Report: Spending Trends in European Search Marketing
emarketer.com "Spending on search engine marketing in Europe will grow over the next five years, but its share of the overall online ad market may decline, according to a new report from Forrester Research....
In the shorter term, spending will jump 65% between 2004 and 2005, from € 856 in 2004 to € 1.4 billion in 2005."
InterActiveCorp near deal to buy AskJeeves
marketwatch.com: "IAC/InterActiveCorp is near a deal to buy Web-search service Ask Jeeves Inc."
Although Expedia is expected to be split off from IAC forming two public companies could this move into search mean Expedia and IAC dominate AskJeeves search results?
Net Sense Bambi Francisco also has doubts about the integration of Ask Jeeves into IAC: "I wonder whether Diller can masterfully orchestrate the empire he's built. Even though Ask Jeeves has a larger purpose in life now that it will be the default search engine on all of IAC's properties which reaches 44 million unique visitors, I doubt Ask Jeeves' rankings in the search wars will improve...
The idea of a combination with lots of synergies more often than not falls prey to the reality of integrating human egos, operations, and technology. AOL and Time Warner's combination back in 2000 is probably the best example of ambition exceeding realistic goals.
In addition, too many goals and too many differing approaches on how to reach them will lead to competing priorities. That typically results in relatively lagging performances across all business units."
Francisco cites a few examples of too many synergies spoiling profits and concludes that Ask Jeeves would be better exploited as "part of Google, then Google would be able to keep all of the revenue it shares with Ask Jeeves."
Over at
WebProWorld CRich theorises that " the idea is to integrate Ask’s search capabilities into IAC’s inventory of local content. This content stems from IAC’s number of consumer-oriented, location-sensitive web properties like Citysearch, Ticketmaster, Evite, Match.com, and Expedia.com.
Diller feels the amount of location-oriented traffic and resulting queries are ideal for Ask’s search technology. This should be a boost to local search and it’s ability to generate search advertising revenue, an attribute some believe the industry is lacking."
Search engine market share
travelmole.com: "According to internet monitors Hitwise,
Google UK is the most popular search engine in the UK with a
48% market share of visits during February. Second was
MSN.co.uk search with
8.6% share of visits and third was
AskJeeves with a 7% share."
The next big thing in search? A9.com
Introducing
OpenSearch ""We want OpenSearch to do for search what RSS has done for content."
OpenSearch is a collection of technologies, all built on top of popular open standards, to allow content providers to publish their search results in a format suitable for syndication...
OpenSearch is comprised of:
OpenSearch RSS: XML format for providing open search results.
OpenSearch Description Documents: XML files that identify and describe a search engine.
OpenSearch Aggregators: Sites, such as A9.com, that can display OpenSearch results.
If you are a content developer and already have a search engine for your site, you will want to read through the documentation on OpenSearch RSS and the OpenSearch Description, along with the OpenSearch Query Specification.
Alternatively, existing search engines can be wrapped so that HTML search results are translated into OpenSearch RSS results. Please keep in mind that you will need the permission of the search engine itself before wrapping someone else's search results."
Russell Beattie :: Yahoo Blogger?
Russell Beattie Notebook - Home A must read for anyone with evn just a passing interest in Yahoo! especially re implications of developments for related industry sectors.
Russell writes: "I just posted my first official Yahoo Blog post. I must really be part of the company now, hey? It's an overview of My Yahoo's new Mobile RSS service..."
Microsoft adds search-linked ads
FT.com : "Microsoft will on Wednesday signal a direct assault on one of the main profit-generators of Google and Yahoo when it unveils an advertising service that lets users link their messages to the results of internet searches. Though widely expected, confirmation of the software giant's plan to build its own advertising network around its search engine will intensify competition in the fastest-growing corner of the online advertising market"
CNET News.com report that: "Microsoft does not plan to immediately discontinue its partnership with Overture, according to a source familiar with the plan. For the last several years, Overture has supplied the sponsored search listings adjacent to and above MSN search results, a partnership that has helped buoy profits of the Internet property. The deal is slated to end in June 2006. "
Search Engine Optimization For MSN Search :
Internet Search Engine News: "Search Engine Optimization For MSN Search"
Highlights some crucial points which differ for MSN
Can Invisible Text in CSSs Slip Under Search Engine Radar?
wwwcoder.com:
tool to help you detect search engine spam penalties!
