Large Scale Sites Taking a Hit in Google? (Friday, January 07, 12:15 AM EST)

Ok, so im hearing rumours, and seeing some evidence that large scale sites are taking a hit in Google - in terms of the amount of pages indexed.

This may be to do with Google's big filter mystery and the rumour that G are playing around with their "results crowding" algorythms but i really dont know.

Im hearing that sites in the region of 5-50K or so are seeing a dramatic loss of pages in the index.

Thoughts Threadwatch'ers?

Why Podcasts SUCK (Thursday, January 06, 11:52 PM EST)

There has been some interesting talk over the last couple of days about Podcasting - Notably from Tim Bray and Jeremy Zawodny which is where i put my 2pence worth in on the subject.

A couple of hours ago Stephen O'Grady joined his voice to the choir and now im adding mine. Follow the title link above for the full post.

Finally, a Sensible Look at Blogging and Beyond (Thursday, January 06, 11:20 PM EST)

Is it only me that's becoming mind numbingly bored with all the daft posts about blogging over the last few months? Half of the chatter out there is just ridiculous, from bloggers thinking that they have special rights and can operate outside of normal law to frivolous posts that just squeal with nauseating excitement everytime somebody publishes a damn website - ack, dont get me started! Probably good fodder for another post eh? :-)

Well, i just read a truly enlightened post that i've threadlinked above by Lee at Headshift on well, pretty much the entire field of blogging, social interaction, wikis and folksonomy based collaborative publishing and social networking. I've never been to the site before and have never heard of headshift but if you have an interest in this kind of thing i think you'll find it refreshing and exciting - i did...

thanks david

Proposed Spyware Bill Could Crush Ad Tracking (Thursday, January 06, 08:57 PM EST)

Zachary Rodgers reports on the implications of the reintroduced anti-spyware bill for ad and behavioral tracking via cookies in the clickz story threadlinked above.

While SPY-ACT creates cookie exceptions for publishers wishing to identify return visitors, those exceptions don't apply to third parties or network advertisers. "In the current bill, cookies that behave like cookies are exempt," said Pencille. "If it's monitoring your behavior when you leave [the site that placed it], then it's not covered." The bill wouldn't permit publishers to share cookie information with partners, which would cripple their ability to target ads. Passage of the bill would make illegal such widespread marketing practices as behavioral targeting, cross-site frequency capping, and network traffic analysis. Publishers and site owners are also dependent on third party tracking tools to earn the higher CPMs they've enjoyed of late.

"If cookies go away, it dumbs down publishers' ad inventory and makes it far less valuable," said Hughes. "It potentially devastates the CPA market as well. You use cookies to determine whether actions have occurred."

That would certainly knobble a few business models recently created...

Videos from 2005 CES (Thursday, January 06, 07:21 PM EST)

Courtesy of Jason Calacanis in the threadlinked blog post above - enjoy...

Fossil Ship Palm OS PDA Wristwatch (Thursday, January 06, 07:16 PM EST)

If you're in your early/mid thirties like me, you'll remember the first "calculater watches" right? Well here's the upgraded version for the 2000's lol...

CES 2005 Watch maker Fossil has formally revived its previously ill-fated Palm OS-based PDA wristwatch project - a year after it appeared to kill off the product before it even shipped.

Fossil Wrist PDA - the next generationFeaturing a redesigned casing, the Wrist PDA launched this week nevertheless remains true to the previous version's spec. Once again, there's Palm OS 4.1 on board; a 160 x 160 touchscreen LCD; 8MB of memory, 7.7MB of which is available to the user, and double the amount in the previous version; infrared and USB connectivity; 4MB of Flash storage; a 66MHz Motorola Dragonball processor, double the clock speed of the original Wrist PDA; and a battery sufficiently capacious to offer 3-4 days' usage.

Linux version of Opera's Voice Enabled Beta out Now (Thursday, January 06, 07:07 PM EST)

Horray! Now if only i could get my mic to work!

This new 8.0 version of Opera features voice technology that allows users to browse the Web and check their e-mail using spoken commands. By using the appropriate command, people can scroll around a Web page, read highlighted text out loud and follow links.

A spokesman for Opera said the technology allows people to interact with their browser in a more natural way.

"Our vision is to improve human and computer communications," the spokesman said. "You should be able to communicate with technology in the same way as we communicate with each other."

Download page is here, wonder what kind of dependencies it has for this voice stuff...

Want Desktop Search for your Mac? - Blinkx has it... (Thursday, January 06, 06:43 PM EST)

John Battelle has the standard duller than a month of sundays press release about Blinkx's new Smart Folders DTS at the post threadlinked above.

