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June 30, 2005

Ian Turner Missing

From Threadwatch:

Ian has been missing since Sunday. He was due to fly back from New Orleans (wmw show) and has not been seen since. His wife and family are all very worried about him, and so are we.

If you've seen Ian, or have any information about him that might be useful (anything at all, at this stage) please contact the New Orleans or Atlanta police department.

New Orleans P.D. - (504) 821-2222

Atlanta P.D. - (404) 730-5700 (Fulton County)

Atlanta Missing Persons - 404-853-4235

EDIT: SEW says all the information is being routed through the UK and not to contact US police.

If you've seen him or have information about his whereabouts, please contact Detective Constable Cole of the Woking Missing Persons unit in England.

He can be reached dialing 011-44-1483-655-081 from the US, (01483) 655-081 from the UK or +44 (0)1483 655-081 from other countries.

You can also email cole10437 @ surrey.pnn.police.uk. Please don't contact the US police -- all information is being centralized through the UK, at this time.

UPDATE: Ian Turner was found on Friday. He was in Atlanta, having lost his passport. More information can be found at Threadwatch. We're all glad that Ian is home safely.

Posted by sesparza on 06/30/05 at 12:53 PM
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Time flies

June was a very busy month and it hardly seems like it's been 30 days but here we are again, about to head into July. But before we bid the month a final farewell, take a look back with our June SEOToolset newsletter. Our feature article takes a look at the current search strategies of the top four search engines. Or go back to basics and take a look at the proper formatting of your head section. As well as all the usual news round-up.

Posted by sesparza on 06/30/05 at 11:19 AM
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That's Why They Call It Beta

Not 24 hours after putting it up, Google Earth's download page is closed and there doesn't seem to be anyway around it, even bit torrent fails. CNet reports that Google said they'd always planned to limit the number of initial downloads but to me that decision seems apocryphal.

As if that wasn't enough, it's a tempest in a teapot compared to what Nathan at Inside Google points out this morning. He calls it the Worst Copyright Violation Ever and it's hard to disagree. Full length movies, tv shows and other copyrighted materials available through the new Google Video service.

Thing must be interesting in Google HQ this morning.

Posted by sesparza on 06/30/05 at 11:15 AM
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Google is not doing enough for Fraudulent Clicks

According to Red Herring, Google is not providing enough protection against fraudulent clicks through its pay-per-click advertising. As a result, Google is being sued by a pay-per-click analysis firm called Click Defense.

This is not the first time that the search engines have dealt with lawsuits on the basis of fraudulent click practices. In February, there was a similar case which was levied against all of the search engines. This case also was concerning fraudulent clicks and is still in the process of reaching a verdict.

As far as the lawsuit against Google is concerned, Click Defense is alleging that Google does not protect against fraudulent clicks in order to benefit themselves monetarily. Click Defense would like to see Google reimburse those companies who have experienced fraudulent clicks.

Google seems to see things differently and they have dubbed the case without merit and they plan to fight the allegations.

With advertising the main source of Google's revenue, ( a whopping $1.256 billion in first quarter earnings) this will be a tough fight for Click Defense.

Posted by hgibson on 06/30/05 at 9:22 AM
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June 29, 2005

How Much of the Web is Indexed?

So, how big is the web anyway?

According to Danny Sullivan, 11.5 billion web pages have been indexed. This statistic comes from a paper written by Antonio Gulli and Alessio Signorinialso and also includes other statistics such as:

• Google has an 8 billion page index
  
• Yahoo has 6.6 billion pages
  
• MSN has 5.1 billion pages.

Danny asks the poignant question: does it really matter how big each search engine's index is if all the pages can't be accessed? In this instance, it is really a matter of quality over quantity. Having a huge amount of web pages really doesn't benefit anyone if the most useful pages are not accessible in searches.

Posted by hgibson on 06/29/05 at 9:28 AM
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June 28, 2005

New Brand of SEO?

According to Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Watch, there is a new brand of SEO coming to town. Google is planning on releasing personalized search which orders your search results based on things you have searched for in the past.

So, exactly how would that work? According to Google, it would work like this:

For the query [bass], Google Personalized Search may show the user results about the instrument and not the fish if that person was a frequent Google searcher for music information.

Google would monitor the types of searches that you do and then monitor what results you click on to decide which results to show you in future searches.

In this way, Google hopes to rank the search results which are more suited to the searcher higher in the ranking order.

Another neat aspect of the personalized search is that you can turn it off. If you just want regular search results, you can set Google to return those types of results or you can have Google tailor your results accordingly.

What will this mean for the future of SEO? If people are conducting personalized searches, will pagerank matter as much? Pagerank wouldn't really matter at all, considering each search would be specific to each unique user.

According to this article, it seems that search engines are supporting the change to personalized searches because they help curb spam problems. People who engage in personalized searches can also block pages which is an added issue for those sites trying to obtain ranking--what's the point if someone just blocks your site anyway?

