SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

May 12, 2009

IAB Releases Click Measurement Guidelines

The International Advertising Bureau has released new guidelines for Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising. The Click Measurement Guidelines were agreed upon by key industry members and offer a strong framework for identifying click fraud.

The Guidelines:

  • Define the technical life-cycle of a "click" and outline standard methodologies by which clicks should be measured and counted, including provisions for identifying invalid and/or fraudulent clicks.
  • Establish standard terms that will help streamline the buying and selling of click-based media.
  • Increase transparency and consistency in click measurements for media companies, ad-serving organizations, advertisers, and third-party click auditors.

You can download the 28 page document here.

"The fact that we've obtained agreement within the online industry on the precise definition and measurement of a click and a procedure for identifying and eliminating fraudulent clicks is a huge win for the industry," said Joe Laszlo, research director of the IAB. "These guidelines help assure marketers that the clicks they are paying for are generated by real people with a real interest in the product or service being advertised."

What do you think of the new guidelines? Share your opinions in the comments below.

Related Reading: Webtrends Proposes Digital Marketing Measurement Standards Four Advertising Groups to Develop Online Behavioral Advertising Privacy Standards

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 13, 2009

Duplicated Confusion: The Canonical Edict from the Big Three

So virtually everyone has weighed in on the new instructions from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Apparently there should be joy in the cesspool today - the search gods have shown us the way to clean up part of the confusion with canonical pages in our industry.

Okay, I know that sounds a little cynical, but like the no follow tag from a few years ago - it falls upon the web site owners to clean up the search engines' databases. Many knowledgeable site owners have already done a lot of this work in one form or another - though users of most dynamic sites have had a problem with multiple urls pointing to the same content (the same page really arrived at through different urls).

Interestingly even the engines themselves seem to have different views on what this new tag means. If you read the three announcements you could almost be excused for thinking they were describing different things.

Yahoo wins the most confusing explanation, while Google adds art that really adds little unless you need visuals of the same page with different text pointing to it - but does do a decent job of simplifying the instructions, but Microsoft does it briefly and clearly then tells us they will be implementing it "sometime in the near future."

It sort of reflects the positions each has in the search space. Google with their monster share see us as children, Yahoo as number two tries harder, while Microsoft gives it the same attention it gives to its flagging search percentage - short but sweet.

To be fair Yahoo may offer the most thorough explanation (you just may have to read it a couple of times) and points out a caution "if URL A marks B as canonical, and B marks C as canonical, we'll treat C as canonical for both A and B, though we will break infinite chains and other issues."

Interestingly, if they had published a shared announcement they would have given an example of what many people think of when they hear the term duplicate content - the same copy/text/content on different websites. This is not about that issue.

It can, however act as a 301 redirect within a domain - good for removing those www.domain, domain.com, domain.com/index.html etc problems, but not from one domain to another domain

However, this tag "defines a relationship between a document and an external resource" as Microsoft states. The fact that they are calling it a link tag scares me a little, just like the no follow one did when it came out.

People are going to get this wrong, just like they did the no follow and it will dramatically impact sites. But, I suppose we can feel okay because none of the engines have committed to using it 100%.

Google has already stated there will be penalties for anyone using it to game their results.

Thanks should go to Vanessa Fox for a solid interpretation "this tag will only work with very similar or identical content, so you can't use it to send all of the link value from the less important pages of your site to the more important ones.

If tags conflict (such as pages point to each other as canonical, the URL specified as canonical redirects to a non-canonical version, or the page specified as canonical doesn't exist), search engines will sort things out just as they do now, and will determine which URL they think is the best canonical version."

Kudos to Joost de Valk for his same day roll out of plugins for WordPress, Drupal and Magento E-Commerce. He did have a few days advanced notice but the effort will be much appreciated by many.

There have been a bunch of posts about this, so mine is just another, and comments throughout Twitter. I am not as enthusiastic as Rand Fishkin who sees it as "the most important advancement in SEO since sitemaps." Guess I would be closer to Mikkel deMib's view posted on Twitter. "The new canonical tag is like adding a cheap layer of pain to a crappy car. Sorry guys, it doesn't make the car much better!"

It will be interesting to get more opinions on all this next week at SES London.

Posted by Frank Watson at 4:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 6, 2008

SEW Experts: What is Valid Link Bait?

A 13-year-old stealing a credit card to buy Xbox-playing hookers. Hidden widget links. Social media traffic bait. Morality and marketing living together. Mass hysteria. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "What is Valid Link Bait?," Frank Watson and Chris Boggs address recent issues with ethical questions of linkbuilding, like fake articles being created to generate links, or hidden links in widgets.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 11, 2008

SEW Experts: Standards? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Standards!