I work for Microsoft and search at.... (Thursday, January 06, 06:34 PM EST)

.. Google!

http://intelligence.visitorville.com/index.php

MSTechTV to Launch Early Summer 2005? (Thursday, January 06, 04:53 PM EST)

Here's an interesting one, it appears that rumours of an MS Tech TV channel are true and that it will roll out in May/June this year - this is according to an M$ source quoted on the threadlinked blog post above:

"management doesn't want to let the people know of the network yet due to the fact that they want to create a huge uproar when it's time for the launch." So I guess MS wanted to make a huge shock. Well they did already. I then asked the PR executive of a MSTECHTV launch date. He said "MSTECHTV will launch sometime in May or June. We think it would be huge for a May 28th launch." TechTV fans all know what May 28th is symbolic for.

I dont know what May 28th is symbolic for, anyone care to fill me in?

This could all be bollocks of course, the comments that follow in the threadlinked blog post are mixed in their beleif so it's best taken with a pinch of salt. Interesting nonetheless though eh?

Yahoo Partners with Microsoft (Thursday, January 06, 04:05 PM EST)

One way Microsoft can get around being seen as a monopoly is to partner up with another big company, put pump enough money into the deal they can still control them. I see this as HUGE.

* Best of Yahoo! -- Including My Yahoo!® and Yahoo!® Premium Video -- to Be Available for Consumers Through Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

* Developer Program to Offer Exclusive Yahoo! Content and Services to Speed Development of Standardized Home Networked Devices

Furthering the company's commitment to extending Yahoo! beyond the desktop and onto networked devices throughout the home, Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - News), a leading global Internet company, today announced next steps in the company's digital home strategy, including an agreement with Microsoft Corp. and the launch of the Yahoo! Digital Home Developer Program.

Desktop Search for Apple Macintosh: Not Tiger's Spotlight (Thursday, January 06, 10:53 PM EST)
During all this buzz on desktop search over the past 3 - 6 months, there was no one who came out with a solution for the poor, unknown Apple Macintosh user. I admit, I am a Mac user - never...

SEO Research Labs Announces SEO Coaching Program (Thursday, January 06, 05:18 PM EST)
Dan Thies, a guest author here, and owner of SEO Research Labs, has announced a new program this morning. The program is named SEO Coaching Program, and is given personally by Dan Thies. I spoke with Dan about this program...

Reporting Income on AdSense Cash to the IRS (Thursday, January 06, 04:29 PM EST)
So you made loads and loads of money with your spammy content sites. Or you really have good unique content that drives good traffic with an unusually high CTR. Now it is time for Uncle Sam to collect. For those...

One Affiliate Per AdWords Keyword TBA Tomorrow (Thursday, January 06, 04:23 PM EST)
Exactly a month ago, we reported on One AdWords Advertiser Per Landing Page. This basically means that only one adwords advertiser can have ads showing for the same affiliate site (landing page). There are threads and buzz at the forums...

The Search Engine of Choice by the Search Companies (Thursday, January 06, 01:47 PM EST)
Recently there was a blog entry that came out named What Search Engines Do Search Engine Companies Use? over at Inside Google. It was that blog entry that sprung a topic of discussion over at Search Engine Watch forums named...

Search Leftovers: 1,000 Results, 990 Wasted (Thursday, January 06, 01:28 PM EST)
This morning I was thinking about how kids are always told to finish the food on their plates. So of course, that leads me to think of how that relates to search. The search engines normally give us a 1,000...

Conversion Chronicles Free E-Book Learn Before You Spend (Wednesday, January 05, 08:24 PM EST)
The wonderful and patient people over at Conversion Chronicles has given me permission to post their e-book named Learn Before You Spend. I have read most of the e-book and it is incredibly comprehensive. I would be interested in your...

Past Comments Are Forever Gone (Wednesday, January 05, 04:47 PM EST)
It looks like the server crash corrupted the files and even the backup badly enough that all the past comments are corrupt. So I will not be able to get them back. I do have a text backup of the...

Vote on if Women & Men Search Differently (Wednesday, January 05, 02:01 PM EST)
Sorry for the short posts today. Still recovering from the server crash. There is a thread at Search Engine Watch forums named Do Men and Women Search Differently? which discusses that topic. In addition, a poll is set up where...

A Call for an Indexing Summit to Prevent Fight Spam (Wednesday, January 05, 01:41 PM EST)
Comment spam is a huge problem, I had to set up several methods of spam protection in the past and still people still try to spam this blog. I am personally tired of cleaning my blog from comment and trackback...

What is Relevancy in Terms of Search (Wednesday, January 05, 01:30 PM EST)
Determining what is relevant can be an incredible task. It is the goal of all search engines to figure out what is the most relevant Web pages for that particular searcher based on the one, two, three or four words...