Posted by hgibson on 06/28/05 at 1:35 PM
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Google Earth is Free

Google Earth, Google's mapping product formerly known as Keyhole, is now available as a free 10 MB download. Those with Keyhole can upgrade to this new product. The download page is somewhat cheeky, in classic Google style. Also in classic Google style is the (beta) label on the product.

I like maps and Google Earth appeals to the basic evil overlord impulse within me. Just check out this overview from Nathan Weinberg at Inside Google. The screen shots alone are worth the price of admission (that's free in case you forgot in the last three sentences.)

For those who want even more functionality, Google Earth Plus can be yours for $20. If that's still not enough, Google Earth Pro, Google Earth Enterprise, Google Earth Fusion, Google Earth Server and Google Earth Enterprise Client can really give you that ruler of the earth feeling.

Posted by sesparza on 06/28/05 at 10:41 AM
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June 27, 2005

Google Releases Streaming Video Search

Yesterday, John Batelle confirmed that Google will be releasing a video search program today, Monday June 27. Google Video allows you to search through television videos as well as user submitted videos.

Some of the questions Batelle raises in his discussion concerning Google Video include: what type of payment options will be in place for Google Video, if any? According to Batelle, Google's Payment Program which was recently introduced, will in some way have a tie-in with Google Video, he's just not sure how.

Another point that Batelle makes is that Google Video will be very useful to those people who are not able to host their own streaming video and in this way, Google will act as host to the myriad of videos which are currently unavailable, thus giving voice where previously, none existed.

Perhaps the most crucial point that Batelle makes is that Google Video will be in direct competition with Microsoft's Media Player. Batelle predicts that once Google Video is in use, a Google Video Player will not be far behind.

Some of the television stations which have agreed to participate in Google video include ABC, PBS, NBC, Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel, Fox News, CNN and The Learning Channel.

On a side note, all the videos have been scanned to make sure they are free from adult content.

Posted by hgibson on 06/27/05 at 9:03 AM
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June 24, 2005

I used Google to...

Today's entry is a fun one!

According to Google Blogoscoped, if you type into Google: "I used Google to", you get a list of different topics which people have entered into Google search.

Some of them are pretty standard such as using Google for homework or finding locations but others are pretty funny including using Google to find information on prospective dates, etc.

What have you used Google for?

Posted by hgibson on 06/24/05 at 8:39 AM
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June 23, 2005

Update: Monier confirms move to Google.

Louis Monier, subject of rumors earlier that he would be leaving eBay, has now confirmed that he's joining Google. John Battelle has an interview with the new Google employee about why he's leaving eBay, whether or not Google recruited him (Monier says no, it just took a single email to Larry) and if he'll be giving up his ALTVSTA license plate (not a chance).

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/23/05 at 3:16 PM
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What's going on at Google?

There's been a buzz in the past couple of days that eBay's director of advanced technology group, Louis Monier might be leaving the auction giant and heading to Google. This comes at the same time as Google CEO, Eric Schmidt is denying building a Paypal competitor while confirming that something is going on and the Wall Street Journal is claiming that Google and Amazon are threatening eBay's dominance.

All this chatter can't just be hot air so what are they cooking up over in the Google labs and what does it mean for the nature of business on the web?

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/23/05 at 11:35 AM
See more entries in Rumors, Search Engine Optimization

Google Launches Enterprise Desktop Search

Google has launched Enterprise Desktop Search which "helps you easily manage the ever-growing mountain of information located on your computers and includes key standards-based administrator features that provide enhanced security, centralized configuration and easy company-wide deployment".

And, not only does it do the things just mentioned, but it does them at no cost to you--it is free!

According to Inside Google, the most important difference between the Enterprise edition and the consumer edition is security. The security is heightened in the Enterprise edition as all the information is encrypted and security settings can be monitored by Microsoft Group Policy Settings.

These are just a few of the benefits that the new Enterprise edition introduces, visit Google to read about all of the benefits.

Posted by hgibson on 06/23/05 at 9:04 AM
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June 22, 2005

WebMaster World 2005: Super Session

Barry, aka Rusty Brick from Search Engine Roundtable, reported on a session held at the WebMaster World conference with some of the biggest names in SEO, Bruce Clay included, of course.

The session was moderated by Brett Tabke and some of the other names on the panel included Mike Grehan of Smart Interactive Ltd, Daron Babin of NewGen Broadcasting, and Todd Friesen of Range Online Media.

Here is a sampling of the session questions:

• What is the key differences between optimizing between Yahoo! and Google?
• How do you use RSS?
• Thoughts on domain name registration?

Be sure to check out the session to find out what everyone had to say.

Posted by hgibson on 06/22/05 at 1:33 PM
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Google Wallet: Fact or Fiction?

On June 20th, I reported on the rumors that Google is introducing its own version of Paypal called Google Wallet. Today there is more on this news strand.

According to Marketing Vox, Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) said that in no way was Google planning on competing with Paypal with the introduction of their electronic payment product.

The speculation was, in part, caused by Google's acquisition of a subsidiary called Google Payment Corporation, but according to Schmidt, this corporation is working as an extension of the search engine: in Google's online products and their advertising programs.