"Always double-check your cached pages to see what the search engine robots actually see when they index your page. Look for additional links & advertising in the source code that isn’t in your original source code...
Is using invisible text in cascading style sheets good? Nope!
There’s a new school of thought claiming you can use an alternative cascading style sheet (CSS) approach to placing invisible text on your web pages without penalty.
The theory is predicated on the premise that you could employ an external style sheet in another directory. There you’ d simply define a special class for a tag like < P > where the font and background colors are identical.
The claim is there’s no way for the current search engines algorithms to distinguish the color codes and penalize you. While this may or may not be the immediate situation it’s fundamentally WRONG!
Invisible text is invisible text & it's spam.
Since many invisible text tricks utilize CSS positioning properties to hide their contents, you’ll soon see (if not already) the search engines employing advanced algorithms to find hidden text in CSSs.
If you subscribe to the CSS theory you’ll undoubtedly be revisiting your strategy or paying later by being blacklisted or removed entirely from the various search engine indexes."
Search Algorithm Research & Developments - SES NYC 05
forums.searchenginewatch.com reports.
Zen and the Art of PPC :: A Five Step Holistic Approach
searchengineguide.com
Simon Dang runs through the basics of PPC - great article to base guidelines on:
"PPC is a whole new type of advertising and to be successful at it youll want to be sure to maintain a well-balanced strategy to optimize your campaigns. Remember that each of the five principles affects each of the others. If you choose the right keyword, but dont bid at the right price or do not have adequately converting ad copy or your landing page doesnt convert, then your end goal of conversions will not be met. Continue to balance and optimize all five principles and you will be on your way to a well maintained PPC campaign."
Excellent Keyword Research Article
Gallianno Cosme is the SEM Captain of Quirk writes that keyphrase work is the
Keyword Research :: The Core of Search Engine Marketing ">"The Core of Search Engine Marketing" giving an outline of the process and possible pitfalls. He concludes:
"Data for keywords and phrases changes based on competition and market need. As such, an excellent key phrase could easily become obsolete. Not staying on top of things could result in a decline in your search engine traffic.
Make it a point to check your keyword data on a monthly basis. This should also include viewing your website�s log files to see which keywords are generating the most traffic, and from which search engines they are originating from. This information will help you stay ahead of your prospective customers and competitors."
Havard Business Review Calls Blogs a Breakthrough Idea for 2005
Micro Persuasion: Steve Rubel
Gives blogging a big up by quoting an article in HBR by Mohabir Sawhney, Tribune Professor of Technology and Director, Center for Research in Technology and Innovation, Kellogg School of Management.
Rubel states "When the Harvard Business Review starts praising blogging strategies, you know it's time to start planning. What's your plan?"
Link Building and VIsion-based Page Segmentation
searchengineguide.com
The days of basing a successful link building strategy on link quantity and anchor text alone may be numbered. The link popularity theories behind PageRank and Hilltop remain important, but major search engines are continually adding new elements to their link algorithms to improve search relevance. One of these new elements is the concept of visual page segmentation which was recently proposed in a paper entitled “Block-level Link Analysis,” by Deng Cai, Xaiofei He, Ji-Rong Wen and Wei-Ying...
Search Engine Optimisation strategy "should incorporate knowledge of block-level analysis to ensure that the effects of a link building campaign will be maximized.
Two main points:
1)
Devaluation of links not in copy: !VIPS will allow search engines to differentiate between links from the content block and links from other blocks such as text advertisement blocks or footer blocks. As such, algorithms could easily weight links from each block differently."
