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July 28, 2005

John Battelle's The Search

Wired is carrying an article today excerpted from John Battelle's new book The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. The excerpt covers the meeting of Larry Page and Sergey Brin and retells the much-told story of the creation of PageRank.

From the article, a brief digression into the basis of PageRank--Citations:

Academics build their papers on a carefully constructed foundation of citation: Each paper reaches a conclusion by citing previously published papers as proof points that advance the author's argument. Papers are judged not only on their original thinking, but also on the number of papers they cite, the number of papers that subsequently cite them back, and the perceived importance of each citation. Citations are so important that there's even a branch of science devoted to their study: bibliometrics.

Posted by sesparza on 07/28/05 at 9:17 AM
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July 27, 2005

Changes to Adwords

Guest Entry by Erin O'Brien, SEM Analyst-Bruce Clay, Inc

In the coming weeks, Aug. 2 to be exact, Google will be changing their keyword status system and be introducing quality-based minimum bids. In the past Google has evaluated keyword selections for Adwords based on clickthrough ratios. Keywords with poor clickthrough ratios were placed "in trial", "on hold" or "disabled". This was often confusing and words could be” disabled” before they got a fair run. In their new keyword status system keywords will be assigned a "Quality Score". The minimum bid for the keyword will be inversely proportional to the Quality Score -- the higher the score, the lower the minimum bid.

What's changing?

• Simplified account management: Your keywords will be active or inactive — instead of normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled. In addition, accounts will no longer be slowed. Currently, accounts are slowed when they don't meet our performance requirements and your ads appear rarely for your keywords.
• Quality-based minimum bids: Soon, each keyword will be assigned a minimum bid based on its Quality Score. Keywords with a higher Quality Score will be given lower minimum bids to stay active and trigger ads. Keywords with a lower Quality Score (including those that are currently on hold) will have the opportunity to run if your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid.
  • The Quality Score is determined by your keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR), relevance of your ad text, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors.
  • Ad Rank, or the position of your ad, will continue to be based on the maximum CPC and quality (now called the Quality Score).

You can read more about the AdWords keyword evaluation changes here.

Posted by sesparza on 07/27/05 at 1:34 PM
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July 25, 2005

Cyclical Internet Use

Every webmaster knows that some times of the year generate more traffic than others and now they have confirmation. ClickZ today cites a study done by the Online Publishers Association.

The study points to increases in searching at the beginning of summer--probably coinciding with vacation planning and of course, retail picks up near the end of the year for the holiday season.

Don't cancel your Adwords campaigns just yet though. Lower searching numbers doesn't mean that advertisers should pull their spending. Says Michael Zimbalist, president of the OPA, "Search is bought differently; it measures time, so you can't correlate the spending patterns."

Posted by Susan Esparza on 07/25/05 at 10:14 AM
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July 19, 2005

Microsoft Sues Former Exec and His New Employer--Google

Google is opening a new division in China and hired Kai-Fu Lee, who as of Monday is the former corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Services Division, to run it. Predictably this did not make Microsoft very happy and with practiced ease, the MS lawyers have filed suits again both Lee and Google.

ZDNet carries the story:

In the suit, Microsoft seeks monetary damages as well as an injunction upholding the noncompete clause and other provisions of Lee's contract, including terms barring him from sharing Microsoft trade secrets.

As the article notes, there has been a steady stream of Microsofties leaving for Google since the search companies rise to prominence. Additionally, both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have announced that they intend to beat Google at their own game. So maybe we should be looking at this less as a suit over trade secrets and more as a shot across the bow.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 07/19/05 at 3:27 PM
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July 14, 2005

Pixsy: Image Search Engine

According to Search Engine Watch, there is a new image search engine named Pixsy. It provides access to images which ordinarily would not be found by other search engines; it searches for images in blogs, mobile blogs, social networking services, and other websites.

This is a great find if you are interested in image searches for images which are not available in other search engines.

Posted by hgibson on 07/14/05 at 9:24 AM
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July 13, 2005

Search Characteristics of Americans

According to Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch, more than 50% of people search on the Internet when they go online.

This finding comes from a study done by icrossing--they interviewed 2,100 adults concerning their Internet searching tendencies. So, what were people searching for? The study revealed the following:

• 88% said they were searching for something specific--usually related to hobbies.


• Women (61%) were more likely to search for medical information than were men (35%)


• Only 28% of people were looking for jobs online


• 75% of people searched for directions or maps


• 64% went online for news


• 51% went online to shop


• 47% were looking for entertainment websites

Google was voted the number one search engine followed by Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask Jeeves. The type of information that each person searched for was different for all search engines.

