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In This Issue
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+ Upcoming Search Engine Strategies Events
+ Top Stories Since Our Last SE Update
- Organic Search
- Paid Search
- Link Issues & Social Media
- Analytics & ROI
- Local & Mobile Search
- Vertical & Specialty Search
- Small Businesses & Big Brand SEM
- In-house & Outsourcing Issues
- SEM Industry Issues
- Search Engines, Tools & Technology
+ About The Newsletter
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Upcoming Search Engine Strategies Events
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- SES Travel: Seattle, WA July 26-27
- SES Training Boston: August 8, 2007
- SES San Jose: August 20-23, 2007
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Since Our Last SE Update:
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Below is a recap of major articles from our daily SearchDay newsletter, SEW Experts columns, 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.
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Organic Search
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=== SearchDay: June 6, 2007 ===
=== SearchDay: June 5, 2007 ===
Ask.com Launches Major Updates
=== SearchDay: May 23, 2007 ===
=== SEW Experts: June 12, 2007 ===
Web Site Architecture Structured for Success
=== SEW Experts: June 5, 2007 ===
Will Google's FeedBurner Scorch Organic SEO?
=== SEW Experts: May 29, 2007 ===
Using a Corporate Blog for CRM
=== SEW Experts: May 22, 2007 ===
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Top Three SEO Mistakes
SiteLogic's Matt Bailey has distilled the essence of SEO into three common mistakes many businesses make. - Mapping The Minds of Visitors Helps Categorizing, Keyword Development
Bill Slawski, of SEO by the Sea, wrote an interesting article about mapping visitor intent to help develop effective categories and keywords for your marketing efforts. - Ask Launches Ask3D
Following hot on the heels of the recent announcement by Google of its Universal Search, Ask has now released something with very similar attributes, but significant and interesting differences. - Ask.com: The Other Search Engine?
Ask.com is positioning itself as "the other search engine," making a play to get users to think about Ask in addition to Google when they think of search. - Interview of Microsoft's Satya Nadella at SMX Advanced
Nadella leads the engineering team for Microsoft's Search, Advertising, and Commerce platforms. - NY Times Goes Deep on Google
An article in Sunday's New York Times goes in-depth with Google's Amit Singhal, one of the Google engineers on the search quality team primarily responsible for building, maintaining and tweaking its ranking algorithm. - The End of SEO, or a New Beginning?
At SES Toronto this week, Google's Universal Search, personalization, and the death of SEO were among the hot topics discussed. - Identifying a Google Penalty
Often when a site loses its search rankings suddenly, a webmaster may not know the cause.
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Paid Search
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=== SearchDay: May 31, 2007 ===
In the Mix: Search in the Overall Marketing Mix
=== SearchDay: May 22, 2007 ===
What Does Universal Search Mean for SEM?
=== SEW Experts: June 11, 2007 ===
Five Tips for Hiring a Paid Search Agency
=== SEW Experts: June 4, 2007 ===
Setting Campaign Goals and Metrics for Success
=== SEW Experts: May 21, 2007 ===
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Google Adds School Report Sellers To Banned AdWords Advertisers' List
The list of non-allowed advertising at Google's AdWords just got a little bigger. - Google Testing AdSense for Video
Google has announced a pilot with a small group of publishers to insert streaming video ads into publishers' video content. - Chasing the Long Tail
Looking at the real search terms entered by people really reveals something about the human mind. And, man, the human mind is all over the place. - Google Cracking Down on AdSense Arbitrage
Several AdSense publishers have received notice that their AdSense arbitrage sites are being kicked out of the program as of June 1. - Indeed Testing Pay-per-Action Ad Model
Job search engine Indeed.com has been testing a pay-per-action (PPA) advertising model, which for recruiters means a pay-per-applicant ad model. - Google Acquires Feedburner
As expected, Google announced today that it has acquired Feedburner. - What Are They Selling?