The SEO community has been foaming at the mouth lately over whether or not we need standards for the industry. In today's SEM Agency Issues column, "Standards? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Standards!," William Flaiz says that we don't need SEO standards to define our operation for us; we simply need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of business.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:00 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Standards Signal the Maturing of Our Industry

Call them standards, rules, advice, best practices, or whatever you want, but they're a necessary step in the evolution of the search industry. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "SEO Standards Signal the Maturing of Our Industry," Chris Boggs advocates a move toward creating a document outlining the majority of the methods used in SEO, and providing a risk assessment so marketers can make informed decisions.

Join the discussion in the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 13, 2008

Google on Global Search Standards: Thanks, But No Thanks

Google has politely turned down a cordial invitation to support technology that would control how the search engine lists articles and photos. The technology is called ACAP, which stands for "automated content access protocol," and has been developed by a consortium of media trade organizations, including the European Publishers Council, the International Publishers Association and the World Association of Newspapers.

Google's European partnership, lead Rob Jonas, reminded attendees at the MediaGuardian.co.uk Changing Media Summit that there already is technology in place for publishers to opt out of Google should they not be pleased with the search company's indexing methods.

Placing a robots.txt file onto sites prevents Google's spiders from indexing them and displaying sites in search results.

But publishers often find themselves in a Catch-22 situation when it comes to being indexed by Google. They want to be found by the millions of Google searchers, but they want Google to pay for indexing - and caching - copyrighted content. A Belgian court sided with publishers last year when it ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by Copiepresse.

Google, of course, does not want to pay for content, as it would dip into their profitable strategy of monetizing search results with AdWords. Google's stance is that they are simply connecting to user's sites and therefore not violating copyright laws. Cached pages remain in a grey and murky area of the law, particularly in Europe.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:04 AM | Permalink

February 29, 2008

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? In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now," Chris Boggs outlines a proposal for standards that define common tactics and assign them a risk level to help search marketers make wise decisions about the most appropriate search marketing plan for their situation.

Do you agree with Chris? Please share your thoughts on establishing SEO standards at the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 24, 2007

SEW Experts: Raising Search Standards and the Compliance Bar

New IAB/DMA standards will change the way interactive agencies, SEMcos, and solo search practitioners do business. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Raising Search Standards and the Compliance Bar," Kevin Ryan explains why you need to know what a SEMco is and how your business will change.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2006

Exalead CEO Warns Of "Google Monster" & Closed Yahoo & Microsoft

The Multilingual Search Blog covers Exalead CEO Francois Bourdoncle taking a big stick and swinging at Google in a keynote talk at SES Paris. He positions his own service as potentially the savior for those in Europe worried about the "Google monster." Beyond Google, he also criticizes Yahoo and Microsoft for collaborating on a "closed" sitemaps protocol. I'd say the Cold War against American-based search engines is going up a notch.

Let's deal with the Google Monster idea first:

The press in particular should be worried about becoming sub-contractors of Google, he said. Whilst at present Google News brings plenty of traffic to sites under the brand names of the press outlets, this would change to Google's brand in the future.

Actually, Google News has always operated under the Google brand. So much for that secret Google master plan, I guess. In fact, despite using the Google brand, I just covered some stats yesterday showing how Google sends upwards of 22 percent of traffic to newspapers sites.

Of course, Bourdoncle may have meant that in the future, Google will actually host content on Google itself, saving people from making a click through to news sites. Possible. And if so, ironically the newspapers may have themselves to blame. Go back to my write-up about the AP deal with Google. How exactly Google will make more use of AP content remains to be seen. But I explained that there's good reason that Google might host AP content on Google itself, similar to what Topix does.

Google's largely seen to have cut the AP deal in part because the AP may have been threatening legal action. Do a deal, the issue over spidering goes away -- and Google can host news content on its own site. As more companies clamor for deals (such as in Belgium this week), Google might transform into a content hosting service rather than pointing to content elsewhere.

By the way, Yahoo News already operates this way, hosting plenty of news content of its own. So even if Google goes that route, why haven't news organizations been complaining about the Yahoo monster? My guess would be that once you cut deals to host content, you seem less monstrous. And that works again against what Bourdoncle warns. If Google does host content, the news organization should be happy given they will have done the partnering to make that happen.

