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SEO News for December 2006 from searchenginejournal.com

Do People Use Click to Call?
Both Google Maps and Windows Live Local have “click to call” (not yet PPCall) embedded now in their products. And several Internet yellow pages are using it. But there’s some debate and confusion about whether it’s a truly meaningful feature. Not surprisingly, eStara (a click to call vendor), has put out a press release showing [...]

MySpace.com Now Featuring Google Search
MySpace is now showing ‘Powered by Google’ next to its search box which is featured on the MySpace home page, admin pages, and profile pages.Google and MySpacestruck a landmark deal last August which assured Google search and AdWords would be the MySpace search engine and sponsored ads programs of choice. Furthermore, the partnership is also [...]

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2006
On Sunday I’ll be flying into Chicago to attend next week’s Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2006. While not one of the larger SES shows, especially compared to the SES San Jose and SES New York conferences, Search Engine Strategies is sure to be one of the more cozy get togethers (especially with the blizzard currently [...]

Condemnation of Affiliate Marketers and Some Minor Technical Oversights by the Holy Father - Google Checkout
Jonathan aka “TrustNo1″, an ABestWeb Forum Regular tipped me about 6 hours ago off about Google Checkout and issues that emerged for several Merchants with Affiliate Programs. Actually the other way around, issues for the Affiliates that are affiliated with a CJ Merchant that uses Google Checkout. Not all of them though. Todd Martini opened [...]

Search Engine Strategies Chicago : Transportation &Lodging
I just arrived in Chicago after flying on Southwest Airlines from BWI into Midway. As always, Southwest was as efficient as ever in terms of check in, security, boarding, and disembarking the plane. I love flying Southwest for domestic flights out of BWI (which has its own Southwest terminal) and those little airplane crackers make [...]

Ask.com?s AskCity Launches: Local, Events &Mapping Interface
Today Ask.com has launched its highly anticipated new local search & mapping offering, AskCity. Considered in part to be a replacement for CitySearch, but much more now that it is also the local arm of Ask.com, AskCity.Using a ‘one click’ technology merged with Java and Ajax, AskCity keeps the user inside one browser window while [...]

TrueLocal Offering Local Search Content Syndication to Publishers
Tomorrow TrueLocal, the local search engine, will be launching their XML services which will allow publishers to syndicate TrueLocal search results to their sites, blogs, or local news publications. TrueLocal says that by using their “ground to web” patent pending search technology, TrueLocal.com is able to find brick and mortar businesses in local communities and [...]

We?ve Been Pearsonified! (New SEJ Design)
It took a night of hard coding and testing today from the press room at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, but the new Search Engine Journal design has gone live and we’re currently hammering out the bugs and glitches. The new design is the masterful work of Chris Pearson, who is also behind the designs at [...]

Local Search and Importance of Location
Bill Slawski has an extensive post about a new Google patent application pertaining to local, which factors in other information in determining location ranking vs. the “centroid” point of a geographic area. (See my Urban Mapping post re the “centroid problem.”)Bill unpacks the Google patent application:The patent describes how it might associate a query with [...]

Search Engine Friendly Design : SES Chicago
Detlev Johnson of Search Return hosted this session, and its speaker Shari Thurow, on the basics of search engine design and optimization. This is a must-attend session for businesses entering the search engine marketing world or those intending to redesign a site or enter the SEO market. Search engine friendly design takes elements of search [...]

MySpace.com Attacked by Worm : Profiles Shut Down
MySpace, which we recently wrote about due to its partnership with Google, has shut down hundreds of user profiles as a precaution to a worm which is infecting user computers via MySpace & Apple’s QuickTime media player. The worm seems to change user profiles and add malicious links and content when the video is played.Joris [...]

Danny Sullivan?s New Conference : Search Engine Expo
The irony that during the Search Engine Strategies Show, which is sponsored by Search Engine Watch and hosted by Danny Sullivan, that Mr. Sullivan uses the opportunity to spin off his own new Search Engine Land blog and new conference Search Engine Expo, is amazing.Although I have not heard Danny officially discuss his new ventures [...]

Jason Calacanis Speaks About Digg, Netscape, SEO &Pay Per Post Blogging
Initial founder of Weblogs, Inc., ex-AOL employee and the man who Dugg Netscape, Jason Calacanis was Danny Sullivan’s guest today at Search Engine Strategies Chicago for the keynote conversation. Jason recently left his position at AOL and his Netscape project to pursue new avenues in social media, that direction still, is a mystery.Why is a [...]

List of Best Search Engine Marketing Firms; iProspect &iCrossing are iBest &iLargest
Andy Beal looks at a recent Forrester Research study which lists 53 search marketing agencies and selects the top six based upon revenues, balance of services and enterprise focus.There’s lots of interesting information relating to the strengths and weaknesses of each of the six top providers and tips for selecting your own vendor. You can [...]

Intelligence Land Search Watch &Who Hit It Wise?
SearchEngineWatch.com seems to be prepared for the leave of Danny Sullivan, the founder of SEW and it head editor for over a decade. While Danny is preparing via his firm Calafia Consulting the launch of his new site SearchEngineLand.com on December 11 and SEW not only lost Danny but most of their long term and [...]