Deep-pocketed suppliers impact the ad market. The sheer number of direct competitors matters. - Yahoo Launches Quality-Based Pricing
Tonight, Yahoo Search Marketing began to roll out quality-based pricing across its sponsored search and contextual listings marketplaces - No Conversion in Yahoo's Quality-Based Bidding
Conversions tracked by Yahoo Analytics are not part of the algorithm determining the new quality-based pricing. - Yahoo Launches Search Marketing Commercial API Program
Yahoo is starting a three-tiered Search Marketing Commercial API program. - AdSense Publishers to Meet Quality Guidelines
Google will require AdSense publishers to meet the same page quality guidelines it holds its AdWords advertisers to with their landing pages. - AdWords Bolding Synonyms
AdWords is now bolding the expanded match terms in the ads. - Google Adds Content Network Transparency
Since its Content Network launched, advertisers have been asking Google for a way to get a better idea of where their ads appear, and get more control over the display of their ads on specific sites. - Younger Folks Like Ads More
It turns out that 18-34 year olds are not as opposed to being sold to as we all thought. - Yahoo Distributing Click Fraud Settlement Funds
Figuring better to control the building outcry about click fraud, the companies got to set a ceiling and disperse a small portion of the actual amounts customers lost through click fraud. - Google Quality Scoring: Changes and Insights
While we would all like to have a light turned on inside the 'black box' there has been some insight given recently if you have been watching carefully.
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Linking Issues & Social Media
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=== SEW Experts: June 14, 2007 ===
Creating Link Bait With Hot Content and Promotions
=== SEW Experts: June 7, 2007 ===
=== SEW Experts: May 31, 2007 ===
Avoiding Low-Quality Links and Link Networks
=== SEW Experts: May 24, 2007 ===
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Winning on Digg Podcast
Eric Enge and Neil Patel have created a second podcast focused on becoming a top Digg user, and how to get content to the Digg home page. - eBay Acquires StumbleUpon
As rumored last month, eBay has acquired social media service StumbleUpon for $75 million in cash. - Using Log Files To Improve Page Rank Distribution
Sharing link love within a large site poses special challenges. - Colbert Interviews Wikipedia Founder
With a mix of humor and serious questions, the two discussed the future goals of Wikipedia. - Yoono Plugin Has Much to Offer
Yoono Buzz It!, a free social Web clipping and annotation plug-in for FireFox and IE, combines the best features of online highlighters, bookmarks and clipping services on a single web page. - Google Webmaster Tools Adds Paid Links Reporting
Google has been warring against paid links that pass PageRank, such as those that don't use the nofollow attribute or some form of redirect.
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Analytics & ROI
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=== SEW Experts: June 13, 2007 ===
Priming Your Quality Score to Boost Campaign Results
=== SEW Experts: June 6, 2007 ===
Making the Case for Portfolio Based Bid Management Tools
=== SEW Experts: May 30, 2007 ===
A Look at Latency In Search Engine Ranking
=== SEW Experts: May 23, 2007 ===
Digging Deeper Into the Latest Release of Google Analytics
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Salesforce.com, Google Partnership Discussions
This move is another direct challenge to Microsoft, which offers CRM products, but also could add an element to Google Analytics. - Portfolio Based Bid Management vs. Keyword Based
Eric Enge talks with Efficient Frontier's CTO about how a portfolio based approach provides better results than the classic approach of measuring and acting on the ROI on a keyword by keyword basis. - Fresh Update to Google Analytics
The update focuses on adding a few select things that they heard as feedback from their previous upgrade in May. - Atlas Institute: Don't Just Count the Last Click
A study from aQuantive's Atlas Institute looks into the effect of overlap of ads, either across publishers or across multiple ad placements.
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Local & Mobile Search
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=== SearchDay: May 30, 2007 ===
Search to Go: Meeting the Needs of the Mobile User
=== SEW Experts: May 25, 2007 ===
Getting Hyper-Active in Local Search
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Google Patent Details Mobile Search Plans
A new patent application published today may reveal some of Google's plans for mobile search. - Local.com on a Roll II
Following its string of recent announcements, Local.com today unveiled a new mobile search product. - Google Adds Neighborhood Search
Google has added a neighborhood search capability for 50 U.S. cities, catching up with sites like Ask.com, Trulia and Yelp. - SpotRunner Dives Deeper into Local
Yesterday, local video ad and distribution provider Spot Runner announced a deal with Lexis Nexus Martindale Hubbel. This gives the company closer access to local advertisers in the legal vertical by opening up a single point of entry to a broad base of private attorneys. - Google Picks Up Geo-locating Photo Service
Google will acquire Panoramio, a Spanish community site that links photos with the geographic location at which they were taken. - Cable TV and Local Search
Cable television providers are testing the waters of on-demand programming. The next step could be to integrate small business video advertising to on-demand menus.