2)
Improved Contextual Analysis: This should have the effect of boosting the link relevance for links from tightly-themed content blocks, while devaluing links that are in a block with no apparent theme.
Concludes: "the value of legitimate links from directories, articles and press releases. These types of links are placed in a content block and are also tightly themed (that is, your target keywords will be near your link).Webmasters who actively build these types of links will benefit from long term rankings even when new twists such as VIPS are added into the algorithmic mix. In fact, these algorithmic improvements should improve search relevance and neutralize some of the spammier link building methods."
MSN Launches New Internet Search Service Fluff
microsoft.com
Since the launch of a public beta version of MSN Search last November, MSN has gathered significant feedback to help further improve the product. Features designed to provide instant answers, not just a long list of links, include the following:
Instant Answers from Microsoft Encarta
Instant Answers from MSN Music
Search Builder: customise for advanced search
Category-specific searching: uses category-specific tabs such as Web, news, images, music or Microsoft Encarta
Search Near Me. This feature helps people tailor their search results to a specific geographic location
Ask Jeeves to replace Yahoo |at lycos
CNET News.com
"Web portal Lycos has selected Ask Jeeves technology for Lycos.com's search engine...Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed. Lycos.com had previously used technology from Yahoo's Inktomi unit"
Local search: THE topic at SES
CNET News.com
"Local search is a central focus of all the players at the annual Search Engine Strategies conference "
Google added Google Maps to its local search tool Wednesday
America Online is promoting new search tools that help people hone in on local businesses and entertainment--buying movie tickets online or reserving a table at a restaurant
Start ups like TrueLocal and Insider Pages are jumpimg on the bandwagon
An estimated 20% of searches are local centric
Kelsey Group research forecasts that the local search market will be worth $3.4 billion in five years
New SEMPO Board of Directors
The Optimiser Newsletter - 2 March 2005
"The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) has announced the results of its first member-wide elections for the SEMPO Board of Directors.
The new SEMPO Board of Directors consists of thirteen individuals that represent all segments of search engine marketing worldwide
The newly elected SEMPO Board of Directors is:
Ron Belanger, Carat Interactive;
Chris Churchill, Fathom Online;
Barbara Coll, CEO, Webmama.com;
Koichiro Fukasawa, Wasabi Communications;
Gordon Hotchkiss, Enquiro;
Kevin Lee, Did-it.com;
Mauro Lupi,Ad Maiora SpA;
Jeffrey Pruitt, iCrossing;
John Sanchez, Zunch Communications;
Jessie Stricchiola, Alchemist Media;
Julienne Thompson, Advertising.com;
Dana Todd, SiteLab;
David Williams, 360i"
Overview of Yahoo! Web Services (APIs)
O'Reilly Network Yahoo!'s Web Services:: by Paul BauschCovers tech features, some sample scripts and most importantly seems to signal a new openness:
"Yahoo!'s Web Services use the familiar REST architecture, where specially constructed URLs return an XML response in a unique format. In addition to web search results, Yahoo!'s API includes the ability to fetch results for images, local information, news, and video....
Along with their API, Yahoo! is opening several official channels of communication with developers. They've started mailing lists for each API section: News, Images, Video, etc. They've also started a Web Services weblog for announcements and a wiki for public collaboration and tracking new applications. Yahoo! is finally appealing to my inner geek, and I'm looking forward to seeing what people do with their API. When I asked Mr. Zawodony which potential applications he was most looking forward to, he said, "The ones we haven't anticipated."
Paul Bausch is an accomplished web application developer, and is the co-creator of the popular weblog software Blogger."
Updates to SEO news now here:
Search Engine News :: Optimise Web Sites for Organic Search
What is search engine spam?
DMNews.com
Glenn J. Kalinoski Managing Editor's report on Search Spam session at SES lists 19 types of search engine spamming:
"Shari Thurow has identified 19 types of search engine spam, or Web pages that are created deliberately to trick engines into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results. "What does inappropriate mean?" asked in a session at yesterday's Search Engine conference, then gave an extreme example: an adult site targeting the keywords "Barney the dinosaur" or "the little mermaid."