Google vs. PayPal : Competition Heating Up
Jefferson Graham at USA TODAY looks at the new offers being pushed by the Google Checkout online payment system in Google’s efforts to attract new and large merchants.First Google has worked on boosting consumer demand for Google Checkout by offering $10 off purchases and other incentives - these offerings were quickly matched by PayPal.Now Google [...]

Japan?s Bloggers Focused on Companies &Brands : Social Media Implications
I found this news piece a bit interesting when sifting through the press wires this morning; Technorati Japan has worked on an amazing study which shows how Japanese bloggers are writing about and communicating with companies via their own personal blogs. One fascinating aspect of the US and Japanese blogging markets is that there is [...]

Yokel Brings Local Shopping Search to Smart Phones
Yokel, Inc. has added new capabilities for local shopping search from smart phone devices including the Treo, Blackberry or Motorola Q, which all can now search Yokel’s database of local stores and products. For shoppers on the go or looking to compare prices on the fly, the service could be quite a time and money [...]

Powerful Linking for Google
Aaron Wall at SEObook has put together a thought provoking post on current linking techniques, structure, and how Google reliance on trusted sources & domains is in jeopardy as those resouces become more and more abused.Finding the Most Powerful LinksAnything that has been greatly trusted has been abused. The difference between the current abuse and [...]

Top Yahoo Searches of 2006 : Britney Spears Rules!
Earlier this week Yahoo released its top searches of 2006, including celeb search, news stories, celebrity babies, sports teams & politicians. Amazingly enough, the results do prove one solid point, Britney Spears is a publicity & buzz generation genius.They’ve gone and packaged all of this fluffy info into an interactive Yahoo Buzz index experience which [...]

Yahoo Reorganization Focuses on Audiences, Advertisers &Publishers
Yahoo! has reorganized its structure and management to align its operations with its key customer segments; audiences, advertisers and publishers, which the company believes will “effectively leverage Yahoo!’s significant strengths to capture future opportunities for growth”.“We’re moving aggressively to deliver the most possible value to our key customers — audiences, advertisers and publishers — and [...]

Is Google Click Fraud Funding Al Qaeda &Hezbollah Terrorist Groups?
At the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, Webmaster Radio’s Jim Hedger is currently holding a press conference which is making public the investigative report that Google is serving Adwords and Adsense advertisements on Google properties and the sites of Google AdSense members who are connected with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups which [...]

Zillow Free Listings &Other Features
Plugging a hole that has existed since launch earlier this year, real estate valuation site Zillow is going to start allowing local realtors to post listings for free. I would expect this to be quite popular given Zillow’s profile and the fact that it’s free advertising for agents. Zillow sees this as a way to [...]

Get Links from .gov Sites
Ever wonder how you could obtain one of those juicy links from .gov sites which may or may not give your site super link building & citation boost in the major Google, Yahoo, Ask & Live.com search algortithms?Here is a post from Cre8asite Forums which reviews the practice and lends some helpful tips.

Ranking on Google But Nowhere on Yahoo?
Aaron Wall of SEObook answers the question of a reader who is ranking quite highly on Google for their core search terms at #3, but nowhere to be found within Yahoo search results.Aaron replies :Just because Google is viewed as the hardest search engine to manipulate, that does not mean that if you rank there [...]

Search Keyword Prices &Branding
SEM firm Fathom Online has been reporting flat (or declining) average keyword prices for the past several quarters. But that doesn’t entirely make sense.Paid search revenues keep going up, driven in part by an influx of new advertisers. If you have more advertisers and more revenues in search it would suggest more competition over keywords. [...]

Google Audio Ads On The Radio
Google Audio Ads, the radio advertising division of Google AdWords, is part its development stage and Google is now beginning a limited test of the service, allowing advertisers to purchase radio ads via the automated Google system.From the Inside AdWords blog : Over the last year, we’ve been working hard to integrate the dMarc advertising [...]

Ask.com Sponsored Listings Traffic &Conversion Quality
Over at Search Engine Watch Forums, a member asks about Ask.com’s Sponsored Listings and the quality of traffic coming from them.Seems that results are ranging based upon quality of the keywords chosen and campaign targeting, here are some of the responses in the mix:We get decent results from Ask. However, it takes some work. You [...]

Need a Break from SEO?
Matt McGee from Small Business SEM and Search Rank has put together the top 21 signs that you need to step way from the computer, Xenu Link Sleuth and Yahoo Site Explorer for the weekend.My favorites Signs You Need a Break from SEO are:* The S, E, and O keys on your keyboard are broken.* [...]

2006 Search Blogs Awards : Nominations Now Open
It’s December 2006 which means like last year, Search Engine Journal will be hosting and holding our annual Search Blogs Awards. Last year was our inaugural year and the 2005 Search Blogs Awards were a grand success, with corporate, industry and private bloggers walking away with the honor of top blog of their niche SEM [...]

Directory Listing Updates : Keep Your Details
Jessica Bowman, Director of SEO for Business.com, has been updating core directory listings over the past week and lends some good advice on keeping track of SEO directed directory listings and link building information, which future SEO’s at your current company will cherish you for.Frustrations like you can’t imagine begin to emerge when you have [...]

