IndustryThe Search Engine Update – Number 184 – November 2, 2004

The Search Engine Update - Number 184 - November 2, 2004

Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan's recap of top search engine stories from late October 2004.

In This Issue

+ Search Engine Strategies Comes To Chicago
+ Search Engine Watch Articles
+ From The Search Engine Watch Blog
+ About The Newsletter

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Search Engine Strategies Comes To Chicago

Search Engine Strategies arrives in Chicago from December 13-16. The show features nearly 60 session focusing on all aspects of search engine marketing plus features an extensive expo hall. A full agenda and detailed information can be found at the conference web site.

Dates for other events around the world next year have also been. Those dates and basic information can be found on the Search Engine Strategies site.

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Search Engine Watch Articles
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Here’s a recap of major articles, blog postings and some interesting forum discussions from Search Engine Watch since the last newsletter:

Local Search: Missing Pieces Falling into Place
SearchDay, Nov. 2, 2004

Some pundits claim that the paid search market has peaked, but new research tells a different story, suggesting that local search is emerging as an important and powerful driver for the paid search market.

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The Sophisticated Search Marketer
Search Engine Watch, Nov. 2, 2004

A new report from JupiterResearch finds that many search marketers have yet to become “sophisticates” in how they conduct search marketing campaigns and highlights interesting differences between them and their “unsophisticate” brethren. A review exclusive to Search Engine Watch members. Learn more about becoming a member here.

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Impressions of Search Engine Strategies Stockholm
SearchDay, Nov. 1, 2004

Last week, Search Engine Strategies made its debut in Sweden, drawing attendees from all over Scandinavia, Europe and even Africa and India. Chris Sherman shares an overview of the event. See also our forum thread: Live From SES Sweden Oct. 27 – 28

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Search Engine Forums Spotlight
SearchDay, Oct. 29, 2004

Links to this week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: Live From SES Sweden – AdSense verses Affiliate Programs – Google Is Now Indexing Pop-ups – Redirects, Frames And Cloaking – Do You Avoid Content Targeted Listings? – Image Ads On Google Adwords – The Right way to Count Links?

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Web Feeds, Blogs & Search Engines
SearchDay, Oct. 28, 2004

Blogs are increasingly popular, and can have a dramatic effect on search engine positioning. How can you best take advantage of this new search marketing channel?

This longer version of the story for Search Engine Watch members offers additional tips and strategies for using blogs as part of a search marketing campaign.

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Yahoo Adds Local, Web and Image Search To Mobile Lineup
Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 27, 2004

Yahoo has added local search, web search, and image search to their already large set of mobile services (news alerts, games, IM, etc.) delivered to your wireless web browser. More via this blog post.

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Search Online, Buy Offline: How to Tell?
SearchDay, Oct. 27, 2004

Many people do extensive product research online but end up buying from brick and mortar retailers. How can you track the effectiveness of search marketing campaigns that result in offline purchases?

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Google Acquires Satellite Image Software Firm
Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 27, 2004

Google has acquired Keyhole, a company the provides software to view satellite images and virtually “fly” across the world. More on Keyhole, the acquisition, similar services and other observations via this blog post.

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Search Engine Marketing For Travel-Related Sites
SearchDay, Oct. 26 2004

Search marketing in the travel industry is brutally competitive, with intense jockeying between travel agencies, affiliates, wholesalers and travel products companies themselves vying for top positioning. What’s the most effective approach to search marketing in this cutthroat environment?

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Is This the New Look of MSN Search?
Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 26, 2004

Earlier this month, the UK version of MSN’s search preview showed some interesting relevancy sliders that quickly disappeared. Via the MSN page caching server, Gary Price was able to capture some screen shots of these. More about them and other features likely to come in this blog post.

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A New Mobile Phone Search Service
SearchDay, Oct. 25, 2004

UpSnap turns your cell phone in to a search tool, offering free directory assistance lookups using SMS text messaging.

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SMA-EU Forming For European Search Marketers
Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 25, 2004

Only days after the SMA-UK search marketing group was launched, a new SMA-EU organization has been founded that’s intended to encompass all of Europe. More via this blog post.

