Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Microsoft's aggressive search plans revealed | CNET News.com: "Microsoft's aggressive search plans revealed"

... Web log and social-networking products, and ... the Microsoft division plans to develop natural language-processing algorithms. This technology would permit visitors to ask questions such as "What's the highest mountain?" instead of using simple keywords...

hinted at some research areas. He said one in two search requests currently go unanswered and that there are a number of ways to improve on that. One is to learn more about the searchers, in order to give better results"

Google

Mapquest Beta Tests Local Search: "Sponsored links provided by Google appear on the right-hand side of the search results page. Google has been providing these listings to Mapquest since June of 2003 for its maps and driving directions results. Interestingly, Google uses Mapquest to power the mapping features of its own local search offering, now in beta.
Mapquest is competing in an ever-more-crowded field in the local search arena as major players jockey for position in local search, a sector predicted to generate $2.5 billion by 2008, according to The Kelsey Group (TKG) and ConStat Inc. About 25 percent of online buyers seek merchants near their home or work locations, according to TKG and BizRate.com...

In early March, Yahoo! launched SmartView on Yahoo! Maps, giving users an interactive and visual way to search for local content. Less than two weeks later, Google launched its own local search offering.

Mapquest, ranked the number one mapping site and travel site in the U.S. by comScore Media Metrix in early 2004, has offered similar, local search-type tools to users for some time.

Schafer would not say how much usage the tool has had since it launched at the top-right-hand side of the homepage several weeks ago. He did say local search queries are "growing significantly."

Google

Sunday, March 28, 2004

The Globe and Mail: "an idiot's guide to Boolean algebra "

Google

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Yahoo buys European comparison site for $574 mln: "Yahoo buys Kelkoo for $574 million Comparison shopping site leads Europe expansion"

Separately, InfoSpace (INSP) said it will pay a 28 percent premium to buy online directory provider Switchboard (SWBD) for $160 million, or $7.75 a share in cash. The combined company would account for nearly a quarter of all online yellow pages searches, according to ComScore/MediaMetrix. Shares of Switchboard were up 27 percent in recent trading at $7.67.

Google

Friday, March 26, 2004

Yahoo! WebRank Checking Tool: "check your Yahoo WebRank without needing to install the Yahoo toolbar"

Google

Thursday, March 25, 2004

ResourceShelfPLUS (From ResourceShelf.Com): "Selected Search and Search-Related Papers (Full Text) from the Upcoming WWW2004
Thirteenth International World Wide Web Conference"

Google

Yahoo & 301 redirectsClient's site disappeared from Yahoo.: "there is an issue in our current handling of 301 redirects. 301 redirects are the correct technique to use. We are working to address the problem by the next index cycle (typically 2 to 4 weeks) and appreciate your patience while we resolve this. "

Google

Eurekster Discusses Combining Social Networking and Search Engine Technology

we are getting closer to a merging of search engine technology and social networking...Eurekster makes use of its own SearchMemory™ technology which remembers the sites a user finds useful and presents them higher in the results the next time they search. Then, Eurekster lets a user and their friends share their searches and sites, so when they do a "hotel" search, for example, they'll see the hotel sites their friends also found useful, moved up in the results and marked with an icon.

Google

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Great quotes.. MSNBC - All Eyes on Google

"Search is the ultimate killer online app," says Bob Davis, former CEO of Lycos. "The Internet without search is like a cruise missile without a guidance system."

"Search has always been essential to people's lives," says Jeff Weiner of Yahoo. "We're all trying to seek happiness—a new car, a job, a spouse ... it's how we live."

Google

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Yahoo Beta Testing News Search 2.0 the Search Engine Journal: "Yahoo has begun beta testing Yahoo News 2.0, a new News Search Engine which unlike the current Yahoo News, draws in news stories from thousands of online news sources indexed by Yahoo. News Search now combines articles from Yahoo! News and over 7,500 crawled news sources around the Web"

Google

the Search Engine Journal Yahoo toolbar & web rank

Yahoo now has its own toolbar. In a similar fashion the Google toolbar works, Yahoo just introduced Web Rank™. Web Rank™ happens to be Yahoo’s new search engine algorithm, as well as the name it gave its new toolbar.

The Yahoo Web Rank™ toolbar works a bit like the Google PageRank™ toolbar and is a technical measurement of a particular URL’s popularity. If you download and install the Yahoo Web Rank™ feature on the Yahoo Companion Toolbar, an icon will display the Web Rank™ value of each URL that you visit.

Just like Google, Web Rank™ values range from 1 to 10, with the higher number depicting higher link popularity. So, it is hoped (!) that a site with a higher Web Rank will offer more information and content, at least that’s how it should work.

Google

MSN Demarcates Paid, Organic Search; Google Tweaks AdSense: changes to the MSN search results page

"Currently there is a combination of paid and unpaid links." The interface, set to debut July 1, will present paid listings in boxes with a yellow background positioned at the top and right-hand side of the page, headed "Sponsored sites." Previously, paid links appeared on the right, but without a colored background, and were also mixed into the main body, sometimes appearing among the featured sites, as Lee noted.

The number of paid links at the top will drop from four to three. MSN staff will sell these top listings, though if not enough are sold, one listing provided by Overture may appear. The five ads on the right-hand side will continue to be provided by Overture, MSN's third-party partner.

...algorithmic search results will now appear 'above the fold,' e.g. in the area of the screen immediately seen without needing to scroll down. The algorithmic search is powered by Inktomi, and will feature paid inclusion, a system by which marketers pay to be included in the index, but they aren't guaranteed any particular ranking.

The move puts MSN 'completely in compliance' with the Federal Trade Commission's recommendations on separating and labeling sponsored search results, said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com"

Google

More Yahoo.. it becomes clearer ..PFI with PPC = spam guard
Inclusion and Its Discontents: "content is a product of human intelligence, editorial decisions, and an attempt to communicate certain concepts. Search indexes are products of algorithms. It's the existence of this algorithm that protects Yahoo from ethical infringement. The algorithm is independent and exists only to generate relevant lists of sites. It's outside business concerns. At least, it needs to be.
By including PPC results within organic listings, Yahoo set itself up to generate revenue by favoring its PPC clients. Yahoo has incentive to game its own system. That ain't good. It introduces the perception of potential ethical breach. Yahoo just put itself on the brink.
Charging PPC in Inclusion Makes Sense
Charging a PPC with inclusion is not just a money grab by Yahoo. I'm sure Yahoo is happy about the revenue this model will generate, but don't think it's the primary motivation for launching the program this way.
If clicks are free in a paid inclusion program, site owners can optimize for volume: search spam. If clicks cost, site owners must optimize for relevance. When site owners pay for clicks, they must be mindful of where and how frequently they show up.
Search providers should be aggressively vigilant about spam. The problem must be solved with technology and human policing. PPC in inclusion is an economic tool against spam. Is it the only economic tool available? There may be others, though I haven't heard reasonable suggestions just yet.
The PPC economic tool isn't free. Yahoo will spend plenty of money defending it to not only the industry but also the public at large. Is PPC a money grab? Perhaps, but if it harms consumer brand perception, it's far from a good deal."