Google AdWords Affiliate Ad Policy Change (Friday, January 07, 06:12 AM EST)
Google AdWords announced that they are only going to display only one ad per URL per keyword. Affiliates using white label sites will be unaffected by this change. Also Affiliates no longer need to signify that their affiliate relationship in the ad creative.

Why Make a Person Wait? (Friday, January 07, 12:53 AM EST)
Rant post about the DMOZ editor application being broken.

Acquiring a Voice... (Thursday, January 06, 08:14 AM EST)
My brother is pretty new to SEO stuff, but he just created an SEO blog. A bit of a personal post. Fun for me, maybe not fun for you to read...

Google on 60 Minutes, Patrick Gavin Interview, & Interesting Links (Wednesday, January 05, 12:52 PM EST)
Google was recently featured on 60 minutes. Google recently created an ad only search and started to test placing images in their regular search results. SMA NA formed. I interviewed Patrick Gavin. Six Apart is to buy LiveJournal. A few random links.

Google PageRank Update, Please Help... (Sunday, January 02, 02:16 PM EST)
Google updated toolbar display PageRank.

Looking Forward (Friday, December 31, 09:20 PM EST)
WebAtlas directory was likely temporarily banned from Google for using a 302 redirect.

The Agency Opportunity in PPC Search (Friday, January 07, 03:42 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: ClickZ - Agencies, take heed. There's a huge market opportunity out there. The need for conversion marketing services is fueled by the relentless pressure of the PPC auction marketplace and the need to maximize return from affiliate marketing channels....

Convergence: Yahoo! and Microsoft Announce Relationship (Friday, January 07, 03:33 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Watch - Yahoo! today announced an agreement with Microsoft to extend Yahoo! services to Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Microsoft's version of the Windows operating system designed to provide all-in-one, digital entertainment experiences....

Frequent Spidering Doesn't Help Rankings (Friday, January 07, 03:28 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Guide - There are people who think that a site that is visited often by the search engine spiders will rank higher for its optimized keyword phrases. The truth of the matter is that there's no evidence...

Blinkx launches desktop search for Mac (Friday, January 07, 03:11 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: News.com - Search firm is one of the first to cater to Apple's loyalist audience--but it will have to compete with Tiger....

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developments With Consumer Search (Friday, January 07, 03:06 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Watch - Danny Sullivan reflects on how this year, web search will morph into consumer search, where major search companies offer a robust range of ways to search for information in specialized areas. He also reflects on...

Gettin It off My Chest (Friday, January 07, 01:40 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Watch Forums - "Seriously, about 8 in every ten of the brightest, biggest, and most innovative SEM firms are looking at their exit strategies for the coming year. Yep, from where I am, (which isn't too disconnected),...

Time For An Indexing Summit? (Friday, January 07, 01:36 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Watch Forums - "The last time search engines came together to consider how to index the web in a coordinated fashion was 1996! Isn't it time for new developments to be considered? And what types of special...

Buying Sites to 301 Redirect (Friday, January 07, 01:23 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Watch Forums - "I am planning on buying a few sites and using a 301 redirect to transfer the link popularity over to my site. has anyone tried this before? anything i should know before doing it?"...

Directory Banned from Google (Friday, January 07, 01:03 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: V7 Forum - "Directories, like any other site, should be viewed on a case by case basis. Sure there are some directories that are nothing more than link farms and that will catch up to them, but it should...

Which directories would YOU pay to be included in? (Friday, January 07, 12:40 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Best Practices Forums - "Okay, hypothetically you have just finished designing your great new website and you have some spare cash to promote it. You decide that you're going to use this money for directory submissions - which directories...

PageRank for Firefox 1.0 (Thursday, January 06, 11:52 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Best Practices Forums - "Switched to Firefox 1.0? Miss the misleading green bar? Hate to start up IE every time you want to peer at it? Your prayers have been answered!! Google Pagerank Status is now available for Firefox 1.0"...

Microsoft Releases Anti-Spyware Application (Friday, January 07, 04:58 AM EST)
Microsoft Releases Anti-Spyware Application As expected, Microsoft has released a beta version of their own Anti-Spyware application based on their recent acquisition of Giant Software Company. In addition, they would also be releasing another new tool for malware-removal on January 11. Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Security Business and ...

Enhancing Search Engine Listings with Videos (Friday, January 07, 04:30 AM EST)
Enhancing Search Engine Listings with Videos In the coming months a small start-up in Texas called SiSTeR Technologies hopes to introduce short video clips to search engine listings. Folks used to say a picture was worth a thousand words. That of course was in the days before video was an instantly ...

Desktop Search for Apple Macintosh: Not Tiger’s Spotlight (Friday, January 07, 04:23 AM EST)
Desktop Search for Apple Macintosh: Not Tiger's Spotlight During all this buzz on desktop search over the past 3 - 6 months, there was no one who came out with a solution for the poor, unknown Apple Macintosh user. I admit, I am a Mac user - never really use a ...

