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SEO News for February 2007 from searchenginejournal.com

Comment for David Pasternack. Second and Final Delivery Attempt.
Did you notice that the last post by Mr. David Pasternack, titled ” “Is SEO “rocket science?â€�: A Q&A with Dave Pasternack” from January, 23rd has no comments?There is a friendly invitation reading “Click here to make a comment” at the end of the article, but nobody seemed to be willing to take advantage of [...]

Neil Patel &Cameron Olthuis Join Text Link Ads
SEO, social media optimization & link building experts Neil Patel and Cameron Olthuis have announced on their Pronet Advertising blog that they have been hired by Text Link Ads as Text Link Ads Evangelists.As the newest Text Link Ads employees and probably the highest profile staff members since Andy Hagans, Neil and Cameron will [...]

Google Q4 Revenues Exceed Expectations, Up 16% over Q3 2006
Google’s 2006 Q4 earnings beat Wall Street expectations when they announed today that revenues were up 67% over Q4 2005 and 16% more than last quarter.From the Google Earnings Press Release:Q4 Financial Summary Google reported revenues of $3.21 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2006, an increase of 67% compared to the fourth quarter [...]

Master Yahoo Search Marketing Via Patent Applications
Last month I touched upon how to achieve a high quality index score in the new Yahoo Search Marketing ranking system which will help your sponsored link advertisements rank highly on Yahoo, giving you a step above your competition.Most of the information was from a patent application I found on the ranking of sponsored [...]

MSN / Live Search Growth Declines 10% in 2006
Nielsen//NetRatings has issued the findings of their December 2006 search share rankings, which shows increases in year-on-year growth rates for every major search engine in the US market except for MSN / Windows Live Search:Provider (000) Growth SearchesGoogle Search [...]

Bill Gates &Charlie Rose Talk Search Engines &Microsoft Vista
Charlie Rose interviewed Bill Gates last November on Microsoft Vista and Gary Price yesterday spotted that PBS reran the show, there is now a transcript, and the two discussed a bit about Microsoft and Search.Here is the complete video courtesy of Google Video for your home viewing pleasure:Here is part of the transcript (which [...]

SuperPages.com Gets Into Social Media
SuperPages has had user reviews for some time. Today it announced “Reviewer of the Week,” a competition seeking to drive more engagement and more reviews. (The “Reviewer of the Week” will be featured on the SuperPages home page.) This move is also a kind of baby step toward something that looks and smells more like [...]

MapQuest : Maps, Directions &Cheap Gas Prices
Just in time for a 1,500 mile road trip tomorrow, AOL owned MapQuest has announced the launch of their new MapQuest Gas Price Finder which allows MapQuest users search for the cheapest prices for gas, diesel or alternative fuels.Features include (from MapQuest PR department):* Convenience and integration of MapQuest’s directions feature allows consumers to [...]

Microsoft, Google, Yahoo Top Popular Global Web Properties
A recent ComScore study showed that in 2006 International usage of Google grew 13%, projecting it to the #2 spot in the Top Global Web Properties list, nudged between Microsoft and Yahoo, which each grew by 5%.The ranking were judged by Total Unique Visitors in 2006, not page views or usage, if so, we’d probably [...]

Scott Rafer of MyBlogLog Interviewed by Lee Odden
Lee Odden of TopRank has interviewed MyBlogLog’s CEO Scott Rafer about the success of MyBlogLog and how it feels to be the newest delivery to the Yahoo Social Media family.Here’s a snippet from Interview with MyBlogLog CEO Scott RaferI understand MyBloglog Will be part of the Yahoo Developer Network. Does that mean MBL will integrate [...]

Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
Now that Yahoo Search Marketing’s Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool is on the fritz and there are really no signs of it coming back to life anytime soon, Wordtracker has taken full advantage of Yahoo’s confusing dilemma with the ‘launch’ of a free version of their Keyword Suggestion Tool.It works kind of like the old Wordtracker, [...]

Google Reader Now Shows Embedded Videos
Google Reader has updated to be able to show videos which have been embedded within blog posts. Being that making the switch to fill posts in RSS feeds seems to be a new trend which is making readers happy, the ability to show videos in RSS aggregators and readers is a must for those blog [...]

Digg Payola Backfires for Social Media Spammer
Muhammad Saleem, the new addition to the Pronet Advertising blog, today made a post exposing how the owner of a site named BringPopcorn.com tried to pay multiple Top 10 Diggers $500 to Digg his site and have it appear on the Digg homepage.Hello,I need a favor. I run a website bringpopcorn.com.Would you get my website [...]

Google Maps for Windows Mobile
Google has launched its download Maps application for Windows Mobile phones/PDAs. From the Google Blog:“Like other versions of Google Maps for mobile, with this Windows Mobile version you can find businesses and see real-time traffic updates, along with unique features like contacts integration, GPS support, draggable maps, and tap and hold menus.”This is the same [...]