It remains to be seen if Google will, in fact, compete with Paypal or if Schmidt speaks the truth.

Posted by hgibson on 06/22/05 at 8:24 AM
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June 21, 2005

Webmaster World Coverage on SERoundtable

Barry, rustybrick, always covers the SES conventions. Now he's taken his act down to the Big Easy and is trying to provide real-time covered of WMW. He notes that the coverage will be dependent on wifi access and that if you have a specific session you would like blogged you can request it in the comments.

Thus far the keynote from John Battelle and the session on contextual advertising for publishers have been added. Keep an eye on Barry's Webmaster World Conference category for further sessions.

Posted by sesparza on 06/21/05 at 10:03 AM
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MSN Jumps on the Map Wagon

According to Marketing Vox, MSN is releasing a beta-version of its local search function. This new function will access Yellow and White page directories for specific regions.

It is projected that local search listings will be mainly utilized by mobile phone users who need information on the fly.

It was also reported that local search is a relatively untapped and lucrative market with great monetary potential.

Eventually, MSN plans on incorporating a new technology which will allow multiple search results to be layered atop a single map, called Virtual Earth.

MSN is not the only search engine interested in mapping technology. Google integrated local mapping search and introduced web pages that are targeted for mobile phone users in an attempt to make searching easier.

Yahoo has partnered with SBC Global Communications, owner of Yellowpages.com, in an attempt to access the search market as well.

In the mad dash to get a piece of the location mapping pie, we wonder who will be declared the winner?

Posted by hgibson on 06/21/05 at 9:30 AM
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June 20, 2005

Yahoo Index Updating Tonight

Just a quick entry to inform everyone that Yahoo has announced that they are going to update their index tonight. The title for this index updating has not yet been released.

This is the second weather update, the first was in April (April 1) and was called the Tim update as Tim Mayer from Yahoo, announced it.

I wonder what this new update will be called and if it will resolve any prior index issues...

Posted by hgibson on 06/20/05 at 3:50 PM
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Google discovers the rest of the world.

Spotted via Google Blogscoped. Though they haven't yet found roads or buildings, Google Maps has tracked down the rumored six other continents. Before now, only the US and UK could be seen without switching to satellite view but now the entire world can be seen and the countries have borders.

Google often gets criticized for rolling out services to a US only audience first. But first doesn't mean only and Google continues to roll out new features for a world-wide audience.

Posted by sesparza on 06/20/05 at 2:28 PM
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Being Evil?

Speaking of privacy concerns, Google's Library project continues to take heat from all sides. Panned by publishers and librarians alike, the most recent complaint comes from the American Library Association (ALA) and other privacy activist groups who are concerned by an agreement with the University of Michigan which contains no provisions for protecting the privacy of future users of the library's online catalogue. Google's habit of tracking everything a user does has long been a subject of controversy.

From the C|Net article:

"I would have hoped that the University of Michigan would be sensitive to the fact that Google tracks everything that everyone searches," said Daniel Brandt, founder of the Google-watch.org Web site.

The ALA ethics guidelines recommend that libraries preserve the privacy and confidentiality of library users and recommends they ask third-party partners to retain the same degree of protection. Google's data gathering clearly violates this, privacy advocates say.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/20/05 at 11:19 AM
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Google Wallet to Compete with PayPal

The industry buzz this morning is that Google is planning on competing with Paypal by introducing its own form of an electronic payment system called Google Wallet.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google Wallet would be similar to Paypal and would allow people to pay for online purchases through electronic funds transfer through their credit cards or bank accounts.

The WSJ also pointed to the fact that Paypal makes the majority of its money through Ebay auctions and if Google Wallet were to materialize, this would mean avid competition with Ebay. It is not so far-fetched to imagine that Google might compete by creating its own online auction site, in the same vein as Ebay.

According to Search Engine Journal, a problem which Google might encounter is user trust.

Google has struggled a bit in the trust department lately, with initiatives such as My Search History, Accelerator, Autolink and others raising privacy concerns. Because of its enormous success, some people are starting to regard Google with the skepticism that Microsoft routinely encounters.

It remains to be seen what Google will do with Google Wallet, if anything at all. The company has refused to comment on all the conjecture and at this point, it remains just that--conjecture.

Posted by hgibson on 06/20/05 at 8:54 AM
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June 17, 2005

Yahoo Better at Getting Visitors: AOL Better at Keeping Them

According to Marketing Vox and specifically, a study done by Nielsen Ratings, Yahoo attracts more visitors than Google, MSN or AOL but does not keep its visitors as long as AOL does.

Yahoo had 97 million visitors in May who spent an average of 3 hours on the site. AOL, on the other hand, had 71 million users in May but they spent an average of three hours more (total 6 hours 45 mins) on AOL than did visitors on Yahoo.

What would the reason be? According to Marketing Vox, part of the answer could be AOL's instant messaging program, AIM, which kept people on the AOL site in order to IM with others.

Posted by hgibson on 06/17/05 at 2:47 PM
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Yahoo using title tags instead of directory titles.

