IndustryThe Search Engine Update – Number 218 – April 4, 2006

The Search Engine Update - Number 218 - April 4, 2006

Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan's recap of top search engine stories from the second half of March 2006.

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THE SEARCH ENGINE UPDATE
April 4, 2006 – Number 218

By Danny Sullivan
Editor-In-Chief, Search Engine Watch
Copyright (c) 2006 Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC

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In This Issue
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+ SES: Forward Planning & SEW Live!
+ Elisabeth Osmeloski Named SEW’s Managing Editor
+ Top Stories
+ More From The Search Engine Watch Blog
+ Daily SearchCast: Search News Via Podcast
+ Our Search Newsletters & Feeds
+ About The Newsletter

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Elisabeth Osmeloski Named SEW’s Managing Editor
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I’m happy to announce that Elisabeth Osmeloski, our hard-working SEW Forums editor, is now taking on the expanded role of being Search Engine Watch’s managing editor.

Elisabeth will continue to oversee the day-to-day operations of the SEW Forums, as she’s been doing since they launched in June 2004. However, she’ll now be helping me revitalize and maintain the Search Engine Watch site overall.

In particular, we’re looking to ensure we keep more of our primer material fresh to help those new to search marketing, while also making changes to ensure that the many things SEW offers — forum discussions, archived information, current news, original coverage — is more easily accessible to those coming to the site.

It’s great to have Elisabeth coming on in the new role! Elisabeth’s promotion hasn’t yet been posted to our staff page, but that will happen shortly.

I should also mention that Chris Sherman and I had title changes last month. Chris, formerly SEW’s associate editor, became the site’s executive editor. He continues to carry on with overseeing SearchDay and working with me on the site’s overall editorial direction and coverage. My title shifted from editor to editor-in-chief, and I continue to be responsible for the site overall.

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SES: Forward Planning & SEW Live!
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Missed SES New York, SES China or SES Germany this year? Not to worry — we have more events coming up in the next few months!

April sees SES Japan, SES Italy and SES Toronto happening. Chris and I can’t make every show, so we won’t be at the first two. But we will be in Toronto. Chris has organized that event, and I’ll be doing a keynote for it. Also just announced is Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Ask, to keynote SES Italy.

In May, our Search Engine Watch Live! event happens in Seattle. This is a low-cost, half-day information and networking event. We have two panels and lots of time for search marketers in the area to talk informally. I’ll be there, as will SEW managing editor Elisabeth Osmeloski who is organizing the event. Local guest speakers from the greater Seattle-area include Jennifer Slegg, Rand Fishkin and Heather Lloyd Martin. More details are available here.

At the end of May, May 31 through June 2, SES London happens. It’s our longest-running non-US event and the first to expand to three days. Then in July, SES Latino happens in Miami, our first event targeting the US Hispanic and Latin American market.

August sees our regular SES event return to the US. SES San Jose happens early in the month, and my timeline on when you can expect that agenda is posted here.

Doing forward planning beyond this? See the Search Engine Strategies site and also keep an eye on the Search Engine Strategies Blog. News of our SES Local Edition event in Denver this September and our SES Multimedia Edition event in LA in October will be up shortly.

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Top Stories
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Below is a recap of major articles from our daily SearchDay newsletter and important Search Engine Watch Blog postings since the last newsletter. Want to receive these stories daily or via RSS/feed? See the Search Engine Watch Newsletters & Web Feeds page for sign-up instructions.

=== Apr. 4, 2006 ===

AdWords Adds Position Preference Feature; Opt-Out For Positions You Don’t Like – News from our Search Engine Watch Forums that Google is rolling out a new “Position Preference” feature allowing advertisers more ability to control where exactly their ads will appear. It’s important to understand that the feature doesn’t guarantee or spot or helps get you a better chance at one. Instead, think of it as “opt out” for positions you don’t want.

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Putting Search in the Ad Mix – Search advertising used to be an afterthought, but now search has become a fundamental part of the overall advertising strategy of most major brands.

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The Thrill & Danger Of Measuring Relevancy Through Ego Searches – Last week, you may recall that Ask got a rave review from the Wall Street Journal. Robert Scoble saw that, then did an ego search for himself and decided Ask doesn’t measure up based on that. Fair criticism? Sure, to some degree. But then again, it’s easy to take a single search for anything and show that any of the “leaders” in search have problems, as well. See also Ask.com Gets Good Mossberg Review in WSJ.

=== Apr. 3, 2006 ===

Trust Me, I’m A Jedi Scientist — Those Aren’t The Fraudulent Clicks You Were Looking For – Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells Bloomberg to trust him, as a computer scientist, Google can stop those bad clicks. See also: Adware Said To Generate Fake Clicks On Yahoo Search Marketing Ads.

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AOL Enhances Mobile Search, Announces Study Results – AOL has added several new features to its mobile search service, and has also released the findings of a recent mobile lifestyle survey. See also: MSN Local Adds Send To Mobile Phone Feature.