Thurow's 19 search spam techniques:
· keywords unrelated to site
· keyword stacking
· keyword stuffing
· hidden text
· tiny text
· hidden links
· link farms
· page swapping (bait and switch)
· redirects
· mirror/duplicate content
· doorway/gateway pages
· cloaking
· gibberish
· domain spam
· mini/micro-sites
· typo spam and cybersquatting
· affiliate spam
· blog/forum spam
· CSS spam
Why hire a SEO expert? PPC v Organic SEO
WebProWorld worth a read alongside "SEO for CEOs"
Mel wrote: "We all have our opinions of where the best ROI will come from, organic rankings or PPC, but if there is a positive ROI why not do both?
The major percieved differences are that PPC is instant gratification with an ability to see cause and effect in real time, while getting organic rankings takes longer and the effects/results are not documented so clearly.
Effective PPC is more than just buying some adwords and seeing what happens and effective SEO is more that just changing some pages and seeing what happens, but both can make you money.
That said in my opinion if you are able to get organic results the ROI will be much better than PPC."
Are Vertical Engines Grabbing Traffic from Google, Yahoo et al?
Vertical Engines Cannibalizing Majors' Traffic?
"Bill Tancer, Hitwise's VP of Research said:
'Over time, as users grow more sophisticated, they appear to be turning to shopping search sites for their comparison shopping and other online buying needs. In the shopping classifieds category, we are beginning to see signs of cannibalization of traffic away from the major search engines as overall search traffic grows.''
JupiterResearch reckon "that growth in search over the next five years will be driven by four primary verticals, including retail, financial services, travel, and media and entertainment. That study found that 79 percent of overall search volume was already concentrated in those four sectors in 2004"
"Measured in volume of searches, Hitwise estimates Google's market share of search at 55.5 percent, Yahoo! with 30.8 percent, and MSN with just 6.6 percent. Those findings differed from a report released by Nielsen//NetRatings on the same day. That study assessed Google's market share at a more modest 47 percent, with Yahoo! at 21 percent and MSN at 13 percent, roughly double the Hitwise estimate. "
Another bubble? The buzz in paid search at Search Engine Strategies
Net Stocks
"Who's providing the new source of keyword demand?
It does appear that venture-backed startups are becoming, in part, a new source of paid-search advertising demand. See Net sense.
Many startups are buying up keyword terms and trying to carve out niche search engine sites through which they can qualify the traffic and sell it at higher rates to advertisers.
These vertical sites have a shot but it'll be difficult down the road to compete against the majors, Google and Yahoo, said Sullivan. 'When you get into this dangerous area of competing with the majors, you'll get licensed out, bought out or burned out,' he said...
"Similar to the late 1990s when buying and reselling domain names was all the rage, these days several companies and individual entrepreneurs are out there buying search keywords and then trying to resell them to the higher bidder," said Bill Burnham, a venture capitalist"
The big risk they face is that either the advertisers or the search engines will try to cut out the middleman through either a new technology or simply banning the practice," said Burnham.
"If aggregators continue to buy search keywords in bulk and resell the traffic/lead for 2X via an arbitrage model it will assert pressure on the search providers [Yahoo and Google] to go more downstream to acquire the marketers directly at some point if they want to continue to grow their top line revenue," said D.C. Cullinane, CEO and co-founder of thinkingVoice"
Net Sense
Bambi Francisco analyses and discusses the keyword market putting a large part of the growth down to venture backed start-ups
"these middlemen are likely to create a bubble in paid search that will lead to a loss of incremental demand at Google and Yahoo. And, if that happens down the road, Google and Yahoo may opt to bypass these middlemen altogether as they search for revenue. So at best, these arbitrageurs will create a lot of noise and distortion in the true value of keyword terms.