Yahoo?s Overture Keyword Selector Tool Working Again
After experiencing a lot of downtime last week, Yahoo Search Marketing’s Overture Keyword Selector tool is up and running again.Search engine marketers and search bloggers were up in arms last week when they found that the Overture tool, a foundation of the search industry and keyword planning, was not working, nor were the third party [...]

Yahoo Search Marketing ?Marketplace Design?Ranking Launches Today
Yahoo Search Marketing has upgraded their ad ranking system from an auction bidding model to their Marketplace Design system which takes into account :Advertiser clickthru historyExpected click thru ratesAn advertisement’s Quality Index to rank ads based upon bids & qualityBid or Click PriceHistorical click-through dataWhether the query word/phrase appears in the titleKeyword in URLLanding Page [...]

Yahoo Publisher Network Updates Policies and Quality Guidelines
Yahoo Publisher Network has made some updates to its quality guidelines and program policies. The change which sticks out the most is the limitation of three ad units per page. Google AdSense works in a similar fashion, with the maximum amount of contextual network ads being set at three.Yahoo has defined some simple quality guidelines [...]

YouTube &Google Agree to Remove Viacom Videos
Chad and Steve (and their investors) have to be glad they don’t own YouTube anymore. After failing to reach an agreement (apparently) with Viacom, YouTube said it will comply with the company’s request and pull the 100k videos. From the WSJ article:YouTube, a unit of Google Inc., said it will comply with the request. “It’s [...]

Super Bowl Ads Online: YouTube, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace.com and CBS
Missed all of the Super Bowl commercials last night and want to catch the ads, which are sometimes the highlight of the big game?Well, thankfully this year’s commercials are available for viewing via your favorite video search and sharing services.Better yet, some of these services are adding social media options such as ranking and voting [...]

11 Ways to Increase Online Conversions
Sure, SEO, Social Media Optimization and Paid Search Marketing can drive hordes of highly targeted traffic to your web site. But is your site’s structure, lack of usability and negative user experience blocking conversions and sales?ConvertUp (a very clean site) has posted their 11 Quick and Dirty Ways to Increase ConversionsOne recommendation, which is completely [...]

Google Presently : Google PowerPoint?
The Google Operating System Blog has the scoop on a new Google tool called “Presently” will let users convert documents into PowerPoint style presentations including slides and full screen capabilities.A screenshot of the message code is available.And here is some text as captured by the GOS blog:var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION=”Convert document to presentation”;var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION_HINT=”Once your document is [...]

Google Base Attributes Redefine Online Shopping
About two weeks ago I received a call from my friend Brian Smith of SingleFeed and Comparison Engines for some feedback on the addition of new and customized attributes to the Google Base (Froogle) shopping feed. Brian covered these attributes on his SingleFeed blog but he did not get deep into what these attributes can [...]

Ultimate Guide to Link Baiting and Social Media Marketing
Andy Hagans, the laziest man in SEO, has put together his Ultimate Guide to Link Baiting and Social Media Marketing which covers the art of link baiting, attracting natural links to your bait, the importance of timing, photos, titles and cleanliness and the differences between the social media outlets which can send all kinds of [...]

New Google Webmaster Tools and Tools for those new Tools
There has been some debate whether to use Google Sitemaps, which is part of Google’s new Webmaster Central portal.I do agree with the opinions that state that the upload of a sitemap to Google might be a good option for you, but it might not be a good thing for everybody. There are valid points [...]

Google Webmaster Tools - Query and Link Stats File Converter
Carsten Cumbrowski, a Search Engine Journal columnist, has developed a tool which some webmasters may find useful. It converts the .CSV files which can be downloaded from Google Webmaster Central into cleaner customized files which can be used with other tools and software.I met Carsten at Search Engine Strategies San Jose and learned that he [...]

Fight Over MySpace.com Domains
MySpace has made an interesting move by protecting the branded MySpace.com domains which have been registered by MySpace users. MySpace is not letting corporations take over the profiles of users who have selected such personalized extensions as myspace.com/google, myspace.com/mcdonalds or myspace.com/pepsi.In terms of social media marketing, having such a branded MySpace domain could mean enhanced [...]

Google Changes Webmaster Guidelines &Penalized Sites
Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped has picked up on a slight adjustment to Google Webmaster Guidelines in terms of penalizing sites.Previous Google Webmaster Guidelines:… we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the “Quality Guidelines,” which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the [...]

GMail Now Open to the Masses : Drops Invitations
After years of invitation only beta testing in and outside of the United States, Google GMail is now open to the public at large.Gmail is now a public beta. Go to Gmail.com, and look for “Sign up for Gmail” or go to this page. After almost three years of invitation-only access, Gmail gradually opened in [...]