Howard Stern Prefers Yahoo Over Google (Friday, January 07, 04:19 AM EST)
Howard Stern Prefers Yahoo Over Google On the day when Howard Stern was dumped by four of Citadel Broadcasting's radio stations due to plugging Sirius Satellite Radio, he also made a nice little plug for Yahoo after commenting on Sunday's 60 Minutes Google "Infomercial." Gary Price picked up the conversation on ...

Search Engine of Choice by the Search Companies (Thursday, January 06, 09:50 PM EST)
Search Engine of Choice by the Search Companies Recently there was a blog entry that came out named What Search Engines Do Search Engine Companies Use? over at Inside Google. It was that blog entry that sprung a topic of discussion over at Search Engine Watch forums named Should Yahoo employees ...

iTunes Customer Suing Apple over iPod-opoly (Thursday, January 06, 03:46 PM EST)
iTunes Customer Suing Apple over iPod-opoly Apple has been sued by a customer of their iTunes Online Digital Music Store on the charge that the company broke antitrust laws by only allowing iTunes to work with Apple’s music player iPod. This leads to incompatibility of other music players with their online ...

MapQuest Brings Maps and Directions to Cell Phones (Thursday, January 06, 04:25 AM EST)
MapQuest Brings Maps and Directions to Cell Phones MapQuest today announced the launch of Send to Phone, a new feature that lets MapQuest Mobile subscribers send color maps and driving directions from the MapQuest.com website directly to their cell phones. Created in partnership with leading mobile publisher, Vindigo, Send to Phone ...

SEO Book Revenue Goes to Tsunami Relief Efforts (Thursday, January 06, 01:30 AM EST)
SEO Book Revenue Goes to Tsunami Relief Efforts Pennsylvania based Search Engine Marketing specialist and author of the SEO Book, Aaron Wall will be donating all January revenues from the sale of his 120 page E-Book to Tsunami relief efforts. The SEO Book, which sells for $79US is a do-it-yourself manual ...

Tsunami News, Search Engines and Blogs Lead Traffic to Humanitarian Sites (Thursday, January 06, 01:22 AM EST)
Tsunami News, Search Engines and Blogs Lead Traffic to Humanitarian Sites With relief coming in from all over the world, U.S. citizens are embracing the Internet to support relief efforts for victims of the Asian Tsunami disaster. According to Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, the market share of ...

Visitor referrer logs: Keeping in touch (Thursday, January 06, 01:13 AM EST)
Visitor referrer logs: Keeping in touch Visitor referrer logs are valuable records to examine, from time to time. In my case, and probably yours too, the visitor logs get more than one peek a day. Admit it. It's not just an exercise in ego or vanity to read your visitor log ...

Is MSN launching its own paid search service? (Wednesday, January 05, 08:54 AM EST)
In the last few weeks, rumors were circulating that the new MSN Search would launch at the beginning of 2005....

Is Google looking for an advertising agency? (Wednesday, January 05, 08:53 AM EST)
Rumors are continuing that Google might be looking for an ad agency....

Google to Allow Only One Affiliate Link Per Query (Friday, January 07, 03:56 AM EST)
Proving the rumors circulating on affiliate discussion boards true, Google will announce on Friday that it will show only one text ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the...

[summary]

Click Prices Up 24 Percent in Q4 (Thursday, January 06, 02:35 PM EST)
MediaPost reports that search firm Fathom Online published figures showing a 24 percent price rise in click costs over Q4. Attributed mostly to more intense holiday shopping competition, the biggest...

[summary]

Microsofties Prefer Google, So Do Yahooligans (Thursday, January 06, 02:34 PM EST)
Inside Google points to VisitorVille Intelligence, a firm that sells a web log analysis product, as well an aggregated data service showing how web visitation habits differ from company to company....

[summary]

Anti-Cookie Anti-Spyware Bill Reintroduced to Congress (Thursday, January 06, 02:32 PM EST)
California Rep. Mary Bono reintroduced the "Bono Bill," H.R. 29, to congress on Wednesday, according to MediaPost. On the way to banning various forms of spyware, the bill bans many uses of cookies,...

[summary]

Microsoft Debuts Portable Video Download Service (Thursday, January 06, 01:34 PM EST)
Geekzone notes (via PaidContent) the introduction of Microsoft's new video download service, designed to be used with portable media players. The service requires a paid subscription that will run...

[summary]

Intel Reportedly Dumping Havas (Thursday, January 06, 11:34 AM EST)
ClickZ reports this morning that Intel is dumping its incumbent agency holding company Havas in the midst of a very large account review. The $300 million account, including online work, has been...