One of the complaints about being in the Yahoo Directory is that very often one's carefully crafted title was replaced by the directory title and description. Today Barry, rustybrick, noticed a change. The on-page title is being selected over the directory title. As the SEW forum thread notes, this is a good move on Yahoo's part as the title tag is more likely to be up to date and accurate.

It remains to be seen if this is a permanent change or just an experiment.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/17/05 at 9:28 AM
See more entries in Design, Search Engine Optimization

Google for Mobile Screens

In this week's news, Google has introduced a search engine that is designed for mobile web users. The basic idea is that the web pages are designed for smaller screens and therefore, are easier to use if you are accessing them from a cell phone etc.

This Google Jr. search engine directs users to a specialized index of web pages that are designed with mobile users in mind--they have been optimized for small screens. The index is XHTML based and allows users to view pages on a much smaller screen.

In an article by Susan Kuchinskas, of Wireless, she discusses Google's implementation of its search engine with Google's Director of Wireless Product Management, Deep Nishar. Nishar discusses Google's use of XHTML for the smaller screen pages.

Google has been interested in tapping into the mobile market for a while now. It has already introduced Google Local, Image Search and Web Search, and an instant messaging service--all of these for mobile users.

Now it waits to be seen if they will try to implement advertising into this new mobile-based search engine.

Posted by hgibson on 06/17/05 at 9:17 AM
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June 16, 2005

Yahoo Search Marketing Preferred over Google Adwords

According to Search Engine Journal, the Washington Post has retired Google Adwords in favor of Yahoo Search Marketing. This was reported by Standard & Poor's Equity Research Division.

Other changes which will go into effect include Yahoo's toolbar appearing on Washington Post's website.

Standard & Poor were quoted as saying that they didn't think this change would affect Google or Yahoo's earnings and just noted that it increases the already rampant competition between the two.

There was nothing in the article as to the reasoning why Washington Post replaced Adwords with Search Marketing, but it is certainly a feather in Yahoo's cap.

Posted by hgibson on 06/16/05 at 9:38 AM
See more entries in Branding, Pay Per Click

June 15, 2005

Linkbuilding: Is building links quickly a detriment?

There is an interesting poll in Search Engine Watch today which asks the question: how many links can you get in one day and still be in the clear with the search engines?

The responses were varied, but the overarching answer was that it didn't matter how many you get a day. Some people said that the answer is 60-100 links a day and others said 2-5 links a day, quite a disparity!

According to , Search Engine Roundtable, natural link building is the best way to link build. By "natural" they mean linking that happens in an unforced way i.e. you have a product which is a good product so people link to you based on the reputation of the product you sell.

They also admit, though, that it is possible to invent a great product quickly and likewise, you will end up with numerous links in a short amount of time.

Basically, this seems to support the poll rating that it doesn't matter how many links you get in one day--with the caveat that it is fine as long as it is natural and not forced. As with most things in life, good intentions go a long way....

Posted by hgibson on 06/15/05 at 1:19 PM
See more entries in Design, SEO Tools

Beyond the SERPs

Even though we're an SEO company, we know that the click from the SERPs is only the first step. Once a visitor reaches your carefully optimized landing page whether through paid or natural listings, it is important that he is enticed to stay, read on and convert. This article, 11 Ways to Improve Landing Pages, addresses some basic but often overlooked elements to improve conversion.

Many of the tips are equally important to building a search engine friendly page. Stripping out complicated code, organizing the page properly and making the message clear and focused are particularly applicable. I disagree, however, with point 5: Remove the navigation. Don't trap your users on a single page with no way out. Your landing page should be the visitor's entry point not his only option.

Hat tip to Danny for finding the article.

Posted by sesparza on 06/15/05 at 11:08 AM
See more entries in Design, SEO Tips & Tricks

Google: Companies it has purchased in the past; who will it purchase next??

According to Kuro5hin, Google is on the verge of buying more companies. The author, Andrevan, postulates on which companies might be next in the Google shopping spree.

In the past, Google has tended to buy small Internet companies in niche markets. Some of them included an advertising company, shopping portal company, search startup company, a photo-organizer company, and quite a few digital mapping companies (maybe to help them in their plan to create 3-D maps of different cities?)

Andrevan hypothesizes on the next companies which Google will acquire. The list is pretty long so here are a few excerpts:

• Technorati: This company is a blog portal and is said to provide more cutting edge search results than the average search engine. It is compared to bloglines which was recently purchased by Ask Jeeves.


• Gurunet (Answers.com): Answers.com features a vast amount of information (think of an encyclopedia) and could help improve Google's Q & A section.


• Propel: This company speeds up browser capability. It could help improve Google's Web accelerator, which apparently has been having difficulties.

For a complete list, be sure to check out Andrevan's article!

Yahoo has also been busy purchasing companies, among them is blo.gs which allows you to keep an eye on your favorite blog feeds. Yahoo also recently purchased DialPad, a net phone services company. Maybe Google will follow suit and buy competing companies which offer similar services?