Bourdoncle isn't the only search engine to swing a torch around to rally the villagers against the Frankenstein's monster of Google. Microsoft just did this last month. CEO Steve Ballmer positioned Google as "transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders." Microsoft, of course, does much of the crawling and content gathering that Google does. It's hard to see how it is somehow more altruistic.

Such statements make good headlines, and I'd say they're going to play even better in Europe, which has watched the search industry rise into generating billions of dollars for America, rather than euros for Europe. There are also some serious cultural and political issues to consider. Many people may simply be more comfortable using a service that grew natively from their own country. I don't discount these worries and have great respect for them. I just dislike much of the scare mongering I also see that often feels like politicians and private companies hoping to position their own agendas, rather than a common good.

Such worries are one reason the Quaero project emerged, a planned multimedia search engine that will get government funds. I've likened this to being a Boeing versus Airbus challenge in the search world -- and also covered how Europe has had no lack of native technology already that grew without government subsidies.

Exalead is part of the Quaero project, though I remain confused about how to find more about it and what exactly it is doing. There used to be a site here that brings up nothing but a logon page. I've also seen the Quaero.org site referred to as the home of the project. That's entirely in French and German, and my German remains pretty bad. But I'm pretty sure I don't even see the word Quaero mentioned there.

Anyway, it's long been on my list to catch-up on the project. Chris Sherman's out in France today, and I think he's actually planning to talk with Exalead about Quaero more. So stay tuned.

Finally, Google wasn't alone for criticism:

He also criticised the new sitemaps collaboration announced by Google, Yahoo and MSN at Pubcon in Las Vegas. He said, “The sitemaps specification is not nice and open and it not nice and closed”. He believes the initiative aims to close the door to new entrants to the market place.

Frankly, I disagree. Google's had a sitemaps system out for over a year. In that time, I heard not one word out of Exalead that it thought it made sense that this should be expanded to be supported by other search engines. Now Google, Yahoo and Microsoft agreed to a common specification. Exalead could jump into supporting that now, if they wanted. They could also produce a rival format, if they wanted (and what joy that would be). But instead, what they support is a single page-by-page submission feature. Criticizing a bulk submission feature of your rivals when you offer none of your own doesn't win points in my book.

Instead, I'd say the real issue is that Exalead didn't get to sit at the big table in working out the agreement along with the other three. That is unfortunate, just as I felt Ask should have been included as well. Exalead is an excellent search engine that deserves the attention of both searchers and the search engine industry alike -- as is Ask.

Not being included from the start was unfortunate, but forgivable, as long as we see a working group expand going forward. I'm all for that, though I don't want expansion to slow things down. It also makes sense that the market leaders -- the services with the most queries and thus the most attention from site owners -- are going to take the lead in these things.

Postscript: Quest for a Euro-Google from the BBC earlier this year provides a longer look at Quaero and Exalead's involvement.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:23 AM | Permalink

November 22, 2006

SEM Certification & Training Courses

The move toward offering certification and training in search marketing is accelerating. Here's a rundown on some new courses and developments I've heard of recently.

  • Kalena Jordan's Search Engine College has launched "Certification Pathways," a bundle of courses designed to get people up to speed in the space.  
  • Wondering if you should even be in search marketing? SEMPO's got a webinar designed to help, Starting a Career in Search Marketing, happening on November 30 at Noon Eastern time.  
  • SEMPO is also offering the SEMPO Institute, a distance learning program designed to provide search engine training. The group says it will go live in January 2007 with a course on fundamentals, followed by an advanced SEO and advanced paid search curriculum. Do the training, and you get a certificate.  
  • My DMA Offering Search Marketing Certification Program post from September covers how the DMA was going to offer their own training and certification course. Why We Need Search Standards from iMedia Connection provides a bit of an update on that. Courses are to launch in January -- more information can be found here.  
  • Incisive is offering training courses following the SES Chicago 2006 show. This page outlines what's being offered. You can attend these classes in addition to the show (more info on the entire show here) or separately, if you want.  
  • Training courses from Bruce Clay aren't new, but he's been offering them longer and more consistently than anyone I can think of. So you might want to check those out here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:58 PM | Permalink

September 28, 2006

The Click Quality Council Formed By ClickForensics

ClickZ reports that ClickForensics announced that they will be leading a new group named The Click Quality Council to "discuss Pay Per Click (PPC) quality issues and to ensure their interests are represented in the development of PPC measurement standards." The Click Quality Council has 20 advertisers including names such as VISA and LendingTree and agencies such as Carat Fusion and Agency.com. There were hints that this group would be formed in the BusinessWeek's Good Look At Click Fraud. It is important to note that the IAB seems to be setting up a similar organization, but the IAB will have both advertisers/agencies and search engines involved, whereas the Click Quality Council will only have advertisers and agencies.