[summary]

Google Briefly Down in Australia (Thursday, January 06, 10:07 AM EST)
News Interactive reports that Australians witnessed a rather rare event on Tuesday, when Google Australia briefly went down. Google told News Interactive that the outage, due to connectivity...

[summary]

Crispin's Digital Head Interviewed (Thursday, January 06, 06:14 AM EST)
ClickZ's Zachary Rogers interviewed Crispin Porter's interactive chief Jeffrey Benjamin in a candid interview that shows a little bit of what's in store for the successful creative boutique's...

[summary]

Post-Xmas Sales Shoot Up Online (Thursday, January 06, 05:33 AM EST)
Online sales gained an extra boost after Christmas, according to Visa, which said its credit card transactions showed a much higher boost (39 percent) to online sales than they showed about offline...

[summary]

Six Apart May Acquire Live Journal (Thursday, January 06, 05:17 AM EST)
Om Malik reports that Six Apart, the maker of blog software TypePad and Moveable Type, will likely acquire Live Journal for cash and stock. The combination of the blog players would create a 6.5...

[summary]

Google Briefly Down in Australia (Thursday, January 06, 10:07 AM EST)
News Interactive reports that Australians witnessed a rather rare event on Tuesday, when Google Australia briefly went down. Google told News Interactive that the outage, due to connectivity issues, lasted less than 15 minutes. Google hadn't had an outage of any significance since domain name service firm Akami was deliberately attacked in the summer of 2003.

Microsoft employees prefer Google (Thursday, January 06, 09:56 AM EST)
I found this amusing piece of info at the Guardian Blog VisitorVille Intelligence has released information on how employees of several large companies use the web based on their monitoring of thousands of websites. Microsoft employees use Google for their searches 66% of the time, but MSN Search only 20% of the ...

Google readies charitable foundation (Tuesday, January 04, 02:19 PM EST)
As companies throughout the world pay special attention to charitable giving after the Indian Ocean tsunami, Google is gearing up to launch its corporate foundation in the coming year. "This is going to be a key area of focus for the company in 2005," said Cindy McCaffrey, who ended her ...

Yahoo Launches Local Search BETA (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)

Lycos Sells to Korean Internet Portal (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)

Google Launches Bidding Site (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)

Search Engine Marketing Organization Cops Criticism (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)

MSN Previews New Search Engine (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)

Blinkx Will Launch Desktop Search for Apple Mac (Thursday, January 06, 08:58 PM EST)
Rejoice all Mac users, you're about to get a desktop search tool, thanks to Blinkx!

MarketingSherpa Calls for Nominations for 2005 Buyer's Guide to Search Engine Marketing Firms (Thursday, January 06, 06:58 PM EST)
It's that time of year. Nominate your company for the MarketingSherpa 2005 Buyer's Guide to Search Engine Marketing Firms.

Search Engine Lowdown's Top 10 News Stories of 2004 (Thursday, January 06, 06:54 PM EST)
We've been taking a look at our traffic logs for 2004 and have compiled a list fo the Top 10 most popular search engine news stories. 1. Google Launches Desktop Search - while some question whether desktop search is important, our "first-look" at GDS w

Howard Stern Is a Fan of Yahoo (Thursday, January 06, 06:41 PM EST)
Gary points to a transcript of a Howard Stern show, where he talks about search! Well I never! Howard talked about this report he saw about Google and how great it is to work there. There are people who work there who are worth millions or more. He sai

Andy Beal Raw (Thursday, January 06, 06:35 PM EST)
Sshh....keep this to yourself, but I'm playing with a new blog, Andy Beal Uncut (changed for reasons explained in the comments) Andy Beal Raw, where I get a chance to talk about whatever I please. I see so many interesting stories online, that are not sea

Search Engines Drive Online Retail Traffic (Thursday, January 06, 04:50 PM EST)
According to date from Hitwise, via MediaPost, the search engines accounted for a significant amount of retail traffic between Nov. 1 and Dec. 11. Google held onto a comfortable lead in shopping referrals by ushering 4.23 percent of all traffic to the

Lobbying For Your Search Engine Marketing Budget - Free Webinar (Thursday, January 06, 04:25 PM EST)
Mark your calendars for January 13th. That's the date that KeywordRanking will be sponsoring a FREE webinar presented by Search Engine Watch's Chris Sherman. Lobbying For Your Search Marketing Budget January 13, 2005 2:00pm EST, 11:00am PST Chris Sh

Search Engine Blog - Keeping it in the Family (Thursday, January 06, 02:40 PM EST)
Aaron Wall points to the blog started by his brother James. James is learning SEO and has started a blog to keep track of his own growth. I remember when I first started SEL. It can be brutal watching just 5 people a day coming to your site. Good luck

Google Testing Images in Web Search Results (Thursday, January 06, 02:32 PM EST)
Looks like Google is running test to automatically including images in certain search results. Now if they could just update that Image Index. ;-)

Bill Gates on Search Engines and Blogging (Thursday, January 06, 02:31 PM EST)
Gary Price comments on a Q search doesn't do that well today. Search is really crummy today--it's just that it used to be really crummy, and now it's better, and there never was anything like this before. So most of the results people get back today are i

Pricegrabber Launches Travel Search Engine (Thursday, January 06, 01:54 PM EST)
FT.com has details of Pricegrabber's recent foray into travel search.

