Highlights from the SEW Blog: July 30, 2007

By Kevin Newcomb, Search Engine Watch, Jul 30, 2007

We've collected all the search marketing news from selected posts to the Search Engine Watch blog in the past week, along with recent search-related headlines from around the Web.

From the SEW blog:

Organic Search

• Google Now Implementing "unavailable_after" Meta Tag
  Today at the Google Blog, product manager Dan Crow formally introduced the "unavailable_after" meta tag, which can be used to identify a temporary page with a set shelf life.
• Intent and Extent
  The premise is that there are a variety of tactics that are perceived to be spammy. However, there is general agreement that for nearly every tactic associated with black hat behavior, there are also scenarios where the same tactic might be used on your site in a legitimate manner.
• Matt Cutts Calls For Webmaster Central Features Ideas
  Matt has received over a thousand responses in under 24 hours and the news has not even been fully disseminated yet.
• SEW Experts: Quarterly Site Review: MDC Wallcoverings
  Mark Jackson examines a reader-submitted Web site, suggesting how it can be optimized.

Search Advertising

• Microsoft Committed to Advertising Success
  At its annual Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond yesterday, Microsoft laid out its plans to succeed on multiple fronts, including advertising and mobile devices.
• AdSense Offers Help For Forum Marketing
  Inside AdSense, the Google blog dedicated to information about their publishing advertising product, posted an article "Getting your forum site to perform well with AdSense" today.
• Click Quality Council Holds First Steering Committee Meeting
  With over 20 people in attendance to this webinar meeting, representatives from Google and the IAB spoke with the committee about elements of click fraud.
• SEW Experts: Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors
  Eric Enge shows you why you might want to broaden your horizons beyond Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with your PPC campaigns.
• Yahoo Europe Beta Testing PPC Quality Score Ranking
  Yahoo has begun upgrading advertisers to the new system and will continue to do so in waves to ensure a smooth transition to the new system.
• SEW Experts: Do You Really Need to Overhaul Your Landing Pages?
  Tony Wright tells you how to determine whether or not it's really necessary to spend the summer doldrums tweaking landing pages.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• SEW Experts: 7 Tips for Training Link Developers
  Justilien Gaspard offers 7 tips for training link developers that range from promoting creativity to teaching negotiation tactics.
• How To Determine What A Link Passes
  Aaron Wall over at SEOBook wrote a great overview article the other day about how to see if a link passes "Reputation / Authority / Equity / Juice / etc..."
• Digg Goes with Microsoft for Ads
  Social media site Digg has entered a deal with Microsoft to sell and serve display and contextual text ads on Digg, and to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives. The move displaces Federated Media and Google.
• Hot Site Facebook's CEO Accused Of Stealing Idea
  Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, will discover next week whether he faces legal action for claims he stole the idea for the $1bn website.

Analytics & ROI

• New Report from WebAnalyticsDemystified
  WebAnalyticsDemystified has released an important new report titled: The Problem with Free Web Analytics.
• Web Analytics Shootout: Unica's Affinium NetInsight
  Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting (and SEW Expert and blogger), continues his 2007 Web Analytics Shootout series with a review of Unica’s Affinium NetInsight Web analytics package.

Local & Mobile Search

• Business.com Acquired by Yellow Pages Publisher
  Print and online Yellow Pages publisher R.H. Donnelley Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Business.com for $345 million.
• SEW Experts: Don't be a Local-Yokel — Enhance Your Local Business Listings
  Carrie Hill shows you how to enhance your local listings in Google Maps and Yahoo Local to bring more traffic to your site.
• SEW Experts: Turning Local Inside Out
  Kevin Ryan takes a look at what local search looks like today, and why one-stop technology and search providers have an advantage over the big sales forces and more heavily regulated telephone directory advertising.
• Superpages Launches Local Video Ads
  Idearc's Superpages has launched a beta trial of local video ads on its yellow pages directory.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• SEW Experts: Pimp My Vertical Search
  Michael Boland tells you about the future of local search in a verticalized world. See how Vehix uses the strength of video advertising and online search to give consumers local search on steroids and advertisers better direct response.
• Internet TV Startup Veoh Networks Names ex-Yahoo Mitgang as CEO
  Veoh Networks, an Internet TV startup that launched in February, has named former Yahoo SVP Steve Mitgang as CEO.
• ClickSurge's New Content Widget To Monetize Traffic Adds Pixsy Image Search
  MediaRiver's ClickSurge, a relatively new entry into the content monetization industry, has partnered with Pixsy to help add image search to publishing sites.