The study also revealed some interesting facts including:

• People are using the Internet much more frequently than the Yellow Pages or books.


• 80% of shoppers online are comparing prices rather than looking for local retailers.


• Internet users are not loyal to particular search engines. Only 13% reported that they use Google only.


• 56% of Internet users do not understand the difference between paid and organic listings.

Be sure to read the article for more interesting searching facts.

Posted by hgibson on 07/13/05 at 9:00 AM
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July 12, 2005

Google PR

Nathan Weinberg of Inside Google pointed out something interesting the other day. Notice, he said, that the "Posted On" date for the official Google Blog is usually several days before the time the actual post shows up when the post involves a new product or service. His speculation is that those posts are created by the normal PR machine and are simply held until the product is ready to launch.

And what's more, Google has been known to change their posts. Yesterday's post "Cube Surfeit Disorder" has mysteriously transformed to become "Tchotchkes Cubed" with an edited photo and a more upbeat commentary. Nathan has screenshots of the changes.

Rewriting blog history and expecting no one to notice or care is simply sloppy and in bad form. Google really should get it together.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 07/12/05 at 9:28 AM
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Google to Buy Largest Chinese Search Engine?

According to Marketing Vox, there are rumors circulating that Google intends to purchase Baidu, the largest Chinese search engine.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was in Beijing recently meeting with officials of Baidu.

Baidu is expected to go public late this Summer and will be listed on the Nasdaq.

Posted by hgibson on 07/12/05 at 9:12 AM
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July 11, 2005

Clear Channel and Yahoo Team Up

According to Marketing Vox, Clear Channel is going to start promoting their concerts on Yahoo.

They plan to use demographic information from Yahoo's users to update people about local concert information. Concert information can be tailored to a specific person's musical tastes as provided by Yahoo Music. Then, if that artist happens to be in town, Clear Channel will let that listener know.

Clear Channel feels that there needs to be a larger concert information presence online and they are the solution to that need.

Posted by hgibson on 07/11/05 at 10:22 AM
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July 7, 2005

Does Grammar Affect your Ranking?

According to Rusty Brick from Search Engine Roundtable, poor grammar in title tags does not affect your rankings.

There have been questions as to whether poorly constructed title tags are to blame for drops in rankings but according to Yahoo, such is not the case (at least for Yahoo).

Rusty states that many title tags don't read correctly on purpose (i.e. ranking for commonly misspelled words). The important point to make is that title tags should be pithy and read quickly.

Posted by hgibson on 07/ 7/05 at 11:04 AM
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July 6, 2005

Q & A with MSN Search Development Team

Just a quick post this morning to let you know that MSN's Search Development Team is having a Q & A at the SEO chat forums. You can ask them questions and they will be answering them over the next 2-3 weeks.

Here are some sample questions:

• Personalization is a big buzz-word in the search engine space. Does MSN consider personalized search results to be an important thing to tackle in the future?
• I would like to hear how they describe what it takes to make a successful site.
• Can you give a good explanation of the new MSN Ranknet?

These are just a few of the questions asked. Be sure to check the Q&A for MSN's responses.

Posted by hgibson on 07/ 6/05 at 9:43 AM
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July 5, 2005

Google Wins in Click Fraud Case

Last week I wrote about a lawsuit filed against Google for Click Fraud; in today's news, Google has filed its own lawsuit in the name of click fraud and has won. The news comes from Inside Google.

The company that Google sued was one of its adsense partners called Auction Experts. Google accused them of hiring people to deliberately and fraudulently click their ads, resulting in advertising costs of at least $50,000.

A judge agreed with Google's claim and granted them $75,000.

Posted by hgibson on 07/ 5/05 at 9:36 AM
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July 1, 2005

AOL Jumps on the Video Search Band Wagon

Google made news recently after releasing their Video Search product and AOL was not far behind. According to Gary Price of Search Engine Watch, AOL has recently released their own form of video search (still in beta).

The AOL version of video search allows you to access two databases of video content some of which are music videos, news and far away places and the other database is comprised of video submitted by the general public.

Some of the video search features include:

• A New Relevancy Algorithm


• Preview Video Clips With Animated Thumbnails


• Dynamic Clustering of Video Search Results

One of the caveats is that you only get to see the videos if you are logged into AOL. Other than that, it seems that AOL's video search is being warmly accepted.

Be sure to read the Search Engine Watch article to review the other neat features of AOL's Video Search!

Posted by hgibson on 07/ 1/05 at 8:47 AM
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