Postscript: Some corrections were made to this article.

(1) The Click Quality Council has 20 advertisers. (2) The CQC wants to make it clear that they are not setting up a "similar or competing organization" to the IAB or to SEMPO.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:26 AM | Permalink

September 26, 2006

DMA Offering Search Marketing Certification Program

The Direct Marketing Association has announced a new certification program in search marketing, which is to launch at its annual conference next month. From the press release:

Driven by DMA's Search Engine Marketing Council (SEMC), with cooperation from the major search engines Yahoo!, MSN, and Google, the program has been developed in response to the nearly daily changes in this dynamic marketplace that profoundly affects the tactics and knowledge used by today's search marketers.

and:

DMA's certification program is the first program developed by a major marketing association designed to train and certify the level of competency of in-house and agency marketers. Members of the DMA involved with program development include marketers, media properties, and search engines.

The program will include two levels of certification:

  • Level 1: Designed for individuals able to work under the direction of an advanced search engine marketer. These individuals would know and be able to employ current best practices in organic or paid search marketing.

  • Level 2: Designed for individuals who are capable of devising, creating, and managing effective search engine marketing programs within agencies or as lead members of in-house marketing teams. At this level, individuals can seek advanced certification in organic or paid search

A new site for the program, www.dmasearchcertification.org, currently directs over to this page, which makes it seem as if certification is only through attending the DMA conference. That's not the case, as covered further below.

Search marketing certification has long been suggested (and see also this), but the issue has generally raised concerns within the search marketing community itself, which doesn't agree on standards. That controversy and debate is a major reason why the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization avoided pushing for certification program when it began back in 2004. It was a morass SEMPO didn't want to step into.

The certification gap has largely been filled by the search engines themselves. Both Google and Yahoo offer programs designed to help search marketing firms and agencies present themselves as certified, accredited or professional in someway (though Canadians are overlooked by Google's program). These programs focus only on paid search, however.

Now DMA is stepping forward into the space, promising certification for both paid and organic search. Here are some questions I had for them, along with answers:

Q. Exactly what cooperation are the search engines providing?

The search engines have members on DMA's Search Engine Marketing Council (SEMC), which is driving this initiative. This participation has resulted in tremendous support, including to access to some of their training own materials. As the program is still under development, the extent of their involvement will also continue to evolve.

Q. Are the search engine endorsing this certification?

There are no specific endorsements. DMA's intent is not to compete with existing certification programs, but to encourage DMA members and the direct marketing community at large to take advantage of the opportunity to leverage the expertise of industry leading interactive marketers as they continue to utilize search interactive technology more effectively within their own marketing programs.

Q. Any concerns that existing search marketers might be concerned that this effectively makes them "uncertified?"

There are several opportunities for search engine marketers to pursue professional development and certification. DMA's certification program reflects the training of the marketers DMA member companies and agencies employ and we also intend to provide a training path for their junior marketing staff. We are excited to offer a program that enhances the performance of DMA members as a service to them and the entire direct marketing community and intend for this to exist as resource.

Q. Is the only way to enter the certification program to attend the first four modules as part of the conference?

We are launching the program at in San Francisco at DMA 06 as a preview. Marketers interested in DMA's certification don't have to attend these modules to enter the program. They can send in an application at any time and then take the coursework.

So far, I haven't seen a ton of reaction to the announcement, either positive or negative, though it has only just come out. Jennifer Laycock over at Search Engine Guide writes:

I can understand that it might lend some credibility to search marketers that are just starting out and have yet to establish a reputation for themselves, but I'm hard pressed to believe that successful search marketers that are already in the business are going to go through the trouble of taking the courses required to earn the certification. I see this as something similar to Google's certification program for AdWords....

Time will tell how this gets received by the community. There was certainly a time coming where someone needed to step up to the plate and offer some type of certification, but I'll be curious to see if the DMA is the one that is able to actually pull it off.

I agree -- it's very much watch and see. I certainly believe there are plenty of good basics that can be learned, to the degree people can say they've been trained or educated in the area. Certification still feels like a charged word, however -- suggesting those without it are perhaps subpar.

