Weekly Internet Marketing News, SEO News

Google News under Fire by French Press (Saturday, March 19, 12:57 PM EST)

Cnet and The Enqirer are reporting that Google are being sued for $17.5 million by Agence France Presse for aggregating their news stories on Google News.

Google have been in hot water with France for some time now, just recently the French President initiated a euro rival to Google print

Non, non!

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Tags, Good for Search Marketers (Saturday, March 19, 12:35 PM EST)

LiveJournal, the blogging social network recently aquired by SixApart, makers of MovableType has gone and done a Technorati and added tags to it's service.

Think this isn't important for Search marketing? Here's a tip: If you run a trackback enabled website, and are writing on a subject then a good way of finding good topical pages to link out to and get trackbacks linking back is the folksonomic tagging systems implemented by Technorati tags, Del.icio.us, Metafilter tags and now LiveJournal tags.

Simply find the tag that suits your subject and link to the blog posts you find in it. If the entry doesn't have trackback enabled then find another, or link to it anyway...

You can also ping Technorati and get your pages included in the tags there, and of course add your pages to Del.icio.us - People read this stuff ya know, and link to what they find...

Luvverly...

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

The Real Reason IE7 won't support CSS2 (Saturday, March 19, 11:55 AM EST)

For the design minded this will be of interest i think. Dean Edwards has apparently been playing around with IE's new rendering agent, Trident, and has some very plausible theories as to wy M$ will not, as many had hoped, be supporting CSS2 fully.

I’ve had a good look at IE’s rendering engine, Trident. I’ll qualify that by saying that I’ve spent a lot of time testing it and playing with it but I’ve never seen the source-code. From what I can tell, to support CSS2 layouts properly, Microsoft would have to re-write Trident. Not a trivial task and certainly not one that you can perform in six months. It occurred to me that they might use some unreleased engine, part of the Longhorn arsenal of weapons. But it would be equally difficult to integrate a new engine with the existing shell and maintain backward-compatibility.

This tardiness with standards really, really pisses me off...

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

The Hidden Costs of Long Tail Internet Businesses (Saturday, March 19, 12:18 AM EST)

Kevin Laws has a beautiful post about the costs involved with long tail business that applies particularly well to many types of website whether you sell products, services, information or community.

He talks about the two costs of a transaction that often get overlooked, though not by so many here i susptect:

Search Cost: How much time/effort does it cost me to find what i want?
Psychic Cost: Is it an easy or difficult decision to buy?

The first we know much about, in that providing good, intuitive interfaces to product data, whatever that product may be, is essential for a smooth transaction.

The second is just a little more complex, but one known well to salesman: Making decisions is tough, and people don't like it. In many cases, a sale is more easily made with "would you like it in blue or pink?" than "what color do you want?".

I won't try to paraphrase Kevin's whole post, you should read it. Trust me, it's smashing stuff.

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

CustomizeGoogle.com Toolbar (Friday, March 18, 10:43 PM EST)

Nice, looks like someone took Mark Pilgrim's Butler tool that we talked about a couple of days ago, improved on it, and gave it a domain: http://www.customizegoogle.com

In this incarnation, you can choose the features you want to alter on Google services such as:

remove ads
add links to other web search sites
news results, add links to other news search sites
movie results, add links to other movie review sites
weather results, add links to other weather sites
product results, add links to other product search sites

So you get to pick and choose exaclty what you do and dont want to change.

I still can't help feeling that the backlash over Autolink Google are suffering is just so.... easily avoidable.. but I guess only Google know why they continue to refuse to participate in this ongoing discussion.

ADDED: Wow! He linked to Threadwatch aswell, thankyou! I dont know who built this, one Daniel Wieselberg, from the whois info, but geezer, if you'd like to contact me go right ahead and drop a comment :)

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Google gets Knickers in Twist with Colin Powell (Friday, March 18, 07:39 PM EST)

At the start of the week Danny Sullivan exposed Google's underwear to the Search world by pointing out a bizzare transcript of a speach that detailed Sergey and Larry's plans(?) to branch GOOG out into the underwear biz...

Now, we find Google UI designer Karen Wickler has been flashing her knickers at Colin Powell of all people...

Life; Stranger than Fiction - TFIF

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Google's Blogger out of Juice, Oregon Property Deal Makes Sense (Friday, March 18, 07:07 PM EST)

As infoworld reports like many others today on problems with Google's Blogger tool, the property deal they made back in February begins to make sense.

Blogger's Biz Stone said on the Blogger weblog that the reason Blogger was suffering performance issues was not down to hardware, but power. They just don't got enough juice for all dem busy blogger folks...

Meanwhile, Phil Ringnalda posted his surmise on the 30acre, $1.9 million property buy in The Dalles, Oregon

See, the most significant thing you notice when you're in (okay, driving through) The Dalles is The Dalles Dam, a 1.8 million kilowatt generating monster that stretches a mile and a half across the Columbia River. Hmm. River. Rereading the article, I see where discussions of water supply, and wastewater treatment came up, too, and The Dalles is going to have to beef up its water system, though because the waste won't require much in the way of treatment, not the wastewater system.

It seems logical doesn't it? And would explain the mystery of the Oregan facility that everyone was scratching their heads about last month.

Is GOOG running out of juice?

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

NoFollow for Hoarding PageRank - Stupidity or Naivety? (Friday, March 18, 04:46 PM EST)

Barry mentions this thread at HighRankings forum that talks about using NoFollow to hoarde pagerank.

Is it just me being paranoid or does that sound like a dreadfully naive thing to do? There are a few things we don't know about NoFollow, and a few we do. All of them make me more than a little jumpy using it at all.