Who was Baiting who? Rand or Geraldine?
The anonymous lover from MySuperProposal.com who was attempting to get the funds to propose to his loved one via a 30 seconds Ad during the XLI. Superbowl came out of the closet.It is no other than “Our” Rand “Linkbait” Fishkin from SEOMoz.org.The proposal and background story got quite some media coverage. Perfect “Bait” Rand :).Everybody [...]

Google Plays Hardball Over YouTube
New NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker blasted Google-owned YouTube on Wednesday, complaining YouTube wasn’t doing enough to stop users from uploading copyrighted clips of NBC shows such as Saturday Night Live:“YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It’s proven it can do it when it wants to,” [...]

Yahoo Search Builder Adds New Sizes and Featured Sites
Yahoo Search has announced the addition of new, more narrow Yahoo Search Builder sizes and is now featuring sites which are using Yahoo Search Builder on the YSB homepage.More on Yahoo Search Builder:Yahoo Search Builder is a social media powered application where Yahoo members can build their own niche targeted search engine. Adding to the [...]

Wordtracker UK Launch and 20% Off SES London Passes
The popular Keyword Research tool Wordtracker announced that they are going to launch a special “UK only” option at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo in London, UK in about 1 week (February 13th - February 15th, 2007).While US Search Marketers have the choice between numerous commercial and free Keyword Research and Competitive [...]

Yahoo Pipes : Roll Your Own Mashups
Yahoo has launched a fairly impressive visual programming environment for the creation of customized mashups called Yahoo Pipes. Why pipes? “The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.”The service seems to be a [...]

YouTube Founders Cash In, Selling Google Stock
YouTube investors, executives and its founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, have filed to sell as much as $1.53 Billion in Google stocks which were received when Google bought YouTube last year.Sequoia Capital is making out quite well on the deal also, with $504.4 million coming their way. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are expected [...]

Welcome John Boyle to Search Engine Journal
Search Engine Journal is pleased to announce that we have a new contributor who will be covering search oriented marketing and news centering around viral and social media platforms, John Boyle.John is the author of the SocialNext blog, where he covers “the next generation of marketing via viral video and social networks like MySpace.”Based in [...]

Google Ajax Search Widgets for Web Publishers
I’m not sure if the Google Ajax Search widgets are new or not, as Google has been developing web publisher widgets based upon Google API’s for a while, but the implementation of such Google Ajax Widgets is getting easier and easier.In the same tradition of Google AdSense’s Related Links, content supplied by various Google Search [...]

Google Maps Stickers in Business Windows
Over at Search Engine Land, Greg Sterling posted about a Google Maps sticker which was spotted at a London restaurant:Smart!The technique is usually used by review and ratings companies like Zagat so establishments can show off their ratings. Given the lack of customer reviews and ratings within Google Maps (sure, one can find many third [...]

Yahoo Bugs Deactivating Advertiser Accounts
It seems that some Yahoo advertisers are having problems with the new Yahoo Search Marketing’s bulk upload feature and user accounts becoming deactivated.Florian Reichling writes about his experiences at SEMpunch. Florian used Yahoo’s bulk upload function and his entire account wasdisabled and could not be brought back online.It turns out a system glitch due to [...]

SEO turned from child?s play into scam. How did that happen?
You think that things will become a bit normal again after the flood of posts all over the internet after David Pasternack’s 3rd negative post about SEO, just to get ”stabbed” from yet another side.I won’t link to the post by Jason Calcanis and add to the number of inbound links to his blog to play [...]

Boost Your Yahoo Ads Quality Score
Barry Schwartz points to a WebmasterWorld thread where a Yahoo Search Marketing representative, YahooSarah, posts an explanation of Yahoo’s new Quality Index Score system.Basically, Yahoo Search Marketing now uses a mix of click price and quality score to determine placement of ads in Yahoo Search results.Here’s Sarah’s explanation of how to boost your Yahoo Quality [...]

iCrossing Acquiring UK Based Spannerworks
iCrossing announced today that they will be acquiring Spannerworks, a UK based search engine marketing firm, for $18 million. Spannerworks is a 10 year old SEM company and is quite popular in the UK. I was talking with an SEO from the UK last month and they were telling me how the agency landscape was [...]

MyBlogLog Hiring Community Manager &Engineers
MyBlogLog has been expanding rapidly in terms of use and popularity ever since Yahoo acquired it in January and is now looking for someone to fill quite an interesting position of MyBlogLog Community Manager.We’re hiring our first community manager to become a core member of team and a key public face of the service. [...]

Nofollow Leverages Mistrust Among People
The Nofollow attribute indicates if the source of the link “trusts” the destination of it. Trust is a very critical element in human relations and not one of the easiest.Too much mistrust can lead to paranoia and isolation. Too much trust can lead to abuse and being taken advantage of. We learn from childhood that [...]