Google

Yahoo's spam guidelines analysed superficially & email addy if banned...:
Been Banned by Yahoo!?: "there is a lot of grey area here. While most points are pretty straight forward, some like 'Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value' could include dynamically generated database driven pages (like a storefront or e-commerce site) while 'Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity' could include sites which use legitimate link building strategies to help their rankings."

email address (webmasterworldfeedback AT yahoo DOT com) to which you can send a request for review. This is only a temporary fix, as they plan on implementing a full review process in the coming months.

Google

Sunday, March 21, 2004

Microsoft's MSN plans new search engine in July: "a new engine for its MSN Search service will start up in July, another step in its plan to challenge Google Inc"

Instead of including paid listings within search results, which critics say results in misleading search results, MSN said it will display paid listings separately at the top and to the right of search results generated by its search engine.

MSN will list three paid listings at the top of every search result, of which at least two will be advertisements sold directly by MSN.

Currently, Microsoft's paid listings are sold through an intermediary called Overture Services, which became a subsidiary of Internet media and portal company Yahoo Inc.

MSN said that it would continue to work with Overture to bring in paid listings, although it has clearly shifted away from relying on such providers.

In January, Microsoft ended its relationship with another paid listing company, LookSmart, and last September said its relationship with Overture would eventually change, but remain intact for the medium-term.

Just over a year ago, Microsoft's executives sat down at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters and decided to build their own search technology that would challenge Google's ability to sift through the Web and return results relevant enough to make it the Web's top search provider.

Redetzki said MSN was making steady progress and that July's launch will reflect results driven by a revamped search engine with better algorithms, the underlying logic involved in sifting through information.

"We're much farther along in relevancy," Redetzki said

Google

Friday, March 19, 2004

Features: "16/March/2004

The top ten most popular flight searches across the Espotting network, for the week 9 March to 15 March, 2004.


1. Cheap flight
2. Flight
3. Airline
4. Airline ticket
5. Cheap flight UK
6. Flight to Australia
7. Airport
8. Air travel
9. Cheap flight to France
10. Cheapest flight
www.espotting.com "

Google

News: "BT Exact will head up a European Commission (EC) funded project to give search engines the ability to deliver results in the right 'context'.

The idea is to eradicate the growing problem of finding the right information from the multitude of unstructured text on the internet.
BT's research, technology and IT operations arm, BT Exact, will work together with twelve European partners on the Semantic Knowledge Technologies (SEKT) project. The team believes it will develop technology that will 'revolutionise' search engines and other 'knowledge management systems'. At present such tools are unable to conduct searches in context, leaving the user with a long list of both relevant and irrelevant web pages to sift through.
SEKT claims it will develop technology that will mimic the human ability to assess the context of the information entered, leaving out unrelated text before posting the results.
Within the team's projections, tools will be developed to deliver information to users based on their current interests and type of device they are using to browse the web or other knowledge banks"

Google

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Web Promotion Guide - Pay Per Click: "look at Pay Per Click engines and PPC advertising in general. It includes various tips and strategies to help you start, manage and optimize pay per click campaigns. "

Google

Overture Site Match / Yahoo Paid-inclusion / PPC - High Rankings Advisor: "The prices per year are as follows:

$49 for the first URL from any domain
$29 for URLs 2-10 and
$10 per URL if submitting 11 or more URLs

Seems like a decent deal on the surface, with all those engines included. But wait! You haven't heard the kicker yet!

On top of the per-URL fee, you get to also pay for every click to your site from any of Yahoo's properties. This PPC fee will be either 15
cents or 30 cents each, depending on the category your site falls into. I believe any business-to-business site falls into the $.30
price, and I'm sure there are many other types that also fall into this category.

"What do we get for this -- top listings or just indexed?"

The answer was "just indexed."

So should you do it? Definitely not if your pages are already indexed by Yahoo and its other search properties. I say definitely not
because your only benefit will be the frequent crawling and the click-reporting feature that Yahoo provides. Unless you have no
current reporting or a really urgent need for frequent crawling, I can't see why you'd want to pay for something that you already have for free.

You will not get an increase in rankings by paying. Remember that. At least that is the official word.

"

Google

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Essential reading:
How to Spot Search Engine Spam: Doorway Pages: "How to Spot Search Engine Spam: Doorway Pages"

Google:
http://www.google.com/Webmasters/index.html
http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html


Yahoo:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/guidelines/spam.html
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Teoma/Ask Jeeves:
http://sp.teoma.com/docs/teoma/about/terms_of_service.html
http://ask.ineedhits.com/programterms.asp#spam

Google

Sunday, March 14, 2004

More Yahoo...linking, email address...
Yahoo What gives? How do you tell if your penalized?: "When you do a backward link search in Y. Dose your site show backward links? ' via link:http://www.mysite.com?

webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com

I emailed the webmasterworldfeedback address and got a reply saying I was given a 'demotion penalty' and that my site was going to be scheduled for re-review as it didn't look that bad. I find this encouraging, as it means Yahoo is using some sort of human filtering, and the process is subject to appeal. I would email them and be patient, you will probably get a reply."

On Yahoo blocking affiliate sitesYahoo What gives? How do you tell if your penalized?: "This has pretty major implications for the shape of the web and internet marketing in general. CJ, Tradedoubler, Befree, etc generate millions of dollars of income and business for a multitude of organisations the world over. ffiliate marketing has been a massive contributer to the growth and development of the internet.

Search itself is currently more or less duopolistic, why should my business or anyone else for that matter be excluded from 50% of the marketplace? Is Y! going to drop all Brokerage firms, Travel agents, Insurance agents too?... reply from Y! that they don't oppose affiliate sites but they don't want their index to be full of the same stuffs from affiliate. They want good, unique content that has value for the searchers.
"

Google

Search Engine News: Search Engine Marketing/Search Engine Optimization/Dynamic Pages: "Dealing with Dynamic Pages " various articles

Search Engine World/Webmaster World Fluid Dynamics Search Engine: "Dynamic pages - what a headache! "

Google

Friday, March 12, 2004

Yahoo on the aggressive..
News: "Yahoo has begun a major search advertising push after hiring an automatic keyword bidding system to run campaigns for the company throughout Europe.