Then again, if Andy Beal can join SEMPO after being so dubious about the group initially, maybe the times are a changing and ripe for certification to be successful :)

Postscript: Threadwatch reports that SEMPO is apparently to launch a training program later this year

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:32 AM | Permalink

March 15, 2006

whoisaGAP Organizes Google AdWords Professionals By Geography And Entity Type

whoisaGAP has reorganized its Google AdWords Professionals database to be broken down by geographic location and by type of entity (individual or company entity). It is interesting to note that the companies' list shows that there are 21 Google AdWords Professionals accredited companies in the U.K. and only 13 in the U.S. But when you look at the individuals' list of Google AdWords Professionals, there are 87 from the U.S. and 28 from the U.K. More statistics on this data is broken down here for you.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:20 PM | Permalink

January 29, 2006

Work To Begin Next Month on Developing a Standard For Shopping and Comparison Search Product Descriptions

A DMNews.com article: Retailers, Engines Want Standard for Product Description, discusses a session at Shop.org's FirstLook 2006 event where representatives from Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Become, and Shop.com, along with several retailers and trade groups, about the need to develop, "a common standard for describing products for online SKU-based advertising and comparison shopping."

Retailers and engines shared their frustration at the lack of a common platform to describe products and receive advertising reports, [Alan] Rimm-Kaufman said. He noted that "organizations with widely different interests all agreed that the current situation was far from good and that an industry standard would help greatly." Participants agreed to work on an industry standard for describing products online using the expertise and process of the Association for Retail Technology Standards, he said. The group plans to meet Feb. 27 in Menlo Park, CA, to begin work on a spec.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:19 PM | Permalink

November 10, 2005

Who's A GAP? WhoisaGAP Helps You Find Google Advertising Professionals

Are you a Google Advertising Professional? Want to find one? While Google certifies them, it doesn't give you a list of them. No matter. Teddie Cowell over at Neutralize tells me they've knocked together a directory containing over 200 Google GAPs. Wait, that would be Google Google Advertising Professionals. I guess it's over 200 Google APs. Nah, that sounds silly. Anyway, check it out at whoisaGAP. How they get the list? Searching the web, baby, searching the web and seeing who says they're a GAP. If you got left out, you can email them for inclusion.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:01 PM | Permalink

September 19, 2005

Can We Declare Automated Comment & Link Posting To Be Bad?

This week, search engines and blog software vendors are meeting again for a second "summit" on fighting blog spam. That's tipped me over the edge for tossing out a related proposal to search marketers and marketers in general. Can We Agree Automated Comment & Link Posting Is A Bad Thing? has the full details in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

In short, I explain that unlike some other debates over what's spam or what should be acceptable in search marketing, inserting content and links into other pages through automation just doesn't seem a defendable practice by anyone. Indeed, even "black hats" get annoyed by it.

So as an industry, or a community, could search marketers unite to say "No!" on this practice? Lots more explanation and thoughts are covered in the forum thread, plus the ability to vote and chime in with opinions. Please stop by.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:59 AM | Permalink

August 24, 2005

The Polarization Of Search Forums?

The First SEO Republic Forumed from Jim Hedger at Search Engine Guide looks at the idea of search engine forums shaping up as an almost "horseshoe shaped congress" with black hatters on one end, white hatters in the other and some in the middle (including our SEW Forums). He finds the polarization ugly, political and producing negative repercussions for the industry.

My view is completely different. I think some forums can be assigned more "white hat" or "black hat" but not entirely. And if anything, I've felt many of the discussions on the issue of white versus black hat have been far more productive than in the past.

I know our own forums the best, of course -- and I know we work really hard to ensure people are getting along to respect each other even when views are different.

The main thing I've noticed over the past year is in my view, people do seem to be understanding other view points, at least around our place. The idea that things are all black or white does seem to me to be slowly going away, which I've felt is more a good thing. I've also seen plenty of people who have completely opposite views nevertheless agree to disagree, rather than friendships being torn apart.

It bears reminding that we've long had a wide-spectrum of political-like opinions about SEO and search marketing, as I covered way back in my Desperately Seeking Search Engine Marketing Standards piece of 2001. We even had this spectrum before the Google "monoculture" days Jim argues we're now emerging from. Yep, renewed attention is being paid to the other Bradys Of Search -- but we've always had them and did have them even more strongly in the 1995-2000 time frame.

Want to comment or discuss? Start a thread over in the Search Industry Growth & Trends section of our forums.. Want to read some past White Hat/Black Hat discussions? White Hat - Gray Hat - Black Hat has a bunch of them.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:06 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2005

Yahoo Expands Ambassador Program and Adds Services for Certified Affiliates

The Media Post story: Yahoo Beefs Up Training For Search Marketers, has details about the folks in Sunnyvale expanding access to its Ambassador Program. Yahoo is also increase the amount of training and resources it provides to members of the Ambassador and Certified Affiliate programs.