Last week in China - An Open Letter to Google
Last week in China - An Open Letter to GoogleThe last week has been quiet on the Chinese Internet front. Maybe it has something to do with nearing Chinese New Year is nearing. And speaking of that, what would a new year be without some good resolutions?Isaac Mao, a blog pioneer in China and co-founder [...]

MSN : Internet Explorer the Biggest Internet Threat of 2007
MSN Tech & Gadgets posted their review of the three biggest threats on the Internet for 2007; IE, phishing attacks, and malware.Even Microsoft agrees that IE is a security mistake waiting to happen and users should be using Firefox and Opera, not IE!IE provides the biggest payoff for malicious hackers who set out to exploit [...]

ReviewMe 50% Off Special
ReviewMe is the sponsored blogger review advertising network which is owned by Text Link Ads (TLA is an SEJ advertiser, but this is not a paid post). Advertisers can use ReviewMe to pay bloggers a set fee to write about, review and link to an advertise product or service.By advertising via ReviewMe partnered blogs, advertisers [...]

Small Pages Ranking in MSN Live Search?
Barry Schwartz posts about a WebmasterWorld thread and the theory of smaller pages outranking larger ones in Live Search results.WebmasterWorld member crobb305 posts that by minimizing the content on a page, his site was pushed to the first position in MSN Live Search:I reduced text on my homepage down to just a paragraph or so, [...]

Ask.com : IAC?s Glue, Better Than Google
In a recent AP article, IAC’s Chairman of the Board Barry Diller was quoted as saying that not only is Ask.com the glue which keeps IAC together, but Ask.com’s search technology is also better than Google.Diller said the company would use its Ask.com search engine, which claims about 6 percent of the search market, as [...]

Google &Vodafone Working on Mobile Maps System
While Yahoo is working with major mobile & wireless carriers to provide advertising via the mobile Yahoo network and its partners, Google is working with Vodafone to develop a GPS oriented location based Google Maps for Vodafone users.The Guardian quotes:“Vodafone sees Google Maps as a new milestone in the relationship that both companies are developing,” [...]

Yahoo Mobile Advertising Signs Top Global Advertisers
Yahoo is using its International appeal to jumpstart its mobile advertising efforts by signing Hilton Embassy Suites, Nissan, Pepsi, Proctor & Gamble, Asia-Pacific and Singapore Airlines to be initial advertisers within Yahoo’s mobile advertising network.The brand building campaigns are set to beginingg in the US, Asia and Western Europe, and Yahoo has high hopes to [...]

Guide to Link Buying : Directories, Ads and Reviews
Link building has been an essential part of the online marketing mix since the first commercial sites and Internet resources originated. As search engine optimization has evolved over the past decade, links have become the core of defining the value of a site. Whether links are obtained via the old fashioned email request, building or [...]

BrowseGoods : The Google Maps of Shopping
Ever wonder what it would be like to sift through bins of thousands of items like one would at a flea market or a mall, while on your computer? BrowseGoods has taken advantage of Web 2.0 technologies such as Ajax and put together a realistic online representation of the real world shopping experience.Brian Smith of [...]

Social Media Linking &Email Spam Requests
Being a website publisher, I receive my share of mass emails asking to join linking networks or trade sitewide links with other sites. Generally, as a rule of thumb, I delete such mails before ever opening them, as they are a dime a dozen and a true link builder would compose a more personalized message [...]

Search Marketing Sucks Budget from Traditional Media
So says the new SEMPO “State of Search Engine Marketing 2006? report as summarized in MediaPost today:SEMPO also found that marketers who migrate budgets to search are shifting spending from traditional media. When SEMPO asked respondents who said they had shifted budget to search where that money came from, the top answers included print [...]

Why won?t Matt Cutts link to me?
Do you suffer from no-links angst too?Aaron Pratt of SEO Buzz Box writes about “circular linking patterns” and how A-list bloggers form their own ‘link cliques‘ and eschew their own advice of linking out to quality content for the sake of some friendly back-scratching.He’s talking about the ‘elite’ SEO bloggers and I think it would [...]

Google Loses Against Belgian Newspapers
It seems the battle about news scraping continues in Belgium. From Reuters:A Belgian court ruled on Tuesday that Google may not reproduce extracts from a variety of Belgian newspapers, imperilling one of the web search leader’s most popular services if other courts follow suit.The case was brought by Copiepresse, which manages copyrights for Belgium’s French- [...]

Google Maps Adds Metro Stations &Building Outlines
Google Maps has updated some of the street maps or hybrid views of major US cities with Metro and Subway stations and pencil outlines of buildings.This my be a sign of Google Transit expansion, but even if not, it’s a great new addition to Google Maps.[Hattip : Google Operating System]Advertisement: Text Link Brokers Sell [...]

Megite Updates with Launch of Megite 2.1
Megite, a real time news & blog aggregation service, has tweaked their blog news ranking technology with the following ‘2.1′ updates:1. A more aggressive clustering algorithm is introduced and users should see more related information for a big news item.2. Broad the coverage and users can see rich information in the context of a [...]