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The Many Faces of Google
Search Engine Watch Forums, Oct. 25, 2004

Google has many divisions and varieties of its domain. Members discuss how you may be receiving traffic from this search engine even not knowing that it was also Google.

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Google More Profitable – But Why?
SearchDay, Oct. 23, 2004

Google’s stock price has been hitting new heights, with some financial analysts speculating it will reach $200 per share. Why the excitement? Google had a great third quarter. Revenues doubled compared to the same time period in 2003 — a 105 percent increase, to be exact. But no one seems to be acknowledging that Google also had a great second quarter. Google’s revenues in the second quarter of this year rose 125 percent compared to the same time in 2003. More on this and other thoughts on the financial release, via this blog post.

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Temporal Link Analysis
Search Engine Watch Forums, Oct. 23, 2004

How could temporal link analysis — monitoring and leveraging the age of links — impact the context of business intelligence and search engine marketing strategies.

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Search Engine Forums Spotlight
SearchDay, Oct. 22, 2004

Links to this week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: Google Is Doomed Long Term – Search Engine Friendly E-Commerce Design From Ground Up – Why Does Google Still Value ‘Bought Links’ – SEO for Google Using CSS – Cloaking 101 – Questions and Answers – No Joy With Listings in Yahoo

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New AdWords Classifications Coming
Search Engine Watch Forums, Oct. 22, 2004

Sometime in November, Google is to revamping the classification of keyword status. Strong, Moderate, At Risk and Disabled will go, to be replaced by Active, Disabled and In Trial. The last option is meant to help in quick disabling of terms.

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Retaining Traffic after a Web Site Redesign
SearchDay, Oct. 21, 2004

Your site gets great traffic from search engines, and yet it needs a new design. How can you freshen up a site without risking a decline in rankings and a loss of traffic from search engines?

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Yahoo Announces Size Increase to Image Database
Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 21, 2004

The Yahoo Image Search database now includes an index of more than 1 billion images. More via this blog entry.

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Search Memories
SearchDay, Oct. 20, 2004

Veterans of AltaVista, Excite and Infoseek reminisce about the early days of web search, and opine about Google, then and now.

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Search Marketing Off the Beaten Track
SearchDay, Oct. 19, 2004

Opportunities for effective, inexpensive search marketing are abundant when you and ‘think outside the (Big Search) box’ and look to vertical or specialized content sites.

This longer version of the story for Search Engine Watch members offers tips on finding relevant vertical sites and specific vertical advertising tactics.

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A Conversation with Matthew Koll
SearchDay, Oct. 18, 2004

Gary Price checks in with web search pioneer Matthew Koll, who shares his thoughts on the current and future state of the industry.

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Want to receive new Search Engine Watch articles every day? Sign-up for SearchDay, the free daily newsletter from Search Engine Watch. Also keep up with news and discussion via our Search Engine Watch Forums.

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From The SEW Blog
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Google-BellSouth Partnership — Not Quite Revolutionary
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-633a

AdAge examines the new Google-BellSouth deal to explain why the two partnered: Why the Google-BellSouth Yellow Pages Deal Happened. Frankly, there’s nothing that revealing in it. The cards have been on the tables for over a year that the two groups — search engines and yellow pages — would need to partner. The key question is whether those yellow pages, in partnering with the search engines, will be able to keep the advertisers with them directly over the long term. More on this and other observations, such as perhaps print yellow pages from Google and Yahoo, in this blog entry.

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Desktop Search & The Search Marketer
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-631a

Fredrick Marckini weighs in on how desktop search may impact search marketing: Google’s Desktop Search Could Change SEM Forever, from ClickZ. A key point is his prediction that getting us to search our desktops will lead to more searching of all types — and thus more inventory for the search marketer to target. That’s certainly what Google is hoping for.

He also looks at how search marketers may want to ensure they track when pages appear in Google Desktop cached results, as this will reflect a long-term “win” with searchers. They didn’t just see your page once; they now may see it prominently in response to other searches over time.