Small Business/Big Brand SEM

• Brand Owners Unite Against Domain Squatters
  A group of big-name brand owners has teamed up to form CADNA: the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: Look After Your Brand and Your Brand Will Look After You
  New In-House columnist Rob Kerry explains that an in-house SEO's work doesn't stop with optimizing page elements. He tells you how to put out fires before they spread by defending your brand.

SEM Industry Issues

• Nominate Now - ClickZ's Decade of Achievement Awards
  We want you to weigh in on the 10 companies, products, services and people who have made the greatest contribution to interactive marketing and advertising (including search, of course).
• Can the Search Marketing Industry Grow Up Fast Enough?
  The search marketing industry is immature, both in the sense that nearly all the players are under 10 years old, and in the way partnerships are created and maintained, according to Did-It's Kevin Lee.
• Behavioral Targeting Trots Along
  Search is essentially a direct marketing vehicle, text-based and sold in a CPC economy. BT is essentially a branding vehicle, banner-based and sold in a CPM world. So why does BT matter to searchers?
• Microsoft Wants an Ad Exchange Too
  Not to be left out of the ad exchange party, Microsoft plans to acquire AdECN, an online ad exchange similar to Right Media (acquired by Yahoo) and DoubleClick's (soon to be acquired by Google).
• Search and Affiliates Coming to London
  Search Engine Strategies and Affiliates4U.com will host a one-day SES Forum at the A4U Expo coming to London in October.
• Ask Adds AskEraser To Maintain User Privacy, Microsoft Joins Them To Evolve Privacy Procedures
  Microsoft and Ask.com are proposing that leading search providers, online advertising companies and privacy advocates convene to engage in an active dialogue to discuss privacy considerations.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Search Wikia Launches Open Source, Distributed Crawler
  Wikia, the commercial site led by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is taking the next step toward launching its open source, human-assisted Web search tool, Search Wikia.
• iRazoo: Human-Powered Search Engine With Prizes
  Incentivized search is not new, but it usually was a bogus engine asking people to click and share some minor income. The newly launched engine iRazoo seems to be a different model (not unique), though it has some initial detractors.

More from the SEW Blog

• New Look, New Awards
  We've updated the look and feel, and hopefully made both SEW and ClickZ (along with their respective newsletters) more usable and navigable.
• Interview with Robert Scoble
  Eric Enge talks with the uber-blogger about dealing with information overload, what's hot in social media, Facebook, whether or not Google can be beaten at the search game, and what Yahoo! and Microsoft should do with their strategies.
• Is DMOZ Delisting Sites Up For Sale?
  There is a discussion going on at DigitalPoint that suggests DMOZ is delisting sites they find to be for sale.
• Yahoo Names Former Microsoft SVP To Board of Directors
  Maggie Wilderotter, former senior vice president at Microsoft, was named to the Yahoo Board of Directors. She is currently the CEO of Citizens Communications.
• Google Earth Catches Chinese Sub, May Hurt With China Relations
  Google, like the internet in general, has a delicate relationship with the Chinese government, and this latest blunder will impact it.
• 17% of marketers buy ads in return for news coverage
  According to a survey from PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee Marketing, 17% of senior marketers say their companies have bought advertising in return for a news story.

Search Headlines

We report the top search marketing news daily at the Search Engine Watch Blog. You'll find more news from around the Web below.

• ComScore and Nielsen Broaden the Metrics Game, ClickZ
• Search, Advertising, Privacy, and You, ClickZ
• Ad Quality And User Experience: Interview With Google’s Nick Fox And Diane Chang, Search Engine Land
• Is Google on Crack?, I, Cringely
• Your Searches Are Worth Billions, Compete Blog
• Lookery, the Facebook advertising network…with lots of data, Venture Beat
• Another Box Labeled "Google Promotion", Google Blogoscoped
• Why This Search Marketer Expects More from Ask’s Ads, Marketing Pilgrim
• Make the Time to Network with the Search Community, SEM In-House Blog
• Paul Levine Has Left the Building, Kelsey Group
• SEM Theory: Shaping Search-related Theory, SEO Theory
• 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally, 10e20
• What’s the Customer’s ROI?, SiteLogic
• The 5 year nap theory and Gut Instinct, Domain King
• Eric Schmidt's summer of public policy, Google Public Policy blog
• The Tyranny of the Common Name, Powerset blog
• Are Your Visitors Searching for Your Products?, GrokDotCom
• Free Web Analytics tools cost you in other ways, Web Metrics Guru
• Technorati is a poor source of blog ranking data …, Web Analytics Demystified
• Q&A with Google's VP of Marketing, Business Week
• Search Engine Marketing and Advertising - What does the future hold?, E-Gain