Google &YouTube Hand Over User ID to Fox
YouTube is offering no refuge for users who uploaded copies of Fox Television’s 24 and Simpsons according to Internet.com’s ASPnews. A 20th Century Fox spokesperson says that Google and Live Digital have complied “with subpoenas issued by the U.S. District Court in Northern California and disclosed to Fox the identities of two individuals who illegally [...]

30 Blog Traffic Generation Tips
Daily Blog Tips has put together a list of 30 traffic generation ideas as compiled from 30 different bloggers. Of course, you don’t actually have to be a blogger to take advantage of some of these ideas, such as participating in the comments of other blogs which are read within your industry, article distribution and [...]

13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck
The NoFollow link attribute (rel=”nofollow”) was originally created to block search engines from following links in blog comments, due to the amount of blog comment spamming.The theory is that if spammers are spamming in blog comments to get better SEO and anchored links for their sites, NoFollow would render such spam useless. Problem is, spammers [...]

It?s Valentine?s Day! Yes, TODAY!
I know, I know. You probably ask yourself: “already?”.Okay for all the busy or retired Search Marketers out there (because you are one or the other or not a marketer ;) ), who forgot… aehm… let slip through the fact that today is the day where you are supposed to give a little present of [...]

Obama Has Money to Burn
Last week Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama launched his own social network, MyBarakObama. There’s been a lot of discussion as to who made this and how well it works. I’m not really concerned with either. What I’m wondering is: Why was this made?MyBarakObama offers features already available on free sites like MeetUp, MySpace and Facebook [...]

Krugle Powers Code Search at Yahoo Developer Network
Krugle, Inc., which is a code search engine for developers, has announced it will supply search functionality for the Yahoo! Developer Network. The Yahoo Developer Network is a centralized resource for the developer community that offers open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Web Services that make it easy to extend and build on Yahoo’s products [...]

StumbleUpon Defined vs. Digg, Google, MySpace and More
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon, which recently reached 1.8 million users.I typed four pages of notes in 8 point font. And thus was born the StumbleUpon Interview Series!In this first part of the series I seek to define the social media site StumbleUpon, first briefly with conceptual, jargony terminology [...]

Yahoo Did Not Rip Off Digg
Yahoo has launched a new public voting system on their Suggestion Boards which lets users contribute, comment and vote on feedback given by Yahoo users on different Yahoo Channels.Yahoo Suggestion Boards is a smart way for Yahoo to gather and prioritize user feedback from their half a billion registered members.Yahoo employees monitor the discussions, and [...]

Defending NoFollow Against Angry SEOs
I’m playing the devil’s advocate here, so keep that in mind in case I end up trampling all over anything you hold dear :)Google has taken a lot of flak on a lot of issues in the past few years - it’s a price an industry leader invariably has to pay. Apart from Blogger spam [...]

Google Buys AdScape Video Game Advertising Company
Earlier this year, in January, the WSJ (sub req’d) speculated that Googlewas acquiring Adscape Media, which inserts ads into video game. The company launched in early 2006.Red Herring confirms that the deal is happening (for $23 million). Sub-$20 to $30 million (with a few exceptions) is Google’s acquisition “sweet spot.” Once a valuation exceeds that [...]

Dmoz Abuse Report Form up again - While the Rest of the System is still trashed
The Dmoz Meta Admin “Motsa” just updated today the status of the technical problems over at the Open Directory Project, Dmoz.org.You can see the frequently updated post at the resource-zone.com forums (the Dmoz Editor forums that is open to the public)While the Editor Application System is still down with no ETA when, or if it will become [...]

Google is Wikipedia?s Sugar Daddy
Hitwise put together some data which shows the increase of Google traffic to Wikipedia over the past year and reveals that Google downstream traffic to Wikipedia is up 166% year over year.Here are some stats:Hitwise data showed that for the week ending Feb 10, 2007, 70% of Wikipedia’s upstream visits came from search engines, with [...]

Microsoft Making a Smarter Blogroll
Microsoft is working on the Smart Blogroll, a way for bloggers and blog readers to learn more about the information and topics discussed on blogs.Bill Slawski points to a paper by Eric Baumer which defines the Smarter Blogroll:Our approach was to scrape the RSS feeds for all the blogs on a user’s blogroll, run a [...]

Site Downtime Can Delist You From Google
Your site being Dugg to the point of site downtime or sticking with a bad host can have a negative effect on your Google rankings, and even a temporary delsting from Google. Google’s Vanessa Fox explains in Google Groups:If the host is down when Googlebot tries to access your pages, then those pages may disappear [...]