As I explained in my article about Google Desktop, the tool is giving users personal search memory features that have also rolled out on other search engines, such as Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. For a further look at how these personal search feature may impact search marketers, see my Search Personalization: A Marketer’s Perspective article for Search Engine Watch members.

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AOL: Personal Search Will Come
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-630a

AOL has said before it plans to do things in terms of personalizing the search experience. This article from IDG has them saying it again: AOL eyes personal search. No specifics on particular products or release data — just that personal moves will happen at some point in the future.

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Most Search Marketers Unsophisticated
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-629a

A report from JupiterResearch that finds search marketers still have a lot of maturing to do. MediaPost provides a write-up here: Report: Three out of Four Search Marketers ‘Unsophisticated’.

Unsophisticated? Wipe that image from your mind of search marketers who sit with their elbows on the table, food crumbs around their mouths and use the wrong salad fork. Instead, “sophisticates” are search marketers that are somehow managing bids or tracking traffic from paid and unpaid listings. “Unsophisticates” are those who undertake search marketing activity without gather such feedback.

I’ve done my own write-up of the report for our Search Engine Watch members, highlighting some other interesting details and differences, between the two groups. You’ll find that here: The Sophisticated Search Marketer.

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Special Logos for Election Day
By Gary Price, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-628a

Both Ask Jeeves and Google have special logos for Election Day 2004 in the US. More via this blog entry.

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Semel: Yahoo Working on Desktop Search
By Gary Price, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-627a

While speaking at an investment conference on Monday, Yahoo’s CEO Terry Semel said his company is building a desktop search tool. Semel also told the audience that he plans to stay at Yahoo. Recently, there was some speculation in the press that he might be a contender for the CEO position at Disney.

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FindWhat Will Drop Gambling Ads
By Gary Price, Nov. 2, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041102-626a

A Clickz article reports that FindWhat will soon stop showing gambling ads for IP addresses that they determine come from the United States or where a location cannot be determined. The announcement was made yesterday during FindWhat’s Q3 financial results conference call. You can listen to the complete call here.

For more on gambling ads and search advertising see Danny’s, Lawsuit Filed Over Search & Gambling Ads and Yahoo Bans Online Casino Ads; Google’s Ban Has Holes. Want to comment or discuss? Visit the Gambling Ads On Search Sites thread in the SEW Forums.

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New Look and Services at Findory
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-625a

Personalized news tool Findory is online with a new look and several new services. You can learn more from Findory’s CEO Greg Linden via a post on his Geeking with Greg weblog. If you’re interested in learning more about Findory, here’s a recent interview that I did with Greg.

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Who2 Offers Mobile Search Option
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-624a

Yes, another mobile search tool to tell you about. This one is designed for those of you with mobile access to email. More via this blog entry.

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Microsoft Prepares Massive Marketing Campaign for New Search Engine
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-623a

Can traditional consumer-facing marketing/advertising do anything to help gain search market share from a company, Google, that has used very little of it to build their brand along with a stellar reputation? Can intense marketing get the typical “I only need to use one search engine” type of searcher to try something different and/or switch to another search tool?

Well, get ready. It looks like the official release of MSN’s new search engine is coming very soon (pre-Christmas) as the company prepares for a massive on and offline marketing campaign, “one of its biggest ever.” More in this NewMediaZero story.

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Another Google Bug Reported
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-622a

Reports of bugs in Google’s services seem to be appearing on a daily basis. The good news is that the company has been quick to repair them. The latest one, a cross site scripting issue with googlesyndication.com, was reported as on the Netcraft site earlier today. It was discovered by the same person who found a flaw with Google Desktop Search last week.

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Microsoft Help Promotes Google Web Search
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-620a

Google helps promote Windows XP from InfoWorld is about how Microsoft’s Partner Pack For Windows is promoting the Google Deskbar. More on this story of coopetition in the middle of a heated search war via this blog post.