Posted by hgibson on 06/15/05 at 9:37 AM
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June 14, 2005

3rd Party Google Sitemap Tools

Just a quick post to point out a good resource. Google lists a whole bunch of tools for their new Sitemap product all made by third party developers. They caution that they haven't tested them, so take care.

Hat tip to Google Blogoscoped.

Posted by sesparza on 06/14/05 at 9:36 AM
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Yahoo News Beats Google News in Michael Jackson Case

It seems that the Michael Jackson "not guilty" verdict is rampant and inescapable and my blog entry today continues in that vein. In an article by Gary Price of Search Engine Watch, Gary discusses the fact that Yahoo news beat Google news in revealing the outcome of the Jackson case.

Yahoo introduced the story at 4:00 PM (Eastern time) and Google broke the story 27 minutes later. The actual verdict was released on Yahoo at 5:19 PM and on Google at 5:41 PM.

While this might be somewhat insignificant for Google readers (as they found out about the verdict eventually), in the bigger picture, it addresses the potential problems with Google's use of automation in deciding what will make news headlines and what won't.

Yahoo, on the other hand, relies on the tried and true method of human man-power in deciding their news headlines and stories and in this instance, it looks as if the human way of doing things proved fruitful.

Posted by hgibson on 06/14/05 at 9:02 AM
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June 13, 2005

Yahoo VS. Google

Search Engine Guide had an interesting article today about the differences between Yahoo's Search Marketing, formally Overture, and Google's Adwords.

According to the study, both Yahoo and Google had advantages and disadvantages over one another. The categories which were considered included: "Bidding", "Low CT Rate Dropping", "Showing Ads by Country and Language", "Reports", "Keyword Comparison", "Conversions", "Competition" and "Overall".

Some of the breakdowns are as follows:

• Yahoo's maximum bid is $999.99 . Google's maximum bid is $100.00
• Google allows you to choose your country by using a drop-down box. Yahoo makes you re-register for each country and re-submit all key phrases.
• Google offers customized reports and Yahoo does not.

Those are just a few examples. Definitely check out the link for the rest of the findings.

Posted by hgibson on 06/13/05 at 2:37 PM
See more entries in Branding, Pay Per Click

MSN Introduces Tabbed Browsing

According to Denise Ho of MSN's Search's Weblog, MSN has introduced tabs in their toolbars. There have been mixed reviews on the tabs although Denise regards them highly (could she be impacted by the fact that she works for MSN??).

Adam Stiles , one voice of the opposition, notes that the tabs not only waste memory, but they also waste space.

Denise highlights the functionality of the tabbed toolbar for those who like to shop online. She says that the toolbar allows her to bookmark her favorite shopping sites and allows her to view them simultaneously.

The tabbed toolbar also allows you to open a search results page in the background to avoid constantly having to hit the "back" key to return to your results page.

MSN is supposed to be introducing the tabbed toolbar to IE 7; currently, you can get the tabbed toolbar in IE 5.01 or higher.

Definitely sounds like an innovative idea for MSN. Firefox has been implementing tabs for some time. Theirs might be considered better because the tabs actually appear in the browser.

Some comments to Denise's posting included questions about functionality including:

• If there is any way to open new tabs on middle-click,


• If there is a way to hide the MSN toolbar so as not to waste screen space.

Posted by hgibson on 06/13/05 at 9:52 AM
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June 9, 2005

Google Maps in 3D?

Silicon Valley Watcher announced a scoop yesterday, claiming that they have the first word on Google's plans to map the word in 3D, trumping Amazon/A9's photo vans. Through the clever use of lasers and digital photography, Google plans to drive trucks though cities, mapping their way along.

Andy Beal thought it was a joke, speculating that it would be nearly impossible to keep up with development in major cities, let alone the entire nation.

I don't see why it can't be true. It's no more exotic than A9's plan to photograph cities even if it does use lasers. And what a boon to local search would that be? It would really underline the importance of getting your address on your homepage so that you can be found on a maps search.

Posted by sesparza on 06/ 9/05 at 11:45 AM
See more entries in Branding, Rumors

Don't just do it. Do it well.

You know what bugs me? When people claim that doing something half-way or not at all is as good as doing it right. Doesn't that sound ludicrous? Of course it does.

Yet, it happens all the time. I'll give you a perfect example. Kalena Jordan answers questions over at her blog Dear Kalena and today responded to a confused webmaster regarding the meta keywords tag. Kalena's response (and Kalena, if you're reading this, can we possibly get the question and answer in the same post?) to the question of whether or not to include the tag was it's not important and you can exclude it without concern. What? Why would you exclude a perfectly useful tag?

I don’t want to seem like I'm picking on Kalena here because that wouldn't be fair. This is a wide-spread problem that I notice often in the forums. There are over 100 variables in the Google algorithm, should you only pick five to do very well and ignore the rest? Of course not, that's at least 95 tie breakers you just lost. And even if none of the search engines read the meta keywords tag anymore, you should still include it just as a focusing device for yourself.