The three-tiered Ambassadors Program provides partners with education, training, and search marketing resources to help them sell and manage paid search campaigns...Yahoo is also adding to its existing affiliate program with a new Certified Affiliate program, which offers Web-based training and marketing materials to help affiliates educate their clients before referring them to begin a paid search campaign with Yahoo.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:46 PM | Permalink

August 9, 2005

Google Announces Authorized AdWords Resellers in China

China search news continues. Can you say it's a very busy (thanks Baidu) time. Google announced today that they've introduced of an Authorized Reseller program in China. Andrew Goodman has details and commentary on Traffick.com.

I've also posted the full text of the announcement here.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:17 PM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

Time For Search Standards For Titles & Description?

I've written before about how it is becoming more noticeable that Google may substitute titles and descriptions from the Open Directory for its listings in place of using material from the page itself. We just had another question come up on our forums about this, highlighting how the action makes (to me) for a bad listing for HP. Nor is Google alone in this type of substitution. Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking that webmasters perhaps need to regain control in this area. Now I've posted a proposed standard that the search engines might follow. You'll find that listed at the top of this Search Engine Watch Forum thread: Proposed Search Engine Standard For Titles & Descriptions. You can also vote on suggested options in the thread. Please come by and vote or contribute your own comments.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:50 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2005

Issues Facing Search & Search Marketing

Where Do We Go from Here? from Kevin Ryan at iMediaConnection has him surveying members of a panel he's assembled on the topic of the future of search, to see what they think the top issues are that need to be addressed. In summary, they are:

  • Measurement: In particular, is search worth more than a click?
  • Search Alternatives: Does the industry need more than Google and Yahoo?
  • Better Understanding Of Search Behavior: How do searchers really interact with search pages and in actions post-search, inspired by search? We don't know enough.
  • Privacy: As search integrates more into our lives, privacy issues grow. How is this addressed?
  • Search Evolution: As search goes vertical, will consumers miss the "old days" of 10 textual listings or be pleased by the evolutions to come?

Meanwhile in our forums, the SEM Industry Biggest Growing Pains thread is pulling in a variety of comments about challenges to be addressed, including:

  • SEM's bad reputation
  • Getting more mainstream/corporate acceptance of SEO
  • Lack of competition between Google and Yahoo
  • Need for better search interfaces
  • Need for better search marketing agency trade representation
  • Lack of support for organic listings
  • Brain drain as talented SEOs pull out of helping others to work for themselves
  • Assumption that SEO is "easy" when it's more complicated than it seems
  • Lack of business knowledge by SEMs
  • Lack of standards/accreditation/references to back up SEM claims as professionals

Please come by the thread to contribute your own thoughts and comments!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:12 AM | Permalink

May 11, 2005

Yahoo Names Carat, Outrider As Strategic Providers

Yahoo has named Carat Interactive and Outrider as Strategic Providers, the highest level of its Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador Program. The two companies join existing strategic providers Avenue A|Razorfish and Performics.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:58 PM | Permalink

April 28, 2005

Mom, I'm an SEO, Not a Scumbag... Really

Anyone who's spent time in the world of search marketing knows there's a wide spectrum of experience, knowledge and, frankly, ability to effectively influence search results, whether paid or organic. Unfortunately, several high-profile incidents involving unscrupulous search engine optimization "firms" have cast an unsavory light on the industry. To make matters worse, a number of marketing, design and usability experts have weighed in with wrong-headed (or simply wrong) commentary disparaging search engine marketing with an overly wide brush.

That needs to stop, writes Danny Sullivan in today's SearchDay article, Worthless Shady Criminals: A Defense Of SEO. Danny offers a great recounting of how the search marketing industry ended up cast in such a negative light, and makes a number of useful suggestions for anyone involved in online marketing to both understand and use search marketing techniques that have been proven effective, ethical and ultimately, the right thing to do for the end user.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:57 AM | Permalink

April 21, 2005

Google Advertising Professionals Program Now Qualifies Companies, Offers Hosted Pages & Credits

New features just added to the Google Advertising Professionals Program mean you can get promotional credits, company-wide qualification and your own professional status page hosted by Google.

  • Promotional Credits are for those in the US and provide you $50 to spend as a way to win a new client. You can earn up to 60 sets of $50 credits -- or $3,000 -- per year. More details in the FAQ page.  
  • Qualified Company Status means that your entire company can be deemed as approved by Google. Until now, only individuals could earn such status. More details here.  
  • Professional Status Pages are something now offered to any qualified Google advertising professional. This lets you have your own page hosted by Google, another way to prove to clients that you really do have a relationship with Google. More details here.