What we do and dont know:

We know that Google has never publically said it wont follow these links
We dont know how they treat the site being linked to with NoFollow
We dont know how they treat the site using the NoFollow

What if, just if, sites using NoFollow were being downgraded due to having unreliable content on their pages?

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Search Marketers Divided, Time for New Definitions? (Friday, March 18, 02:04 PM EST)

Yesterday we discussed this Wired article featuring well known Search spammer Greg Boser of Web Guerrilla. As a result of those discussions, and talks elsewhere, one thing has become very apparent: Search marketers are divided on how they define both what they do, and why they do it. This post will suggest that it might be time to look at redefining, or perhaps creating new terminology for the differing schools of thought.

Follow the title link for the full post.

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Opinions on Google Ad Links (Friday, March 18, 10:46 AM EST)

With the recent addition of Google Ad Links to the Adsense offerings, i wanted to find out what Threadwatch members thought of them.

Barry Welford at cre8asite seems to like them. Talking about two possible groups of visitor to a web page he says:

Some were looking for a specific product and happen to have ended up on your web page. Your page doesn't sell this product. However with Adlinks there's a clickable link on relevant Google Ads. They click there and may be presented with a page with say 10 Google ads on it. They can scan through these and select one or more that seem relevant. So if someone is motivated to look for a product, I believe Google is serving up more relevant information.

Others may just be interested in the topic of the web page for itself. They weren't looking to buy anything. However they're intrigued enough to check the Adlinks link. Scanning the Ads, they may be interested enough by the wording of a particular ad to click on it. So you have a greater chance of picking up "impulse" clickers.

I've just set up an adsense account for this site in addition to the sponsorship sections with the redesign that will kick in this weekend and wondered if anyone had actually tried these ad links yet and what they thought of them.

On looking at the graphic i linked to at the top, they seem quite good there - particularly for visitors to blog posts that arrive via a search engine. The traffic Google and others send this site is near worthless for the most part, although i've never fully analysed it, it does seem to be mostly folks that would have no interest in what Threadwatch is and does, maybe adlinks is a good idea for situations like that...

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Report on Google's Bay Area Adsense Forum (Friday, March 18, 09:22 AM EST)

Jennifer Slegg, a good friend of Threadwatch and mine, has written up her experiences at Googles Bay Area Adsense Forum held at the 'plex on the 16th. Among the speakers, Chris Pirillo and Jen herself.

Well worth a look if you publish for Adsense $$$'s.

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads

Google Developing An Internet Operating System? (Friday, March 18, 08:09 PM EST)
I'm calling it an Internet Operating System because it sounds 10x better than what a recent article called Google's future plans, quoted saying it is a "Web-based thin client-type hosted environment-slash-operating system replacement." A what? There has been some buzz...

Firefox Continues to Steal Market Share from IE (Friday, March 18, 06:57 PM EST)
Normally I would not post "PR pitches", but I actually think a few of you would be interested in this one. ALISO VIEJO, CALIF., March 18, 2005 - NetApplications, an industry leader in Web-based applications that measure, monitor and market...

Using Rel=Nofollow to Hoard PageRank (Friday, March 18, 03:53 PM EST)
Forget if PageRank is used or any of that. Let's pretend PageRank is still a value that is meaningful. Google uses the nofollow attribute within links to combat link spam and enable webmasters to tell Google (Yahoo and MSN) that...

Dollars & Cents: AdSense No Longer Shy (Friday, March 18, 02:49 PM EST)
One of the items I have neglected to mention in the entry I wrote about the revised AdSense Terms of Service was that you can now openly discuss how much money you are making. Before this was against the TOS,...

Removing a 302 Hijacked Page from the Google Index (Friday, March 18, 02:33 PM EST)
There is this featured thread over at WebmasterWorld named How to Remove Hijacker Page Using Google Removal Tool. The thread creator proposes one method to help remove a URL (hijacked) from the index. He proposes that you added the "noindex"...

If a Phrase Ranks on Google, But No One Searches for It... (Friday, March 18, 01:25 PM EST)
Phil Craven was in one of those moods today, and posted a thread named If a tree falls in the forest.... He got all philosophical and it kind of made me teary eyed (just kidding). The reason I point this...

Google X Cloned (Friday, March 18, 03:34 AM EST)
In case you missed Google X because of the rumored Google & Apple fight to be cool, someone cloned it and posted it at http://ablaze.fr/GoogleX.htm. The big question is will Google be the first or will Apple be the first...

Detailed Explanation of the Page Hijack (Thursday, March 17, 09:29 PM EST)
The 302 redirect issue, also known as Page Hijacking, has been an issue for a long time now. A thread at WebmasterWorld is 46 pages long, almost 700 posts, plus many other threads on this topic can be found at...

MSN Search Champs V2 Invites (Thursday, March 17, 06:22 PM EST)
MSN calls in various individuals that know a thing or two about search to help them build a better search engine. They did it before, and even had self admitted spammers in the group. They are now doing it again,...

Google & Apple Fighting to be the Coolest Company (Thursday, March 17, 02:57 PM EST)
Yesterday, Google released Google X, which copied the sporty, genie like affect of the OS X Dock (which all my clients love). Many people noticed that last night, Google X was taken offline. C|Net reports that Apple has sought patent...

St. Patrick's Day & the Engines (Thursday, March 17, 02:12 PM EST)
I am surprised Ask Jeeves doesn't have their St. Patrick's Day logo up yet, must be a slow start. Last year, the engines came up with nice logos for the day, even Jeeves. I expect to see one shortly for...

MSN's adCenter: More Control and Better Results (Friday, March 18, 10:02 PM EST)
(Direct Link) ClickZ - At last, marketers who use MSN's featured listing product, but who want more control, will get their wish. The new platform will provide all the control of Google AdWords, plus some very useful targeting options that will place...