These arbitrageurs stand between the undifferentiated Internet surfer who enters the Web via Google and Yahoo searches and the advertisers who want a more qualified lead."
Making a case for Your Search Marketing Budget
searchenginewatch.com
Presents "eight strategies will help you make a more persuasive case to management (or clients), and convince them that search engine marketing is a priority and will be money well spent."
Searchers use more than one engine
When One Search Engine Just Isn't Enough
"A new survey released by Nielsen//NetRatings finds that most Internet users employ more than one search engine when conducting their queries.
A total of 4,085,880 searches were conducted by US at-home and at-work users in January 2005, and Google accounted for 47% percent of them, maintaining its place as the top search engine. Yahoo! accounted for 21% of searches, and MSN for 13%. The remaining 19% occurred on the sixty other search sites surveyed by Nielsen...
..even factoring in sharing, Google is still clearly the leading engine. Not only did a greater percentage of its users use it solely compared to Yahoo! and MSN, but the biggest chunk of MSN's and Yahoo!'s users who also went to a different search engine went to Google. For example, of the 71% of traffic that Yahoo! shared, 39% went to Google, and 21% went to both Google and MSN, with the remaining 11% going to just MSN...
The search engine market remains competitive, with innovation the key. The latest buzz surrounds local search and desktop search, and all sites continue to refine their paid search systems, a large revenue source. eMarketer's.. Senior Analyst David Hallerman notes that search engines need to be cautious: "For the past few years, many search engines have been able to rake in the dollars just by offering space for paid search ads. But to build areas for additional growth, most notably forms of local and vertical search, much more hand-holding will be required. That will be true at every step of the game — selling your services to start with, and supporting your customers in their efforts to figure out what works and what doesn't. Oh yes: Don't kill the golden goose with graphic ads, banners or rich media. Internet users like search, and accept sponsored listings, simply because the pages are not cluttered and intrusive."
"
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) - theory, praxis, outlook
WebProWorld
Post by faglork opens discussion and links to some useful articles on LSI theory and practise
He writes "I will try to find more information, above all on 'if and how do existing SEs already use LSI'"
He concludes that LSI is in use...
Greeneagle quotes http://www.bayst-search-engine-optimization.com/LSI.html:
"Anchor Text Repetition: another form of duplication is the presence of repetitive anchor text in links (e.g., web promotion) pointing to a site. The overuse of anchor text in links is one of the major reasons LSI was brought in."
voasi supplies "a list of LSA/I topics and papers: http://www.voasi.com/2005/02/lsa-for-better-google-rankings.htm
Here's a quite lengthy thread over at Search Engine Watch that goes into the dymanics of LSA, with some PH.d's and Grads getting into the discussion which really helps to break down the complexity of the subject. http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4009"
Local search for SMEs
DMNews.com
Issues and answers... or objections and rebutals for selling to SMEs...
"Local search technology has opened the door wide for local businesses to use the Internet to attract new customers. Thanks to “geo-targeting” capabilities, advertisers can aim their ads specifically to consumers within designated geographic areas, making online advertising perhaps the most cost-effective marketing channel for virtually any type of local business....
the blunt reality of today’s “self-serve” search engine business -- search engine marketing is hard. You have to establish relationships with several online publishers, manage multiple keyword buys and monitor constantly changing bids for those keywords. This takes time, which most small business owners don’t have.
Search engine optimization also requires that you keep track of what times of day your potential customers are most likely to be online (you’ll want to bid higher during that time), and maintain a complex matrix of what works and what doesn’t in terms of specific keywords, bid amounts, etc. The complexity is daunting and, for most small businesses, a deterrent to Internet marketing.
Some vendors will build a site for you or create a specific landing page to be used for your campaign. A recent Pew Internet Project survey revealed that if a business provides products and/or services information online -- even if it does not sell products online -- 50 percent of Americans would be more likely to go to the store to transact business. Given that, a simple page that points consumers to your offline business may be enough.