=== Mar. 31, 2006 ===

Google’s New Local Business Ads – Google has launched Local Business Ads, a new feature that lets advertisers put their ads — complete with logos — on maps within Google Local as well as elsewhere on Google. See also: How To Add Your Local Business Ad In Google AdWords.

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Search Engines Forum Spotlight – Links to the week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: Who Cares If Google’s A Portal – Local Search Still Not Cutting the Mustard – Private Search Engines Explored – Anyone Checking Out ecomXpo? – XHTML and SEO – Ask and PPC Advertising, and more.

=== Mar. 30, 2006 ===

Trademark Protection, Copyright and Search Engines – What do you do when someone is playing fast and loose with your intellectual property online? A panel of legal experts offer suggestions for a range of potential scenarios.

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The Google Portal – Last week’s launch of Google Finance revived the entire “Is Google A Portal” question. I previously wrote in my article on how I saw Google Finance as being closer to Google’s search mission than some other products it has launched. Still, Google’s got plenty of other things that firmly put them into the “stealth portal” or “Portal 2.0” category for me. But does it matter if Google’s a portal? One reader recently asked me this. Maybe not; maybe so, especially given their own denials. A further look at that, plus some related commentary around the web.

=== Mar. 29, 2006 ===

Ask.com’s New Motto: Be Evil? – Coverage of Danny Sullivan’s keynote conversation with Barry Diller at Search Engine Strategies conference, continued from yesterday’s Danny Sullivan Asks Barry Diller article.

=== Apr. 4, 2006 ===

Clear Channel Radio Signs Exclusive Deal With Google to Provide Search And Ads – Niall Kennedy informed me of a Reuters report that Clear Channel Communications has signed a deal for Google to provide search, paid search service (AdWords) and even contextual text ads (AdSense) in the future. These services are to be deployed across Clear Channel Communication’s radio station Web sites.

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Yahoo My Web 2.0 Enhancements Coming Wednesday Night – The Yahoo My Web blog warns us of an upgrade to Yahoo My Web. The upgrade is to take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 8 pm PDT. During that time, the services will be offline for the time it takes to upgrade, but they do promise us to “introduce some exciting new features.” I am pretty interested in seeing what Yahoo is going to be adding.

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Yahoo Finance Adds Message Board Ratings – Reuters reports that Yahoo Finance has released thread ratings to its stock message boards. Thread ratings is a fairly basic feature of most standard message board software systems, and is a very nice touch to add here….[MORE”

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Ballbug Tracks Baseball Buzz; Introduced By Memeorandum.com – Gabe Rivera from memeorandum.com announces Ballbug.com, which summarizes baseball news from across the web.

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Stupid Newspaper Publishers, Search Engines Are Your Friends – I left newspaper reporting about ten years ago because it was clear the industry had no idea how to transition to an online world, and I didn’t want to be stuck behind. Today’s Chicago Tribune article, Papers, Web sites in scrape on stories, just tells me things don’t appear to have improved much. Search engines, including Google, get a fresh dose of being leeches for using content….[MORE”

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Google Related Links Now Out; Challenges Yahoo’s Year-Old Y!Q LinksGoogle Related Links is a new service that puts a little box on your page where Google analyzes the content to show related searches, news and web pages to your visitors….[MORE”

=== Apr. 3, 2006 ===

The Future Of AdWords For TV? – No, it’s not search. No, Google’s not connected or even rumored to be involved with this company. But See Spot Run from BusinessWeek caught my eye. It’s about a start-up company called Spot Runner that does quality local TV commercials for small businesses. Pick your industry, do a quick cheap modification to a commercial template, then run your ad on cable stations in your local area. The story felt a lot like how small businesses initially got into paid search through programs from Overture/Yahoo and Google. Now that Google’s doing radio ads, this model feels a lot like how it or other search players might go into video and TV ads.

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Just How Accurate Is The Google Zeitgeist? Accuracy of Google Zeitgeist over at our Search Engine Watch Forums is a nice “what gives” about some oddities in the international version of the Google Zeitgeist, where it gives you a rundown on search behavior in various countries. For instance, why is viagra so hot in Singapore — and why do links from the Zeitgeist actually bring up Google South Africa?….[MORE”

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Review Of Online Feed Reading Services The State of Online Feed Readers over at TechCrunch has Frank Gruber taking a look at several online feed reading services, along with a big hunking chart o’ features….[MORE”

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Baidu, Google Dominate Chinese Search Market – A new report from iResearch finds that Baidu and Google combined have a 90 percent market share of the Chinese search space….[MORE”. See also: China Search Market Usage To Expect Decline In Growth.