Mamma.com Hires New Auditor; Shares Rise (Friday, March 18, 09:59 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Yahoo! Finance - Mamma.com said it has now engaged accounting firm RSM Richter LLP and confirmed that it will delay its annual report past a March 31 deadline set by Canadian regulators. The company said the delay means it the...

When Keywords Dont Deliver (Friday, March 18, 09:56 PM EST)
(Direct Link) iMedia Connection - Web-writing guru Nick Usborne tells us how to optimize keywords for that hardest search engine of all: the human heart....

MSN's New Beta Shopping Search Engine (Friday, March 18, 09:54 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Search Engine Guide - MSN is quietly beta testing a new shopping search engine which some say will rival Froogle, Google's shopping search engine. Apparently the new beta site rolled out about a month ago....

The Budget Webmasters 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google (Friday, March 18, 09:49 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Search Engine Guide - If you got ranked for a keyword you wanted At All, the games not over yet. If your sites content is geared towards that subject, you can get your ranking in search engines increased, at no...

Eye Tracking (Friday, March 18, 09:14 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Cre8asite Forums - The eyetrack articles demonstate that there are often whole chunks of the page that are not even looked at, if we do out own 'eyetrack' survey there may be some surprising results....

Lessons Learned from Eye Tracking Studies (Friday, March 18, 09:08 PM EST)
(Direct Link) SearchDay - You've optimized your web pages to be search engine friendly, and they're ranking well in search result pages, but so whatif users don't actually do what you'd like them to do once they arrive at your web site....

Mixing and Mingling With Yahoo! (Friday, March 18, 03:05 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Fool.com - The idea that Yahoo! users can share content with one another within their own Yahoo! community is a big plus, especially when you take into account the Web Mail, Instant Messaging platform, beefed-up search, and content features that...

Amazon's A9 Offers Unique Local Search Experience (Friday, March 18, 02:25 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Search Engine Guide - One of A9's goals is to encourage both consumers and businesses to come to the site and update listing information with photographs of the business, Web site addresses, email addresses, details about product offerings, even updates...

User Experience and Search Engines: If Your Home Page Could Only Talk (Friday, March 18, 02:17 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Search Engine Guide - I cant tell you how glad I am that you found my website. You have no idea the great lengths weve gone to get you here, let alone what were about to do to keep you...

Corporate SEO Preparation (Friday, March 18, 02:16 AM EST)
(Direct Link) Search Engine Guide - Large companies are just now starting to recognize the wisdom behind a full spectrum approach to search engine marketing and the marching orders seem to have gone out to the marketing divisions....

Google News Sued by Agence France Presse (Saturday, March 19, 02:33 PM EST)
Google News Sued by Agence France Presse Google News, Google's news aggregation service which recently added new personalization features, has been sued by Agence France Presse. Agence France Presse alleges that Google includes AFP's photos, stories and news headlines on Google News without permission from Agence France Presse. AFP is seeking ...

Domain Names: A Sneaky Attempt To Take My Name (Friday, March 18, 07:32 PM EST)
Domain Names: A Sneaky Attempt To Take My Name If you have a domain name(s) that you’ve registered how much thought have you given to who else might want the name? That question crossed my mind only in the context of - do I have a name that others might like ...

Firefox Browser Increasing Popularity at Expense of Microsoft IE (Friday, March 18, 06:55 PM EST)
Firefox Browser Increasing Popularity at Expense of Microsoft IE The Firefox Web browser is continuing to gain in popularity at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer with a jump to a 6.17% share of the browser market. According to a recent NetApplications study, in February, Firefox users continued to flock to ...

Google X Cloned (Friday, March 18, 02:32 PM EST)
Google X Cloned In case you missed Google X because of the rumored Google & Apple fight to be cool, someone cloned it and posted it at http://ablaze.fr/GoogleX.htm. The big question is will Google be the first or will Apple be the first to contact this individual? Found by way of ...

Submit Your Site to Yahoo and DMOZ Directories (Friday, March 18, 02:02 AM EST)
Submit Your Site to Yahoo and DMOZ Directories Unlike submitting to search engines, submitting your site to directories and niche portals usually involves a lot more than simply typing in your URL. You often have to start by researching the various topic categories to find the most appropriate area to submit ...

MSN adCenter Joins Yahoo and Google in Search Advertising (Thursday, March 17, 03:16 PM EST)
MSN adCenter Joins Yahoo and Google in Search Advertising Lots and lots of stories were written about MSN's promised adCenter PPC platform launch. Danny Sullivan’s written a comprehensive overview at SEW. The most innovative dimension of the new product (beyond adding a major competitor to the marketplace) is the demographic reporting: ...

Corporate Preparation for Search Engine Optimization (Thursday, March 17, 02:20 PM EST)
Corporate Preparation for Search Engine Optimization Understanding the value of global communications, nearly every organized organization in the world has a website. From grassroot community groups to major corporations, the World Wide Web has expanded by billions of websites over the past half decade. Because the medium is easy, cheap and ...

MSN Search Paid Listing Program And Privacy Concerns (Thursday, March 17, 02:06 PM EST)
MSN Search Paid Listing Program And Privacy Concerns It's official, MSN Search is building their own "Paid Listings Program" to compete with Yahoo!'s Overture and Google AdWords. All those that had a sneak peak at the PPC interface and features were impressed, so that is a major plus. Danny Sullivan wrote ...

GoFish and IceRocket Partner for Multimedia Search (Thursday, March 17, 12:44 AM EST)
GoFish and IceRocket Partner for Multimedia Search GoFish and IceRocket search have partnered to deliver the largest single searchable universe of digital media downloads encompassing the categories of audio, video, mobile content, and games. By developing proprietary search algorithms, hosting regular updates, and offering partners access via an open API, GoFish ...