The old saw goes "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well." That is just as true in SEO as it is everywhere else.

Posted by sesparza on 06/ 9/05 at 9:55 AM
See more entries in Design, SEO Tips & Tricks

June 8, 2005

Google Guy Gives the Weather

Just a short post right now. Spotted via Search Engine Roundtable, Google Guy updates Webmaster World forums on the Bourbon update. Check out message 11 which says in part, "[they'll] turn on one datacenter, and then the rest of the datacenters over the course of the next week or so." Google Guy also says that this change should be less noticeable than the previous 2.5.

It's so nice to see Google following through on this whole transparency thing.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/ 8/05 at 8:58 AM
See more entries in Search Engine Optimization

Google: Most successful media company?

According to John Battelle, Google is now the most successful media company, valued at $80 billion dollars and surpassing Time Warner stock.

Nathan Weinberg, of Inside Google, asks whether Google should be considered a media company. Some would consider it a technology company. We mentioned this in our April newsletter, citing Search Engine Journal which states that Google is a media company as it describes itself as such:

We began as a technology company and have evolved into a software, technology, Internet, advertising and media company all rolled into one.

Whether or not Google is a media company can be debated, what cannot be argued is that they are certainly doing well financially. Shares closed this Monday at $290.94 as compared with Time Warner's which closed at $17.02.

According to BBC News, some people think Google's shares are overpriced while others herald them as a sign of the future and predict that the stock could rise to $325-$350 per share.

Whatever the future may hold, Google is sitting pretty currently.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 8/05 at 8:43 AM
See more entries in Google, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines

June 7, 2005

Falling Keyword Prices

According to Marketing Vox, the average cost for a keyword dropped 15% in May, from $1.95 to $1.66. In previous months (March-April), keywords saw a rise of 11%.

The reason for the decline in cost, is due primarily to the dip in price for mortgage-affiliated keywords. Mortgage keywords were up 20% in April but in May, they dropped 30%. This plummet is responsible for the overall drop in keyword prices.

The only search keywords to experience an increase in May were automotive keywords which were up 7%. Other keywords which were down last month included retail, travel & hospitality which were down by 6%, and consumer services, broadband & wireless telecommunications were down by 3%.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 7/05 at 1:55 PM
See more entries in Analytics, Search Engine Optimization

AOL introduces free Email

This morning Marketing Vox announced that AOL has finally done away with their paid-member email services and they have introduced free web-based email. In doing so, they are hoping to compete with Google, Yahoo and MSN, all of which offer free email.

AOL is offering 2 gigabytes storage with each email account in addition to virus and spam protection. The email will go hand-in-hand with AOL's instant messenging and will allow you to log in with the same account name and password as you use for AOL IM.

More big news is that this summer, AOL said it will release unlimited email account storage. To put this in perspective, Google offers about 2 GB, Yahoo only offers 1 GB and Hotmail offers 250 MB.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 7/05 at 9:29 AM
See more entries in AOL, Branding, Email

June 6, 2005

Ready, Set, Take a Test, Go.

MSN Search's Weblog announced the release of their new Start page for their websearch. But to get there you have to answer five questions to get the URL for the page. First of all, what? I don't want to jump through hoops just to look at your new product. Second of all, why? As SEW explains, MSN is looking to promote their Instant Answers feature which is why it's a little baffling that the last question doesn't even have an instant answer box attached.

Having worked through the five questions, you're given a link to the new Start. The new interface is clean and ad-free (so far) but why make people take a test to get there? And once you get there, a little instruction would be helpful. Randomly clicking eventually let me figure out how to add new feeds to the page but since it couldn't remember what I'd already read, it was quite frustrating.

A little more memory and a little less over-clever cross marketing, please.

Posted by sesparza on 06/ 6/05 at 10:42 AM
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Search: The Most Successful Form of Advertising?

This morning Search Engine Lowdown discussed Google's interest in proving that search is the most successful form of advertising, more so than advertising in trade magazines, etc.

The search, which polled 900 technology professionals, was conducted by Millward Brown, a global market research agency. The search found that in the research phase of purchasing, search was used 30% more often than trade publications and five times more often than e-mail newsletters.

Another statistic revealed that in the final purchasing phase, search was used 62% more frequently than trade publications.

And finally, search was used 21% more frequently in the comparison phase than trade publications and email newsletters.

These findings don't surprise us--we have always viewed search as a crucial element in research, purchasing research included.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 6/05 at 9:14 AM
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June 3, 2005

Updated Webmaster Guidelines

As Barry at Search Engine Roundtable notes, we've been expecting an update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines for a little while. Well, the time has come and the updated guidelines are up. Included in the update are explanations of the supplemental results (under the advanced section) as well as further information on the newly launched Google Sitemaps.

Search Engine Watch covers the story here: Google Adds New Content to "Google Information for Webmasters" FAQ; Explains Supplemental Index and forum discussion at SEW forums is here: New Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/ 3/05 at 10:24 AM
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Searching in the UK

Andy Beal points to a BBC article on the search industry. Released to coincide with SES London, the BBC concludes that the future of search looks bright. According the study, search is growing faster than new users are coming online, suggesting that internet users are slowly becoming more hip to search.