Tracking, tracking, tracking. Accurate, thorough tracking of any action resulting from your campaign is critical. Analyzing click data is meaningful only to a degree; you need to account for offline actions, too -- telephone calls and walk-in visits to your brick-and-mortar store or office."
Google and Amazon as Ticket Sellers
searchviews.com: Google and Amazon sell Tickets: "Google and Amazon are getting in the movie ticket game. Both launched bids this week to sell movie tickets, with Amazon's Internet Movie Database partnering with Fandango and Google teaming up with MovieTickets.com."
5 Questions with Lance Podell, Kanoodle CEO
searchviews.com/blog
Highlights:
"Kanoodle is focused on creating Sponsored Links opportunities for all types of Web pages
Kanoodle see three trends this year:
1. Large advertisers coming online and specifically spending against Sponsored Links. As more Fortune 500 companies come on line we will see a much stronger focus on the media elements of the ability to buy Sponsored Links and NOT the technological advantages of Sponsored Links. Advertisers will demand greater control and flexibility in their online campaigns.
2. New and evolving published pages like RSS and blogs will lead to more available pages for Sponsored Links and new tools to drive targeted clicks for advertisers on these pages.
3. Context targeting will be distinguished from content targeting.
What’s your take on the role of API’s in the search marketing business? How do you think marketers and agencies will take advantage of them?
It is important to make the process of buying Sponsored Links as easy as possible for advertisers so they can spend their time on campaign management and not delivery of ads."
� Competitive Research via Search Engine Tools - Search Engine News Journal
� Competitive Research via Search Engine Tools - Search Engine News Journal: "basic competitive research tools"
Searcher Behavior - SES NYC 05
searchenginewatch.com report by rustybrick
Dr. Bonny Brown from Keynote Systems on the customers perspective:
"Relevance is #1 factor in search loyalty, including sponsored results"
Should be "tracking users as to where people get lost during the clickstream. To get the "complete customer behavior" you need more detail. Customers have expectations, and you need to understand and measure them. Then you need to understand the "whys" actions of behavior.
"The results... Google is number one from a customer's experience ranking. Yahoo is number two and MSN is number three BUT Yahoo and MSN are both closing in on Google."
Gord Hotchkis from Enquiro: "explained the possible influencers include type of user, presence of brand, trusted URLs, demographics and trusted sources of information...they expected to see a strong correlation between these sources. But what they saw was that the most important influencer was ranking. Of all the click throughs on organic listings, 24% on number 1, 19.5% number two and 12.8% on the number three listings. They came up with a theory named, the search confidence theory"...
Check out the details re their eye tracking studies
Cam Balzer from Perfomics (DoubleClick just bought them in July 04). "In all four verticals about 50% use search before they buy. Marketers have several opportunities to reach buyers, around 6 - 12 searches per user (interesting)."
The Search Landscape - Share by Engine SES NYC 05
searchenginewatch.com reports
From Bill Tancer from Hitwise AKA "I Love Data"; "Market share of visits to all internet sites on the Web, Google 3.1% Yahoo 1.7% and MSN 1.5% - Google has grown the most. Search volume indicates that Google is currently driving 55.5% of all US Internet searches, Yahoo 30.8% and MSN 6.64%. He gathered some clickstream data, its interesting to see that most of the search traffic is coming from the parent (yahoo.com, msn.com) but Google's upstream is coming from a wide share %, which differs from the rest. The top search from Yahoo and MSN are more navigational (www.site.com) and Google is not like that (more internet savvy)"
From Ken Cassar from Nielsen//NetRatings: "Google's market share is at 47%, Yahoo at 21%, MSN 13% and AOL at 5%. They define a search as someone entering in a query and pressing the enter key. Google also has the largest audience of exclusive searchers; 29.7m. Yahoo has 13.7m and MSN has 12.2m and then he overlapped them (which is nice, there is an ton of cross usage of the engines). The search boom has been more driven by advertisers than consumers. Demand is not the main reason for growth, it is the supply pushing it up.