AskCity vs. Citysearch : IAC Local Search Properties
There’s something of a dance going on between the new AskCity, which got huge amounts of coverage since launch a week or so ago, and IAC’s stalwart local brand Citysearch.Here’s a press release out this morning, which points to the fact that Citysearch is supplying much of the content on Ask City. It’s a little [...]

Local.com Adds Holiday Shopping Guide of Local Retailers
Local.com has debuted a new online gift guide to make it easier for consumers to shop for holiday gifts in their area via Local.com, here’s some info from their press release:Online shoppers can access leading retailers through Local.com’s Holiday Shopping Guide at www.local.com/shopping.aspx. Local.com provides information from premier retailers like Target, Toys-R-Us, Macy’s, Buy.com, [...]

Pay-Per-Post Blogging OK With Search Engines
Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz had the chance to pose a question to representatives of the major search engines which has been on the minds of many within the industry; “how do the engines feel about pay-per-post services on blogs, where advertisers can buy links and product reviews?”The responses, as Rand reports, were surprising:Yahoo’s Tim Converse [...]

Google Checkout Goes International
ZDNet’s resident Google expert Garett Rogers writes that Google Checkout has expanded outside of the United States and into other countries.At least half of Google’s Checkout service has been opened up to countries other than the United States. Now, regardless of where you live, you can purchase items with Google Checkout — unfortunately, finding [...]

Google AdWords Served on Orkut Terror &Jihad Groups
Over the course of the Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference last week Search Engine Journal covered the Google AdSense Clickfraud Botnet story broken by WebmasterRadio.fm’s Jim Hedger which claims that click fraud is rampant, action is not being done to stop it, Google is not blocking IP addresses from the restricted blacklist of spammers, AdSense [...]

Last Week in China - Myspace in China, Yahoo Faltering and Baidu Jumps the Sea of Japan
Last Week in China - Myspace in China, Yahoo Faltering and Baidu Jumps the Sea of JapanSome of the more noteworthy tidbits that happened in China last week, ok, in the last 2 weeks, as I was busy getting some sun and beach in Hainan for a couple of days.Is MySpace really coming to ChinaRupert [...]

Google Traffic Distribution Dominated By Search
Hitwise’s Bill Tancer recently posted about the distribution of Google’s traffic across its many properties. As you might expect and has been historically true, that distribution is dominated by search.Right now, Google owns the “brand” in search. But Yahoo and Microsoft have more “diversified” traffic across multiple properties.Without some more effort and — dare I [...]

Google Says Click Fraud Less than 2%
Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim has an exclusive story running that Google AdWords Click Fraud is at or below 2% and that Google has the proof. Andy’s post is incredibly detailed as he runs through Google’s Four Layers of Click Fraud Filters:Google’s Click Fraud Rate is Less than 2%Google utilizes four layers of click fraud detection. [...]

eBay Top 10 Christmas Items Ending Soon
In terms of usability and addressing the fact that most eBay users probably are not very efficient searchers, eBay has added this incredibly useful quick navigation tool for holiday shoppers trying to get their last minute hands on a Nintendo Wii or Sony Playstation 3:It’s linear, yet non-linear, efficient and somewhat 2.0 in design, great [...]

New York Times Goes Social Media
The New York Times has integrated Social News and Media sharing by adding “Digg This”, Facebook, and Newsvine (big props for Newsvine here) sharing buttons on their news stories.From Natali Del Conte at TechCrunch:“Although you could always manually add The Times stories to news sharing sites such as Digg and Newsvine before, the capability to [...]

Yahoo Shopping Needs a Facelift
After Yahoo! showed me their new site for the holiday season, I was pretty much underwhelmed. How could Yahoo! Shopping not introduce something incredibly bold for the holidays? And unfortunately I couldn’t even properly articulate my disappointment. I know Chris and Matt (and Haley) wanted to strangle me that afternoon…What I want [...]

Online Store to Sue Blogger Over Google Ranking
An online shoe store owner is threatening to sue a blogger Dean Hunt (DeanHunt.com) unless the blogger ‘lowers his Google ranking” for a keyword phrase that the store owner feels he deserves. Hello Dean,My name is [edited] and I run [edited].comI have been running the site for over two years and we have been ranked [...]

Deals.com : Social Media Meets Couponing
Deals.com is a new service which mixes the online coupon clipping services of sites like DealofDay.com or SlickDeals with the social news popularity voting of Digg.com. I think this is a very intelligent use of a social media offering and probably will expand the Digg.com style platform usage comfort beyond early technology adopters and into [...]

Link Bait? Nope, HatBait!
One of the many fond memories I’ll have of Search Engine Strategies Chicago was Liana Evans and her HatBait.com campaign.Liana could be seen around the conference, parties and bars with a selection of wild hats, a HatBait “link” (sign) and camera, capturing different search engine personalities and their HatBait.com photos. Liana, of Search Marketing Gurus, [...]