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Searching For Packaged Goods
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-619a

People looking for consumer packaged goods — you know, boxes of tissue, dog food, cans of soup and other products on shelves in stores — wouldn’t seem likely to search for them via search engines. After all, they know where to get these products at their local brick-and-mortar stores. But Kevin Ryan argues that for whatever reason, brand searches for such items do take place. Brand owners need a strategy to tap into this. Packaged Goods in Search is a two-part look at the issue. Link is to the second part, which leads to the first.

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Using Paid Listings To Help Sell Free/Organic
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-618a

Want to get clients or your bosses to put more money into work to improve “organic” or “free” listings? Tapping into your data about paid listing perfomance may be key. Tips on this from Kevin Lee in How Paid SEM Helps Organic Search Optimization from ClickZ.

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Search Ads Used By More Than “New Breed” Advertisers
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-616a

According to Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News, Google and other search companies are tapping into a new breed of advertiser and don’t yet covet the dollars General Motors and other large companies spend on television ads. Not so. Not at all. Not by a long shot. More about this via the blog entry.

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No Thanks To Google Interview
By Danny Sullivan, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-615a

We’ve had some past mentions about Google recruiting wins from Microsoft, such as Google On Hiring Spree For Nooglers? and this item. Now here’s a twist that’s not so rosy for Google. Russell Beattie decides to pass on the four hour in-person Google interview after clearing preliminary hurtles: On Cancelling My Google Interview.

Why? No clear business plan or product unification theme from the company and a penchant for mean-spiritness are among his reasons. Be sure to check out the sometimes heated comments from others, including some who apparently work for Google.

Meanwhile, some related posts. Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny weights in on Microsoft trying to recruit him: Microsoft Comes A Knockin’ (again) and Microsoft’s Robert Scoble on not fearing that public blogging of employees will lead to losses: The blogger recruiting wars.

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Someone Else Grabbing My Blogspot Domain
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-614a

Yahoo lost the mail of a Google employee due to account inactivity? Well, Google lost my Blogger domain that someone else is now using, tapping into my links. More on this via the blog entry.

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A9 Toolbar Now Available for Firefox
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-613a

I just noticed that Amazon’s A9 has released a version of their toolbar for Firefox. Until now, the toolbar was only available for IE.

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Report: Yahoo Emerges as Leading Bidder for MarketWatch.com
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-612a

Last week it was widely reported that online business news publisher MarketWatch.com was up for sale. Today, The Deal reports that Yahoo, “is emerging as a leading bidder” for the company.

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On ‘Kanoodling’
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-611a

Buffalo’s Business First offers up a profile of Kanoodle.

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Blinkx Names CEO
By Gary Price, Nov. 1, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041101-610a

Reuters reports that Blinkx has named a CEO. Effective immediately, Mark Opzoomer, former managing director of Yahoo Europe, is at the helm. The Reuters story goes on to mention that Microsoft has plans, “to launch a test version of Blinkx’s desktop search.” News to me. Also, Rafe Needleman at AlwaysOn sits down with Blinkx co-founder, Suranga Chandratillake, and asks, “how Blinkx will survive the Google onslaught.”

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Searching for Moblog Images
By Gary Price, Oct. 31, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041031-609a

What’s a moblog? Take the word “mobile” and “weblog” and you have moblog. They’re defined by a moblog hosting service as a place on the web where you, “can post pictures, video & text from your camera phone direct to web instantly.”

Search Engine Journal tells us the IceRocket, a new web engine we’ve blogged about a couple of times, now allows you to search for images posted on these “mobile” weblogs. The service is also available on Blog Search Engine (another site from Loren at SEJ). The images themselves come from people and groups (community moblogs) who use the Textamerica service.

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Google Desktop for the Mac? Plus PR Blogging & Guru Speaks
By Gary Price, Oct. 31, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041031-608a

Reuters reports Google Desktop for the Mac is in the works: Google Will Offer Desktop Search for the Mac. But BoingBoing that says Reuters got the story wrong. Meanwhile, Google’s Director of Corporate PR, David Krane, is blogging. And from the San Jose Mercury News, Google guru shares words of wisdom: “Ram Shriram, one of Google’s earliest gurus, held court Thursday evening before a crowd of a couple hundred people.