From James Lamberti from Comscore Networks: "broke down the share of market by segment, School: Google 42%, Yahoo 32%. Work; Google 37%, Yahoo 30% and MSN 19%. Local search trends show a slow growth from 8.3% to 10%, meaning searchers using Google and adding in state or local parameters in the query. He points out that most of it is happening at many search engines and not at yellow pages, etc. Growth in toolbar searches have grown 136% in the US since Jan 04. He said 17 - 18% of searches are coming from toolbars...49% of the searches powered by Google is happening outside of Google"
Study: UK Searchers Understand Differences
searchenginewatch.com
G Price reports on an "article from Netimperative: Brits search smarter than Yanks, reports on the findings from a new study about UK web searchers.
Nine out of ten (93%) Web users in the UK know the difference between sponsored and organic search engine results compared to just 38% of Americans, according to new research.
The study, commissioned by online marketing specialist Agence Virtuelle has revealed that British consumers are most responsive to natural search engine results and only a few regularly click on sponsored links."
Reports from SES NYC: Day One
searchenginewatch
Topics include:
"+ The Search Landscape
+ Searcher Behavior
+ Search Algorithm Research & Developments"
re Mike Grehan on algos:
"discusses PageRank and HITS. PageRank he sums up, PageRank is keyword independent. HITS (Teoma) which is keyword dependent. Great way of explaining the difference. He says there is only one problem with these two solutions, "Neither of them work." He said the problem with PageRank, well they don't use it, so he skipped it. He then went on to HITS - topic drift, nepotistic linking and runtime analysis are the three issues. The first two were corrected, but runtime analysis is still an issue."
MG on "difference between a citation and a reference.
Hyperlink analysis algorithms make either one or both of these simple assumptions. Assumption 1 – A hyperlink from page A to page B. Co citations, if a page C cites pages A and B, then A and B are said to be co-cited by C. Pages A and B being co-cited by many other pages is evidence. There are two main algorithms based on links. PageRank (Google): Each page on the web has a measure of prestige that is independent of any information need or query i.e. keyword independent. Roughly speaking, the prestige of a page is proportional to the prestige of the sum of the prestige scores of pages. HITS or Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search. Problem is that neither of these algorithms work."
Future? "
personalization. It’s misunderstood, personalization. It’s not giving you a search just for you. Its about returning results for your peer group. They can start to tailor the search specifically to you. There is data now using genetic algorithms and others set that are using these to create search engines. Mike concludes the more information we give the search engines, the better our experience will be."
re Orion's, Dr. E. Garcia on co-occurences:
" Orion explains that co-occurences shows a type of "relatedness" between words. So if you have two terms that are often discussed or found on the same document, they tend to be more related. He then gives an example of the term "aloha". What does aloha make us think of? Hawaii is the correct answer. Orion then explains that this is important when conducting "keyword-brand associations"..."
Yahoo :: All change APIs to sweeten the influencers?
CNET News.com
"Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is expected to announce Tuesday that the company's search network will embrace Web services and its commercial subsidiary will take a new name."
Yahoo Search Developer Network is planned to launch at the Search Engine Strategies Conference. The network will allow software developers to create new applications (with the aid of application programming interfaces, or APIs) on top of Yahoo search, including images, video, news and local search.
Yahoo is also to dump the Overture Services brand just 20 months after paying $1.63 billion for the paid search marketing pioneer. Paid search solutions at Yahoo are possibly to be renamed "Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions."
Stefanie Olsen reckons that Yahoo's announcements "underscore the company's desire to ingratiate itself in the search community, which is defined by software developers, a thriving advertising economy and Web surfers." I reckon they have a fair bit of work to do there with webmasters, search marketing firms etc....MUST watch the forums for comment and reactions...
Notable quote: "Search is not just a service; it's becoming a piece of the infrastructure of the Internet, its file system," Eckart Walther, director of product management for Yahoo Search, said in an interview. "We're making it much easier for third parties to develop value-added services for search."