Yahoo Paid Inclusion : Informative Overview
Yahoo has been practicing paid inclusion under the Yahoo Search Marketing and Inktomi umbrellas for almost 5 years, yet for some reason Paid Inclusion does not get the coverage in the Search Marketing community it deserves.Why not? My guess is the modification of organic listings with paid results and all around tracking can be seen [...]

Yahoo?s Reorganization is ?Genius?
Bill Wise of Media Post has put together a thoughtful review of Yahoo’s reorganization. I had heard a couple of people referring to the Yahoo Reorg as a negative for the Yahoo company and search industry. I never really understood where they were coming from, nor could they back it up. Seems that there is [...]

Google Earth Meets Wikipedia &Geographic Web Layering
Google has aggregated what it’s calling a “Geographic Web Layer” in Google Earth. It’s a collection of photos and informational content from Wikipedia, Panoramio and user-generated content from the Google Earth user community. Here’s more from the Official Google Blog.We’ve taken the rich data of Wikipedia, Panoramio, and the Google Earth Community and made a [...]

Online Marketing Summit in San Diego
My search buddy Jennifer Laycock just posted some information over at Search Engine Guide about an interesting conference kicking up its first show in San Diego, the Online Marketing Summit.No this is not Another Search Conference, instead it’s a total online marketing oriented conference which should have more information and sessions dealing with online media [...]

SEO Tools from We Build Pages
Jim Boykin is a friend of mine and respected voice within the world of SEO, linking and informational blogging. I received a request from ReviewMe to do a review of We Build Pages, Jim’s company, and their extensive list of We Build Pages SEO and Internet Marketing tools.If Jim would’ve IM’d me and asked for [...]

Google Maps Plus Box : Local Meets Organic Search
Matt Cutts touched upon the addition to Google Maps powered collapsible maps Plus Box integrated within Google’s organic search results over the weekend, and I read it over without really thinking too much about it.That is, not until I saw them in action. Upon making some weekend plans I was performing some searches on Google [...]

2006 Search Blogs Awards Nominations End Today
This is a reminder that the 2006 Search Blogs Awards Nominations will be ending today at 9pm EST.The participation of the search community to suggest not only dozens of blogs for the awards, but also new awards and categories has been amazing. Thank you all for participating.For those of you who have not had the [...]

Top Digg Users Taking PR Payola?
So, if you don’t pay the people you have working for you, they’ll find ways to pay themselves. Jason Calacanis comments on Top 50 Digg Users accepting money from Public Relations firms:A PR/marketing firm confirmed with me that they had a number of the top 50 users on digg now on the payroll–and this wasn’t [...]

Search Marketing Recruiter : Josh Gampel
Looking for the SEO or Search Marketing dream job? Jessica Bowman of Business.com recommends the services of Josh Gampel, who is with recruitment firm Mangieri/Hull Solutions.Josh’s field of specialization? Search Engine Marketing!Josh Gampel is a headhunter with Mangieri/Hull Solutions, focuses on the search marketing arena and is based in Connecticut(but he recruits for all over [...]

MySpace.com Passing Yahoo in Page Views?
Ok, we’ve heard it before from Hitwise, MySpace.com is gathering more page views than Yahoo, but last time the report was centered around the home page. This newest data from ComScore, as reported by GigaOm’s Liz Gannes, is a little different.Here’s the breakdown:* November Yahoo Page Views Down 9%* comScore says MySpace #1 in Page [...]

101 Google Website Optimizer Tips
Not too often I would recommend taking advice from squirrels, but I just received an email from Conversion Rate Experts about their article;101 Easy Ways to use Google’s New Website Optimizer, which is an easy and entertaining look into the Google tool.Hello! I’m Conversion Rate Squirrel. I’m here to tell you how to get twice [...]

Google Finance Changes, New Features
Google Finance has added some major changes, especially to its home page, which result in a new chocked full of information financial hub which may be perfect for daily traders and major investors, but a little too busy for basic users.Like the former Google Finance, Google News takes center stage as news on specific public [...]

Yahoo Search Index Updating
Yesterday webmasters began noticing shifting and changing within Yahoo Search results. Usually, before such changes occur, Yahoo posts a Weather Report on the Yahoo Search Blog. No posting on the YSearchBlog as of yet, but Barry Schwartz did notice that Yahoo Tim Mayer did comment at WebmasterWorld:There will be more changes tomorrow. Things should settle [...]

Yahoo Search Marketing ?Panama?Open to New Advertisers
This morning Yahoo! announced that its new search marketing platform, Yahoo Search Marketing ‘Panama’, is now available to advertisers that wish to open a new Yahoo! sponsored search account. U.S. based accounts can now sign up online to begin marketing products through Yahoo!’s completely redesigned system. Previously, the system was only open to Yahoo!’s [...]

Yahoo &Facebook : Internal Documents on TechCrunch
Yahoo has been trying to buy Facebook for a good while now, with the most recent rumored amount being for $1.62 billion. TechCrunch has obtained documents on Yahoo’s valuation of Facebook, and expected advertising revenue growth over the next 10 years.From TechCrunch:Leaked documents in our possession state that an early offer was $37.5 million for [...]