YouTube : Strengths &Vulnerabilities
The question on many people’s minds since the recent PR warfare between Google/YouTube and Viacom (and NBC) is: will YouTube retain its dominance or will it be supplanted by another site? That’s the same question that circulates around Google itself of course.Two thoughts:1. The “Head”: Professionally produced content is critical to YouTube’s long-term strengthLazy Sunday, [...]

Alexa Adds New Traffic Features
Alexa has added some new enhancements to its Traffic Details information pages which offer geographic and audience reach information. Sites can now track their Traffic Rank per country and where their audiences are coming from around the globe.From the Alexa Blog:Where are users coming from Geographically?This one is a biggie. We are now reporting where [...]

Amazon.com Should Acquire StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is becoming more and more popular by the day and has established itself as a dominant social network, site traffic builder and Internet navigational tool. By monitoring what sites users bookmark, share, approve of (by giving a thumbs up) and tag, StumbleUpon can build user and group profiles then serve and suggest relevant sites [...]

How To Buy Links And Avoid Google Detection
Despite what Google and SEO gurus like Eric Ward tell you, you can easily use ’smart’ paid links to deliver the benefit of editorially earned organic links without tripping any filters or being detected as a ‘paid’ link by Google.Let’s take two sites:Site A is an established authority site in its niche with page 1 [...]

The Mobile Search Battle
Here’s a nice overview piece — together with the requisite “who will win?” dramatic elements — from BusinessWeek, covering mobile search:The emergence of Internet-connected mobile phones, or what’s known as the Mobile Web, is turning the wireless search business into a horse race—one that’s too close to call. Unlike its dominant role in search [...]

Microsoft?s Digg Competitor : MSN Reporter
Now that AOL has entered the social news arena with Netscape and Yahoo has incorporated various del.icio.us and Digg influenced services into its social media and search platform, it’s time for Microsoft to also enter the picture. MSN is testing the MSN Reporter, a Digg style social news site which was developed by a Dutch [...]

Ask.com &LookSmart Renew AdCenter License
LookSmart announced today that Ask.com, has extended its license of LookSmart’s AdCenter for Publishers through 2009. Ask.com uses LookSmart’s AdCenter as a component of its Ask Sponsored Listings PPC advertising program. Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) is an automated open-auction system that allows search marketers to purchase, manage and optimize campaigns on Ask.com and its publisher [...]

How to Increase Diggs Via Email &Instant Messenger
Neil Patel has a short and simple post today over at Pronet Advertising with the message against “Spamming Digg through Instant Messenger.”Neil’s theory is that if you IM 20 of your friends pointing them to the page on Digg with your story on it, asking them to Digg it, Digg should be able to flag [...]

Link Building via Hosting Blog Carnivals
Blog Carnivals are posts, articles, and columns on particular topics which are passed on from different blogs, with each blogger adding their own thoughts and opinions on a subject. Usually started by one main blog, which acts as a form of table of contents, such carnivals can be created by one popular blogger, or a [...]

Yahoo Search Gadget for Windows Vista
Yesterday on the Yahoo Search Blog, Jonathan Strauss of Yahoo! Desktop Products announced that Yahoo has developed a “Yahoo Search Gadget” for the Windows Vista Sidebar.The Windows Vista Sidebar is a new feature in Vista that, similar to our own Yahoo! Widgets or Apple’s Dashboard, allows you to run mini applications (called gadgets) on your [...]

WikiAnswers : The Wikipedia of Q&A Sites
Answers.com has completed the first stage of integrating content into WikiAnswers, a Wiki Q&A service. The content on WikiAnswers is an ongoing collaboration of shared knowledge, using the “wiki” methodology best known for its use on Wikipedia (where a great deal of Answers.com content originates from).Answers.com says that the quality of the Q&A WikiAnswers is [...]

Search Engine Roundtable Redesigns
Search Engine Roundtable, the blog of Barry Schwartz, has updated with a much more slick and streamlined design.I’ve been eagerly awaiting for the day that Barry updates his design as his company, Rusty Brick, puts out some incredible work and his personal blog, CartoonBarry, is top of the shelf in blog functionality.Excellent job Mr. Schwarzt!

Should URLs in links use index.html?
When it comes to the best URL structures and formats, the most common question I get is in regards to the best way to reference directory index pages in links. Everyone asks, which is better…A. http://www.mysite.com/locations/B. http://www.mysite.com/locationsC. http://www.mysite.com/locations/index.htmlThe answer is: “Just be consistent,” says Google’s Adam Lasnik in his post about how to avoid duplicate [...]

Putting An End To Supplemental Hell Because Of Site Moves, Site Restructure Or Big Site Launch
Loren’s post and Matt Cutts comment about sites being de-listed from Google because of down-time and also some discussions about problems with site moves from one domain to another and launches of big sites with a lot of pages plus the comments and recommendations from Search Engine representatives like Vanessa Fox from the Google Webmaster Central [...]