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Froogle Automates Merchant Ads, Gains Merchant Ratings
By Gary Price, Oct. 29, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041029-606a

Froogle has opened up its ad automator tool to Froogle merchants. It converts the merchants product feeds into AdWords ads. Froogle also now offers an option to compare prices for the same product across merchants. The service also now shows merchant ratings gathered from third-party sites like BizRate, Shopping.com and PriceGrabber.com. For more, see Google Widens Test to Froogle Merchants from ClickZ.

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Local Search Continues to Grow, What About the Yellow Pages?
By Gary Price, Oct. 29, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041029-605a

In the ClickZ article Kelsey: Local, Shopping Search Grow, Kevin Newcomb takes a look at a new study from The Kelsey Group and BizRate.com that reports that, “74 percent of respondents perform local searches, and 37 percent of online consumers are very familiar with shopping search sites.”

While we’re on the topic of the growing local search marketplace, what about the Yellow Pages? Neg Norton, president of the Yellow Pages Association, says that the these directories are not nearing death. See the MediaPost commentary Is Search Writing the Yellow Pages Obituary? Definitely Not.

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Campaign Contributions and Search Companies
By Gary Price, Oct. 28, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041028-604a

Lots of stories and posts about Fundrace, a tool to see if your neighbor donated to a political candidate in this election cycle. Fundrace uses data from the Federal Election Commission. MANY other search tools provide access to this public data and sometimes you’ll find interfaces that offer different access points. More about these via this blog post.

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Internet Search Firms are Parasites
By Gary Price, Oct. 28, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041028-603a

Internet search engines will kill growth in the online publishing business according to Andrew Hart, managing director of Associated New Media, the online publishing arm of the UK’s Associated Newspapers. Online publishers rail against Google explains how Hart called search firms “parasites” during a recent conference presentation.

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BellSouth Will Sell Google Ads
By Gary Price, Oct. 28, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041028-602a

Buy Google advertising from your Yellow Pages sale rep? Ubetcha! A story from Dow Jones: BellSouth Sells Google Web-Site Ads, let’s us know that the two companies will announce a deal today. More details in the news release.

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Feedster Hacks Launches
By Gary Price, Oct. 28, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041028-601a

Feedster Hacks is a new clearinghouse blog run by Steven M. Cohen (he’s a librarian and someone I work with at ResourceShelf) that collects and organizes, “the various hacks that have been created with Feedster.” Now, what does Steven consider a hack? He writes, “A hack can include a bookmarklet, an advanced search mechanism, or even a useful way of using Feedster to fit your RSS/weblog searching needs.” Feedster Hacks isn’t an “official” company site. However, it’s being with the approval of Feedster.

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The Universal Information Client
By Gary Price, Oct. 27, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041027-599a

Learn About Haystack: The Universal Information Client explains how research at MIT may transform the way people seek information on their computers. You can find the Haystack overview here. Screenshots here. Download (semantic web browser, an early release) here.

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Just Ask: The Feedster Support Blog is Now Online
By Gary Price, Oct. 27, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041027-598a

Feedster has just launched a support blog that’s dedicated to answering questions about Feedster.

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Google’s Own Cheat Sheet
By Gary Price, Oct. 27, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041027-595a

Google’s own blog posted about a Google Cheat Sheet loaded down with advanced syntax to make your Google searches more precise. Most of what’s here will already be known by Google “power” searchers but it’s still good to have it all in one place and will make a good web search training tool. I picked up a two piecse of Google syntax I didn’t know about. More on that, and some other cheat sheets, via this blog post.

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Searcher Habits
By Gary Price, Oct. 26, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041026-594a

An interesting AP story: Experts: Web searches for sex declining, e-commerce increasing that reports on some research findings published in a new book titled, Web Search: Public Searching of the Web by noted information scientists, Dr. Amanda Spink (University of Pittsburgh) and Dr. Bernard J. Jansen (Penn. State University). By the way, their web sites link to plenty of interesting material. More thoughts on the findings via this blog post.