Google Employees Can Auction Stock Options Online
Sara Kehaulani Goo of the Washington Post reports that Google is now letting its employees sell stock options by auctioning them off the Google way, online.Google to Let Workers Sell Options OnlineIn keeping with its offbeat approach to business, the search-engine firm plans to create an online auction for its 9,000 employees to sell their [...]

Yahoo! Answers : Survey Says Users ?Get?Social Q&A
Yahoo! Answers is celebrating its 1st birthday today with a party and the release of some interesting survey data which shows why Q&A type services are growing online and why Yahoo! Answers has set the mold in this area.In its first year,Yahoo! Answers has more than 16.6 million users and has amassed 60 million answers [...]

MySpace.com The Biggest?
There’s no offical comScore release out yet, but several sources are reporting (this is the TechCrunch post) that MySpace has become “the biggest site on the Internet” in terms of total page views (vs reach).Here’s the chart that Michael Arrington posts (per comScore):Now here’s Compete’s Snapshot, which strongly disputes the chart above in terms of [...]

decipho : New Social Search Engine
Decipho, a new search engine built upon categorization, voting, ranking and social media measurement, has launched today with some most interesting features, one of my favorites being its “Social Meter.” Its base search index is powered by Ask.com and signed in users may build and rank their own categories.Here are the basic functions and features [...]

New Google Firefox Toolbar
Google has released the third version of their Google Toolbar for Firefox which Google says includes all of the bells and whistles of the IE Google Toolbar, including custom buttons, Google Docs integration and bookmarks.Philipp Lenssen warns to be weary of the new Google Toolbar, as Firefox 2 and its extensions may already provide everything [...]

Yahoo! Answers Celebrates First Year
Yahoo! Answers, the leading Q&A site on the web, has just turned one years old and is celebrating its thriving community of users and their knowledge base.Yahoo! Answers marks its one year milestone by honoring 25 users at a special awards ceremony during the Yahoo! Answers Birthday party, tonight at Yahoo! headquarters. Award winners will [...]

2006 SEJ Search Blogs Awards — Check Your Votes!
Well, Murphy’s Law kicked in this afternoon, and after attempting to disable comments on the original 2006 SEJ Search Blogs Awards post, the entire thing disappeared.Thin air. Poof. Houdini action.We’re all hoping that Matt Cutts can grab us a cached version of the original page that is newer than this one, but in the event [...]

Microsoft?s Live Local / Virtual Earth Upgrades
Here’s the Windows Live Local blog on the upgrades to Bird’s Eye.Gary Price summarizes the upgrades:What’s New?+ Improved Tools to Navigate “Birds Eye” Imagery Using an “inset map.” (Much easier!)Also, kudos on the next new feature that also makes Birds Eye imagery more user friendly.You can now drag to the end of [...]

Google &Expanding Beyond the PC
There’s a long article today by Kevin Delaney in the WSJ (sub req’d) about Google’s efforts to woo advertisers into its print and audio ads tests:There have been some hiccups. Mr. Schmidt said in October that in tests of print-ad sales, “the first iteration didn’t work.” Google executives have given the system a major overhaul [...]

Flickr Increases Account Sizes for Holidays
Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo!, has increased the sizes of its photo sharing and storage accounts to unlimited space for Pro members and 100MB for free account holders.More from Flickr:…the two gigabyte monthly limit is no more (yep, pro users have no limits on how many photos they can upload)! At the same time, [...]

2006 Search Blogs Awards Update
Due to some technical difficulties on Wednesday, we have decided to extend the 2006 Search Blogs Awards nominations into the weekend and voting will commence on Tuesday December 19th. Ideally we wanted to have voting take place before the holiday week, but we’ll just have to hope that not all of our readers are out [...]

Google?s Patent Search
Google announced patent search, built on the USPTO’s database. There’s a series of questions that accompany every Google product launch:Why are they doing this?Do they intend to monetize this?How will this affect the competition? (Not really relevant here.)This is basically a more user friendly version of the USPTO site.Will Google serve ads against the searches? [...]

Yahoo Publisher Network Updates Ad Blocking
Yahoo Publisher Network has updated the ad blocking function which lets publishers block advertising from certain domains within the YPN ads on their sites. More from the YPN Blog:As suggested by its name, Ad Blocking allows you to block ads from a given domain or multiple domains that you don’t want to appear on your [...]

Google Domain Registration : $10 a year?
Google has entered into the domain registration game via a partnership with eNom and GoDaddy, wherein Google is only offering the registration of .com, .net, .biz and .info domain extensions.$10 a year is a bit more expensive than some of the other registrars on the market (by a dollar or so) and I find it [...]

Last week in China - A Lot of Baidu and a bit of Microsoft and Google
Last week in China, a Lot of Baidu and a bit of Microsoft and GoogleThere hardly goes a week by that Baidu is not in the news. They are actively getting into new partnerships, boasting about their Market Share and releasing new services. Google has yet to find a way to counter this. The rest [...]