A9: Vertical-Horizontal Search Integration (Wednesday, March 16, 11:57 PM EST)
A9: Vertical-Horizontal Search Integration A9, which recently launched Yellow Pages, has now created a very interesting RSS-based “open search” platform that allows users (once they’re signed in) to customize and add “columns” to their A9 interface. A9 and MyYahoo, as well as some of the new things that AOL is doing, ...

China Cracks Down Further on Net Expression (Friday, March 18, 03:06 PM EST)
China shut down another of one of the countries most active chat rooms, closing down the Shuimu Tsinghua site for students not attending the university, according to a UPI report. Last September,...

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Online Advertisers Maintain Constant Industry Share of Voice (Friday, March 18, 03:06 PM EST)
MediaPost reports that not much changed in Nielsen's AdRelevance figures for online brand advertising, with financial services again accounting for the plurality of marketshare at about 20 percent...

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IPG Financial Confusion Deeper than Initially Indicated (Friday, March 18, 03:06 PM EST)
The news about IPG got worse, with the mega agency conglomerate indicating it will not only be late on its financials for last quarter, but possibly this one and the next one, as it tries to find out...

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BlowSearch to Launch PPC System with Anti Click Fraud, Targeting Abilities (Friday, March 18, 01:21 PM EST)
SearchEngineLowdown got early word that BlowSearch is launching its own pay-per-click bidding system to be launched this coming week. It is slated to include anti click fraud features, including an...

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Analysts Learning that Search Prices Are More Seasonal, Less Volatile (Friday, March 18, 01:21 PM EST)
PaidContent points to a Wall Street Journal piece looking at whether or not search advertising prices are over- or under-priced. Volatility in the sector has caused hand wringing among financial...

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DMA Kills Off AIM (Friday, March 18, 01:21 PM EST)
The Direct Marketing Association announced it is finally killing off the Association of Interactive Marketing after a long and sometimes acrimonious relationship with the online-specific advocacy...

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French President Target's Google's Library Effort (Friday, March 18, 01:21 PM EST)
Trop de livres AngloFearing cultural irrelevance, the leader of France bought into his chief librarian's concerns that a generous academic effort by Google to digitize libraries constitutes a threat...

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European Search to Up by Two Thirds in 2005, Keep Growing (Friday, March 18, 01:20 PM EST)
CRM Today reports on Forrester numbers showing European search marketing will grow by about two thirds in 2005. Total European spending should reach 1.4 billion Euros, according to Forrester, up from...

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Google Creates an Open Source HQ for Coders (Friday, March 18, 01:06 PM EST)
Google created a Google Code site in an attempt to act as a central repository for open source code and API projects, according to CNET. Chris DiBona, former editor of Slashdot and current open...

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Yahoo: No New Products Without Firefox Compatibility (Friday, March 18, 12:21 PM EST)
Yahoo made a reach for additional street credibility with the web community by ensuring that all Yahoo products - current and new ones - will work just as well with the Firefox browser as they do...

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eBay on Hook for Patent Infringement (Friday, March 18, 12:21 PM EST)
A federal appellate court upheld most of an earlier ruling that held eBay violated a set of MercExchange patents with its "Buy it Now" feature. The court also upheld most of the damages, reducing...

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Heading to England (Friday, March 18, 01:55 AM EST)
Blogging will be erratic, once again, the next few days. I'm flying to London tomorrow for a mixture of business and pleasure. This is the first time I've had a reason to go to England on business and I'm glad I'll get to spend a couple of days with my f

BlowSearch Launches PPC Service, Takes Unique Approach to Click Fraud (Thursday, March 17, 06:52 PM EST)
We've got advance news that BlowSearch is launching its very own PPC product, next week (not next year, like Microsoft). They'll introduce some interesting options including: * Competitor Blocking tool — competitors can be deterred from maliciously click

Google Has Larger Market Share in UK than US (Thursday, March 17, 06:41 PM EST)
New Hitwise data suggests that Google has a more impressive market share in the UK than in the US. The report...found google.co.uk topping the list in the UK in terms of both market share of visits (48%) and volume of searches (63.7%). The figures put

European Search Engine Marketing To Grow 65% In 2005 (Thursday, March 17, 06:36 PM EST)
According to CRM Today, new Forrester research suggests search marketing will grow by leaps and bounds in Europe. Forrester Research, Inc. estimates that search engine marketing will generate €1.4 billion of spending in Europe in 2005, a 65% increase com

New Market Share Data for Paid Search (Thursday, March 17, 06:26 PM EST)
According to AlwaysOn, Microsoft is already in a good position to challenge Yahoo and Google in the paid search arena. MSN, with a 16 percent share of the paid-search market, is in third place behind industry leader Google , at 35 percent, and Yahoo , at

Microsoft CEO Ballmer Tells Advertisers They're Important (Thursday, March 17, 12:10 AM EST)
ClickZ reports from a gathering of more than 500 of MSN's top advertisers in Redmond. Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, made it clear that they understand the importance of their advertisers. Ballmer repeatedly told the crowd,...that advertisers were an in

Google Loses French Court Appeal (Wednesday, March 16, 09:03 PM EST)
The BBC reports that Google has lost their trademark infringement case appeal. Thanks Ben!

Google X Takes Idea from Apple Mac OS (Wednesday, March 16, 04:06 PM EST)
This is a cool little interface from the Google Labs - Google X. It looks just like the OS found on Apple Macs. Very neat! From the creator, Chikai Ohazama, Software Engineer... And now there's Google X, which came about because I wanted a quick fun way

Get the Latest NCAA Basketball Scores with MSN Search (Wednesday, March 16, 03:58 PM EST)
MSN is making it easier for you to check the scores of your favorite college basketball team. We teamed up with FOX Sports to show real-time scores and schedules during the games. You get a quick snapshot of the tournament just by searching for “colleg

Yahoo 360 Offers Blog Tool (Wednesday, March 16, 03:46 PM EST)
CNet has details of a new blogging service from Yahoo.