10 Things That Affiliates Are Not. Or Are They?
Jeremy posted a bit over a week ago at his ShoeMoney.com blog his answer to the question:“Are you a SEO or not? You say you are not yet sometimes you say you are? SEO FLIPFLOPER!”The answer might be confusing for some, but made me chuckle.He basically said that he is quite good at SEO and [...]

New Yahoo! Show Slightly Off Key
It’s ironic that Yahoo! hired Lloyd Braun from ABC to create new in-house content just as user generated content took off. The only thing that really came out of Braun’s division was The 9 then he was gone.But that doesn’t mean Yahoo! has given up on original programming. They’re launching a new video project featuring [...]

Shoemoney Banned from Yahoo?s MyBlogLog
Jeremy Schoemaker, who has been creating a side hobby of revealing MyBlogLog bugs over the past month, has been ironically banned from MyBlogLog.Jeremy posts on Shoemoney.comSince last night every page I visit on their site results in a 403 (Forbidden) error code. I have asked others and nobody else seems to get the error but [...]

Domain Name &Web Site Appraisals
Today on Digg.com, one of the top stories is a domain valuation tool run by DNScoop which valued YouTube at $969 Million and Digg.com at $106 Million. Seems they are pretty close with YouTube, and Digg could be valued a bit more. I clicked over to their site and it’s down (the Digg Effect) but [...]

Weather.com Adds Interactive Radar Maps Powered by Microsoft
In a nice pickup for Microsoft, Weather.com has made the switch to Virtual Earth powered maps which feature interactive radar maps powered by Microsoft.More on the Interactive Radar Maps from Weather.com:These one of a kind, industry-leading maps that you are viewing show weather information from The Weather Channel in conjunction with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth [...]

Yahoo Redirecting More Site Search Queries to Site Explorer
Noticed how Yahoo has defaulted “link:” and “linkdomain:” queries to Site Explorer results (eg. link:http://www.umdum.com)?Well, Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz has found out that Yahoo plans to soon be redirecting “domain:” and “hostname:” queries to Site Explorer too.Barry says that the change is supposed to happen today. Good for Yahoo Site Explorer, they have an [...]

Insider Pages Being Acquired, But By Who?
TechCrunch is reporting that Insider Pages, the consumer review and search site for local businesses, is being acquired by a major public company, but the company isnot commenting on who. TechCrunch says that “Our understanding is that the acquisition price is more than the total capital raised by the company, but not by much.”So, which [...]

Yahoo! 2007 Searchlight Awards : Surprise Winner
I had the honor of being a panelist for the 2nd (now) Annual Yahoo! Searchlight Awards. Also on the panel were Brad Berens, iMedia Communications, Jon Fine, BusinessWeek and Brian Morrissey, Adweek.The four finalists were:Sprint-Talladega Nights, presented by NeoSearchSpecial K, presented by StarcomLexus All-new LS Launch, presented by TeamOneChase Freedom, presented by Avenue A [...]

Ready to Become an ODP Editor at Dmoz.org?
Less than a week after motsa’s announcement at the Resource Zone Forum for Dmoz Editors that the Abuse Form is available again (see SEJ coverage here), was another update posted by the Dmoz Directory Meta Admin with the nick name “photofox”.I received the email notification Friday night and was curious what the news are. It [...]

What Diggers (Did) Miss Out On
Dave Naffziger posted a list of 183 Sites and Blogs of the Alexa’s Top 10,000 that are banned from Digg.com. Now it seems that the ban at least for ReveNews.com was lifted. I found out during the work on an article that made a case against the Digg bans. I used some content of my [...]

Did Digg Lift Some Site Bans?
Do you believe that? I was working on a longer article about the Digg.com bans, because ReveNews.com, a blogger News site with over 20 Bloggers was banned from digg.com because of one authors action. Multiple attempts were made to get the site unbanned without success.I needed a screen shot that shows the message that the [...]

The Oscar Goes To - According to Google Trends
Just a couple of hours to go and it will be clear which movie is getting the Oscar for best film.I was wondering whether Google Trends will have any predictive value and did 3 Trend searches.Release dates and other factors haven’t been taken into consideration and the whole exercise is in no way scientific, just [...]

Last Week in China - Chinese New Year, Baidu in Japan and More Google
The Chinese New Year is a week old now and slowly life is getting back to normal in China. Even the firecrackers will stop waking me up at 6 in the morning, at least that’s what I hope. It’s the year of the golden pig, supposedly a lucky year to have a baby and I [...]

StumbleUpon Down or Updating?
StumbleUpon, one of my favorite web surfing & navigation networks, seems to be experiencing downtime this morning.I’m not able to surf, submit or suggest using the StumbleUpon toolbar or its web site.Is anyone else experiencing this problem?Sometimes in the online world, downtime can equal major update (thinking YouTube or search engines). I wonder if [...]

