Only now AOL trying to reach Yahoo & Google Standards, will AOL lead the competition? :eek:

Only now AOL trying to reach Yahoo & Google Standards, will AOL lead the competition? :eek:
I am not sure about that…
My personal opinion is that AOL has the knowledge & experience to compete in the SEO battle.
Let’s see what really happens…probably soon!
:cool:

So long as they continue source thier database and algo from Google it seems that they are keeping up with Google pretty well but are not very likely to surpass them.

AOL could ship their forth-coming desktop search in the same way they ship their dread AOL browser. There are some perks in being an ISP. Over all, though, I agree with you. AOL can't compete that strongly while it takes results from Google.

AOL - and A9 too - can catch up and run side by side with Google, though. It'll be interesting then if either decide to pull free.

AOL will always be a player in an aspect, and will always be in the "search" category. I do feel that they will eventually split from addwords once they figure out a clever way to promote their engine.

AOL could ship their forth-coming desktop search in the same way they ship their dread AOL browser. There are some perks in being an ISP. Over all, though, I agree with you. AOL can't compete that strongly while it takes results from Google.

AOL - and A9 too - can catch up and run side by side with Google, though. It'll be interesting then if either decide to pull free.

A9 maybe, but AOL has ways to go. Putting that advertisement/"suggest" tool in the search bar has only brought annoyance.

AOL will always be a player in an aspect, and will always be in the "search" category. I do feel that they will eventually split from addwords once they figure out a clever way to promote their engine.
I have done some work with the people at AOL and I really think they are happy outsourcing this income stream to Google.
This way they can go back to basics and provide the services that got them there in the first place.
AOL is about access and content. They have a long way to go with the adaption of the new open platform.
If I was in the planning department I would gladly let Google do this part and really become the portal everyone uses.
In the open web they can get back all the people who dropped them when broadband came along. They figure they will make much more than the $10 per person they charged to backdoor in through CPM and all other forms of advertising they are developing.
AutoTrader is paying a huge monthly to have that vertical.

I really think they are happy outsourcing this income stream to Google.
Agreed Frank, but AOL has in numerous occasions (espacially at the SES conferences) mentioned that although Google powers thier search, they do add in their own secret ingredient to be different than just displaying what they feed from Google. If I recall correctly, I believe they've also mentioned that they re-rank what Google feeds them based on their own ranking algorithm. Here is a good example of what I'm taking about:

Mexican food (http://search.aol.com/aolcom/search?query=mexican+food) in AOL Search
Mexican food (http://www.google.com/search?q=mexican+food) in Google

I will not be surprised if AOL decides to build their own search engine and go at it on their own (as Yahoo! and MSN have done). After all, latest reports show that AOL with 9% has the largest market share in terms of query volume after the BIG 3's websites or network of websites. It would be a natural approach.

Take the SES NYC 2005 Search Convergance (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4470) session as another example to show AOL's energy and motivation to do things different and better for their users when it comes to "search".

I would love to see another search engine go live. We are so fortunate to see in our lifetime these transitions. It's almost like the Halley's Comet passing by and we should not take it for granted.

Agreed Frank, but AOL has in numerous occasions (espacially at the SES conferences) mentioned that although Google powers thier search, they do add in their own secret ingredient to be different than just displaying what they feed from Google. If I recall correctly, I believe they've also mentioned that they re-rank what Google feeds them based on their own ranking algorithm. Here is a good example of what I'm taking about:

Mexican food (http://search.aol.com/aolcom/search?query=mexican+food) in AOL Search
Mexican food (http://www.google.com/search?q=mexican+food) in Google

I will not be surprised if AOL decides to build their own search engine and go at it on their own (as Yahoo! and MSN have done). After all, latest reports show that AOL with 9% has the largest market share in terms of query volume after the BIG 3's websites or network of websites. It would be a natural approach.

Take the SES NYC 2005 Search Convergance (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4470) session as another example to show AOL's energy and motivation to do things different and better for their users when it comes to "search".

I would love to see another search engine go live. We are so fortunate to see in our lifetime these transitions. It's almost like the Halley's Comet passing by and we should not take it for granted.
Nacho I agree with this side of it but I do not see them doing much more as they really want to concentrate on the publishing side and not dilute the effort.
They will make a stronger effort by selling the rebounding impressions of banners etc. than try to go to PPC.
Forever, no-one can say but for the near future they are not in the mix.

Forever, no-one can say but for the near future they are not in the mix.
Yup, only time will tell.

I admit I am pretty negative on AOL since its inception.

I urge my friends and customers away from AOL.

Anyway, I was speaking to a "big dog" in the algorithms area of SERPS and he says that the one to watch out for is MSN. AOL will not very likely be able to compete even if they make a sizeable investment in talent. It's a pretty closed community.

I head up a worldwide volunteer association of family genealogists (mostly senior ciitzens) and AOL has been a thorn in my side from the very beginning some four years ago.

