Highlights from the SEW Blog: February 25-29, 2008

By Kevin Newcomb, Search Engine Watch, Mar 3, 2008

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

• Yahoo Lagging on Indexing Sites?
  Yahoo has had good conversion numbers for many of us, and if the efforts to add more content are not being recognized by Yahoo then time may be better spent improving existing pages.
• Google Yahoo MSN Live Sitemaps: Cross-Hosting Grokked by SEOs for SEOs
  With sitemaps cross-hosting (or cross-submission), Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft cracked open the door for corporations to outsource search engine optimization.
• SEW Experts: Drowning in Red Tape: SEO and Pharma Regulations
  In many industries, regulatory issues can add considerable complexity to an SEO implementation. The challenge is not to let that complexity get in the way of a campaign's success.
• Matt Cutts' Google NoIndex Discussion Gets Interesting
  The ongoing discussion of the ways you can stop search engines from indexing specified pages and the use of the noindex meta tag was the topic of Matt Cutts blog the other day.
• SEW Experts: Global SEO Strategy: Advanced Search for Large Enterprises
  Many companies have chosen to expand overseas with the growing global economy. With this, each multinational must develop a search marketing strategy for each new international market, which also fits into a holistic global search strategy.
• SEW Experts: SEO Site Clinic: American Express
  You might expect large companies to adhere to basic best practices in SEO, usability and accessibility. But you'd be wrong.

Search Advertising

• Yahoo Changes Minimum Bid Policy on Search Ads
  Instead of setting all minimum bids at $0.10, Yahoo will now allow the market to set a variable minimum bid.
• Google Content Network Ads Performing Better?
  Many agencies that advertise on Google's content network have seen improved results over the past six months.
• Many See AdSense Income Dropping
  We've been hearing and reading a lot of reports about decreased income from AdSense.
• SEW Experts: Google AdWords Contextual Advertising Mystery Solved
  Readers have tried running placement-targeted campaigns, and found many AdSense publisher sites don't seem to be available to them. David Szetela shares a way to work around issues with Google's discovery tool.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• 7 Ways Brands Can "Get Social"
  Many brands are wary of exposing themselves on social media sites, but as anyone who's been involved in social media for more than five minutes knows, they're too late.
• SEO Shenanigans Bury Digg, Trip StumbleUpon, Poison Delicio.us?
  Steve Rubel comes out against "SEO shenanigans" and their corruption of social media in his Micropersuasion blog.

Local & Mobile Search

• Kelsey Group Predicts Growth in Interactive, Directional Ads
  Interactive advertising revenue in the U.S. will grow from $22.5 billion in 2007 to $62.4 billion by 2012, according to a new Kelsey Group report.
• Google Maps User Reviews to Neighborhoods
  Google Maps and Google Earth are teaming up to provide User Reviews and refinement by Neighborhood in local search results.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• Google News UK Sorting News Without Bias?
  Can the flap of a butterfly's wings in the Googleplex set off a tornado in the top UK news and media sites?
• Hilary Clinton Accused of Obama Turban Warfare in Universal Search
  Blended search - the combination of the universal searches for Obama turban photo, Barack Obama news stories, YouTube Obama Girl videos and buzz-worthy blogs have created a political firestorm ignited by Internet search.
• Flickr photo sharing awards for SES London 2008
  Search Engine Strategies London wrapped up last week and the 2,000 attendees have returned to work with a new understanding of how Google's universal search is incorporating images as well as videos, news, maps, books, and websites into a single set of results.

Small Business/Big Brand SEM

• "Googlewash" Is Googlewashed by Online Reputation Defenders
  Googlewashing now appears to be the domain of online reputation management companies.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEMPO Running Agency Salary Survey
  Having successfully completed an in-house search marketers' salary survey, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization is conducting an online salary survey of agency-based search marketers.
• SEW Experts: Online SEO Training Options
  There are both benefits and drawbacks to taking an online SEO training course.

SEM Industry Issues

• SEW Experts: Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now
  The question comes up often in search marketing circles: Is now the time for search engine marketing standards?
• The Google Killer - ComScore Doomsday Scenario
  ComScore did what Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and Digg only dreamed of. ComScore killed the search engine star.
• SEW Experts: Google is an Optimist. Newspapers are Pessimists.
  The Internet is a speeding freight train. If newspapers, and for that matter all traditional media, don't begin immediately to think drastically different, the train will pass them by.
• Media Spend on Search, Verticals, Continues to Grow
  Search made up 31 percent of the $735 million in media billings in 2007 by Microsoft-owned Avenue A | Razorfish, second only to ads on vertical sites at 39 percent of spending.
• How It Came To This: Virals vs. Microsoft
  Microsoft's Kevin Johnson e-mailed his team detailing Microsoft's interest in the Yahoo merger, and the benefits the company and its employees will gain if the deal goes through.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Would Ask be Ask?
  If Ask dismantled its Teoma engine, would Ask still be Ask? The simple answer to this existential question is no.
• Yahoo to Allow Publishers to Improve its Search Results
  In another move toward openness, Yahoo is creating a platform to allow site owners to create plug-ins that its visitors can add to their Yahoo search accounts to see enhanced listings from that publisher in Yahoo Web search results.
• Yahoo Buzz Launches
  Yahoo, in desperate need of good buzz these days, today launched Yahoo Buzz, promising to uncover and deliver the most interesting and relevant content from Web sites across the Internet to the Yahoo homepage.
• SEW Experts: The TV Writers -- And the Buzz -- Are Back
  The end of the TV writers' strike holds some meaningful lessons for search marketers.

More from the SEW Blog

• Schedule optimization for SES New York
  The biggest Search Engine Strategies conference of the year will be held the week of March 17 in New York City.

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.

• Coordinating Organic, Paid Search Efforts, ClickZ Experts
• In Survey, Social Media Marketing Takes a Corner Office, ClickZ News
• DoubleClick to Power Vertical Ad Networks, ClickZ News
• The research skills killer, Information World Review
• Internet elevator heads for higher consciousness, Information World Review
• Mahalo : Like It or Not, It's a Good Service for Web Users, Search Engine Journal
• Canada, It's Time to Beat London! (SES Toronto is Coming, Traffick
• How to Prioritize Your Optimization, FutureNow
• comScore Paid Search Data & How The Sky Might Not Be Falling, Search Engine Land
• What's Google's Strategy?, Mike Moran
• The Importance of Page Layout in SEO, SEO by the Sea
• Microsoft Tracking Search and Browsing Behavior to Find Authoritative Pages, SEO by the Sea
• SMX West Session Coverage - Key Takeaways, SearchRank
• SMX West 2008 - Fast Debrief, Ramblings About SEO
• Trusting Wordpress Plugins and "SEO for Wordpress", John Andrews
• A Chat with Hakia's CEO Dr. Riza C. Berkan, Alt Search Engines
• Rumor: Microsoft about to unveil web-apps strategy, Rough Type
• Does search volume predict success?, Endless Plain