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Vertical & Specialty Search
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=== SEW Experts: June 14, 2007 ===
The Business Case for Expanding B2B SEM
=== SEW Experts: June 8, 2007 ===
Balancing Video Quality and Search Optimization
=== SEW Experts: June 1, 2007 ===
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Blinkx savors IPO success, announces video search growth plans
Blinkx's CEO tells Reuters UK what lies ahead for the video search provider. - Hakia Holds Concert To Launch Music Search
Hakia is throwing two concerts to promote the launch of their new music search. - Technorati Retools, Gets "Universal" Too
The biggest change is a shift away from searching only blogs to include more kinds of user-generated content, including photos and video. - People Search Makes up 30% of All Searches
This is yet another vertical search area where specialized search tools that access uniquely structured databases can do quite well. - Calacanis Launches Human-edited Search Engine
The former CEO of Weblogs Inc. and GM of Netscape has revealed his latest project: a human-edited search engine/wiki/directory called Mahalo. - Interview with FeedBurner's Rick Klau
There are benefits to full-post RSS feeds that many people are missing. - Info Pros Are Searching
This week, the Special Libraries Association held its annual confab in Denver. Perhaps the SLA is improperly named now, as this gathering of over 5,000 information professionals are focused on finding and delivering appropriate online resources. - RSS Mashups - Emerging Tools with Great Potential
What I'd not considered until the launch of Yahoo Pipes is the employment of mashup tools to filter information, making it possible to spend less time getting more of what I want from the Web. - Avvo: Web 2.0 For Legal Search
Like other legal search destinations in this space such as FindLaw and LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, new legal search destination Avvo offers users search tools to find lawyers in different categories and in different locales. - AOL's New Video Search Tools for Developers
AOL has recently followed a successful industry trend by "giving away the good stuff" to build a following. - Blinkx to power Ask.com's video search - interview with blinkx CEO
Already the world's largest video search engine, blinkx today expanded its reach an exclusive video partnership with Ask.com. - Google Adds Transit Data to Maps
Train, bus or subway stops on Google maps now link directly to more detailed information about a specific station, route, or schedule. - Google Video Expands Focus on Search
Google has revamped its idea of what Google Video should be: a Web-wide video search engine. - EveryZing - Beyond Podcasting
The multimedia search and advertising platform is extending their market offering beyond podcasts. - Flickr Adding 7 Languages To System Today
The photo-sharing community hopes "to help the global Flickr community more easily explore, find, manage and share photos." - Google's Ajax Feed API Interview with Mark Lucovsky
The very cool thing about this API is that it enables you to easily access RSS and Atom feeds, and create mashups of the feeds.
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Small Businesses & Big Brand SEM
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=== SearchDay: June 13, 2007 ===
Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations: Part I
=== SearchDay: June 14, 2007 ===
Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations: Part II
=== SearchDay:May 24, 2007 ===
=== SEW Experts: June 12, 2007 ===
Redesigning Your Small Business Web Site
=== SEW Experts: June 5, 2007 ===
Leveraging Big Business Assets for Better SEO Visibility
=== SEW Experts: May 29, 2007 ===
Universal Search for Small Business: What You Need to Know About Google's New Search Results
=== SEW Experts: May 22, 2007 ===
Convincing the Executive Team to Invest in SEO
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- How To Market A Website for $100
Patrick Sexton interviewed some major players in the search space and asked them all how would they market their website if they only had $100. - Big Brands Shy Away from Social Media
Many major brands shy away from social media environments because they can't control them. This creates a great opportunity for smaller players to get high-level attention from the market. - New Rules of PR Podcast with Greg Jarboe
One of the big shifts that Greg sees is that there is much more of an opportunity to use PR to talk directly to your end customers.