2004 Zeitgeist (Friday, December 31, 05:06 PM EST)
Google Press Center: 2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist with a new interactive year-long flash applet....

Google-Scraped Dictionary (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Google Blogoscoped has a work in progress: a dictionary scraped from Google's define operator, and the translation tool. Translations are complete for the letter "A." Naturally, the thing searches for words, as well as listing them in alpha order.

Page and Brin Make Business Week "Great Innovators" List (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Not much to say beyond that--here is the article. Business Week is celebrating its 75th anniversary by profiling great business innovators of the past 75 years. The profiles aren't deep; just quick backgrounders.

Displaying Sponsored Links Only (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Thanks to reader Tom for pointing out something I wasn't aware of: If you want to display only the sponsored links (AdWords ads) in Google for any keyword, use this dedicated engine.

Battelle's Most Important prediction (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Among John Battelle's 17 predictions for 2005 (one of which is the revelation that he will start a new media-technology business), the most important, in my opinion, is this: 12. By the end of the year, there will be no question that search is a media business, and that the major players in search are major players in the content business. This point might be driven home by the introduction of media-content searching (Yahoo! has already started down this path with its video search engine,

Google's 2004 (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Following are highlights of 2004 from the Google perspective. All links are to blog entries. Enjoy the reminiscence. JAN: Google hires Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to organize IPO, hoping to raise $40B. FEB: Google releases social networking site Orkut, not realizing at the time how extremely short-lived would be the buzz. FEB: Google shoots down Booble, a parody porn search engine. FEB: Google makes Microsoft froth at the mouth, motivating Bill Gates to admit defeat, then promise

Who Needs to Chill Out? (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Have you seen the indignant responses of the Google team to an anonymous writer who criticized (tongue in cheek, I believe) the holiday logo doodles? I'm not certain who needs to get a sense a humor more, but it makes for fun reading.

New Santy Worm Targets Yahoo!, and Doesn't Forget Google (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
After Google terminated the original Santy worm, which used Google's Web index to find vulnerable sites to deface, new generations of the virus are slithering into the search indexes of Yahoo! and AOL Search, while still attempting to launch attacks from Google. The Santy descendents (Santy.b, Santy.c, and so on) maintain the same mission as the original, which was and is to deface Web sites using the phpBB message-board system.

Will Google Keep Its Cachet? (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
A CNET story mostly rehashes the question of whether Google can maintain its status as the "It" place to work, while expanding into a mainstream company. We also learn that Microsoft has been raided, losing some engineering talent to Google.

Googleplex Photos (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Chris Breikss at 6S Marketing took some meetings at Google during the fall, and has posted photos of the outside and inside of the Googleplex.

2004 Google Zeitgeist (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
It's not quite end-of-year, but Google has released the 2004 Zeitgeist. An interactive Flash version is loads of fun, even if more detail could have been built into it. Froogle and Local search queries are included for the first time.

SearchEngineBlog: Year in Review (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
"None of this is true. Surely." But most of it is, with exceptions for scorching satire.

Everything I know about web marketing I learned from my gas station (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
How do you design a site and a search engine strategy that actually sells?

Blinkx desktop search for Mac (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Next week you may download Blinkx for the Mac.

Everything I know about web marketing I learned from my local gas station (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
How do you design a site and a search engine strategy that actually sells?

Alternative desktop search tools (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
There is more to desktop searching than Google and MSN.

Search Engine Trends 2004 (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Pandia takes a look at what happened in the world of search engine this year.

New version of the Santy worm (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Santy.e uses Yahoo! and AOL Search to spread.

Google Scholar advanced search interface (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
New menu based search form for Google Scholar.

Behind the scenes at MSN desktop search (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
On interviews with the teams developing the Microsoft Toolbar Suite.

Pandia launches search engine search engine (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
A new topic search tool that lets you search the best search engine oriented sites in one go.

Internet Explorer rapidly loosing ground (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
On the new browser war.

Worm uses Google to attack sites (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
A Web worm is using Google to identify sites using the vulnerable PHP Bulletin Board software.

