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SEO News for June 2007 from searchenginejournal.com

Last week in China - Chinese Eye Tracking Research and more
A recent eye tracking research from Enquiro looked into Chinese user behavior regarding search results in Baidu and Google. Gord Hotchkiss wrote about this on Search Engine Land. According to this interesting study there are considerable differences between how users interact with the results. (The research has also looked at the difference between user interaction [...]

How To Find Wikipedia Links
Although all external Wikipedia links are using the nofollow attribute since January of this year, links from the encyclopedia are still important because of other reasons than ranking in search engines.Next to generating human traffic from people who read Wikipedia articles, external links from Wikipedia also reinforce the authority of a site for the subject [...]

Yahoo &Bebo Partner for Search &Sponsored Listings
Yahoo Search is now powering the search results within the Bebo social network. According to Pete Cashmore at Mashable, Bebo users can now use Yahoo Search Technology to search through Bebo profiles, music and the Internet. It appears that Yahoo Search Marketing is also appearing in Bebo results.Is this a sign that Yahoo will be [...]

Search Behavior Study : How Do French Canadians Search The Web?
A study on the search behavior of French Canadians has just been released by Skooiz (a Montreal based SEM agency) and Mastodonte Communication.1272 French Canadian users were surveyed on 17 questions about their search behavior and attitudes towards search results and online advertising.Key Findings from the study are as follows:French Canadians are very active web [...]

SEO &Importance of Valid Source Code (W3C Validation)
Does W3C compliance impact a site’s search rankings? The question has been mulled on Search Engine Journal in the past and the basic conclusion is that although W3C is incredibly important for browser compatibility and overall site usability, it does not have a direct impact on Google rankings, especially since Google’s pages themselves do not [...]

Business.com For Sale : $300 - $400 Million
Business.com, the B2B search engine & directory, is up for sale and according to the Wall Street Journal, the web destination hopes to attract valuation between $300 and $400 million via an auction managed by Credit Suisse.Dow Jones and the New York Times (which owns About.com) may be interested buyers in the major business directory [...]

Google Expands Adwords’ PPA Beta Globally
Inside Adwords Blog announces the wordwide expansion of  Pay-Per-Action Beta which was released initially for US publishers in March. PPA Adwords is a pricing model which gives Adwords publishers the option o pay only traffic driven to their site through paid Google Ads, if that click resulted into a corresponding action from consumers. PPA gives [...]

Yahoo Buys Rivals, But Who’s Buying Yahoo?
Buying YahooKevin Kelleher at GigaOm points out five groups OF potential suitors for purchasing Yahoo, and handicaps each of them. Not too surprisingly, Microsoft has the best odds at 4-1, but with a “strategic sense” rating of only B-. Maybe more surprising is that he set 5-1 odds for Comcast or AT&T with a rating [...]

Google Building $600 Million Data Center in Iowa
Google is set to build a $600 million data center in western Iowa according to an announcement from the state’s Governor, Chet Culver. The 55 acre site is expected to employ 200 people with an average salary of $50,000, lending an economic jolt to the region.The Sioux City Journal reports : The center, which will [...]

In-house Spotlight: Christian Science Monitor’s SEO
Today’s in-house spotlight is on Laura Forbes with The Christian Science Monitor. She has an interesting challenge before her – to single handedly encourage a 100 year old publication to change the way they write. SEO only makes up 50% of Laura’s job, which intensifies the challenge when you’re facing a company that [...]

Practical Guide to Vertical Search Advertising
Vertical search engines (VSEs), or specialized search engines, are becoming increasingly popular, and e-marketing reporters and search engine industry analysts have deemed vertical the “hottest trend in search.” But just because vertical is trendy now does not mean it will be short-lived. In fact, as VSEs continue to diversify they will likely become more attractive [...]

Flickr Photos Integrated into Yahoo Image Search
Yahoo Image Search has added Flickr images into its image index. Now, Yahoo Image Search is serving over 300 million Flickr photos in its query results via a live feed from Flickr; so once an image is uploaded to a Flickr account, it’s available via Yahoo Image Search too.The Flickr photos in Yahoo Search will [...]

Google Blogs Updates
Some cool updates are happening at Google land. Here’s some of them:Dictionary Translations through Google TranslateThe single-word version of Google’s automatic translations of paragraphs, text or documents. Works like your ordinary bilingual dictionary that gives you multiple meanings of a word depending on its usage and context.IMAP Email Migration for Google Apps UsersFor Google [...]

Google Now a Phone Company : Acquiring GrandCentral
TechCrunch is reporting a rumor — and it’s often correct in these — that the telephony “management” startup GrandCentral has been acquired by Google for $50 million. This is not Google as phone company per se, it’s Google as a system to manage calls on top of the existing telephony infrastructure.Google Talk is an IP [...]