Sorry, no news of a feature to protect you as a Google Advertising Professional from having Google still deem it worthwhile to take an account away from you.

What! The Google AdWords Professional Status Not Good Enough For Google thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums has some details on one professional finding Google wanted to bigfoot a client away from them. See also Black Hat PPC Management for some other discussion of the program and various viewpoints on its usefulness.

Is Google ever going to figure out how to handle Ad Agencies? is another recent thread worth a peek, though not specifically about the program. Google Adwords Professionals - First batch of qualified SEMs due this week also has some recent discussion.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:23 AM | Permalink

March 30, 2005

Can The Cookie Be Saved?

Crumbling Cookies Threaten SEM and Online Advertising from Kevin Lee at ClickZ looks at how a growing number of consumers eschewing cookies may make tracking conversions more difficult, thus impacting measuring search marketing effectiveness. He urges for various organizations to band together to save the cookie through education.

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Protecting Cookies from Deletion.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:56 AM | Permalink

January 27, 2005

Google Survey On Improving Its Advertising Professionals Program

Lee Odden posts the questions he was asked in a Google survey about how the recently launched Google Advertising Professionals program could improve or expand. How about campaign download software, adding your company logo into reports or a directory of professionals listed on the Google site? These and other ideas were listed. Want to discuss? Lee also started a forum thread on the topic: AdWords Enhancements in Store?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:20 AM | Permalink

January 5, 2005

Comment Spam? How About An Ignore Tag? How About An Indexing Summit!

Bloggers seem increasingly upset at the comment spam they have to deal with, something driven primarily by those who seek higher search rankings by posting links to their sites into comment areas.

To me, the solution seems simple. Why not give designers a tag telling search engines to ignore portions of a web page? Or better yet, how about a coordinated summit among search engines and webmasters to advance the state of site indexing overall?

The solution would help more than bloggers. That's good, because more than bloggers need it. The problem bloggers face has already been an issue for those who run forums, guest books or any other type of venue allowing public contributions. All are -- and have been -- targets of those who want to promote web sites.

For a non-blogger perspective at the problem, check out Mike Grehan's Google PageRank Lunacy article we ran last year in SearchDay. It discusses how guest book spam spoiled a memorial site for a good friend of his. Just like bloggers, people with guest books need help too.

I take my inspiration for an ignore tag primarily from Bruce Clay, who proposed a somewhat similar idea for <ad> tags to Google informally earlier last year. Bruce's concern was that if he or others want to purchase links, they don't want those links to harm them somehow in search engines.

Believe it or not, there are some people who buy links because of the traffic the links themselves may drive. Bruce's thought was that if publishers such as Search Engine Watch's own JupiterMedia could surround paid links they sell with an ad tag, then search engines could discount those links for ranking purposes.

Interesting idea. I also like the idea for another reason. Since we've operated our Search Engine Watch Forums, we've been liberal about allowing people to link out to resources as relevant. But this can and has been abused. Not much, fortunately, but we occasionally have to police out the irrelevant link or the link hidden in a period or comma.

One solution would be an <ignore> tag. Using this, we could surround any posted links with the tag to prevent them from being indexed. If that became commonplace on forums, it might reduce the attraction for link spam to them.

That leads to another inspiration. Six Apart/Movable Type's Brad Choate wished for some type of page-based ignore feature last July in his Restricting Google on my terms post (something he originally asked for back in Feb. 2002). His solution, which he didn't realize when doing it (check out the comments of that post) was to cloak his pages using user agent detection.

Google, of course, doesn't like cloaking. But since Brad's intent isn't too deceive Google, chances are he's not going to get busted. But even more to the point, as he says, he wouldn't have to do such a thing if Google gave him some alternative.

More broadly, lots of people beyond bloggers in lots of situations wouldn't have to do such things if search engines gave us more options. It's not a Google thing. It's not blogger thing. It's a search indexing thing.

I mentioned the ignore idea to Yahoo at our SES Chicago show and got some interest, so maybe there's hope. It poses problems, of course. An ignore tag could be abused. An ignore tag also means that some good content that's marked as "ignore" might not get indexed. But perhaps we might also have levels. How about a <content> tag authors can use to denote the key body content, a <nav> tag to highlight navigation search engines might not want to index or weight as heavily or a <public> tag to denote publicly-contributed content that might deserve less weighting?