Want to learn for real how to increase conversion, sales and ROI?
Marketing Experiments is looking for quallified Research Partners for the year 2007 who will work together with MEC using their GrowthEngine technology and methodology on studies with the goal to test the most efficient ways to maximize traffic and increase conversion ratios.Research areas include the following:Video as a Marketing ToolSite ConversionPay-per-click SearchOrganic SearchComparison Shopping SearchPermission [...]

Survivor Winner Yul Worked with Google
Mike at Sierra Web Marketing reminds us that Yul Kwon, the million dollar Survivor winner, once worked with Google.From Yul’s CBS Survivor Bio:Kwon has enjoyed a diverse career straddling both the private and public sectors in law, business and technology. He practiced a mix of litigation, appellate, transactional and regulatory work at several law firms. [...]

MySpace.com on Cingular Cell Phones
Reuters reports the announcement coming today:Cingular, the largest U.S. wireless phone carrier, will offer a version of popular social-networking site MySpace.com on its phones in an expansion of their partnership, the companies plan to announce on Monday.For an additional $2.99 a month, customers will be able to upload photos taken on cell phones, read and [...]

Digg is Down : Upgrade in Process
Just tried to log into Digg and received this response:Upgrade in Process. New features are minutes away…Can’t wait to see what the new features are :)

Yahoo : No Click Fraud, But Plenty of Goodwill
Nice play on words from the Yahoo Search Marketing team as PepperJam reports on the back and forth requests for credits due to apparent ‘click fraud’ or fraudulent clicks on a YSM contextual targeting account. Instead of calling the mystery clicks fraudulent, Yahoo instead granted a refund of the questioned marketing spend in the name [...]

Google Cell Phone (GPhone) and Its Prospects
Om Malik has an interesting post and speculation about mobile carrier Orange, mobile device maker HTC and Google teaming up for a Google-branded phone. Here’s the original source (the UK’s Observer):Their plans centre on a branded Google phone, which would probably also carry Orange’s logo. The device would not be revolutionary: manufactured by HTC, a [...]

Google Defines Good Linking &Bad Linking
Google’s Stefanie Ulrike Dürr has laid down the defining lines in the battle of link building and the value of link popularity. In summary, the old motto, an earned link is the best link, still outranks almost any form of link building imaginable. Essentially, if a link is earned due to quality, ideas, originality, or [...]

Inside Yahoo Search Marketing : John Slade
Lee Odden of TopRank scored an excellent interview with John Slade, Senior Director of Yahoo Global Product Management, and lead ‘talking head’ behind the Yahoo Search Marketing team who have been rolling out introductions of the new ‘Panama’ interface at different publisher and advertiser conferences.Here’s an interesting excerpt:Lee : What are the fundamental differences between [...]

PayPerPost Moves to Full Disclosure
PayPerPost has rolled out a new Terms of Service which, as effective today, requires bloggers to announce that specific Postvertising is indeed paid for.From the PayPerPost press release:Since creating the concept of sponsored posting, PayPerPost has allowed and encouraged transparency, enabling marketers and bloggers to disclose word-of-mouth (WOM) or buzz marketing relationships. The company provides [...]

Google Acquires Endoxon Mapping Solutions
Google announces that they have acquired the Swiss based Endoxon, an Internet mapping solutions company which specializes in Europe.The Endoxon team has demonstrated passion and innovation in online mapping and has developed compelling technology that will enhance our Google geo products worldwide. We’re also excited about having a dedicated team in Europe that can bring [...]

ABC News Tops Google News in 2006
Newsnkife has put together a list of the online news sites which made it to the featured story source in their respected category within Google News. ABC News, New York Times and Reuters topped the list.1. ABC News2. New York Times3. [...]

9 Ways To Get Banned by Search Engines
Putting together an SEO campaign and thinking that cloaking, link farming or regurgitating content will get your site high rankings? Think again. Chances are, your site will get banned or ommitted from the top search engines; meaning Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Live.com, by using these techniques.Black Hat SEO is a touchy field and if you’re [...]

Google 2006 Top Searches : Very 2.0
Once Google filtered out all of the questionable, offensive and not-safe-for-work search terms, looks like the people Googling on Google were in fact searching for the names of various social and 2.0 offerings:1. bebo2. myspace3. world cup4. metacafe5. radioblog6. wikipedia7. video8. [...]

Site Banned By Digg.com?
I’ve heard the warnings at conferences and especially in the Social Media Optimization field that spamming or multiple submissions to Digg and other social news sites could lead to the banning of that URL from future Digg listings.Seems that such a horrible fate was brought about on SearchBliss.com although they say that they were not [...]

Benefits of CSS in Search Engine Optimization
Mikhail Tuknov, founder of Infatex.com, sent in this article on CSS and its importance in search engine optimization. I found it to be a basic and ‘to the point’ read on how CSS can cut down on load time, cross browser compatibility and code cleanliness.As the holiday season approaches, Search Engine Journal will be [...]

Google Radio Ads Sell Out; Not Enough Airtime
Ben Charny at MarketWatch reports that Google Audio did not secure enough radio airtime “for would-be advertisers to thoroughly test out the initiative.”Seems an analyst, Jordan Rohan, feels that this will lead to a delay which may take Google more time to reach a broader audience:Until Google can strike a deal with CBS, or [...]