I will not take up time here to relate the horror stories fed to me by others in my position via the administrator pages at Rootsweb and Ancestry.com just to name two. Instead, I will relate my own personal experiences in just the past 18 months.

1. AOL subscribers cannot join my organization's Yahoo Group sites unless they leave AOL completely and use Explorer to register. Using AOL, they cannot obtain a YahooID! and keep their present AOL address and thus cannot complete registeration.

2. AOL failed to provide security for their accounts and last fall out of 20 AOL subscribers in my organization, during all that horror on the Web, five had to buy new computers, four had to buy new harddrives (and lost all their files including ones they had worked on for decades--irreplaceable files containing tens of thousands of genealogy records), four had to do complete system re-installs and reformats. Today, there are nine AOL subscribers left.

3. AOL announced two weeks ago that they were abandoning their South American operation completely, that it was in such sad financial shape that no one would consent to allowing them into bankruptcy court simply because there is nothing of value left.

4. You cannot copy-and-paste returns from their a9 search engine. You CANNOT COPY a9 search results!!

5. AOL told one of our members that her rural node contact for them was not profitable, so they were discontinuing it and that she could still use AOL by calling in long distance.

6. AOl told one of our members that she would be unable to receive a 250K file from our organization because AOL can't accept files that large for her.

7. WINAMP as recently as eight months ago was still the leading MP3 player. A week ago, AOL announced it was firing 700 of the WINAMP personnel on board when it bought that company about a year ago. Reviewers now advise to not download the player, that it is buggy and a ready source of Trojans.

8. USA TODAY news story about two months ago related that AOL had lost 400,000 customers as a result of the Fall problems.

9. Time-Warner has cut AOL adrift. There is no AOL/Time-Warner anymore.

10. My members complain all the time about rude or unknowledgeable AOL tech staff.

11. This new On-line telephone service they are touting? It is available at roughly a 29 percent surcharge over the combined costs of everything that accomplishes the same thing without AOL.

12. Most of AOL's customers appear to be senior citizens and I have read accounts of the children of these senior citizens having to get into shouting matches with AOL billing over bills mounting into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars based on standard service usage. Some are talking class-action lawsuits against AOL as being a senior-citizen predator.

My take on AOL? They won't be around very much longer. :(

I head up a worldwide volunteer association of family genealogists (mostly senior ciitzens) and AOL has been a thorn in my side from the very beginning some four years ago.

I will not take up time here to relate the horror stories fed to me by others in my position via the administrator pages at Rootsweb and Ancestry.com just to name two. Instead, I will relate my own personal experiences in just the past 18 months.

1. AOL subscribers cannot join my organization's Yahoo Group sites unless they leave AOL completely and use Explorer to register. Using AOL, they cannot obtain a YahooID! and keep their present AOL address and thus cannot complete registeration.

2. AOL failed to provide security for their accounts and last fall out of 20 AOL subscribers in my organization, during all that horror on the Web, five had to buy new computers, four had to buy new harddrives (and lost all their files including ones they had worked on for decades--irreplaceable files containing tens of thousands of genealogy records), four had to do complete system re-installs and reformats. Today, there are nine AOL subscribers left.

3. AOL announced two weeks ago that they were abandoning their South American operation completely, that it was in such sad financial shape that no one would consent to allowing them into bankruptcy court simply because there is nothing of value left.

4. You cannot copy-and-paste returns from their a9 search engine. You CANNOT COPY a9 search results!!

5. AOL told one of our members that her rural node contact for them was not profitable, so they were discontinuing it and that she could still use AOL by calling in long distance.

6. AOl told one of our members that she would be unable to receive a 250K file from our organization because AOL can't accept files that large for her.

7. WINAMP as recently as eight months ago was still the leading MP3 player. A week ago, AOL announced it was firing 700 of the WINAMP personnel on board when it bought that company about a year ago. Reviewers now advise to not download the player, that it is buggy and a ready source of Trojans.

8. USA TODAY news story about two months ago related that AOL had lost 400,000 customers as a result of the Fall problems.

9. Time-Warner has cut AOL adrift. There is no AOL/Time-Warner anymore.

10. My members complain all the time about rude or unknowledgeable AOL tech staff.

11. This new On-line telephone service they are touting? It is available at roughly a 29 percent surcharge over the combined costs of everything that accomplishes the same thing without AOL.

12. Most of AOL's customers appear to be senior citizens and I have read accounts of the children of these senior citizens having to get into shouting matches with AOL billing over bills mounting into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars based on standard service usage. Some are talking class-action lawsuits against AOL as being a senior-citizen predator.

My take on AOL? They won't be around very much longer. :(
They are not going anywhere, though they maybe cutting away access points and switch to just being a portal. Their most profitable areas of membership have been eroded by cable.
Thye will not stop offering email and AIM which is still very popular and is used by people after they have left the ISP side of the company.
They are not going away, just readapting to the environment.