The Selfless Spammer! (Monday, January 03, 12:56 AM EST)
Dean Wilson writes in in response to my post just below. "Just a quick comment on your post regarding the insane text that is often used in SPAM emails, the short version is that it's intended to 'poison' smart (Bayesian...

Stuff I don't get (Sunday, January 02, 07:45 PM EST)
There's weird stuff on the Net. Always has been. Most of it is weird because a lot of people are a card or two short of a full deck. Lately, though, the Net has become monetized. The more you pay,...

News from Australia (Friday, December 31, 01:25 PM EST)
Acland Brierty writes: Hi Seth, Loved your books and now discovered your blog. I have one story to share with you today along the "free prize inside" lines. A friend of mine has just set up a backpacker hotel in...

Google's New Ad Policy to Affect Affiliate Marketers (Friday, January 07, 05:19 AM EST)
"Google is making changes to its AdWords program that will limit the number of sponsored links on results pages that point to the same URL, a move which have the most significant impact on online merchants and their affiliates." From ClickZ Google's New Ad Policy to Affect Affiliate Marketers

Image Search Technology (Thursday, January 06, 06:23 PM EST)
The inability of search engines to read text within an image has caused ranking problems for many image-intensive web sites. A post on SEW Blog by Gary Price points to several articles and sites on the future of image search technology. From Looking at Image Searching

Search Engines Drive Retail Site Traffic (Thursday, January 06, 03:25 PM EST)
According to Hitwise one if five retail site visits stemmed from a search engine query. Leaders in referring traffic were Google, Yahoo and MSN. No surprises there. Other comments: Hitwise also found variation among the three leading search engines when it came to sending users to retail segments. Downstream traffic from Google tended toward books, sports and fitness, and music. Yahoo!

Windows AntiSpyware Beta Download (Thursday, January 06, 03:04 PM EST)
Via Scobelizer, and Neowin.net here's a link to the Download: Windows AntiSpyware (beta) To download, you're asked to validate your computer as genuine Windows and requires that you enter the product id from the operating system disc. Validation is not required though and you can still download without it. I am running the first scan now so I'll post again on how it goes.

SEO Book Donating Sales to Tsunami Relief (Thursday, January 06, 02:25 PM EST)
For the month of January, Aaron Wall is donating revenue from sales of his SEO Book to Tsunami relief efforts. His SEO Blog is a very good read with a mix of search industry news, tactics and personal commentary. Visit SEO Book.com

Blogging World News (Thursday, January 06, 02:00 AM EST)
Six Apart to buy Live Journal from Om Malik on Broadband Findory and Technorati Offering New Services from Search Engine Watch

Top Ten E-Business Trends for 2005 (Wednesday, January 05, 03:40 PM EST)
eMarketer announces itsTop Ten E-Business Trends for 2005. Of note is the cotinuing dominance of paid search and "more online advertising" which should mean natural search engine optimization and leveraging RSS for advertising.

MSN Search to Offer Paid Search? (Wednesday, January 05, 02:26 PM EST)
Post on Search Engine News Journal via Search Engine Lowdown regarding the possibility of MSN launching Pay Per Click advertising. Apparently someone (a recruiter?) sent Andy an email listing positions which easily lead one to believe MSN is ramping up to offer PPC.

Internet Retailer Announces First Conference (Wednesday, January 05, 03:35 AM EST)
Internet Retailer 2005 Conference and Exhibition to be held June 7 and 8 in Chicago. There are quite a few speakers scheduled from a wide variety on online retailers. No Interactive or SEM/SEO agencies though. From InternetRetailer.com

Natural Search Sexy in 2005 (Wednesday, January 05, 03:26 AM EST)
MediaPost Search Insider article by Davd Berkowitz outlines ten predictions for search in 2005: 1. Natural search will be sexier (TopRank loves this one) 2. Everyone will be in the Desktop Search business 3. Search engines' legal bills will skyrocket 4. The line between search engines and Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) will fade further 5. Keyword prices will keep climbing 6. ROI

Could Crispin Become Agency for Google? (Tuesday, January 04, 12:35 PM EST)
The word is that Google has been looking for an agency and Crispin Porter + Bogusky might have some advantage. Crispin assisted Google with the creating several recruiting billboards. From New York Post Online Edition I was able to see a presentation from one of the founders at Crispin on creative advertising last summer in Minneapolis and it was amazing how creative these folks are. They've

The Rumors Ring Louder - Google Adwords Affiliate Policy (Thursday, January 06, 07:58 PM EST)
Some pretty good sources on this one. Shak and eWhisper both have their ears real close to the walls of Google Adwords. Looks like the 12th will be the end of keyword arbitrage (well...okay...just a good portion of it). Now if only they'd get rid of some of those ridiculous ebay ads.