However, increased search doesn't necessarily mean smarter search. All four major engines admitted that they still have a lot of work to do in answering customers' questions. MSN's research found that more than half of complex queries go unanswered.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/ 3/05 at 10:03 AM
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Google Sitemaps: Free Site Submission

The announcement that Google has developed Sitemaps which promise improved coverage and faster inclusion times, is breaking news. Google Blog's latest announcement on the SiteMaps was picked up by various bloggers and is definitely the industry buzz at the moment.

So, what is a Google Sitemap? First off, it is free (always a plus, although it is still in beta). Sitemaps are crawling indexes that are intended to improve the coverage of the Google index as well as the time to inclusion in the index. Websites will be able to inform Google about all their existing site pages, state which pages should be crawled first, and inform Google of site updates.

Search Engine Watch has an interesting Q & A session with Shiva Shivakumar, engineering director for Sitemaps, that is definitely worth checking out. In the session, Shiva answers such questions as how Sitemaps work:

Webmasters create XML files containing the URLs they want crawled, along with optional hints about the URLs such as things like when the page last changed, and the rate of change. They host the Sitemap on their server and tell us where it is. We provide an open-source tool called Sitemap Generator to assist in this process. Eventually, we are hoping webservers will natively support the protocol so there are no extra steps for webmasters. When a Sitemap changes, we support auto-notifying us so we can pick up the newest version.

Other questions include: why Google decided to implement Sitemaps, how Google will prevent people from spamming their index, and what the technical details are (among a myriad of other questions).

With the additional information that Sitemaps will afford Google, the results of searches should be improved and it will help websites get their pages crawled by Google.

The addition of Sitemaps will not affect ranking in Google and Google isn't making any promises on including every site in their index.

It seems that Google Sitemaps are not without issue though. According to Matt Lee of Search Engine Journal, in order to take advantage of Sitemaps, you need to install scripts on your server and these scripts are not necessarily easy to install. You also need to install Python 2.2. This could create issues for the webmaster who might not necessarily be very computer savvy.

Another point which is discussed by Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal, is that Michael Nguyen has created a script for wordpress users which allows them to access Sitemaps as well. No sooner does Google release Sitemaps and already people are trying to "better" it.

It will definitely be interesting to see where Sitemaps succeed and if they go wrong. If they do result in more pages being crawled and faster timing to inclusion in the Google index, that would definitely benefit all those websites out there that aren't getting their fair share of publicity.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 3/05 at 8:47 AM
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June 2, 2005

Search Engine Comparisons

Search Engine Lowdown has a blog post today on a study that was done by CNET which ranked each of the search engines.
Some, but not all, of the categories considered were:

• News


• Images


• Shopping


• Translation


• Movie Listings

The top three winning engines were Google, Yahoo and A9. Google came in first, with a ranking of "8", followed by Yahoo with a "7.7" and A9 came in third with a ranking of "6.7".
Good to know for the next time you do a search!

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 2/05 at 2:38 PM
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Secrets revealed

What is eval.google.com? The mystery subdomain has been puzzling webmasters and SEOs alike since its discovery. Well Henk Van Ess claims to have the answer. What's the secret of Eval?

Soylent Google is people. That's right. According to Van Ess' new blog Search Bistro, the secret behind the mysteriously blank page is Rater Hub Google, humans who are paid to search and rate the results based on relevancy.

Nathan Weinberg at Inside Google has some reservations about the tell-all blog, noting the self-congratulatory tone and self-submitted Slashdotting. He comes down on the side of it being legit however.

It's not a far-fetched idea, after all and definitely not a new one. Probably it's not that new even at Google. After all, they claim that users define their services, what better way than to create their own group of testers to monitor like television stations do for ratings?

UPDATE: Just ran across a post from Phillip at Google Blogoscoped on this and wanted to quote him.

...even if this laboratory is for real – it certainly seems so – this doesn’t mean Google Inc manually changes rankings. It only means Google manually checks search quality to fine-tune their ranking algorithms; this is neither new, nor secret or scandal. (And of course, those algorithms are written by humans as well, but they certainly wouldn’t fix problems on a per-search-query or per-site basis. There’s too many web pages anyway to make this approach feasible.)

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/ 2/05 at 9:41 AM
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Popular Newly Launched Websites--good or bad?

Nathan Weinberg, from Inside Google, comments on an interesting article today regarding whether newly launched sites which are experiencing numerous visits, are suspect in the eyes of the search engines. It would seem that a new site which is experiencing many hits would be positive but according to Darren Rowse, that might not be the case.
In his expose, he cited this double-edged sword:

The great success that our marketing effort, from the perspective of the objective mathematical formulas that run the Google search engine, probably looked a whole lot like search engine spam

Darren continues by saying you should grow your site slowly to avoid search engines thinking your numerous links are somehow spam related. Nathan disagrees and says that:

If your site is getting so many links that Google is watching you closely, then you are already doing just fine. Ride the wave of popularity, and in a few months, Google and all the other engines will catch on.