After a four-way pitch late last year, the company has begun bidding on thousands of keywords to promote its many services through BidBuddy, the automated keyword bidding service provided by UK firm WSPS."

Google

Search upstarts storm Google's gates | CNET News.com: "Search upstarts storm Google's gates" ..interesting article re new search engine upstarts looking to fight their way into the battle for a decent share on the online search marketplace. From Quigo to Eurekster with a few more in between, find out which engines are looking to play the game and which ones have the best chance of being competitive.

Quigo, (their) technology discerns the context or meaning of a Web page to deliver more targeted ads,
Start-up Industry Brains is taking a spin on search engine marketing by powering private label services
personalized search, and several upstarts believe they can provide a better mousetrap to deliver it...

Eurekster works like any other search engine by using keywords and algorithms to locate the most relevant Web sites for a given query. But it also ranks the results according to what interests people in a particular group.
Mooter uses mathematical algorithms modeled on neural networking to better understand and differentiate two people searching on the term "travel Australia," for example. Does this person want data on backpacking options or luxury golf tours? With a range of techniques, Mooter will look at how people search to determine their tastes for follow-up queries within the same day or session..

Dipsie, is planning to launch a new search engine later this year. Though its search techniques are still under wraps, company CEO Jason Wiener said that Dipsie is indexing more of the Web, or the "deep Web," such as the billions of Web documents that originate from databases. It also will use different techniques to rank Web sites, including evaluating the semantics of a page's content.

Vivisimo and Groxis are working on creating tools to organize search results around specific topics. For example, a search query for "Paris Hilton" would separate results for the luxury hotel chain from the publicity-seeking heiress of the same name.
Vivisimo launched an eBay search tool aimed at sorting through auction information on the e-commerce giant's site. Groxis, meanwhile, has developed a Google plug-in that sorts the company's search results by topic...it organizes Google search results into graphical maps, categorizing relevant data in relation to keyword queries--something Google itself does not do.

For example, a user who searched on the term "Wi-Fi" would see spheres of categories on the subject, with labeled topics such as "news," "802.11" and "hot spots." The user could then delve deeper into Web pages on the topic of specific interest by clicking on a sphere

local search market, a much-hyped area of growth for many search engines... Whereonearth.com, for example, is working on a system that pinpoints the Internet Protocol addresses of the Web. Citysearch.com is positioning itself and its own search technology as the answer to finding local listings for restaurants, shops and entertainment.

Google

Yahoo costing eg Yahoo! Introduces Content Acquisition Program: "It's important to note that the program includes listings in Yahoo! owned AltaVista and AlltheWeb, bypassing the need to pay separate PFI fees to those engines. Yahoo! also notes that all submitted URLs must pass ongoing quality review to be included in the index.
Pricing is on the high-end when it comes to PFI style programs. Site Match starts at about $50 per year for the first URL with slight discounts for additional URLs. On top of that, a per-click fee of .15 to .30 cents is charged for each listing. That means a small e-tailer that wishes to list 100 product pages through the program is looking at a minimum cost of $1229 per year, just for their listing. Add on per-click fees and no guarantee of placement and you're looking at a fairly expensive inclusion program, especially if Yahoo! plans to continue sending out a free, organic spider...

In a marketing arena that started out with free listings for those that knew what they were doing, having to pay for those same results can be a tough pill to swallow. Many feel that search engines owe webmasters a free, full, organic listing. After all, search engines rely on indexing webmasters' sites to build the very indexes that make them popular, right? On the other hand, many have equated search engines to the Yellow Pages, pointing out that businesses pay a hefty fee to be listed in the Yellow Pages.

Where Yahoo! plans to take this program in the future remains to be seen. No doubt the entrance of Microsoft to the marketplace later this year will have an impact on Yahoo!'s decision, as will Google's continued refusal to add a PFI program of their own."

Jimworld forum responses http://jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/thread::1078291340/forum::Yahoo/app::iforum/

Google

Yahoo Blocking Affliate Sites -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "A friend of mine recently got a response to an email sent to Ink/Yahoo asking why a site was no longer in the index:

QUOTE [url] is blocked from our index; the heavy use of affiliate content is likely the cause. Yahoo! wants users to get unique, diverse content for their searches whenever possible.

It looks like Yahoo is manually removing affiliate sites. "

Top resource Search Engine Optimization 101: "Search Engine Marketing Forums - The Internet's Weapon of Mass Instruction "

Google

Yahoo! Answers Site Match Questions: "Posted: 03/10/2004 06:38 pm

The Yahoo! Team is posting this Site Match information / Overview to answer questions and clarify issues that have been raised on the message board.

Q. Why should I pay for Site Match if my site is already indexed or may soon be indexed for free?
A. Our primary goal is to discover and include all content on the web through our free web crawling process. Today 99% of the information in the index comes from the free crawl. Site Match, however, provides many benefits to content providers even when their content is already indexed.

Both content providers and search users benefit from greater interaction between sites and the search engine. In fact, for several years a good number of message board posters have been asking for greater clarity from search engines about how to participate and what the �rules� are. The Site Match program addresses this additional need by providing a value-added service that focuses on providing a clearer, more consistent way to interact with Yahoo! Search. Specific components include: the ability to proactively submit content to us, frequent refresh, quality review, detailed reporting, and support when problems arise. The program is cost-effective, easy to manage, and includes the ability to control total cost.

Yahoo! believes that Site Match delivers:
1. Higher quality search results for users, including reducing the amount of search spam (spammers are economically disincented to participate)
2. A clearer, more consistent way to interact with Yahoo! Search for content providers who historically have been subjected to unpredictable changes in the way their content has been discovered and presented by search engines."

Customers in particular who will find Site Match extremely valuable include those with:
- Sites that have harder to find content or with information that can’t currently be crawled by any search engine (e.g. sites with dynamic content, such as extensive product catalogs)
- Sites seeking more control over the content that is discovered
- Sites seeking more control over how the content is presented
- More dynamic sites seeking faster refresh rates
- Sites that are looking for more user data and clearer, more consistent interaction with the search engine

Yahoo! believes these benefits are of value to many businesses, and the considerable demand for the program we’ve seen thus far would seem to support that. However, the program may not be valuable to everyone. We understand this – not everyone wants or needs the value-added service that Site Match offers. That’s OK, because it’s likely that we already have your web pages through our regular crawl, and if we don’t yet, we’re working to get them over time. This is a cornerstone of our mission to provide the highest quality search experience on the internet.