First Screenshots of MSN adCenter (Wednesday, March 16, 03:30 PM EST)
Thanks to Charlene Li, we can now bring you actual screenshots of the new MSN adCenter. What is really cool, and not shown in the static images, is that the graphs are all animated. For example, the chart for gender "grows" from 0% until it reaches the ac

Wired: Search Engine Manipulation (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Adam Penenberg explores the techniques used by optimization companies to engineer top listings on Google result pages for their clients. Mainly, backlinking at any and all sites that will accept a link. Amusingly, the piece documents the source of some backlinks for two SEO companies that rank high in Google. One benefits from links from weather pages and an XML guide. The other enjoys Google visibility created by over 5,000 incoming links from such places as a Hungarian travel site and a

Google Loses Trademark suit in France (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Once again Google is burned by wrongheaded (in my opinion) trademark rulings in Europe. A French court has upheld a previous ruling in favor of two companies suing Google for allowing AdWords ads containing their trademarks to appear on results page upon which they are listed. Google must pay a fine of about $100,000. (I have commented before on the oddly low fines in French cases.) I have the solution for Google in these cases, and I don't know why it didn't occur to me before. If

Gmail Offered (Occasionally) on Home Page (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
The fleeting sightings of Gmail offers on the Google home page are for real: Google is offering Gmail on approximately one in 20 page views. A Google director is quoted as saying the frequency will increase in coming weeks.

Google Yanks Mac-Themed Experimental Interface (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Less than 24 hours after Google put Google X up as a Labs experiment, it disappeared. Google X emulated the look-and-feel of Apple's OS X operating system (check a screen shot here). Though neither Google nor Apple is commenting, everyone assumed that Apple's lawyers made a phone call.

Ask Jeeves Toolbar for Mozilla (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Those undefined talks between Ask Jeeves and Mozilla seem to be paying off in distinct products, starting with a Jeeves toolbar for Mozilla browsers. (Or, at least, Firefox 1.0; Netscape is not mentioned on the download page.)

Buying a Gmail Account (Cheap) for a Good Cause (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Matthew Wahlgren is a Peace Corps volunteer working in Bulgaria, where he is scrambling for money to support various sustainable development projects. He is attempting to sell his Gmail invitations for three dollars each, all money to be donated. Check his blog entry for a link to a spreadsheet, or read his profile for more info. I'm not normally in favor of selling stuff that widely available free, but Matthew is good folks with a decent idea to funnel some cash where it's needed.

Bob Rosenschein on Gurunet and Google (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Bob Rosenschein, CEO of Gurunet (parent company of Answers.com, which provides word efinitions in Google searches), is interviewed by CNET. Bob hammers home the differentiator between Answers.com and Google--the former provides quick reference answers, not list of Web sites. Predicting that search interfaces are in their infancy, Bob compares the Google interface to a DOS command line, a comparison that is hard to deny. Not to say that Answers.com is particularly innovative in that department on

Microsoft's Search Ad Engine Launches Tomorrow (Wed) (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Bloomberg , the L.A. Times, and others are reporting that Microsoft will launch its search advertising business this week (Wednesday, March 16), but don't expect a splashy entree. Microsft plans to roll out the service gradually, in targeted regions. Because of this, Yahoo!'s Overture division, which currently supplies sponsored ads to Microsoft in a contract lasting until 2006, will probably not lose one of its most important clients all at once. I'm eager to see what this

Google Local Adds Business Registration Tool (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Google Local steams ahead as the most dynamic and ambitious regional search destination online. Google is clearly determined in this area, and believes it to be an important part of the company's plan. the latest development is Google Local Business Center, a registration tool through which businesses may modify their listings in Google local. Access is gained via a PIN number physically mailed to the business. A new "Edit this listing" link appears at the bottom of each listing

Hope for Yahoo!'s AdSense Alternative (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
My thoughts about Yahoo!'s opportunity to compete with Google's AdSense being based on creating a higher quality networks, and being more open with Webmasters about the business arrangement, seems to be reflected in the hopes of marketers. In particular, the hope for a higher-quality ad network is on people's minds. Google's AdSense has steadily dropped in prestige among advertisers and marketers, many of whom feel that much of the far-flung content network is nearly

Mark goes deep on Google Desktop search (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
On his brand new Sysinternals blog, Mark Russinovich tackles deficiencies in the Google Desktop search engine. Mark points out that the Google desktop only indexes up to the first 10 pages of a document. While I'm sure that there is some very sound logic, somewhere, that shows that if information that is relevant to a query and therefore needing to be indexed is not in the first 10 pages of an indexed document, than it isn't relevant after all and therefore shouldn't be indexed.

Boy am I in trouble. (Saturday, March 19, 06:54 PM EST)
My wifi post has certainly annoyed people far smarter than I. Like Marc Orchant: Link: Seth, I love you man but stick to marketing,OK? - The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog - microsoft.weblogsinc.com. This riposte made me smile, though. Link: newswireless.net .:....

Skeptico: Five apples (Saturday, March 19, 03:18 PM EST)
This is brilliant. The whole site is worth a read. Skeptico: Five apples. Five apples This is what my life is like. I have four apples. At least I’m pretty sure there are only four, I only bought four, I...

My Wifi Rant (Saturday, March 19, 11:44 AM EST)
This one has been a long time gestating, but today's New York Times completely pushed me over the edge (Link: The New York Times > Technology > Growth of Wireless Internet Opens New Path for Thieves.) As I make my...