We agree with Nathan--if it isn't broken, then don't fix it. If your site is spam-free and experiencing popularity, continue to do what you are doing and you should be in the clear.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 2/05 at 9:24 AM
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June 1, 2005

Maximizing Your PPC Real Estate

The Los Angeles Times today released an article on the Google Maximizers, the division of Adwords aimed at helping clients get the most out of the 95 characters that Google allows for their PPC ads. The article touches on a few good points. They describe the writing as a form of haiku almost, so little space to say so much. The comparison to haiku is an apt one. Like SEO copywriting, writing for Adwords requires a deft touch and careful attention to the placement of key words.

The Google Maximizers say that some companies get it—ie, General Motors ensuring they would have ads appearing when they gave away 276 cars on Oprah—and other companies just don't—Revenge of the Sith partners losing out to spots advertising illegal downloads of the newly released film.

"It's great that they're building websites," says search-engine consultant Josh Stylman, "but if you can't find them from a search engine, what's the point?"

Our point precisely, Josh.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 06/ 1/05 at 3:12 PM
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Q & A with Jim Lanzone

A couple of days ago I posted a blog informing everyone that Jim Lanzone, the Senior VP of Ask Jeeves, was going to have a live Q & A session, this was according to Search Engine Roundtable. He did so over the weekend and apparently, is continuing to answer questions currently.

Some of the questions which I listed in the last blog are as follows (with Lanzone's responses):

1. Whether Ask Jeeves abides by the "no follow" cue in links or whether it ignores this cue? (Lanzone sort of side-stepped on this one and said it should be taken up by different Ask Jeeves representatives)
2. To describe any operational difficulties Ask Jeeves has had in acquiring new properties such as DirectHit, Octopus Software, eTour, Teoma, etc. And what have the benefits been in bringing them on board? Lanzone's response:

   Operationally, one reason these acquisitions went so well is because most brought something unique to the table. Teoma brought world-class search technology. Tukaroo brought Desktop Search. Bloglines brought the ability to "search, publish, share and subscribe" to blogs and newsfeeds. ISH itself is a massive business in its own right with Smiley Central, iWon, Excite, etc.

3. If there will be any free web-based email or IM programs from the Askjeeves.com website. Lanzone's response:

   We have no plans to announce. I will say that we have developed an incredibly creative team the past few years, and we have ideas in just about every area of information retrieval and management you can think of. We don’t want to spaz out and just turn out product after product just to get headlines, nor do we want to offer something that isn’t an improvement over the status quo (e.g., email just for the sake of it). But where it makes strategic sense, and we can meet user needs, we will play in our own unique way.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 1/05 at 2:32 PM
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Have a bourbon instead of worrying about Bourbon.

Spotted on John Battelle's blog, GoogleGuy, the unnamed Google employee who haunts the forums dispensing Googlic wisdom and suffering the pleas of webmaster and SEOs alike, has weighed in on the current Google Update.

His response reads in part:

Here's the advice that I'd give now: take a break from checking ranks for several more days. Bourbon includes something like 3.5 improvements in search quality, and I believe that only a couple are out so far. The 0.5 will go out in a day or so, and the last major change should roll out over the next week or so. Then there will still be some minor changes after that as well. So my "weather report" along the lines of http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000095.html would be a recommendation that rankings may still change somewhat over the next several days.

It's interesting that he mentioned the Yahoo blog post. They gave the community a heads-up on their most recent update in response to Danny's request for greater transparency. Could Google be learning to be more transparent as well?

Posted by sesparza on 06/ 1/05 at 2:22 PM
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Schmoogle

So, according to Google Blogoscoped, there is a google imposter, called Schmoogle. Apparently, the idea behind schmoogle is that "all search engines are created equal," which basically means that search engine optimization is meaningless because there exists no keyword ranking in the schmoogle world.

The creator of Schmoogle, Tsila Hassine, had this to say about it:

This tool touches upon several crucial issues on the web such as search engine optimization. Schmoogle instantly neutralizes page rank and the whole SEO industry induced by it.

Worried yet? Well according to those users who commentented on this blog, you need not worry at all. Schmoogle anything and you will come up with an error message. This same thing happened to me when I attempted to do it.

While Schmoogle is certainly no threat to Google, it serves as a reminder that there is a world wide web out there of search results, even if they don't make the top ten ranked spots.

Posted by hgibson on 06/ 1/05 at 1:14 PM
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Google Speaks Your Language

The Google Factory Tour on May 19th provided some interesting facts, a few wacky bits of information, a release of a new feature and a look at something rather cool. GoogleBlogoscoped has an overview of the presentation of Google's new translation service. The Slashdot discussion that followed has a first post with even more information.

The new service looks to be a great deal more accurate than the current offerings. If Google can perfect this service, the internet will become truly global and the competition for the top of the SERPs is about to get a lot bigger.

Posted by sesparza on 06/ 1/05 at 9:30 AM
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