More specifically, you may not find value in the Site Match program if the following is the true:
- Your site is well discovered by the free crawl
- The right content is discovered and you are consistently satisfied with when and how your content is presented
- The information on your site is fairly static and the faster refresh is of less value to you
- You don't think you need more user data on search performance

If this describes your site, then the free crawl may be adequate for you and you don’t need the added value of the Site Match programs.

Q. Does Site Match require both a per-page, per-year fee and a cost-per-click?
A. Site Match includes a yearly review fee per URL and a cost-per-click fee. Site Match has a much lower up-front cost (less than 1/3) than the 3 programs it replaces: Inktomi Search Submit, AltaVista Express Inclusion, and FAST PartnerSite PFI. One concern with the old programs was that some sites paid upfront and then got relatively few clicks (a common scenario for specialized sites). This resulted in the service working out to be quite expensive on an effective cost-per-click basis. The new cost-per-click pricing is more equitable in that it scales with the value the program provides to each participating site. In addition, we offer a range of budgeting options that allow content providers to cap their spend at whatever levels they are comfortable with. Finally, and most importantly, cost-per-click pricing helps ensure a high quality user experience. Cost-per-click pricing motivates content providers to submit only relevant content (no one wants to pay for an irrelevant click), further improving the quality of the search experience for users. Without CPC pricing, content providers have no incentive to provide high quality content and avoid gaming the system.

Q: What if I can't afford this program? Will you have a lower priced program in the future?
A: If your primary goal is to get your site indexed and if your web site has not already been crawled by Yahoo! Search, it is possible it will be crawled in the future. As of March 1, 2004, 99% of all content in our index has been discovered via our free crawl, and our primary objective is to discover all content on the internet for free. Furthermore, we now offer a free Add URL service (http://submit.search.yahoo.com). We will continue to evaluate different product mixes and pricing models and will evolve our programs based on market demand.

Q. Will Yahoo! Search results sacrifice quality by favoring sites that pay for the Site Match program?
A. Absolutely not. Since its inception, the Yahoo! Search mission has been to provide the highest quality search experience on the Internet. The motivation behind this is simple: if we do not provide the highest quality search experience we will not be providing users with an incentive to stay and continue to use our product. It is the quality of our results – as defined by their relevance, comprehensiveness, freshness and presentation - that will ultimately lead to our success in search and we will not compromise the quality of these results.

Q. If I participate in Site Match, will my site be “banned” from the search index?
A. No. The Site Match and crawling systems are separate (one doesn’t affect content in the other) and participation in Site Match does not impact the efforts of our crawlers to index all of your content. For instance, if you submit 1 page to Site Match, other pages that may be in the regular index will not be affected.

In addition, content from both systems is reviewed and evaluated against the same criteria to ensure all content meets a consistent, high quality standard. If you joined the Inktomi Search Submit program, for example, you may have been reviewed. If problems were discovered, your site may have been partially or entirely removed from the search index. The same thing happens to sites that have been discovered through the free crawl process. If problems were discovered, your site may have been partially or entirely removed from the search index. Any review-related penalty is solely designed to ensure the best experience for our users, not to encourage ongoing participation in our inclusion programs. Also, removal of URLs from Site Match will in no way impact our crawlers’ efforts to index those URLs.

Q. Will the Inktomi index be merged with the new Yahoo! Search index before Inktomi disappears?
A: Today there is a single, new Yahoo! Search Technology (YST). YST powers Yahoo! Search and in the coming months will also be powering search solutions for all our partners. Yahoo! Slurp, Yahoo!’s new crawler, is already reaching and indexing more of the web than any of our prior technologies.

Q. What happens to my site if I previously participated in a paid inclusion program (e.g. Inktomi Search Submit)?
A: If you previously participated in a subscription-based paid inclusion program from Inktomi, AltaVista or FAST, you have the option of continuing your current subscription in which case the terms of your subscription will not change. This will continue until the end of your subscription. As an added bonus, your participation will also extend to Yahoo! Search results until April 15, 2004. Note that Inktomi Index Connect (feed-based) customers may continue participating in the full network of portals, including Yahoo!

Q. Does Site Match allow URLs to be targeted to specific countries?
A. Yes. Site Match provides a “geotargeting” feature. Through the Overture-branded system, just log in (after subscribing) and go to View/Edit URLs. Click Edit for each URL and you’ll see options to target by region or by country. This is another feature that helps us deliver a higher quality user experience: users don’t see results for businesses that can’t address their needs. By offering geo-targeting we enable content providers to improve both their experience and the experience of the user.

Replies
The search logic and the content provider logic is what we all are trying to get our minds around here IMO.

My attitude is what is going to be the best balance that addresses the needs of the search engine the search engine user and the search engine content provide (site owner/marketer).

the engine that meshes those three together in the optimal way will win IMO.

Google

MediaDailyNews 03-09-04: "Yahoo! today released results of research conducted using Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms database that showed solid increases in brand effectiveness from online ad campaigns."

Google

Why Is Search So Hot?: "Putting aside search's inherent problems (from embarrassing contextual listing placement to missing higher-value branding opportunities), buying paid listings on search pages is as close to the Holy Grail of ad products as any I've seen. Systems are easy to use. It's performance based. Pricing is transparent. Most important, tracking return on investment (ROI) is very easy. The rest of the media world could learn a lot from buying ads on Google or Overture.
Advertisers buying paid search listings are confronted with several phenomena not generally found in media products:
Lead-based business models. Advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ads. This delivers actual leads, not just impressions. They like that. It's much closer to directly buying sales. It's very measurable. It's easy to track clicks and ROI. It's much more immediate than branding. I'm a big believer in brand advertising, but these days, business models that can be directly tied to sales win budget.

Simple, text-based ads. Advertisers don't need graphic artists or creative shops. They, or their marketing departments, can create the ads... quickly. They can create tens, or hundreds, of different versions, depending on target audience and target context. They can change and adjust ad copy as often as they like, or swap ads in or out, usually in a matter of minutes.

Self-service buying systems. Advertisers can, on their own, get a campaign up and running in minutes with nothing more than a credit card. Though search companies have large teams of sale executives and customer service personnel to help advertisers navigate the systems and manage large and complex campaigns, this self-service nature puts advertisers in charge. The advertiser is in control, whether they ever touch an ad order entry screen or not.