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Nofollow Not Meant For Every External LinkNoFollow Nastiness – a Big Boo for Google! is a nice look at Threadwatch on how some people are making use of the nofollow attribute as a way to prevent link love from going to resources that many might say deserve it….[MORE”

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Deleted Gmail Account? Kiss Your Email Goodbye! – Worried that the government’s going to force Google to hand over your email? Fret not. Just delete your account. Do that, and it’s gone forever, as some people are finding out….[MORE”

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Selling Google’s Ads The World According to Google from Sales & Marketing Management magazine talks to various execs from the Moneyplex, Google’s sales side, about pitching their wares….[MORE”

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April Fool’s Day 2006 & Search – A round-up of Saturday’s April Fool’s Madness in the search world….[MORE”

=== Mar. 31, 2006 ===

Three New Microsoft Search Patent Applications – Gary Price reports on three new Microsoft patent applications that were published yesterday. One on spam, the others on advertising….[MORE”

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RPA Awarded By Both Google & Yahoo For Paid Search Innovation – AdWeek reports that ad agency, RPA, has been awarded awards from both Google and Yahoo for paid search innovation early this month….[MORE”

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More On Google Health & Bosworth’s Involvement – Philipp Lenssen writes of an anonymous source that tells him Google has a project named “Google Health.” Google Health supposedly building out specialized vertical search solutions for health and medical searches….[MORE”

=== Mar. 30, 2006 ===

Dulance Dies, While StreetPrices Has Cool Product Tree View – The Dulance shopping search engine seems to be gone while long-standing StreetPrices might e worth another look….[MORE”

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Justice Department Subpoenas Data From 34 Others Companies – Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL are not the only ones subpoenaed to give over their data to the government. InformationWeek reports 34 other companies were also asked to hand over the goods….[MORE”

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Keyword Trademark Infringement Case To Go To Court – In what may be a first time case, two competitor will square off over one purchasing the trademark of another.

=== Mar. 29, 2006 ===

Google Reaches Definitive Agreement To Buy 5% Stake In AOL – Reuters reports that Google has finally reached an agreement with AOL to buy a 5% stake in the company….[MORE”. See also: Google To Issue 5.3 Million Additional Shares.

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Search Advertising Spend Grows 79% In UK – ClickZ reports that search advertising spend grew 79 percent to B#768 million ($1.3 billion) during 2005….[MORE”

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Yahoo Japan To Buy Japan Net Bank To Better Enable Online Commerce – Yahoo Japan reportedly is going to close a deal with Japan Net Bank, owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, as early as the end of this week. Yahoo Japan is looking to buy a 57 percent stake in Japan Net Bank. The rational is to increase its ability to better offer payment services for its online auctions and shopping services.

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Yahoo Search Index Update & Increased Slurp Activity Expected – The Yahoo blog announced yesterday that there was a new index update this past weekend….[MORE”

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Matt Cutts Offers Q & A On Recent Google Questions – Matt Cutts posted a blog entry yesterday answering some of the questions he have received over and over again in regards to the “Big Daddy” update, supplemental results issues, the RK value and some other questions. Here are some pulled from Matt’s blog….[MORE”

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MSN Live Search Adds “Search Macros” – The MSN Search Blog last night announced that they have released a new search feature named “Search Macros.” Search Macros are methods of building an advanced search query and saving that query for later in your search bar….[MORE”

=== Mar. 28, 2006 ===

Ballmer: My Kids Are Banned From Google – I’ve got to hand it to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. He believes in his products enough to demand family loyalty. In an interview with Fortune, he tells the magazine his kids can’t use Google….[MORE”

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Daily SearchCast: Search News Via Podcast
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Want to keep up with the latest in search news while you’re on the go? Try our podcast, The Daily SearchCast. It’s a 10-15 minute recap of the previous day’s news. How to tune-in?

  • Subscribe to our main SEW Blog feed, and you’ll receive the podcasts automatically when we alert readers to them each day.
  • Subscribe to our special podcast feed, and you’ll receive an alert only about new podcasts that we’ve posted.
  • Tune into WebmasterRadio.FM, where we go out live at 11:30am Eastern and then repeat at 2pm Eastern. The show archive at WebmasterRadio is here.
  • Listen via our Odeo channel, where it’s easy to see our past shows and hear them by using little play buttons right within your browser.
  • Listen online or subscribe for MP3 player downloads via our Yahoo Podcasts channel.
  • Listen via iTunes 4.9 or higher. Click here and you should find the show will load automatically in iTunes, if you have it installed. If not, then see further instructions here.

Here are the last two days’ worth of shows:

You can find all shows from previous days listed on the Daily SearchCast home page. Just select any file to download it and listed on your computer or digital audio device.

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Our Search Newsletters & Feeds
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News each day, throughout the day, alerts of new discussion threads from our Search Engine Watch Forums and more — we have a newsletter or feed that covers all of these. See our Search Engine Newsletters & Web Feeds for a full rundown on everything we offer, as well as special buttons to let you subscribe via news readers such as Rojo, My MSN, Bloglines, Feedster, Newsgator, Pluck and My Yahoo. Thanks to FeedBurner for providing our feed tracking and management services!

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About The Search Engine Update
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The Search Engine Update is a twice-monthly update of search engine news. It is available only to Search Engine Watch members. Please note that long URLs may break into two lines in some mail readers. Cut and paste, should this occur.

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