IndustryThe Search Engine Update – Number 220 – May 3, 2006

The Search Engine Update - Number 220 - May 3, 2006

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

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In This Issue
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+ SEW Live In Seattle; SES London & Other Events
+ 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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SEW Live In Seattle, SES London & Other Events
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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, Joseph Morin 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.

In October, we’re having our first SES Multimedia Edition show, and basic details for that event — focused on multimedia content and search — are now available.

Doing forward planning beyond this? See the Search Engine Strategies site and also keep an eye on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

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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.

=== May. 3, 2006 ===

Class Action Fraud Suit Filed Against Yahoo Over Adware & Domain Distribution – A class action lawsuit has been filed against Yahoo and others claiming “syndication fraud” over how Yahoo ads are allegedly displayed through spyware, adware and domain parking programs that involve “typo domains.” See also: Judge Approves Google Class Action Lawsuit Settlement of $90 Million.

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Yahoo & Microsoft Have Talked Partnering, Merging – It makes sense for Microsoft and Yahoo to get together. Microsoft is behind with the core search technology. Yahoo’s been struggling to upgrade its paid search service. Today in the Wall Street Journal, it turns out that there’s apparently a faction at Microsoft that wants to do just that. See also:

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Multichannel Metrics: Managing the Sea of Data – Paying attention to web metrics is an increasingly important aspect of search marketing, with methodologies, processes and tools that can dramatically lift marketing and business performance.

=== May. 2, 2006 ===

More On Amazon Dumping Google & Missing Paid Listings – Forget A9 no longer carrying Google results. More important, this means that Amazon itself no longer carries Google’s search results — and in particular, Google’s paid listings. See also: Nearly 10 Percent Of Amazon Visitors Clicked Off To Google.

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Google Worried About Microsoft’s Browser Advantage? What Advantage? – Google’s objections to US Justice Department and the European Union over Microsoft’s plans for search in Internet Explorer 7 are pretty overblown, somewhat hypocritical and most important, worry over something that’s not likely going to hurt them. See also:

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SideStep Launches Activity Search – You’ve made your travel plansnow what? SideStep’s new Activity Search lets you explore destinations and create an itinerary of things to do once you arrive.

=== Apr. 28, 2006 ===

Search Engine Forums Spotlight – Links to the week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: Ask.com Chief Berkowitz Heads To MSN – With Google’s New Big Daddy Index, Crawling is Changing – Are ALT Tags Back? – Changing Dynamic URLs to Static URLs – BabelFish Re-launches as Yahoo BabelFish, and more.

=== Apr. 27, 2006 ===

Google AdWords Broad Match To Act Differently For Commercial, Non-Commercial Terms – Depending on broad match or phrase match to get listed on Google? A new tweak to Google AdWords means that in some cases, that might no longer get your ad listed as in the past. See also: Revisiting Search Engine Ad Breaks.

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Yahoo’s FareChase: The Stealth Disruptor? – Although FareChase is web giant Yahoo’s travel contender, it’s nonetheless a relatively small player in the online travel search space. Now that FareChase is out of beta, though, the service could very quickly become a strong presence and dramatically transform online travel search.

=== Apr. 26, 2006 ===

Google Sitemaps Adds Spam Checking, New Webmaster Help Center & Other Features – Google has announced new features and a new layout for Google Sitemaps, including some limited penalty reporting and new reinclusion features. See also:

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Searchonomics: Search Statistics Made Fun – Whoever said statistics about search must be dry and boring hasn’t experienced presentations from two data giants of the search world, Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer and Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research for Hitwise.

=== Apr. 25, 2006 ===

Google Confirms More User Interface Tests – Google has officially confirmed recent tests with the Google user interface that has been spreading around the Internet. See also:

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Sphere: A New Approach to Blog Search – The blogosphere continues to both fascinate and frustrate, because great content is out there, but it’s often drowned in a sea of garbage. Newly launched Sphere aims to change that with a different approach to blog search.

=== Apr. 22, 2006 ===

Ask.com Chief Steve Berkowitz Jumps Ship To Microsoft’s MSN – Steve Berkowitz, head of Ask.com and the man who has helped steered that service to new successes, has been hired by Microsoft to run its online business group. See also:

=== Apr. 21, 2006 ===

Google Revenues Up – Google’s first quarter revenues are in, $2.25 billion, up 79 percent compared to the same time last year and 17 percent over last quarter. Net income was 62 percent higher than last quarter, various sources calculate. See also:

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Google Local Goes Back To Being Google Maps – Google Maps, formerly called Google Local, has regained its old name of Google Maps — which now absorbs Google Local. See also:

=== Apr. 20, 2006 ===

New York Times Magazine’s Deep Look At Google, Censorship & China – There’s an excellent New York Times Magazine piece looking at how Google’s entry into the country from 2000 onward, touching along the way on Yahoo and Microsoft as well. See also:

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More From The SEW Blog
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Below are posts from the Search Engine Watch Blog since the last newsletter and not mentioned above. Want to keep up on daily news from the blog? Visit the home page or subscribe to the blog feed. Note that references to “I” may becoming from any of the Search Engine Watch staff who post to the blog.