Transparent, bid-based pricing. All advertisers pay market rate. Rate cards aren't part of the keyword buying process. Prices are dictated by demand generated by other advertisers. Advertisers don't have to worry about negotiating skills (theirs or their agency's). They pay the market rate. As it's easy to track how well ads convert clicks into sales (Google, Overture, and a number of independent service providers offer tools to measure actual campaign ROI), they can adjust bids in real time or cap spending, to ensure all their advertising drives profitable sales.
What a concept. Advertising that's simple, easy to use, easy to track, accountable, and can potentially reach 100 million Americans a month.

That's why search is hot."

Google

Questions for Dana Todd, Executive VP of SiteLab International: "Yahoo!'s paid inclusion strategy, the nascent markets for local and personalized search, and what will happen when the behemoth agencies stop paying lip service to SEM and actually start doing it."

Yahoo:
Now have to pay both a flat fee and a per-click fee ...you have to have the kind of business model that's going to support paying .15 per visitor. Take ClickZ as an example; you're a publisher. Do you guys make .15 on an eyeball? Most publishers don't. You may have a lot of advertising, but you're still probably only going to make .08 per click. If you're paying for visibility at .15 a click, you're losing money on Yahoo! traffic.

Contextual advertising (Adsense..)
contextual advertising is banner advertising with words. I've seen statistics showing that while the conversions are similar to search, the clicks are closer to those of banners. I pay a lot less for banner ads than I do for search advertising. For a run of network ad buy, the average CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) is $4 or $6. So why am I paying $2 per click? Just because you tell me it's relevant?

Locally targeted search marketing:
It'll eventually open up a much larger market, but only once it becomes a common buy for the small advertisers. I think they're going to have a year or so getting traction on that. Small advertisers are just now hearing about search marketing. (The really big advertisers are also just starting to experiment with it. It's everyone in the middle that's leading the way.)

Personalization:
The problem with personalization is it attempts to automate the human mind. You can't do that. You just can't. Google has done a pretty good job of mapping our social network. But to do that on the level of the individual mind? Knowing how many personal searches I do in a day, how many different kinds of searches for different clients, I'm sure [my personalized results] would be a muddled mess by the time two weeks had past. It makes the assumptions that people are a certain way all the time.

What threats does SEM face right now? Is there a risk of a bubble?
It's a small bubble, but it's a bubble. It's a piece of the overall bigger bubble, which is that Internet advertising is back. There's a belief, certainly in our organization, that part of that credibility factor was contributed by SEM. That's why advertisers are coming back. They're starting to see results, due to the fact that SEM is so metrics driven.

Q.What's the big picture for SiteLab's search business right now?
A.A lot of search agencies are saying, we've pretty much maxed out the search market. This happens when you hit the top. If you can buy all the potential inventory in your keyword areas, you start to see a flat line. You have effectively cornered the search engine market share. There is no more, because it is driven by consumer demand.

Their next question to me is, "We want more traffic, so what should we do?" That's when we start looking at the banners, e-mail and other ad methods.

(And pops sometimes work, by the way. It's not huge, but it's good enough. In some cases, because the distribution is so large, pop-ups can be very effective, particularly the very targeted networks like Claria. Not every single one of our tests on Claria has worked, but those that do are very impressive.)

Google

More Yahoo!
Details on the paid-inclusion service, including pricing and the free URL submission form, are located at:
Yahoo! Submit Your Site: "The goal of Yahoo! Search is to discover and index all of the content available on the web to provide the best possible search experience to users. The Yahoo! Search index, which contains several billion web pages, is more than 99% populated through the free crawl process. Yahoo! also offers several ways for content providers to submit web pages and content directly to the Yahoo! Search index and the Yahoo! Directory"

Unfortunately, in addition to charging an annual review fee per
URL, Yahoo! is imposing additional per-clickthrough fees on all
traffic received. In its current state, the program only makes
sense for large ecommerce or subscription sites in competitive
industries.

The only upside of the program having a pay-per-click component
is that Yahoo! will be incentivized to provide tips and ideas to
customers as to how they can improve the quality of their pages,
and in turn, show up higher in the search results

Google

Search Engine Terms - a glossary of internet search technology: "Search Engine Terms"

a link farm is any "scheme", process, service etc that offers to create multiple websites for the sole purpose of linking them together to artificially inflate link pop. A variation on that could be natural sites that agree to host "any" link for the same reason. Since the idea behind solid link building is to find links from topic relevant sites, neither of these "tricks" will do your website/pages any good in the long run.

Google

Thursday, March 11, 2004

1. How to Prosper with the New Google
This report comes from Dan Thies from SEO Research Labs. It is a very through report on what Google has done to "change and improve" itself. He gets into specifics but gives you information on what Google like and wants from a website.

You can download it at:
http://www.linking101.com/articles/googlereport.pdf

2. The Myth of Search Engine Submission This report comes from my associate Jack Humphreys at Power Linking.
It is a nice, short little report about links and the search engines.

You can download it at:
http://www.linking101.com/articles/powerranking1.pdf

Google

Yahoo Enhances Local Search with Maps: "Yahoo Enhances Local Search with Maps By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor March 10, 2004

Yahoo's new Smart View technology pinpoints the location of restaurants, banks, merchants and other businesses and services on local maps of cities throughout the United States and Canada.

'We've taken Yahoo! Maps and Driving Directions: "Maps Home - Yahoo! Maps " and on top of that have layered across it 55 categories that we've pulled from Yahoo and different data sources,' said Paul Levine, general manager of Yahoo's local services.

The enhancement to Yahoo Maps is cool, intuitive and very easy to use. Simply type in a location (street address, intersection, airport code, city name or postal code), and you'll see a map of that location. On the right side of the map, the Smart View menu displays six top-level categories for local attractions, businesses and services:
Food & Dining
Recreation & Entertainment
Community Services
Shopping & Services
Travel & Transportation
Financial & ATMs

Click the link for any of these categories, and a subcategory menu appears offering specific choices within the category. For example, within the food and dining category, you can choose to display all restaurants, or limit the display to cuisine type, such as Chinese, Indian, Mexican, and so on.

Similarly, in the recreation and entertainment category, you can see the locations of amusement parks, hiking trails, museums, movie theaters and so on. Simply click the radio button next to your selection, and the map is redrawn with small yellow and red bulls-eye icons showing the location of selected businesses.

Mouse over an icon, and the name of the business or service is displayed. Click on the icon, and a small box opens with more detail, iincluding address, phone number, website address and driving directions.

Registered Yahoo users can also configure a list of favorite locations, which can be selected from drop-down menus to speed up the process of getting driving directions.