Domain Names Market Remains Hot…A Bubble Waiting To Burst?
In April, I wrote a blog post, “Domain Names Have Become True Commodities”. It’s now June and the market for Domain names is still rising in prices. It’s much like the housing market two years ago, not quite as hot and profitable yet, but there are a lot of people making serious money from domain [...]

Wordpress Plugin Hurting Google Rankings?
The Red Cardinal blog tells the tale of a Wordpress Plugin killing the rankings of a site in Google as the Mobile Wordpress Plugin is apparently redirecting the Googlebot from the blog homepage to a non-existant error page.The plugin is redirecting both the Googlebot and Yahoo Slurp, but is not damaging the MSNbot’s page crawling.What’s [...]

Yahoo Merges Search Marketing &Display Advertising Sales Divisions
Yahoo has taken the step to combine both its search marketing & display advertising groups under one unified advertising sales division which will be headed by David Karnstedt, who is the current head of the Yahoo Search sales force.Via the merging of the two sales arms, advertisers will now be able to purchase and hopefully [...]

Social Media &User Generated Content In The Spanish Space
At a panel yesterday at Ad:Tech Miami, Social Media and UGC were discussed. The panel consisted of Emily Riley from Jupiter Research as the moderator, Antonio Otalvaro from Barrio305, Rick Marroquin from Batanga, and Demian Bellumio from Hoodiny Entertainment Group, LLC (ElHood.com). Riley started with some very interesting facts found by Jupiter Research:1of 5 [...]

Kosmix.com : Search Start-up Looking for “Meaning� in Search Queries
What do Stanford grads Anand and Venky have in common with Google founders, Larry and Sergie? One, they were batch mates. And two, they are into the prolific and perhaps most competitive of web domains, Search.Kosmix.com, the topical search engine, founded by the Indian duo attempts to resolve the Gordian knot of “meaning” in a [...]

Yahoo Testing New City Travel Guide Search Shortcuts
Yahoo Search is currently doing limited testing on a new multimedia, multi-content driven search shortcut, which is powered by its content partners, Yahoo Local and Yahoo Travel. Some searchers will find that when they search for information on major cities, a Y! Travel shortcut will be served above the organic and sponsored Yahoo Search results.The [...]

Google Earth Goes Socially Relevant, Reaches Out to Non-Profit Organizations
Showing that it is not only a profit-oriented company, Google launches its own socially relevant program called Google Earth Outreach. Utilizing the power of its mapping technology,Google Earth Outreach aims to leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the kind of work they do and where exactly they do their work. [...]

Google Docs &Spreadsheet Gets More Useful
Google Docs & Spreadsheets as it is right now is a powerful and useful tool for creating, organizing and sharing various types of documents. Now, it gets more even useful with three new features that would improve the way we organize our online documents.New document list interface - a complete overhaul that is so in [...]

Science of Relevancy : Lifeblood of Search &Contextual Advertising
Relevancy is the key to contextual advertising, and online contextual advertising is big business. That’s a no-brainer, as all web and software heavyweights are vying to make the most of contextual advertising. How is relevancy measured? And how is that used to shoot the most relevant of ads based on what you do online? Microsoft, [...]

Chris Tolles Named New Topix CEO
Topix, the community driven local news search experience, has a new CEO with a familiar face. Chris Tolles, the long time VP of Marketing for Topix has stepped into the role of CEO of the company. Rich Skrenta, the former CEO of Topix, has stepped down from the role, but is still with the company. [...]

Google Further Explains Why It Is Buying DoubleClick
Today in Google’s Public Policy Blog, Alex Kinnear, Group Product Manager traces the history why Google decided on buying out ad serving company, Double Click. The controversial buyout plan got Google receiving some flak from search engine competitors. Microsoft for one was not happy about the deal.After tracing back the history of ad serving and [...]

Adsense Introduces New Ad Units Format
I started noticing some changes in the layout of Adsense units running in my other blog as early as last week, but it’s only now that the Inside Adsense blog issued an official announcement. Adsense publishers now have the option to further customize the look of their Adsense units by specifying the shapes as [...]

New Kosmix Topical Search &Social Networking Project Focuses on Health &Medical Information
Kosmix, the topical and categorical search engine, is powering the search application on RevolutionHealth.com, the health and medical website that marries expert health content and resources with social networking. The end result is comprehensive and up-to-date information on millions of medical conditions and treatments using Kosmix search.Here’s an example of a Kosmix search [...]

Google Introduces Google Gadget Ventures
Ever wanted to develop your own useful and fully functional Google gadget but could not push through with your ideas due to time and financial constraints? Google just answered your dilemma with the launch of Google Gadget Ventures, a pilot program that would distribute grants and seed investments to developers and users of Google [...]