=== May. 3, 2006 ===

Google Not Tops In South Korea Google fails to make inroads in South Korea from the Associated Press is a interesting look at how there’s at least one country where Google is not tops or a major player: South Korea. Instead, the human-based Naver service remains far-and-away the most popular….[MORE”

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Google & Brazil Fight Over Orkut User Data Rights – Google appeared in front of the Chamber of Deputies’ Human Rights Committee to protect Orkut users data from Brazilian authorities….[MORE”

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Ask.com Second TV Blitz Stars Chief Scientist Guru, Apostolos Gerasoulis – ClickZ reports that Ask.com will be launching its second set of “post-Jeeves campaigns” today (see 1st set here). In these TV campaigns, you may notice that one of the founders of Teoma, the technology being used to power Ask.com, Apostolos Gerasoulis will be the main star….[MORE”

=== May. 2, 2006 ===

MSN Bests Google & Yahoo in Search Shootout – Interlink, a Cincinnati web marketing research, search engine optimization and consulting firm, recently ran some tests to assess performance of major (and minor) search engines. Surprisingly, MSN took top honors in relevancy….[MORE”

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Mazda’s Google Earth Game – Philipp Lenssen points to Mazda EarthSearch sweepstakes game. You basically download a KML file that runs on Google Earth and follow the steps from there. The game shows you hints of historic landmarks, you use your search skills to locate the landmarks on Google Earth. So far they have two steps, where you locate two different landmarks. I located both and now I await an email for next week’s continuation to the game.

=== May. 1, 2006 ===

Microsoft Launches Windows Live Shopping Beta – Microsoft announced Friday that they have launched Windows Live Shopping in beta….[MORE”

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Google Suggest For Google News – Google announced that they have added the Google Suggest feature to Google News. To try Google Suggest for Google News out, visit http://news.google.com/news?complete=1. This is a nice feature to help people narrow down the news searches they perform.

=== Apr. 28, 2006 ===

Former Yahoo Exec Toni Schneider On Life At Automattic – Yahoo’s had a number of executives depart to start-ups and smaller companies recently. Toni Schneider was one of them, leaving last January. Swapping job security for a startup at Business 2.0 has John Battelle talking with him about making the move to Automattic.

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Your Network Added To del.icio.us – Yahoo My Web Like Features – del.icio.us announced a new feature they call “your network.” You network lets you keep track of your friends most recent bookmarks….[MORE”. See also: Yahoo Enhances My Web with “People Centric” Tools.

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Are You A Click-O-Phobic? – Hundreds of publishers have been banned from clicking on their own ads and this resonates with the publishers, so much so that some of them are afraid to click on any ad – not even their own….[MORE”

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Change Your Time Zone Once & Only Once At AdWords – Last night Google announced at the AdWords blog that you will be able to change your time zone on the account level….[MORE”

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Google Finally Hires Two New Chefs – After a year long search, Google finally gets new chefs….[MORE”

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Google Second Most Desired Place For MBA Students To Work For – ZDnet reports on a 2006 Universum Survey MBA Edition, that shows Google has jumped from 129th place in 2005 to 2nd place this year as the most popular place to work for MBA students….[MORE”

=== Apr. 27, 2006 ===

Yahoo To Create Better Portals Globally – Informatics Online reports Yahoo is going to make an international push with their Web portal properties…[MORE”

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Washington Post Talks About The SEM Community – Leslie Walker from the Washington Post wrote an article named How to Juice Up a Site’s Rank, which is basically an article about the SEM community….[MORE”

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Google Sued In Israel For Search Ad Trademark Dispute – EEFTimes.com reports that Google is being sued in Israel for enabling an advertiser to buy AdWords targeting a trademarked company’s name….[MORE”

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Google Makes SketchUp Free – Google SketchUp launched a free version of the 3D modeling programfor “for personal use”….[MORE”

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Yahoo Adds Babel Fish – Yahoo has integrated the classic AltaVista Babel Fish translation service into Yahoo Search….[MORE”. See also: Google Translates English To & From Arabic.

=== Apr. 26, 2006 ===

Search Engine Strategies Toronto – Day Two – Coverage of the SES Toronto show. See also:

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Arabic Language Search Engine ETA Q4 2006 – News.com reports on plans to building an Arabic language search engine called “Sawafi” by the end of this year….[MORE”

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Yahoo Launched Go TV – DVR ServiceYahoo Go for TV Beta is now live, a service that allows you to “view photos, search for video clips and watch movie trailers on your TV”….[MORE”

=== Apr. 25, 2006 ===

20% Of Google Mobile Searches Are Adult Specific – One of every five Google searches on a phone are for adult oriented keywords….[MORE”

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Yahoo’s Ad Inventory Beats Out Google – Susan Kuchinskas informed me of this post that shows recent comScore qSearch stats where Yahoo’s ad inventory is higher as a percentage, when compared to Google….[MORE”

=== Apr. 24, 2006 ===

Rumor: Google To Offer Free WiFi To Nation – Via tech.memeorandum, there are rumors that Google has plans to expand their current wifi efforts, to cover the entire US….[MORE”.

=== Apr. 21, 2006 ===

This Internet Thing Isn’t Just a Fad – New research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project confirms that the internet has become a crucial source of information at major moments and milestones in our lives….[MORE”

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ClickTracks & Performancing Offering Up Free Stats – Sure, Google Analytics is free, but on an invite only basis. Those looking for good free stats now have two new options….[MORE”

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Marketing to Hispanics Part II Released – Nacho Hernandez from iHispanic released part II of his Marketing to Hispanics report. I have pulled out some of the highlights of part two, with Nacho’s help….[MORE”

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And Now, Google Takes Flak Over Google Logo Doodle – Those crazy kids at Google, always whacking together some twist on the Google logo to honor someone or something. Now it’s gotten them into trouble….[MORE”

=== Apr. 20, 2006 ===

Conference Coverage: PubCon 2006 & SES Japan 2006PubCon has been happening out in Boston, while Search Engine Strategies is going in Japan. Here’s a round-up to some coverage on search-related sessions….[MORE”

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Google’s New GData API Format – Niall Kennedy points to what looks to be a new Google API format, the Google Data API or GData for short, which it says is based on existing formats of Atom and RSS 2.0 (and here). It’s designed to let you send requests for data and get back results as an Atom or RSS feed.

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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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