The enhancements to Yahoo maps are a continuation of the company's efforts to leverage its various content offerings by combining information from multiple sources. "It's part of our overall strategy to differentiate in the local space in a way that supports and is integrated with our overall search strategy," said Levine.

Address and telephone number information comes from Yahoo yellow pages. Information pulled from Yahoo's travel and movie properties is used particularly effectively. For example, if you display hotels on the map, information for each hotel includes room prices, amenities, and ratings, if they're available.

Movie theaters have similar details, providing info about ticket prices, seating plans, sound system and so on.

"It's not just the commercial side -- we've also integrated hiking trails, libraries, and schools," said Levine. "We spent a lot of time with users trying to determine what are the right categories to expose," said Jeremy Kreitler, product manager for Yahoo maps and city guides.

As useful as the Smart View information is, it's not complete. Not all businesses, attractions or services in my local area were displayed, for example. But this is a minor quibble, given how easy it is to locate so many different kinds of local resources -- by simply clicking, rather than having to guess appropriate keywords and wade through text search results.

In addition to adding the Smart View technology, Yahoo maps have recently been enhanced with faster panning and zooming, a new large map view, turn-by-turn maps with driving directions and improved in-car readability of printed directions.

Yahoo plans to roll out several additional features in the local search arena over the coming year, according to Levine.

"

Google

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Yahoo! Mail - jenvil2000@yahoo.co.uk: "AlltheWeb's URL Investigator launched last year. It's a simple yet incredibly helpful tool for anyone who wants to learn more about a particular URL or domain name.... AlltheWeb's shows you all links it knows about that point to a document. Google shows only some links it knows about. The omission isn't disclosed on Google's help page, nor will Google explain exactly which links it suppresses"

Google

Flying Blind? Search Marketing Metrics: "If it's Not Measured, It's Not Managed
After working with search marketing for 8 years, I'm amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent marketers who enter their search campaigns without a clue of how to measure the success of the campaign. The entire motivation for looking at search optimization is because the CEO had a hissy fit because they didn't rank for a broad industry term that was, at best, only marginally relevant to their actual product and service offerings. They're pretty sure they want better rankings, but they really haven't given much thought as to why."

Google

Even more Yahoo!
Yahoo puts local content on the map | CNET News.com: "Internet portal Yahoo said Tuesday that it is launching a new service aimed at providing localized content to Web search users via its online map system...

surfers use Yahoo Maps to view information on local points of interest, such as restaurants, hotels, parks, automatic teller machines and post offices. Along with highlighted maps, Yahoo gives details about locations, including addresses and phone numbers, pricing, Web sites and driving directions. Yahoo said it also plans to incorporate a user rating system for hotels listed on the maps.
"

Google

Yahoo!'s New Search Engine: "Currently, Yahoo provides two options to get your web content indexed in its new search engine: by using a free URL submission box available to its registered users (you would need to login to Yahoo to access that feature), or by using Yahoo's paid inclusion program, Inktomi.
Yahoo claims that submitting a web link via the free URL submission box is considered only 'suggestion' and not a guarantee that the page will be added to the index.

The only guaranteed way to have your content included is to use the Inktomi paid inclusion program. The pricing for Inktomi paid inclusion is as follows:

1st URL - $39
URLs 2-1000 - $25 each
Yahoo has not commented on the fate of its other search engines, AltaVista and AllTheWeb, which were acquired through the Overture purchase last year. Currently only the Inktomi inclusion will feed search results into the new Yahoo Search index."

Submitting a URL to Inktomi is valuable because the results would feed MSN Search, at least until MSN Search develops their own search engine. In addition, an Inktomi submission would provide results to About.com and other partners.

However, the interesting thing about Yahoo and Inktomi is that, at least according to industry insiders, the new Yahoo Search is not a simple copy of Inktomi but rather an evolved, advanced form of Inktomi. As proof one can consider comparing the search results provided by MSN and HotBot both of which serve Inktomi results – they are certainly different from the results provided by Yahoo Search...

My opinion is to continue using Inktomi at least for the benefit of appearing in the MSN Search results and to have one’s options open for the April 15th planned introduction of Yahoo Search paid submission. Nobody knows if paid inclusion in Yahoo Search will be more expensive than the $39 Inktomi currently charges per URL, so putting some portion of your marketing budget for the new big search engine player would be wise.

For more information on the new Yahoo spider, see http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp/.

Are meta tags back?
Yahoo cares about page descriptions. Google usually composes its own page description based on the text of the first paragraph of the indexed page. Yahoo wants you to have a unique page description and you should diligently follow their advice.

Specifically, Yahoo advises:

“Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site.
Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.”

Google

Optimizing for Yahoo: The Next Big Thing: "Yahoo has a marked affinity for more keywords on the page when compared to Google. The analysis brings out the trend that most high-ranking pages generally have a larger number of keywords--primarily in the body text and title--than the pages that trail behind in SERPs. And interestingly, while the most high-ranking pages have an average overall keyword density of 9-10%, not all the high-ranking pages have that much keyword density; some have only 2-3%. This, in fact, is the upshot of the role played by backlinks, as will be explained later. Below is the breakup of various on-page factors and their respective keyword densities that make up the overall keyword density of a page:

Title - 15 to 20%. (This is one of the most momentous factors in the current Yahoo algorithm.)
Body Text - 2.5-3%
Meta Tags - 2-3%"

Yahoo apparently treats backlinks and link text in a different manner than Google. The statistics gathered reveal that most pages ranking well for an ‘allinanchor:keyword’ search don’t always top the charts on doing a generic keyword search. This demonstrates that Yahoo doesn’t give exceeding importance to link text, contrary to Google, where ‘allinanchor:keyword’ and generic searches still yield somewhat identical results with a little change in the order. As stated earlier, good link building and appropriate link text need to be further supplemented with copious keywords in title and body text

Google

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Latest SE chart bruceclay.com - Search Engine Relationship Chart (tm): "Bruce Clay,"

NB it's now more important than ever to get accurate search usage market share numbers. The top three or four competitors are going to be making dueling boasts, with Yahoo no doubt eager to prove that its search quality hasn't suffered by saying "but hey, look at all the user interest." Steel yourself for some potentially dubious stats.

Google

Yahoo...
More Answers to Members Question from Yahoo!:

""the ( site match) program may not be valuable to everyone. We understand this – not everyone wants or needs the value-added service that Site Match offers. And that’s OK, because it’s likely that we already have your web pages in the regular crawl, and if we don’t yet, then we are working on getting them in over time. Discovering and indexing all of the content on the internet for free is a cornerstone of our mission to provide the highest quality search experience on the internet."