A Warning About Ostrich Farming (Saturday, March 19, 11:15 AM EST)
Have you ever eaten ostrich? I missed my chance when I gave up poultry as the last land animal on my eating list. My guess is that you haven't had a lot either. It turns out that there was a...

Cheap, loud and smart (Saturday, March 19, 11:10 AM EST)
Joi Ito points me to the newest Blogads reader survey. The upshot? Blog readers have a one in five chance of having their own blog (ostrich farming alert!). They read a ton of high end magazines and are well educated....

When your customers hold you back (Saturday, March 19, 12:53 AM EST)
Ten or twelve years ago, I used to buy stuff from Paper Direct. They sell preprinted sheets that you run through your laser printer to make brochures and business cards and such. In those days, when laser printers were still...

Pre-bankruptcy marketing (Friday, March 18, 10:49 PM EST)
Let's say you run an airline with a horrible cost structure and you're facing bankruptcy on an almost daily basis. Why on earth would you waste money on marketing like this? Do the folks at American believe that some harried...

Stop for a second (Friday, March 18, 05:23 PM EST)
Tom Peters reports thatIn England more people are employed by Indian restaurants than in steelmaking, coal mining, and ship building combined!Think about that for a while....

MBA mail (Friday, March 18, 11:55 AM EST)
I've gotten a lot of heat about my "don't get an MBA" post--(Harvard did those guys a favor when they didn't let them in). Here's one: Life Beyond Code :: MBA or no MBA??. Let me make my point in...

What happens next? (Thursday, March 17, 07:17 PM EST)
I think there are two blog/RSS frontiers worth considering... whether you manage a project, a church or a brand. The first is the idea of the micro-blog. Ed Brenegar got asked to help a small group understand word of mouth...

Yahoo dilutes Firefox commitment (Friday, March 18, 02:38 PM EST)
"Yahoo said on Friday afternoon that a statement from the companys Australian office on Tuesday, which claimed that all future products would be compatible with both the Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE) browsers, was inaccurate." A rep from Yahoo in the US clarified earlier comments made that there are so many different services offered by Yahoo, they really cannot guarantee that all will be compatible with Firefox. Full article at ZDNet UK News Tags: Yahoo, Firefox

Google X Clones (Friday, March 18, 02:15 PM EST)
The odd situation with Google posting a link to Google X and then disabling the destination site has become even more interesting. Several clones of Google X have appeared. ablaze clone, Tech info blog clone and this one. Oh, and one more from SEJ. It will be interesting to see how long they last. The feature is cool and it's too bad Google had to take it down. Google or Apple PR folks should really get off the pot and respond. It reflects poorly on both to do the "no comment" thing. Via SEroundtable and Google Weblog (unofficial). Tags: GoogleX, Google X Clone, Google, Apple

SEO Friendly Site Navigation (Thursday, March 17, 11:24 PM EST)
One of the most common issues with making documents more search engine friendly is the introduction of text in place of, or in addition to, other forms of navigation. JavaScript is a favorite for mouseovers and more often drop down and foldout menus. Links inside JavaScript are not indexed by most search engines. If a search engine cannot follow links it cannot find the rest of your web site. Many times an alternative navigation method based on text links can provide a solution. Another option to JavaScript or DHTML foldout menus is a CSS based menu that performs much the same way. Via SEOConsultants.com, Tanfa offers code for vertical (read first) and horizontal menus. These are search engine friendly foldout menus - cool. Tags: SEO, Search Engine Optimization

Ask Jeeves Offers Firefox Toolbar (Thursday, March 17, 10:31 PM EST)
Ask Jeeves has posted a toolbar for Firefox. Features include saved locations, local news, the ability to save images, web pages and searches plus a search box for maps and business listings. Tags: Ask Jeeves, Toolbar, Firefox

Privacy Concerns with MSN Paid Listings (Thursday, March 17, 06:08 PM EST)
SERoundtable posts details and links regarding MSN's paid listing program and concerns regarding privacy. The new program will allow advertisers the ability to filter ads using demographic information from users that have signed up fo various MSN services such as Hotmail. There's more detailed description of the MSN PPC program at SearchEngineWatch and a very good article by Gord Hotchkiss on SearchInsider

Yahoo assures Firefox compatibility (Thursday, March 17, 05:15 PM EST)
Yahoo is now making sure any tools developed are compatible with both Firefox and Internet Explorer, an indication of the popularity Firefox has achieved so far. There have been approximatley 27 million downloads of Firefox 1.0 so far. ZDNet UK News

Yahoo 360 enters the blog business (Wednesday, March 16, 05:34 PM EST)
Yahoo is planning on offering a blog service called Yahoo 360 that will be more like MSN Spaces than Google's Blogger.com. Beta testing starts March 29 and will offer initial users the option of inviting friends to use the service, similar to how Google promoted Gmail. Users will be able to draw upon content from other Yahoo services as well as share posts and photos of their own. Yahoo 360 is part blogging and part social networking. From CNET News.com: "It's really about keeping connected to people you know," said Julie Herendeen, vice president for network services at Yahoo. "Yahoo 360 allows consumers to conveniently connect with the people they care about by creating and sharing blogs, photos and other content across Yahoo."Over 32 million people in the US read blogs. With Yahoo's 30 million users, the overall number of blog publishers and readers could increase substantially with the Yahoo 360 service. Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo 360, Blog, Blogging, MSN Spaces

Google Goes OSX (Wednesday, March 16, 02:48 PM EST)
Today Google revealed Google X. Not a new tool, rather a new toy. Google X is a mix of DHTML and JavaScript to create the Mac OSX dock full of Google's tools. The quote at the bottom of the Google X page says it all. "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you." [Update] It appears to have been removed from Google It's 4:30 CST and the link is now dead. Tags: Google, GoogleX, Mac, Apple