Google Enterprise Search Teams Up with Ingram Micro
Google is expanding the usage of its enterprise search solutions by teaming up with Ingram Micro, one of the world’s largest technology products distributors. Google and Ingram Micro had sealed an international IT Distribution Agreement that would grant Ingram Micro the right to distribute Goolge Mini and Google Search Appliance.Google Mini is a search [...]

Yahoo! Blocked in China
Guess what… Yahoo.com is available again:) Would love to know what the cause was of their unavailability. I’ll keep monitoring to see if things change.Yesterday China Herald tipped me that the Yahoo.com website (the English version) didn’t resolve. I checked, saw that it was true and thought I would check back the next day if [...]

Adsense Referral 2.0 Gets Out of Beta, Now Available for All Publishers (?)
Inside Adsense announces that the recently launched (for beta testing) referral scheme for Adwords advertisers’  products will soon be available to all Adsense publishers in referrals-supported languages. Dubbed as Referrals 2.0, the new scheme allows Adsense publishers to direct traffic from their sites to various advertised products of Adwords clients and earn on a cost-per-action [...]

Yahoo Search Marketing Ads Rotating Via Flash on Yahoo Internal Pages
Yahoo Search Marketing is serving what seem to be some experimental ads throughout the Yahoo Network which use Flash animation to rotate the contextual advertisements which are being served.I first realized this when doing some research within Yahoo Sports and found it surprising that Yahoo Search Marketing was serving a skyscraper ad with links to [...]

Enter the World Wide Wiki
As the world of Web 2.0 has brought many new components to the user, aside from social communities which keep emerging and showing growth, the world of the WIKI is starting to make noise. According to Wikipedia, the WIKI means, “A wiki (sometimes wiki wiki) is a web application designed to allow multiple authors to [...]

How to Protect Your Site from Canonical Triggers
What happens when search engine spiders get lost? They cannot figure out what way to go on your site. They sometimes get confused or other sites are sending them to another way to get to the same page on your site. domain.com www.domain.com domain.com/index.html www.domain.com/index.html https://domain.com/index.html https://domain.com Some servers use mod_dir which causes additional [...]

Dynamic Software’s BidMaximizer Now Manages Google, Yahoo &MSN adCenter Search Marketing Campaigns
Dynamic Software has added support for MSN adCenter as part of their overall bid management system, BidMaximizer 4.0.According to Al Costanzo of Dynamic Software, BidMaximizer 4.0 will be “the only commercial bid management tool that will support all three PPC engines, including Google Adwords, Yahoo Panama and MSN adCenter.”Costanzo says that developing BidMaximizer 4.0 for [...]

JetBlue : Brand Reputation on Search Engines
Excellent observation by Michael Gray that when performing a search for JetBlue on Google’s Image Search, three or four images are served of the crash landing of a JetBlue plane, including the second image on the page.Results on Google Video Search are also full of JetBlue emergency landing footage.Luckily for JetBlue, Google Universal Search has [...]

New StumbleUpon Facebook App
StumbleUpon has released a very cool StumbleUpon Facebook app which brings Facebook & StumbleUpon profiles together. By installing the application into your Facebook profile, sites which have received a Thumbs Up by you and others on StumbleUpon will be featured on Facebook profiles.This also makes identifying different StumbleUpon users much easier, as you may have [...]

Yahoo’s Patrick Crane Joins LinkedIn as Vice President of Marketing
The business networking social media company LinkedIn has announced that they have hired Patrick Crane as their new VP of Marketing.Prior to LinkedIn, Patrick was the VP of Marketing for the Yahoo Network Division and was a major part of the marketing and success of Yahoo Answers. LinkedIn of course, has its own professional version [...]

Yahoo! Search Marketing (Panama) Adds Tools For Advertisers
The YSMBlog announced yesterday the addition of a few new tools in order to effectively help advertisers build out campaigns. While these changes seem to be small ones, nevertheless, anything helps new advertisers and for someone running multiple campaigns, tools to make that make creating a campaign more efficient are always welcome. The first change [...]

Sharing the Sights and Sounds of Europe through YouTube
The European Commission in cooperation with YouTube has launched EUTube, a video portal showcasting the works of the European Union. The EC hopes to disseminate the activities of the Commission through videos and at the same encourage its citizens to comment on the video clips being uploaded in the EUTube channel. The EUTube channel would [...]

SEO &Blogging Success Story : Diabetes Blog Earns $40K per Year
There’s an old golden rule in terms of choosing a career or venture which still applies today, even to blogging; love your work. Being passionate about our jobs, entrepreneurial endeavours, or daily routine can make the difference between success or failure.From a personal standpoint, I’m passionate about growing this blog and covering the search engine [...]

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