Site Match has a much lower up-front cost (less than 1/3) than the 3 programs it replaces: Inktomi Search Submit, AltaVista Express Inclusion, and FAST PartnerSite PFI. Site Match replaces three programs: Inktomi Search Submit, AltaVista Express Inclusion, and FAST PartnerSite PFI. All of these “legacy” programs were managed by our SEM partners. As such, aside from our press release and information on the Yahoo! and Overture sites, we had to rely on partners to communicate about the new program.

Site Match is a PPC campaign, yet it is a fixed price, and control comes in the form of:
1. which page(s) you choose to submit
2. how your submitted pages are optimized to show up for relevant terms
3. how you opt to target your pages from a geo-targeting standpoint.
4. your ability to evaluate campaign metrics
5. your ability to set spend limits and/or opt-out of sitematch

Why should I spend money on Site Match



~Extensive on serp ad serving and ad distribution
~Frequent content refresh and guaranteed inclusion.
~To ensure deep pages are crawled and indexed.
~New and improved metrics - data concerning organic search performance.
~Because of speed to inclusion
~Because you are not indexed through the free crawl
~Because there is a return on investment associated with your sitematch pages being served in Y! serps and accross Y's distribution network.

"

Google

Why Ask Jeeves dropped their Index Express service...(Index Connect is Inktomi)

Did Yahoo!'s Rising Storm Finalize a Shift in AskJeeves Colors?:

"testing revealed that the differences between a page submitted via a trusted feed (xml feeds via Index Express customers) and a page indexed by the Ask spider were so significant that attributing proper relevance was very difficult. As a result, users, advertisers and Ask technicians alike were finding Index Express submitted pages ranking in odd places; sometimes ranking inordinately high or low. The second reason focuses on what is likely the shareholder's bottom line; the model was 'not a very good monetization vehicle.' ..

..paid inclusion models will undeniably be under the FTC and SEO microscope for the next few months, what with Yahoo!'s 6 web properties adapting to it with gusto.

Note: It is important that our readers understand that the paid submission process at Ask Jeeves is still active and recommended by the staff at StepForth. According to Jim Lanzone, the sites that are submitted via Site Submit will be indexed within one week and then repeatedly 2 times per week. Considering that sites which do not pay to submit may not be found or may only be indexed sporadically, this appears to be a very worthwhile service...

Ask has only 2 billion pages, whereas Google claims a 6 billion count and Yahoo! over 4.5 billion.

Ask's goal is to minimize the successful search experience to one click.

Concludes: hit 'wall of vague'; to quote Jim Lanzone, AskJeeves plans to "move into the different areas of search and apply our search engines to new areas of the web and make improvements to the methodologies that determine the relevance of the web."

Google

Monday, March 08, 2004

Yahoo! Search Launches AddURL: "As promised at Pubcon the free ADDURL has been launched on the Yahoo! site. It is only available right now directly at: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/
You need to log into Yahoo.com to use this service.
This URL will be linked to from the search pages shortly. "

Google

A Marketers Guide to Search Engine Marketing and Staying Alive in 2004 - Part Two: "A Marketers Guide to Search Engine Marketing and Staying Alive in 2004 - Part Two by Keith Boswell
In the first part of our two-part guide to staying alive in 2004, we talked about understanding keywords and the major avenues to be aware of for getting into search engines. This issue we focus the light more closely on the biggest search engines you need to know about, their position in the market and how you can use the knowledge you have for each of them."

To succeed with natural search engine marketing at Google, marketers need to focus on creating and maintaining content rich websites that people will link to naturally. Building and continually enriching a quality site should be your biggest focus. Paid placement should only be on your to-do list if your site is good at converting visitors and you’re a good copywriter who can deliver good click through rates for your ads. Remember, you need to know the keywords that you are buying are going to produce tangible results. If you're just guessing, you're going to waste money and have plenty of questions later.

Yahoo - all about to change..

2004 is MSN's beta year for search. Their web crawler, in-house index and search toolbar are all in beta at the present. MSN is finally gearing up to come in line with mother Microsoft closer than ever before. Bill Gates is beginning to talk about search as a concept the way he did about browsing the Web before Internet Explorer was released.

Yahoo and Google will feel the heat once the sun at Microsoft shines fully upon them. Until then, MSN will spend most of 2004 basking in the profits from their deals with Overture for paid placement results, and Inktomi for their web results. Expect to hear more from Microsoft towards the end of the year when some of their investments in proprietary technologies begin to take shape and their vision for search integration is better defined.

These three search properties represent over 85-90% of all people searching and so they warrant the majority of your attention. But there are other search networks available that can produce traffic and additional exposure above and beyond the Big Three. We'll use a future report to give you information about some of the smaller companies in the search market like Ask Jeeves, FindWhat, LookSmart, Infospace, Enhance (formerly Ah-Ha) and others that you need to know about and understand.

Google

Features: "2/March/2004

Searches in the Travel sector regain their top position in the search charts this month, with searches in the Home & Garden, Property and 'Entertainment & Leisure' sectors all roughly in equal second place."

Google

The death of AltaVista and AlltheWeb: "The death of AltaVista and AlltheWeb
Yahoo! will end the development of the AltaVista and AlltheWeb search engines, but will keep the sites."

AltaVista and AlltheWeb search engines will cease to exist in the very near future. The sites will remain, but their search technology will be replaced by the new Yahoo! search engine... Yahoo! will keep the two sites as experimental portals. Hence there will be differences as regards the support for advanced searching etc. But the core technology will be new...

So, say goodbye to the old search engine landscape dominated by Google, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves and AlltheWeb, and say hello to the new constellation: Google, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves and (soon to be) the new MSN search engine.

Google

Search engine news, on Web searching and search engine optimization: "Ask Jeeves buys Excite
(March 5 2004) Excite was once one of the major search engines. It was powered by its own search engine technology, and was not just a portal shell using the technology of others."

We believe we are going from 3.5% of market share to a little over 7%," says Steve Sordello, chief financial officer of Ask Jeeves to SmartMoney.

Google

Yahoo!/Overture's new paid inclusion program: "First you have to pay a fee to get a page included: an annual fee of US$49 for the first page, US$ 29 each for the next nine, and US$ 10 each for the 11th URL and beyond.
And that's not all. Unlike previous pay for inclusion programs, Yahoo!/Overture will ask you to pay for each click through. Every time someone clicks on one of your listings, you will have to pay Overture 15 or 30 cents depending on the category your site belongs to.