New Firefox extension for TurboScout (Tuesday, March 15, 06:32 PM EST)
TurboScout is a meta search engine that allows you to easily search a large number of search engines via a tabbed interface. Now you can add Turboscout as a search engine option to the built-in Firefox search tool and access search results from over 90 search engines. Tags: search engine, Firefox

Google launches Local Business Center (Tuesday, March 15, 05:07 PM EST)
On the home page of Google Local, there's a new link, " Information for Business Owners " that allows you to add or update your business listing. Once you add your free listing Google will send you a letter with a PIN for verification. Once validated, your entry will appear in Google Local search results. Battelle has posted an announcement email regarding Google Local Business Center Tags: Google, Local Search

Analyst NOT Clueless on Search Industry (Tuesday, March 15, 03:27 PM EST)
In fact, he's not an Analyst, he's a banker. A post made yesterday regarding an article published by MediaWeek via Andy's blog mentioned comments by Jay MacDonald as not too favorable on the future of search. Apparently Jay MacDonald was mis-quoted. Here's a follow up comment from SearchEngineLowdown: "MacDonald believes that "as [search optimization] technology improves, it will have a far greater role, in a positive way". He also believes that search optimization will be around for "many years to come"." There's an interesting thread on this at SearchEngineWatch Blog Tag: Oops

Weatherbug uses Blogs to Gather Customer Feedback (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
I came across an interesting link today from the excellent weblog of Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba - Church of the Customer. They relate how the blog of WeatherBug invited its users to let them know how they used the application. For those of you who don't know about WeatherBug...

Yahoo! Set to Launch 360° - their New Blogging Tool (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
It looks like Yahoo! is set to launch a new blogging tool within the next month. Yahoo! 360° will initialy be made available to a restricted number of users from March 29th, having extensively tested the product in-house since last year. The new service will bring together Yahoo!'s existing...

'State of the Blogosphere' from Technorati (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Technorati boss David Sifry is writing an interesting series of reports called ‘The State of the Blogosphere’, on his Sifry’s Alerts blog - he posted on this subject in October at the Web 2.0 conference and, due to the dynamic nature of the industry, felt it was time for...

Making Money with Google's Adsense (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
USA Today posted an interesting article this week about the Google Adsense programme. Google's AdSense a bonanza for some Web sites lists a number of cases of people who have successfully used Adsense to generate a decent income, like Eric Giguère who is now writing a book about his experiences...

Comment Spammers Getting Smarter (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
One of the great things about blogging is that it allows you to share your knowledge and easily develop a network of contacts, often relating to the subject you most blog about. Tools such as comments, which let people know what you think about what they've written; trackback, that let...

Is Yahoo! Testing Rival to Google Adwords? (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
In the blogosphere this is actually quite old news (it appeared a couple of days back) but I just didn't have time to write about it. It looks like Yahoo! is testing a product to rival Google's Adsense. Silicon Valley Watcher reckons that this information came from an "informed source...

How People Read Google Search Results (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
There's an interesting story on Search Engine Watch about how people view the search results on Google. The actual research itself was carried out by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it and eye tracking firm Eyetools. The result shoudl certainly make marketers sit up and take notice. It would...

On March 11th Arrange a Meeting (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
March 11, 2004. Ten bombs exploded on four trains during the rush hour in Madrid. More than 190 people died, almost two thousand were injured. It was one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in Europe in recent history. As in the United States of America on September 11...

Harvard Business Review Cites Blogs as a 2005 Breakthrough Idea (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Here's another recent article which focuses on how blogs are gaining power and influencing people. The Harvard Business review identifies 20 breakthrough Ideas for 2005 and in at number 10 comes Blog-Trolling in Bitstream. The article is written by Mohanbir Sawhney, from the Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, and...

Effective use of RSS Feeds by Morgans Hotel Group (Sunday, March 20, 08:55 AM EST)
Whilst searching for hotels in New York, I was pleasantly surprised to see one hotel group, Morgans Hotels, making good use of RSS feeds to keep guests up-to-date on latest offers. Their 'Special Offers' page invites visitors to sign up to their RSS Feed. Not sure what a RSS Feed...

"Getting" Yahoo! 360 (Sunday, March 20, 03:26 AM EST)

Jeremy Zawodny sniffs that only some people “get it” about Yahoo! 360, the soon-to-be blogging/networking/sharing service. To demonstrate, he points to Marcel van Leeuwen’s rhapsodic yet opaque love note, which reads in part: “Yahoo 360’s value is deeply rooted in our nature to not only interact with other people but see ourselves do that.” And then, “I don’t see Google really catching up here.” van Leeuwen does not claim to have seen Yahoo! 360, which goes into beta on March 29. Is he of the belief that quality of implementation does not matter, and that the sheer fact of Yahoo! evidently combining some of its services is enough to guarantee its success? And what is Zawodny’s point? That glib and premature rhetoric qualifies as “getting it”? If so, I’m glad not to get it yet. Maybe I’ll get it when I can see it.

I have high hopes for Yahoo! 360. But I had great hopes for Yahoo! Groups, too, when they also combined various Yahoo! services to make self-expression and sharing easier. Yet Groups turned into an ad-glutted pain in the ass. Implementation makes a huge difference—all the difference. Good ideas are easy. Right now, Yahoo! has disclosed a good idea. We know it has the resources and membership mass to make something great. But let’s dispense with the “gets it” vibe until we can actually see the damn thing.