Google Maps Multiple Destinations
Google has added a new feature to Google Maps which I first experienced when testing out Ask.com’s AskCity, multiple destination directions.Google Maps lets users pin separate destinations and then build an itinerary of driving directions between each locale. AskCity does something similar, but with the option of walking directions.Philipp Lenssen looks at Google Maps and [...]

Ask.com?s Ask X : Search Testing Ground
Lisa Barone, super search blogger, has the beef on Ask.com’s search interface & user experience testing ground, Ask X. Google has its SearchMash to test new Ajax and Java powered search tools, and now Ask has Ask X. And Lisa has this to say about Ask X:The difference between Ask X and Google’s SearchMash [...]

10 Reasons Why Digg Could Bury Google and Suggested Improvements
Todd Malicoat has jotted down his thoughts on why Digg is the new Google and why Digg is attracting the ‘geek mindshare’ that Google did so well pre-2001, when it went beyond grassroots marketing and was slingshot by the great Yahoo! partnership which won over the commonfolk.* They just need an index - Y and [...]

Ebay China Sells Business to Tom Online
It has been hanging in the air for sometime now. Back in September 2006 the rumor circus already pointed at Tom online as the likely candidate and it’s now decided.From ReutersEBaysaid it will fold its China business, acquired when it purchased local auction site EachNet for $180 million (91 million pounds), into a venture with [...]

Five Things You Didn?t Know About Me : Blog Tag
In the tradition of friendly blogosphere blogging, I’ve been blog tagged by Peter and Lee in the great search blogger meme of the five things you probably do not know about me.1. I’m a farm boy from one of the oldest families on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, born on the brackish banks of the [...]

Google Partnerships &Enhanced Logo Branding
One trend that has been noticed over the past 2 months is that Google is stepping up to the plate in the branding of its logo within its AdSense network along with its major partnerships.Why? Possibly because Google is not the grassroots company it once was and there has been talk of Google losing its [...]

Google Checkout : Doing Better Than Expected
When Google introduced its payments system (and more) Checkout earlier this year my belief was that it had to break with its long-standing approach of not doing any marketing and push the product because it was potentially important to the company’s future. After a slow start, Google has been doing that — though [...]

Google Adwords Quality Scores Update Monthly
Barry points to the Google AdWords help page which discusses the frequency of Google AdWords Quality Score updating.The AdWords system visits and evaluates advertiser landing pages on a regular basis. Due to the evolving nature of the quality evaluation system, the frequency may change based on improvements to the system or the level of user [...]

Vote for the 2006 Search Blogs Awards!
Voting for the Search Engine Journal’s 2006 Search Blogs Awards are now open. Please take the time to rank and vote for your favorite search engine blogs and bloggers!Vote Now!In most of the categories, we ask voters to rank the Search Blogs which you read from 1-5, 5 being the best. One other category is [...]

TrueLocal?s Jake Baillie Moving On
Jake Baillie has helped to build TrueLocal into a true success, rocked Chicago, and is now heading to the world of funding Internet start-ups and incubation. Jake sent this email to my friend and SMO guru Lee Odden who also took this awesome shot at B.L.U.E.S.I’m both pleased and saddened to announce my departure from [...]

del.icio.us Tagometer is Deliciously Refreshing!
Almost every blog and news publication on web includes a small “save to del.icio.us” link or little del.icio.us box next to posts which entice users to save the story as a del.icio.us bookmark and share with other web users.But with the popular new fancy buttons coming out from companies like Digg which show the amount [...]

Best Linkbait of 2006 Nominations Open
Initially Search Engine Journal was going to include Best Linkbait as a category in our 2nd Annual Search Blogs Awards, but not all linkbait is done on a search blog.In fact, some of the best linkbait of the year was outside of the searchosphere realm and made its way outside of the barrel (thanks to [...]

Justin Timberlake &SNL Show YouTube.com &TV Now Inseparable
Some of you may have seen a couple of “off color” videos widely circulating on the Internet from the NBC TV show Saturday Night Live (SNL). Here’s the NY Times article (from today) describing the videos.As you may recall the SNL “Lazy Sunday” videos were a viral phenomenon on YouTube and actually boosted SNL’s ratings. [...]

PageRank is dead and NOFOLLOW will NOT Save it!
It’s again time for a discussion about the use of the nofollow attribute for links at the English language Wikipedia. A lot of the Wikis in other languages use the attribute and also the MediaWiki platform which is used by Wikipedia and thousands of other Wikis has the nofollow attribute ON by default for new [...]

SofaTube : Watch YouTube and Revver in Your Living Room
Have our dreams just come true? YouTube on the television! Red Kawa has developed a new application dubbed SofaTube, which apparently lets users watch YouTube and Revver on the big screen HDTV, and not on little computer screens:SofaTube is a specially designed web application that lets you browse and watch videos from YouTube and Revver [...]

Microsoft Trying to Patent RSS Feed Readers
Microsoft’s patent applications for RSS feed (and other feed format) readers & aggregators were made public yesterday, showing that the company filed for the patents in June 2005.Cnet’s Anne Broache adds:That date, incidentally, is just three days prior to the company’s formal announcement that it planned to build support for RSS into the next version [...]