Now, pay-per-click is normally something we associate with regular sponsored text ads. Yahoo! is therefore taking a huge risk, as the credibility of its search results may be compromised. Discussions in online forums clearly show that Yahoo! has a problem regarding the legitimacy of these listings.
Google has never launched a paid inclusion scheme, mainly because the company feels that such a program may lead searchers to doubt the fairness of the search algorithm. "

Google

Saturday, March 06, 2004

Danny Sullivan's four-day, four-track Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference was substantially different in content and tone than past events -- even ones that took place as recently as a few months ago

Search: The Trends: "Overture is developing what Geoff Stevens, general manager of local search, terms 'radius based keywords.' Radii vary, based on region. "

This past week, Yahoo! and Overture changed their paid-inclusion program; Ask Jeeves dropped its XML paid inclusion and dropped $343 million on Interactive Search Holdings.

Last year, search was the number two online activity, after e-mail. The industry is growing, dollar-wise, by roughly 30 percent this year alone (depending on who you listen to). The Kelsey Group recently estimated local search alone will be a $2.5 billion industry by 2008.

Search as a marketing tool is anything but sorted out...Tim Armstrong, Google's vice president of advertising, told me, "Ninety percent of the technology hasn't even been developed yet"

Local: Sukinder Singh, Stevens' counterpart at Google, hinted her company will look to partner with local publishers and provide them with local search results...optimize for local search now. Does you site contain and buy keywords containing regional information such as city, state, Zip Code, and area code? If not, start there.

Professionalisation: SEMPO's European members launched E-SEMA (European Search Engine Marketing Alliance), which will be affiliated with its American counterpart. This means better standards, training, knowledge, and transparency for what's become a bona fide and burgeoning industry.



Google

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Yahoo consolidation:
Yahoo Announces Content Acquisition Program: "With its acquisitions of Inktomi and Overture, Yahoo inherited six different pay for inclusion programs (from Inktomi, AltaVista and AlltheWeb). Over the past year, the company has continued to run all six programs. For search marketers, this posed a problem, because all of the programs had separate terms, pricing and distribution. From a practical standpoint, it was necessary to participate in several of the programs to assure the broadest reach.
The new program consolidates all six programs into a single, unified program. By participating in the new program, search marketers continue to get the broad distribution offered by the previous programs, with one new, very important addition -- inclusion in the new Yahoo index itself.
This is a major benefit -- last month, Yahoo handled about 30% of all U.S. search traffic, according to Nielsen//NetRatings"

Google

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Viewing true content of redirects
I-Search: The Resource for Search Engine Marketers: "I-Search Discussion List"

Try it with Javascript disabled. That's what I use NS 4.7 for, without JS or CSS enabled. You can see the code using IE by typing view-source:http://www.example.com in the address bar.


It depends if the redirect is done at the server side, or at the client side (browser) using Javascript. You can have a look at what is
happening behind the scenes by using the HTTP viewer at http://www.seotoolkit.co.uk/http_viewer.asp to look at the URL.

If the site is doing a server-side redirect, the tool will show you a "302 Temporarily Moved" or "301 Permanently Moved" code, followed by the
target page HTML. If the target page HTML is not particularly optimised for your term, it is possible that they are using some sort of
cloaking. But remember, off-page factors such as the community they are linked from, and the link text being used to link to the site, are becoming
increasingly important in rating the relevance of a page. Try an "allinanchor:search term" search at Google - if your competitor is ranking
highly for this as well, they probably have good inbound link text.

If the site is using client-side redirection using Javascript, the tool will show you the HTML of the source page. You should be able to see if
they're doing anything naughty here, like keyword stuffing.

Google

Local Search Now 25% of Internet Commercial Activity: "Local Search Now 25% of Internet Commercial Activity"
local commercial searches – those seeking merchants "near my home or work" – represent 25.1% of all searches being performed by online buyers, more than double the amount previously estimated by analysts.

Survey highlights include:

Sixty-four percent of respondents said that search engines were the "main way" they find things on the Internet.

Commercial search results were rated as "good" or "excellent" by 80% of respondents.

Forty-four percent of survey respondents are performing more local commercial searches than one year ago.

All of the respondents to the online survey had made at least one online purchase in the past year. Respondents were mostly U.S. residents (93%) and generally equally distributed across all regions of the country; 59% were female and 41% were male. The total number of survey respondents was 5,582.

Google

This just has to get a mention..
How to Survive Search Engine Changes: "The Client Panic Attack
Below, a typical client phone conversation after Google or Yahoo updates its index.
SEM: Hi. How can I help you?
Client: My site's positions dropped in Google! Help! What should we do?
SEM: OK, don't panic. Let's see what happened. We should look at your site statistics. Will you please open that up for me?"

Google

Monday, March 01, 2004

More on new Yahoo!

Yahoo Inclusion Program: "'The key drivers of ranking are keyword-specific relevance and site quality, as assessed by our regular search relevance algorithms with input from the quality review process.' "

Google

Future
Jim Lanzone, Ask Jeeves' VP of Products, Discusses the Future of Search: "Teoma technology is predicated on social networking theory, as originally pursued by the Clever team at IBM in the mid-90's. Teoma was the first (and is still the only) search technology that can identify the Web graph's expert hubs and authorities in real time."

Clever

The Clever Project: "Traditional automated methods for locating information are easily overwhelmed by low-quality and unrelated content. Thus, the second generation of search engines will have to have effective methods for focusing on the most authoritative among these documents. The rich structure implicit in the hyperlinks among Web documents offers a simple, and effective, means to deal with many of these problems. The CLEVER search engine incorporates several algorithms that make use of hyperlink structure for discovering high-quality information on the Web. "

Smart Search

... is more of an ideology here than a brand name. It means giving the user smarter results in a more intuitive way, and what that means differs depending on what kind of search you're doing.

GPS local search

Search is the #1 activity on the Web, and there's no reason why the utility of search or the Internet should be restricted to your PC or Mac. I believe a device will come along and have the same impact on search as the iPod did for music. Cell phones will probably adapt more to this device, ultimately, than the other way around, due to usability issues, and the user's desire to carry only one device. Standing on a street corner and using this device, you will search for a local restaurant, or a cab company, through the Internet. Instead of going to the cab company's website, you will click a link and initiate a phone call. The search engine will be compensated for the call (this is the traditional Yellow Pages model of "metered calling") rather than the click.

Semantics (Understanding...)

We'd like to one day be able to understand a user's query perfectly, regardless of how they phrase it. Understanding the query perfectly would do much more to impact the quality of results for the everyday user (whether novice or expert) than perfecting the results themselves

Google
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