Yahoo! 360 Launch Date (Friday, March 18, 04:35 PM EST)

I hadn’t seen this divulged before: The launch date of Yahoo! 360, a social software and blogging platform that is getting intense speculative attention, is March 29. Insiders only at first, then the service will grow by invitation, as with Gmail.

Yahoo! Develops Love for Firefox (Friday, March 18, 03:19 PM EST)

Yahoo! has seen the light and pledged to test against Firefox compatibility when developing new services. No more IE-only restrictions, as now spottily exist throughout the Y! empire. No word, though, on repairing restrictions that now afflict Firefox/Yahoo! users. Would that the entire universe of content providers would see this light. I’ve been complaining in the Digital Music blog of online music services that don’t even allow their catalogs to be viewed, much less accessed, in a non-IE borwser. Yahoo!’s errors in this regard are not nearly so flagrant.

Yahoo! 360 (Wednesday, March 16, 02:28 PM EST)

Expect an imminent launch of Yahoo! 360 beta, a social software platform that seems to be a mashup of Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Photos, My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Messenger, with (this is the real news) some sort of blogging tools bundled in. It’s unclear how all this will fit together, but the advance PR focuses on ease of use. If Y! 360 is essentially an evolution of the prickly and ad-glutted Yahoo! Groups, that alone will be worth the price of admissions. (Actually, it’ll be free. See this information page, and this beta sign-up.)

It’s fascinating to reflect on the many point-and-click, drag-and-drop platforms hasve sprung up over the years to give non-technical consumers a Web presence. From the early GeoCities days of billboard-creation to the contemporary emphasis on sharing personal media, the evolution rages on.

Yahoo! Buzz Game (Wednesday, March 16, 12:53 PM EST)

Yahoo! has jumped on the virtual stock market bandwagon—well, maybe I wouldn’t call it a bandwagon, but other examples of this sort of thing have been popular. The Yahoo! Buzz Game invites players to wager play-money on the currency and buzzworthiness of searchable tech topics. So, for example, if you think TiVo is a product whose meme factor is on the rise, you buy some virtual stock with your virtual money kept in your virtual account, and possibly make a virtual fortune. Results are based on Yahoo! search statistics—more searches for your topic causes your stock to rise—and the standings are updated hourly.

It’s fun, but the problem with the game is that its Yahoo! overseers must stay ahead of cultural relevancy when creating the list of technologies for betting. If the game is to mimic a real stock market, “companies” must be available for purchase before they are well known or very successful—seeing the tree when it’s a seed is one way that investors make fortunes. My first thought when entering the Buzz Game was to buy some stock in MythTV, whose buzz is still soft, but growing. Too soft, apparently, because it’s not available.

(Thanks to reader Jamie Wilson.)

Microsoft's Search Ad Engine Launches Tomorrow (Wed) (Tuesday, March 15, 11:20 PM EST)
Bloomberg

, the L.A. Times, and others are reporting that Microsoft will launch its search advertising business this week (Wednesday, March 16), but don’t expect a splashy entree. Microsft plans to roll out the service gradually, in targeted regions. Because of this, Yahoo!’s Overture division, which currently supplies sponsored ads to Microsoft in a contract lasting until 2006, will probably not lose one of its most important clients all at once.

I’m eager to see what this extra competition does to clickthrough prices in all three environments. Advertisers can find bargains in the FindWhat and Kanoodle networks. Will Microsoft’s exposre warrant higher bid prices for keywords? Most likely its traffic will answer Yes to that question. But how thin are major advertisers willing to be stretched? A major third channel ads 50 percent to the budget if advertisers feel they must be everywhere. with campaigns that convert successfully and profitably, scaling outward isn’t a problem; the budget always pays out. But for those with relatively unrefined campaigns, I could see each provider—Google, Overture, and MSN Search—cutting bargain deals with major clients to keep them on the network. Or, perhaps the market will self-correct, and keyword rates will naturally settle downward. That eventuality, though, is based on the idea that markets self-correct intelligently, which we know from the 1990s isn’t true. If search advertising is bubbling upward, all three channels will benefit from continually rising prices.

Hope for Yahoo!'s AdSense Alternative (Tuesday, March 15, 03:31 PM EST)

My thoughts about Yahoo!’s opportunity to compete with Google’s AdSense being based on creating a higher quality networks, and being more open with Webmasters about the business arrangement, seems to be reflected in the hopes of marketers. In particular, the hope for a higher-quality ad network is on people’s minds. Google’s AdSense has steadily dropped in prestige among advertisers and marketers, many of whom feel that much of the far-flung content network is nearly worthless as an advertising venue. Other marketers feel that contextual advertising can be salvaged, but only with special handling and distinct tracking. This all adds up to a credibility gap that Yahoo! can jump into. Creation of a tighter syndication network that truly adds value and scope to an Overture campaign would give Yahoo! a leg up. The stakes remain unclear, since no company breaks out its revenue numbers for contextual advertising. But it must be worth something, or Yahoo! would not be considering entering the field. The hope is that Yahoo! will sacrifice the volume of Google’s come-on-come-all approach for higher quality.

Yahoo! Messenger to Be Bundled in Blackberry (Monday, March 14, 12:35 PM EST)

Yahoo! has struck an eminently sensible deal in which Yahoo! Messenger, the company’s popular IM system, will be preloaded onto the Blackberry. There is no better fit between an IM company and a wireless provider than Y!M and Blackberry. The arrengement is not exclusive; other IM systems might also find their way to the Blackberry desktop.

Yahoo! Toolbar (IE) Adds Auto-Detect of RSS Feeds (Monday, March 14, 11:58 AM EST)

The Mozilla version of Yahoo! Toolbar has had this feature, and now the Yahoo!-created version for IE also automitcally detects RSS feed links on a page, and offers a one-click method of installing that feed on your My Yahoo! page.

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