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Don’t Call it a Browser, Call It a Navigator (& Other Google News)
By Gary Price, Oct. 26, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041026-590a

Searchblog has an excellent review of the latest Google Browser (GBrowser) talk from Slashdot and Mozillanews.org. On Sunday, we posted a quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying that his company is NOT developing a browser. I believe Dr. Schmidt. More via this blog entry.

Also, Netcraft reports that Salvatore Aranzulla, an Italian journalist, has found another flaw with the Google Desktop. And a ZDNet UK article: Hackers use Google to defeat anti-spam measures let’s us know that a phishing scam that utilizes Google redirects.

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Fagan’s “Switch Bookmarklets”
By Gary Price, Oct. 25, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041025-584a

Switch Bookmarklets allow you to, “quickly switch from search results from one tool to those from another.” Switch Bookmarklets are available for many general and specialized search engines. For example, run a search on Google and by simply clicking the bookmarklet check the results for the same query at Teoma. Run a search at Daypop and quickly review the results at Technorati. Hundreds of combinations are possible.

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New Site For Search Jobs
By Danny Sullivan, Oct. 25, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041025-579a

Looking for a job in the search industry? The new Jobs In Search site aims to help. Not much there at the moment, however. Less than 30 listings, and almost all based in the UK (as is the site itself). But perhaps it will grow. Job seekers might also try various forum sites, which sometimes have areas. We have two areas at our forums: Help Wanted/Jobs Available and Jobs Wanted/Contractors For Hire.

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Yahoo and Adobe Announce a Partnership
By Gary Price, Oct. 25, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041025-582a

YahooBat? AcroHoo? Excuse me? A deal that gives Yahoo a new and very large distribution channel for their toolbar and will later see Yahoo search embedded in the Acrobat Reader will be announced today. More via this blog post and from this AP article.

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Google: A Behind-the-Scenes Look (and other Lectures)
By Gary Price, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-580a

Jeff Dean from Google presented Google: A Behind-the-scenes Look at the University of Washington in Seattle. Greg Linden’s review of the presentation is also online. Via this blog post, links to some other Google presentations that may be of interest.

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Background On New SMA-UK Group
By Danny Sullivan, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-578a

Chris blogged earlier about the new Search Marketing Association UK group. Now ClickZ has a good article about the SMA-UK and why it formed: UK Search Marketers Form SEMPO Alternative. Meanwhile, discussion of the group is over in our forums: New trade association for search marketers.

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Keep Your SEM Firm In The Loop!
By Danny Sullivan, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-577a

Been working with an SEM firm? Be sure to stay in touch with them before changing your site. They can ensure you don’t make mistakes that in advertently sabotage your search marketing efforts. More on this from Fredrick Marckini in When Client/SEM Communications Break Down.

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Search Meets TV
By Danny Sullivan, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-576a

Will search and TV blend? A look at such speculation and some reality, via this blog entry.

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Search Through US Presidental Debate Transcripts
By Danny Sullivan, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-575a

Want to search the transcripts of the US presidential and vice presidential debates? A new service from askSam makes it possible.

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Overture Opens Ambassador Program To Traditional Ad Agencies
By Danny Sullivan, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-574a

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.

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New Shopping Engine: Cairo.com
By Gary Price, Oct. 23, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041023-572a

The Contra Costa Times reports in: Sale item search engine sniffs out local deals, reports on Cairo.com, a new “locally focused” shopping search engine (similar to CrossMedia’s ShopLocal.com) that will officially launch on Monday (if you want to take a look, the site is online today). More via this blog post.

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Blabble Launches Blog Engine
By Gary Price, Oct. 22, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041022-569a

Blabble, a company that offers intelligence mined from weblogs (a fee-based service), has just released a free blog search engine. The results are very basic and not all that wonderful at the moment (especially compared with other blog engines) but Blabble’s founder Matt Rice says that the free service will soon include aggregations/thoughts/sentences mined from the content. We will be watching. You can learn more about what Blabble is up to in this Internet Retailer article from August.