1. Implementation, January 12th.

2. One ad per affiliate and parent company sharing the same domain per search query. AdRank will continue to determine which site will be shown. (this will also stop different company departments from competiting with each other).

3. Affiliates will not have to identify their status as an affiliate. (You must manually change your ads to reflect the change, Google won't just remove the aff/affil from the ad).

4. Redirecting a landing page to another site, and framing a site will automatically cause an ad to be disapproved.

New Google Adwords Affiliate Terms of Service Rumors

Holiday E-Commerce Up 29 Percent to $15.8 Billion (Monday, January 03, 03:18 PM EST)
I just love these kind of stats from time to time to prove the naysayers wrong. Looks like this internet *IS* going to stick around.

Early estimates from comScore Networks Inc. show e-commerce spending over the November and December holiday season is expected to exceed $15.8 billion, up 29 percent from the year-ago period.

Holiday E-Commerce Up 29 Percent to $15.8 Billion

Deep Sea Charter Fishing Trip in Florida (Sunday, January 02, 07:09 AM EST)
Okay, sometimes you just have to post off-topic. This is one of those times. I took a trip down to Florida and got to do a bit of deep sea fishing. Here's a few of the photos, and commentary (still looking for the cable to my other camera to develop the on-boat photos). If you're ever up for a great time on a deep sea fishing charter in Florida, give Stray Dog Deep Sea Charters a call.

Florida Deep Sea Fishing Charters - Catch Grouper!

Dedicated Server information site (Friday, January 07, 03:21 AM EST)
If you're tired of the limitations with "shared hosting", then maybe it's time you take a look at acquiring a dedicated server. It's not as hard as it seems, and it could end up being economical if you have many...

More luck with Yahoo! (Thursday, January 06, 04:34 PM EST)
My travel blog is still #1 for "travel idea" on Yahoo! and has moved up to #8 for my other targeted phrase "travel plan". I'm also #5 for "travel blog". Google is still turning up poor results with pages that...

First Page SERPs (Tuesday, January 04, 06:04 AM EST)
So my English as a second language site has made it to the first page for one of the big keywords I've been targeting! I am #9 for English as a second langauge (16,000,000 results and Overture shows about 330...

New year new ranking (Saturday, January 01, 02:01 PM EST)
While I wait for everyone to wake up, I figured I'd check out the SERPs. I found some surprises. The results for "NFL Giants" on Google (I've been complaining about those SERPs for a while) have improved. I am #2....

Frequent Spidering Doesn't Help Rankings (Friday, January 07, 12:51 AM EST)
There are people who think that a site that is visited often by the search engine spiders will rank higher for its optimized keyword phrases. The truth of the matter is that there's no evidence to suggest that rankings are...

Search Engine Marketing Resolutions (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
A New Year! and why don´t we start with some New Year resolutions? These are some of the tips I saw on Shari Thurow´s interesting article SEM New Year´s Resolutions on the Clickz site. Resolution 1: I will stop focusing...

Merry Christmas (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year...

British eCommerce Success Story (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia, has an written interesting article on his blog Internet Media Comentary about a British artist who has created a phenomenally successful online business. Entitled Internet Commerce Success Story, this is a brief overview of...

Real-time Keyword Suggestions from Google Select (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
According to 4WebResults Google is testing a new tool called "Google Suggest". The tool sounds really  cool as it will throw up keyword suggestions as you type in the words. As Tom says in New Internet Tool Offers Suggestions...

Help Inc.com Build the 2005 Entrepreneurs' List (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
This year (2004) Inc.com published their 25 Entrepreneurs We Love list. They are now inviting people to submit entries for their 2005 list. All you need do is go to their Entrepreneurs We Love page; check your candidate meets their...

Blogging till the Cows Come Home (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
Rick Bruner has got an interesting post on his blog, Business Blog Consulting, about the blog marketing exploits of organic dairy seller, Stonyfield Farm. Stoneyfield produces quality dairy products, such as yoghurt, which strictly adhere to organic principles -...

Pictures from Google's Googleplex (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
As I mention Google rather a lot on this website, I thought it would be nice to let people view some photos of the Google complex, taken by an Internet Marketing company on a recent visit there. Chris Breikss,...

Biggest Internet Growth Comes From People Over 55 (Friday, January 07, 07:55 AM EST)
A recent survery, by International Demographics, has found that the biggest U.S. growth in the Internet has come not from young people but from the 55's and above. The report is based on the findings of 80 U.S. Metropolitan markets...

Tsunami Help (Thursday, January 06, 08:15 AM EST)
Google has a page with links on helping Tsunami victims. Pass it round and make the most out of it. Remember that all these countries have severe financial problems and are in heavy debt. Its not enough to send just...

Don't knock opportunity (Tuesday, January 04, 10:23 PM EST)