80 degrees or it could snow. While most other parts of the
country experience a season called spring, we get a small window of opportunity
to change out the clothes in our closets and do our spring cleaning. But
regardless of the weather, it's a great time to get your “SEO house” in order. A
big component of that is focusing on those keywords that have the most potential
to deliver the greatest results. Below are a few tips on how to do just that.
See also:
============================
SEO / Natural / Unpaid Search
============================
10 Fundamental
Tips To Improve Your SEO - In my colleague Matt Lester's recent Search
Engine Land column he discussed ten tips for a more effective paid search
campaign. For this article, I'll follow up Matt's advice with ten tips to help
you develop a more effective Search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. But
before we dive into the tips, let's briefly look at what SEO is and its key
concepts. See also:
============================
SEO: Listing Issues
============================
Expand Customer
Relationships As Search Engines Evolve User Experience - Last week,
Microsoft Live Search expanded the description that appears below Wikipedia
results and added navigational links to major headings within the Wikipedia
article. Below more details about the expanded Wikipedia listing, as well as on
the overall trend of all the major search engines showing increased details on
the results pages and what that might mean for site owners who are worried about
lowered click-through rates. See also:
============================
Small Business
============================
A Small Business
Marketing Success Story: Avante Gardens - There's a battle going on in
the floral industry, and many small, independent florists are losing. Like other
small businesses, they don't have the time or knowledge to keep up with the
latest marketing trends and tactics. But there are other challenges, too: Way
back in 1998, the FTC warned consumers about phony marketers pretending to be
local florists: Petal Pushers: Is Your 'Local' Florist Really Long-Distance?
That consumer alert refers to offline deception via phone directories; ten years
later, the situation is just as bad online. This month's small business online
marketing success story is about a business owner who's using search marketing
smarts to win this battle, along with some blogging and social media thrown in.
See also:
============================
Social Media
============================
Summize Gains
"Local" Twitter Search Option - Summize has already turned into my
preferred tool to search for what people are saying on Twitter. Now it's
gained a way to see what people are twittering about near a local area. Say I
want to see what's been happening in Newport Beach, California, in terms of
Twitter activity. To do a local search, I hit the advanced search page, put [newport
beach] into the Places box and got back what people in the area are saying.
See also:
============================
Video Search
============================
Searching The Web
For News Video - Recent data from comScore Video Metrix shows that
consumers viewed 11.5 billion online videos in March of 2008, a whopping 64%
gain versus March of 2007. This means that 73.7% of the US Internet population
is now watching video online. While videos of pandas sneezing on YouTube make up
millions of these monthly video views, consumers are also increasingly turning
to the Internet to watch news video. But how are consumers finding the wealth of
news video content available on the Web? And are search engines playing a major
role? DoubleClick Performics, in partnership with ROI Research, recently
conducted the Searching for Video News Study to gain some insight into how
consumers are using search to find news, as well as if they're getting what
they're looking for. See also:
============================
Yahoo: Paid Search
============================
More Than Half Of
Yahoo's Paid Search Clicks Come From Partners - Efficient Frontier is
out with new research looking at how the major search engines get search traffic
outside their own search engines, including the remarkable stat that less than
half of Yahoo's paid search clicks happen on its own search sites. See also:
============================
Yahoo: Searching
============================
Yahoo Labels
Google As Malware? No, Yahoo URL Mix Up - A funny bug at Yahoo that
accidently made it look like Google's home page had Malware on it, based on the
Yahoo SearchScan feature that was recently launched. A search for Astalavista at
Yahoo returned what appeared to be a Google.com result in the 10th position. But
in reality, Yahoo somehow mixed up the astalavista.ms URL with a Google.com URL,
and since astalavista.ms had signs of Malware on it, it appeared that Google.com
had malware on it. See also:
============================
Yahoo: SEO
============================
Yahoo Search May
2008 Index Update - The Yahoo Search blog posted a new weather report
today. The report tells us to expect some fluctuations in the search results
found at Yahoo Search. Priyank Garg & Sharad Verma of Yahoo said, that they
are releasing "some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms
over the next few days." Expect some "ranking changes and page shuffling,"
they added. I have not seen much of any discussion from SEOs and SEMs on any
Yahoo changes in the past few days.
============================
Fun, Weird Stuff & Other Things
============================
Google Announces
Doodle 4 Google Winners - And the winner of the "Doodle 4 Google"
competition is... Grace (Suryung) Moon, a 6th grader from Canyon Middle School
in Castro Valley, California. She designed the Google logo, "Up in the
Clouds," which she said, "expresses a world in the sky." The logo is now
featured on Google's home page. The national finalists include. See also:
Save the date for these upcoming Search Marketing Expo Events:
- SMX Local & Mobile - San Francisco - Jul. 24-25
- SMX Sao Paulo - Brazil - Aug. 7-8
- SMX China @ Timev - Nanjing - Oct. 6-8
- SMX Stockholm - Sep. 23-24
- SMX East - NYC - Oct. 6-8
- SMX London - Nov. 4-5
Attend the Search Marketing Now Webcasts:
Paid Search Testing & Experimentation: Optimizing for Superior Results - July 10, 2008
Tracking Beyond the Lead: How to increase the ROI of your lead gen campaign - July 17, 2008
It's free to attend! Register today at Search Marketing Now.
Interested in advertising or sponsoring Search Marketing Expo or Search Marketing Now webcasts? Contact us.
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