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Nestorov’s Mobissimo
By Gary Price, Oct. 22, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041022-568a

We’ve blogged about travel search sites and tools like Mobissimo, Kayak, Yahoo FareChase, and SideStep in the past. In the new Business Week article: This Travel Search Site Could Go Far, Ben Elgin provides an overivew of the company and its founder, Svetlozar Nestorov.

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Does Google Plan to “Steal” Microsoft Engineers?
By Gary Price, Oct. 22, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041022-567a

Google already has a sales office in Seattle but this Seattle Times business brief let’s us know that the company is opening another office in suburban Kirkland.

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Yahoo Acquires Stata Labs
By Chris Sherman, Oct. 21, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041021-565a

Yahoo has purchased another email startup, Stata Labs. The acquisition follows Yahoo’s July purchase of Oddpost, a provider of web based email. Stata Labs’ Bloomba product, by contrast, is a desktop email client built around search from the ground-up. Raymie Stata, founder of Stata Labs, was one part of the original development team from AltaVista.

The press release announcing the acquisition says that Bloomba is no longer available, and Yahoo has no plans to make the product available. The two acquisitions suggest that Yahoo may be planning a Gmail workalike to replace Yahoo Mail sometime down the road.

I played around with Bloomba long enough to be impressed with the speed and quality of the search results it provided on more than ten years of archived emails. Looks like another good pick up for Yahoo.

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Goodman on Clickfraud
By Gary Price, Oct. 21, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041021-564a

There is an increasing amount of attention being given to clickfraud these days. Danny linked to a couple of articles in his post: Clickfraud: Whose Problem, FTC, Search Engines Or Advertisers? This article by Brian Livingstone from Datamation says that clickfraud is the “biggest threat” to online advertising. Yesterday, Traffick’s Andrew Goodman shared his thoughts in a post titled, Fraud, Schmaud: “It’s official: click fraud is now a “scourge”. Of course it exists, but the extent of the problem is being blown out of proportion.”

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Google Reports Q3 Earnings
By Gary Price, Oct. 21, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041021-563a

Highlights from the earnings call via this blog entry.

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More SMS Search In the U.S.
By Gary Price, Oct. 21, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041021-562a

A new SMS service from comparison shopping engine Smarter.com that offers access to pricing info for more than 100,000 computer and consumer electronic products became available earlier this week. Material about how to access and use Smarter.com’s SMS service can be found here. I plan on using both services and will report my findings on the blog. See also this MediaPost article on the topic.

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Early Web Search Announcements
By Gary Price, Oct. 20, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041020-558a

On the heels of today’s SearchDay article: Search Memories, some of you might enjoy reminsicing about the “early days” by taking a look at a collection of early search engine announcements that I compiled for my ResourceShelf site a couple of years ago. Looking for early Google “memories”? No problem, check out this post.

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Google Advertising Forecasts Obtained by the SF Chronicle
By Gary Price, Oct. 20, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041020-555a

Verne Kopytoff at the San Francisco Chronicle has once again gotten access to some internal Google documents. These docs show that the company is planning to add 372,000 new advertisers during the next four years. More in the article: Google forecasts growth Search engine sees 372,000 new ad accounts in 4 years. A chart showing estimated advertiser growth is also available.

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Google: Fastest Growing Tech Company in North America
By Gary Price, Oct. 20, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041020-553a

Deloitte and Touche has just released their annual “Fast 500” rankings of the fastest growing technology companies in North America (based on percentage revenue growth over five years, fiscal year revenues 1999-2003) and Google is at the top of the list. You can find a summary of the Fast 500 in this news release and download the complete list of 500 here. Coming in at number five, is comparison shopping engine, PriceGrabber. FindWhat is at number 21 on the list with a five year growth rate of 15,878 percent.