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In-House & Outsourcing Issues
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=== SearchDay: June 13, 2007 ===
Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations: Part I
=== SearchDay: June 14, 2007 ===
Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations: Part II
=== SEW Experts: June 15, 2007 ===
When the Honeymoon Ends, In-house
=== SEW Experts: June 1, 2007 ===
Nobody Likes to Hear Their Baby is Ugly
=== SEW Experts: June 8, 2007 ===
Predicting the ROI for Future SEO Efforts
=== SEW Experts: May 25, 2007 ===
Measuring ROI Can Be Difficult for SEO
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SEM Industry Issues
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=== SearchDay: June 7, 2007 ===
Measuring Search Marketers' Job Performance
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Search Still Leads Online Ad Spending
According to the IAB, search advertising made up 40 percent of the $16.9 billion spent in the U.S. for online advertising last year. - What Should Ask.com Do?
An interesting discussion has begun on several blogs this week considering what Ask.com should do to be successful. - Microsoft's Berkowitz: Consider aQuantive Deal a Merger
At a JP Morgan Technology conference Tuesday (link to webcast), Steve Berkowitz, Microsoft's senior VP of online services, told investors that they should consider the company's $6 million purchase of aQuantive as "more of a merger" than an acquisition. - "Microsoft Does Not Need Yahoo Anymore" MSN Strategist Claims
With the purchase of aQuantive and its other advertising assets, Microsoft says it no longer needs to buy Yahoo to conquer the online advertising world. - Google Buying Feedburner?
Sources have confirmed that Google is acquiring Feedburner for close to $100 million. - Google Is Big Brother
The messages may be mixed, but the intent seems to be focused: "Total Global Domination." - Will Ad Targeting Change?
Now that the ad network/server companies are shifting around, we should make our online ad targeting dreams come true. - Who Said It...
After major ownership changes have been announced in the online ad business, let's try to match the players with these "unquoted reasons" for the moves. - News from SES China
Several intrepid travelers made the trip to Xiamen for SES China last week. - Google is a Data Company
Google's core expertise is not as a search engine company, or an advertising company. Google is a data company. - FTC Looking at Google-DoubleClick Deal?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google's planned $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick - Kevin Ryan on the Future of Search Engine Strategies
Kevin spoke with Rand Fishkin at SES Toronto, where he offered some insight into the direction SES may be heading, and shared with Rand Incisive's plan to create an advisory board for the SES conferences. - IDC Predicts Beginning of End for Search Dominance
According to a new report from research analysts at IDC, search is about to lose its dominance of the online ad market, to be overtaken by video and rich media ads by 2011.
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Search Engines, Tools & Technology
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=== SearchDay: Apr. 1, 2007 ===
Are Bid Management Tools Dead?
=== From the SEW Blog: ===
- Google's Cross-Language Search Launches
The cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) technology which Google VP Udi Manber previewed at Searchology last week has launched. - Google Tracking Hot Trends
Google has introduced Hot Trends, "sharing the hottest current searches with you in very close to real time." - Google Can Now Find Faces
Google Image Search is adding face-recognition technology, as well as new features to filter images from news stories. - Universal Search Boosting Map, Video Traffic
Hitwise's Bill Tancer has published an analysis of traffic data on Google's various properties, comparing them before and after the Universal Search launch. - Sputtr: Many Search Options, One Place
For those who like to search using multiple engines, but who are tired of opening multiple browsers or tabs, there's now a simple, elegant solution. - Microsoft Planning Next Search Engine?
Microsoft is rumored to have "gathered a team of twenty or more 'rock star' developers" to build its "next-generation" search engine. - Google Defends Data-Retention Practices
In response to an E.U. Article 29 Working Party investigation, Google has changed its data retention policies again. - Google Privacy Practices Under Attack
Privacy International, a London-based privacy watchdog group, has issued a report citing Google's privacy practices as the worst among large online destinations.
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