There are lots of possibilities. What I know is that the last time the search engines came together to help provide coordinated assistance to web site owners on indexing was May 1996, when we got agreement on the meta description and meta robots tags, along with some additional talk on new support for the robots.txt convention.

Since then, we've had unilateral advances such as AltaVista (new image indexing tags), Google (robots.txt expansion, no archiving tags) or others have added but nothing coordinated to involve web site owners or the search industry as a whole. After nearly 10 years, surely the time is ripe for that type of cooperation now.

At the very least, it might help get some bloggers off Google's back who blame it for the problem. A sampling of blame and other looks at the problem and solutions:

  • Why hasn't Google stopped comment spam? which suggests a way for a link to be shown as giving or not giving credit to be passed on.  
  • Comment Spam - Google's Role? is another call that Google should somehow do something.  
  • Comment Spammers Have Blogs of Their Own from Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny is another call for some smarter way of deciding what links to credit.  
  • BTW, this is Google's problem from Dave Winer, a short note on trying to deal with referer spam, which he feels ultimately is a result of Google's reliance on links. In reality, it's a problem caused by all major search engines relying on links, but it's still a problem they can all contribute to help with.  
  • The Solution To Blog Spamming from Nick at Threadwatch looking at various proposals, including search engine ignoring links, and finding problems with them all. He pushes primarily for better defenses that the bloggers can employ.

So what do you think? Time for an indexing summit? Are there indexing changes you'd like to see? Comments of any type? Come discuss in our forum thread: Time For An Indexing Summit?

Postscript: Support has now been officially announced for an ignore-like nofollow attribute. See the Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links post for more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:58 AM | Permalink

November 22, 2004

iProspect Claims Google Advertising Professionals Certification -- But What About Waiting Period?

iProspect has announced that its entire pay-per-click team has now been certified as Google Advertising Professionals, under a new program that Google launched last week.

However, certification was only supposed to be awarded after an individual had been enrolled in the certification program for 90 days and passed its other requirements. So while the iProspect staff members have passed their tests, it seems like more time needs to be passed until they are actually granted official certification.

Some companies have been beta testing the program before its formal launch. However, my understanding from Google was that regardless of prior participation, all companies would still have to apply and be subject to the same 90 day period from when the program formally began.

iProspect is checking on this further, and I'll update when I hear word. They tell me Google has not sent actual logos yet.

Postscript: iProspect tells me that it misinterpreted being told by Google that their staff had passed the test (one of three requirements for certification) to mean they were actually certified. The company is now pulling the press release and plans to reannounce once the 90 days have passed.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:56 AM | Permalink

November 10, 2004

Google Offers Advertisers Logo Certification & Other Aids

Google's launched a new Google Advertising Professionals program designed to assist those who manage multiple AdWords accounts on behalf of others, such as search marketing companies.

There are three aspects to the new program:

The logo is only available to those who have passed an exam, who have at least one or more accounts through My Client Center for 90 days and who spend at least $1,000 per month via those accounts. There's also a $50 exam fee, which Google says goes entirely to the company managing the test.

What if some people try to misuse the logo, to suggest somehow they are approved to handle Google's unpaid listings, as well?

"We'll look out for that and make sure it doesn't get misused," said Salar Kamangar, director of product management at Google. The company has published rules of use for the logo.

Interestingly, only individuals can be considered certified by Google, not companies. This means that search marketing companies will have to be careful to say that they employ qualified Google Advertising Professionals, not that the companies themselves are qualified. Google said a company certification is something it may consider for the future.

The move helps Google more fully match support Overture offers to third party ad managers. That company has long provided its Ambassador program that supports -- an indirectly gives a stamp of approval to -- search marketing companies. The program was just recently expanded to include traditional and interactive agencies.

Overture UK also offers an accreditation program, launched back in 2003. It's described more in this article for Search Engine Watch members, Overture UK Launches Accreditation Program.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 23, 2004

Overture Opens Ambassador Program To Traditional Ad Agencies

Overture's long-standing Ambassador program for search engine marketing firms is now allowing interactive and traditional ad agencies to participate. More details from ClickZ in Overture, Google Reach Out to Agencies.

The program provides participants with greater support in reselling Overture's products. It does not provide a commission on sales. The ClickZ article also covers how Google says it trying to do more to educate agencies about search marketing.

The issue of commissions came up earlier this year in our forums: Agency Commission Or Discount Offered On Search Ads? The nasty rumor was agencies were being given a commission by the search companies while SEM firms were not. Both Overture and Google eventually told me that at least in the US, they aren't offering commission payments to anyone.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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