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Yahoo China Forms Alliances
By Gary Price, Oct. 20, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041020-552a

The China Daily reports that Yahoo China has formed alliances with 12 Chinese companies and will provide them with email, IM, and search. More in the article: Yahoo links up with 12 firms

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Microsoft Search Research
By Gary Price, Oct. 19, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041019-551a

At the Web 2.0 Conference last week, eWeek Senior Editor Peter Galli spent a few minutes chatting with Microsoft’s Rick Rashid, senior vice president for research. Galli’s interview: Microsoft Research Efforts in Full Swing, is now online. You’ll read about web search and personalization. Peter asks about blog searching but Rick says he can’t comment.

Danny recently posted a roundup of coverage from Microsoft Search Champs and I blogged about Microsoft’s Text Mining Search and Navigation team. And on a somewhat related note, a new paper co-authored by Susan Dumais from Microsoft Research was published on the web today. It appears in the e-journal, Information Research: Information behaviour that keeps found things found

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Searching for Digital Books
By Gary Price, Oct. 19, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041019-550a

This blog post covers three specialized databases that do a good job providing info about and/or access to thousands of digitized books and texts.

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New Weblog Search Options at RocketNews
By Gary Price, Oct. 19, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041019-549a

One of my favorite news search tools, Canada’s RocketNews, has added a couple of new features to make searching and limiting to weblog content a bit easier. More via this blog post.

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AOL Europe and Google Expand Deal
By Gary Price, Oct. 19, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041019-547a

AOL Europe and Google have announced a multi-year agreement that will bring Google AdWords paid search listings to AOL’s European properties in the UK, France and Germany [6.3 million members”. Financial terms were not disclosed. Google currently provides unpaid search results to AOL Europe. Google replaces Overture as AOL’s paid listings partner. More in this Dow Jones story, this ClickZ article and this news release.

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LookSmart Names New CEO
By Gary Price, Oct. 18, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041018-546a

David Hills has just been named CEO of LookSmart. He will succeed Damian Smith, who has served as interim CEO since January 2004. Hills comes to LookSmart afar serving as President, Media Solutions for 24/7 Real Media since August 2003. Before his work at 24/7, Hills was COO and President of Sales for About, Inc. More in this news release.

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Copernic Releases New Version of Desktop Search Tool
By Gary Price, Oct. 18, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041018-545a

Copernic Desktop Search (CDS), a product I reviewed (and still like a lot), released version 1.1 today. It includes a couple of new features and improved performance. CNET also recently published a review of 6 desktop apps (Google, Blinx, Lookout, Copernic, x1, Hotbot) and gave its “Editor’s Choice” award to CDS.

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Ask Jeeves Launches New Sales Division
By Gary Price, Oct. 18, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041018-543a

Ask Jeeves lets us know about the launch of AJinteractive, a new U.S. advertising products and sales division that integrates the AJ and Interactive Search Holdings sales and marketing teams. Jeeves acquired ISH in March. You can learn more about AJinteractive in this news release, on their web site and in this Clickz article.

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A Groxis Update
By Gary Price, Oct. 18, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041018-541a

The San Jose Mercury News reports about the latest goings on at info visualization tool Groxis in the article: Groxis moves up in the world. You’ll read about the move to a new office along with recently “snagging” more than $12 million in venture cap funding. More about Groxis and other visualization tools from me via this blog post.

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New Metasearch Engine: Info.com
By Gary Price, Oct. 18, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041018-540a

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a new metasearch engine from Info.com (great domain name) is launching today. More about the service via this blog post.

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Brin on Personal Search and SEO
By Gary Price, Oct. 18, 2004
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/041018-539a

Sergey Brin lets us know that Google is working on a personal search application similar to My Jeeves and My Yahoo Search. The comments were made during a visit to Japan where the company is setting-up an R&D center. On the Google browser, Larry Page repeated what he said last week about Google not intending to “reinvent the wheel.” Brin also made a brief comment about SEO: “There are many SEOs that are trying to manipulate Google. Our biggest message is that by our products we always want to promote a better and healthier service,” said Brin. More in the article: Google tests personal search service.

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