Google Update Over the Past Week
Aaron Wall posted about a Google Algorithm Update last week and it seems that the changes were in terms of sandbox/trustbox modification and a lot of blogs have been benefitting from the change.Here at Search Engine Journal I’m noticing a lot more Google referrals and higher rankings in the SERP’s for terms associated with specific [...]

Fuzzy Zoeller Sues Over Wikipedia Profile
Remember Fuzzy Zoeller, the controversial golfer who caused problems with Tiger Woods after his first Masters? Well, Fuzzy is in the news again, this time going after ‘vandals’ who edited his Wikipedia profile with a defamatory paragraph.From USAToday:Zoeller’s attorney, Scott D. Sheftall, said he filed the lawsuit against a Miami firm last week because the [...]

Nasa Gives New Data For Google Earth
The Google Earth Blog (not owned by Google) reports that Nasa has released some new image overlay & visualization data for Google Earth:NASA continues to add some great visualizations for overlaying in Google Earth. This time they have added some data again from MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). As recently reported, you can get near real-time [...]

Yahoo Benefits from new Panama Advertising System
comScore has released some data which shows significant gains in the amount of search advertisements which were clicked during the first week of the new Yahoo Search Marketing Panama ranking & Quality Index roll out.The overall Yahoo Search Marketing click thru rate rose from 10.1% to 11.1% two weeks after the launch. Reuters adds:Data collected [...]

MetaCarta Geogrpahic Text Search Offering KML Support for Google Earth
MetaCarta, Inc today announced support for KML (Keyhole Markup Language) for their MetaCarta Geographic Text Search (GTS) and MetaCarta geOdrive content. KML is a file format used to display geographic data and imagery in a browser or user interface, such as Google Earth, ArcGIS Explorer and NASA World Wind. A KML file is processed in [...]

Google Video, AdSense &Content Syndication
The NY Times reports (via LostRemote) on how Google is boosting video content syndication from major media partners like Dow Jones:Google is working with Dow Jones & Company, Condé Nast, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other large content companies to syndicate their video content on other Web sites. The videos appear inside Google ad boxes [...]

11 Networking Tips for Search Marketers
As a relative newbie to the industry I’ve managed to befriend experts, become a contributor to Search Engine Journal and win an iPod. Not bad for a 24-year-old from Jacksonville, FL who was looking for a career change just six months ago. How did I do it? I’d like to attribute my networking success [...]

SEO Clinic : Submit Your Site for SEO Advice
SEO Clinic is a new project we are now offering on Search Engine Journal for webmasters and site owners which are not experiencing their desired or potential Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and MSN rankings.Every week our group of SEO experts will band together and lend our expertise to help one lucky selected site with their SEO. [...]

YouTube : Master Link Building Tool
Did you know that backlinks from YouTube are easy to create and show up as counted inbound links in Yahoo Site Explorer?Neither did I until I read Neil’s post at Link Building Blog : Building Links through YouTubeThe way this works is that if you are one of the top 5 sites that drives the [...]

Encyclopedia Britannica Starts Blogging
The Encyclopedia Britannica has opened a blog which may be a sign that Britannica is looking at user generated blog discussion content as a possible way to battle the popularity of Wikipedia as a trusted reference source.The discussions on the Britannica Blog are led by experts in their fields and guess what?….Like most blogs you [...]

Has SEO Ruined PR &the Press Release?
Public Relations and Press Relations are built upon the foundation of the PR practicioner being a middle man between the business world and the media or people. Even the name, press relations or publicist defines itself; ‘forming relationships with the press.’A good public relations professional does just that, makes friends with members of the press, [...]

Microsoft Acquiring TellMe Voice &Directory Assistance?
TechCrunch is reporting that voice services and automated directory assistance (DA) provider TellMe, which I’ve written about several times recently, is being acquired by Microsoft. If that’s true it would be both strange and a potentially big deal.Why strange?It would be strange because Microsoft already has its own considerable speech processing assets. But it would [...]

Google ReBang : Chinese Language Zeitgest
Yesterday Philipp Lenssen found that Google has added “/rebang” to their robots.txt file. Usually when Google is going to launch a new service or channel, they add that site to this file. Philipp asks “Does anyone know what Rebang is?”Possible scenarios:Rebang.com is a 3d design company, is Google planning on acquiring this company for its [...]

Digg : Fastest Growing UK News &Media Site
Hitwise just released the first of three posts from their upcoming Hitwise UK Online News & Media report which shows that Digg.com is the fastest growing news & media site in the UK.Digg.com was the fastest growing website year on year in January among the top 100 News and Media websites, with its market share [...]

Local Search : User Recommendations Make Your Business Money
Today I made plans to go out tomorrow evening to a Thai restaurant in Tampa, my new hometown. I’ve only been here 3 weeks and have been driving by many different Thai places around town, but am not really sure which one to go to.I could always just pick one out of the phone book, [...]

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