MyBlogLog Blog Registration Flaw
Tonight I noticed a flaw in MyBlogLog while tracking some of the comments I have made in blogs over the past two days. MyBlogLog is a bloggers’ community where members can register their blog info, headshots, and other information so, on member blogs, readers and the blog owners can view the MyBlogLog members who visit [...]

Yahoo! Answers got company. Welcome Askville by Amazon.
Amazon launched quitely with only some little “Teaser Ads” on their Website and via Email to existing customers their new Service AskVille.I received only 3 days ago following email from Amazon. You’re Invited!As a valued Amazon customer, you’ve been specially picked to get an early look at a new website Amazon has just launched called [...]

Last week in China - Baidu Censors Competition, Yahoo Wins and More eBay
The big news last week was about eBay China deciding to give up on their own business by selling the majority to Tom Online.Many articles have been published about this in the last couple of days, all mentioning the need to localize/partner when you want to do business in China. More about that later. Let’s [...]

Kidneys or Lungs? SEO or PPC? eMarketing Biology 101.
I was catching up with some of my podcast subscriptions and listened to the SEO Rockstars Episode from 12/19 with Greg “WebGuerrilla” Boser and Todd “Mad Oilman” Friesen. They talked about the post of Dave Pasternack at DMNews which I talked about on November 27 here at SEJ and also left a long comment at [...]

PayPerPost Intents To Acquire Parts Of Performancing
Michael Arrington at Techcrunch was a bit too early when he reported that PayPerPost will announce the acquisition of Performancing.That is a bit more than what PayPerPost actually did. Kate Kaye from ClickZ News reported based on statements of PayPerPost CEO Ted Murphy.PayPerPost has signed a letter of intent to acquire select Performancing assets. …… [...]

$286,800 Donation to Wikipedia
Found on Digg.com today: Someone donated $286,800 to WikipediaWithin the past few minutes the confirmed donations total went from $402,000 to $689,000. One contribution was by An anonymous friend on 2006-12-27 at 22:17:00 for the amount of $286,800.Hefty Christmas present for Wikipedia and with nearly 2,000 Diggs on a story linking to the Wikipedia donation [...]

Apple iTunes Traffic Soars from Giftcards &New Ipod Owners
Apple iTunes giftcards and new iPod owners led to a 413% rise in visits at iTunes.com on Christmas Day. Yours truly was an accidental visitor as my 12 year old niece begged me to show her how to download using her iTunes giftcards. Along the way, I feel compelled to add, I ran into a [...]

Top 10 Google Myths
Google Operating System’s Ionut Alex (who does not work for Google) gets all ‘Matt Cutts’ on some Google myths which have been making their way around the web for years.Here’s a snippet:Google MythsGoogle is spyware.“Spyware is software that reports on your activities or gathers personal information about you and sends it via the Internet to [...]

How Big is Google?s Index?
Since Google has stopped exposing the size of their indexed web documents on their homepage, it seems that different web users have been performing searches to try and figure out Google’s size.Some searches used to be “* *”, but according to Philipp, that search does not work anymore.Google Blogoscoped is trying to figure out the [...]

Wikiasari : The Answer for Search?
Even as search becomes all-but-synonymous with the Internet for many users, there’s a paradoxical and growing sense that it’s failing. We have incredibly high expectations for search but that’s partly because it has been very successful to date. Every quarter or so it seems a new, would-be David comes out to challenge Googliath.The newest one [...]

Digg Raises an Extra $8.5 Million
Wendy Tanaka at Red Herring reports that, according to VentureWire, Digg.com has raised $8.5 million from two existing investors, Greylock Partners and Omidyar Network.Not too much more news about the expanded funding except some user valuation information based upon the MySpace acquisition numbers (which may or may not even be relevant):if Digg were acquired for [...]

MySpace.com : ID Theft &Scamming Target
As social networking sites continue to grow in popularity and their user base expands beyond savvy early adopters, such Web 2.0 offerings are becoming more and more the targets of scammers and phishing.MySpace.com (Google partner and owned by Fox Interactive) has inherited the role of playing guinea pig in this arena, due to its checkered [...]

Yahoo Answers Dominates Answers Sites Market Share
A recent study by Hitwise shows that Yahoo Answers is dominating the Answers Search Market Share by attracting 96.1% of the share of answers sites visits. Hitwise says that the Infosearch Media owned Answerbad is 2nd, with 2% of the share and Windows Live QnA is ranked third, with 1%.More Yahoo Answers info from Hitwise:* [...]

Google : Victim of Its Own Success?
One of the persistent complaints for the last year or so about Google is that it’s too powerful now — owning 45% to 60%+ of Internet search. To that end, next year will see the launch of several general-purpose search engines that seek to become the “Google killer.” The latest — like candidates running for [...]

Saddam Hussein Execution : Internet &Wikipedia Coverage
Former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, is expected to be executed within the day as punishment for crimes against humanity after being convicted by the Iraq Special Tribunal in November. Politics and death penalty arguments aside, this is a ground breaking global event and is currently under the radar of CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and other news [...]

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