Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:
From The SEW Blog...
-
Microsoft Consolidates Platform, Portfolio In 'Digital Advertising Solutions'
Microsoft announced the launch of "Digital Advertising Solutions" and a related media campaign to promote it. What is "Digital Advertising Solitions?" It's an effort to bring together, in one convenient buying environment, Microsoft's extensive portfolio of consumer properties in gaming, mobile and online. According to the press release, "Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions offers advertisers the ability to reach more than 465 million consumers each month across the MSN network and millions more through Windows Live, Xbox Live and Office Online. Microsoft's advertising portfolio extends its reach across some of Microsoft's latest releases such as Live Search and Live Local Search,... - Google
Leads in Dead and Old Pages
In Google Has the Largest Number of Dead and Old Pages, Ionut Alex. Chitu of the Google Operating System Blog points to a video, and some research from Google's Ziv Bar-Yossef, which discusses how to grab a random sample of pages from major search engines, and extrapolate from those pages information about the search engines. This can be used in a number of ways...... - Organic
& Paid Search Conversion Metrics Similar
ClickZ reports on a WebSideStory study that shows that organic search traffic realized a conversion rate of 3.13 percent while paid search traffic realized a conversion rate of 3.4 percent. The study covered 57 million search engine visits from "20 business-to-consumer e-commerce sites during the first eight months of 2006." ClickZ notes that organic search traffic does tend to have a higher click rate (1.5 times higher than paid search volume).... - Google
Displaying Really Long Site Descriptions?
Philipp Lenssen spotted a screen capture of Google displaying a really long and extended description within the search results page for a search on [blogspot.com autoregistration]. I personally do not see the nine or so line description but Philipp posted a screen capture. Matt Cutts of Google commented saying he was also not able to "recreate those snippets," so maybe a temporary Google bug, spyware, or a fake?... - Real
Estate Search Engine Trulia Adds New Depth, Features
As the housing market cools, the real estate vertical is heating up. Today, real estate search engine Trulia launched several new features, a week after Zillow introduced new functionality and about three weeks after Yahoo! Real Estate announced a range of new tools and a site redesign.... - Pluggd
Promises Podcast Concept Searching, But We Still Need Better Basic Keyword
Searching
Pluggd to make podcasts chunkier, searchable at TechCrunch covers how podcast search service Pluggd plans to make it possible to search podcasts by concept, rather than keyword. That sounds cool, but there's still some ways to go before I'm full of excitement.... - Fortune
Looks At Chaotic Google & Whether It Can Have A "Second Act"
Chaos by design is a Fortune cover story on Google, covering the company's fast-paced, seemingly disorganized approach to products and exploring if it can come up with a "second act" to please investors:... - Google's
Marissa Mayer Makes Newsweek Cover
Via Valleywag, news that Google's Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products & user experience, makes the cover of Newsweek and is named one of the most powerful women of her generation. Good luck trying to find the article on the horrible MSNBC-hosted Newsweek site itself. I finally gave us and did a regular Google search for marissa mayer newsweek sept. 25 to find it here: Leading the Way. Marissa comes up on page 5. Her home town paper gives her a write-up here: Wausau girl hits big-time, along with a larger version of the Newsweek cover.... - Goodbye
Froogle; Hello Google Product Results In Web Search
Froogle, Google's shopping search engine that launched with big hopes back in 2002, is to be deemphasized in place of product listings integrated into regular Google search results.... - Google
Changes Mind, Posts Belgian Ruling
Google has now posted the text of a Belgian ruling finding it violated copyright on the Google Belgium home page. The ruling has also been posted to the home pages of Google Images Belgium, Google News Belgium but not Google Groups Belgium....
Headlines & News From Elsewhere
- Need a Simple, Easy to Use Geocoder for U.S. Locations? Try This One, ResourceShelf
- Podcast: Google Belgium Posts Legal Ruling On Home Page; The End Of Froogle?; Does Google Have A Second Act?, Daily SearchCast
- Web's ad revenue up 37 pct in first half 2006: study, Reuters
- NBC CEO Zucker: We've Got a Better Business Model than Google, Google Watch
- Microsoft's Ozzie named the top man in tech, Silicon
- Making sense of a query, Search Science
- What is Google IndexBench?, Search Engine Journal
- Signs You Need to Switch SEO Providers, Marketing Pilgrim
- User-Centered Design and SEO, ClickZ
- What's Going on With Internet Ad Inventory?, ClickZ
- Syncing Outlook, OS X, Google with Ease, Chris Pirillo
- Look For Movies Filmed in Your Area, ResearchBuzz
- Seo - Sometimes You Have To Be Evil To Be Good, Shoemoney
- Farecast expands airfare predictions; just know when to use them, VentureBeat
- Hiding Google AdSense in iFrames, Search Engine Journal
- Over 30 Domain Names Transferred to Google Inc., ResourceShelf
- New Survey Released: The Future of the Internet II, ResourceShelf
- Contextual Search Arbitrage - Pure Click Insanity, SEOmoz
- Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 REVEALED: The Ultimate Guide, Link Building Blog
- AdSense for Audio is the official name for Google's latest addition to AdSense, JenSense
- New line of code in AdSense javascript reveals channel name in plain text, JenSense
- Google Has the Largest Number of Dead and Old Pages, Google Operating System
- Yahoo pulls a Scrooge with forced unpaid holiday vacation, Valleywag
- You Know You're Working Too Hard..., ClickZ
- Ten Ways to Earn an .edu Link, SEOmoz
- 3 Reasons Why Delicious Bookmarks Beat Digg Traffic Hands Down, Performancing
Marketers Rejoice! ClickZ has launched ClickZ Live, an educational series to bring you innovative online marketing strategies and techniques. Learn to construct and successfully execute multi-channel marketing campaigns, plus identify key metrics and translate them into actionable plans.
Thursday, July 18: ClickZ Live will be in Vancouver, BC. Register before July 1 to save $100!
