IndustryThe Search Engine Report – Number 121

The Search Engine Report - Number 121

Search Engine Watch Editor Elisabeth Osmeloski recaps important news in search during December 2006 & January 2007.

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In This Issue
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+ Greetings & Introductions
+ Upcoming Search Engine Strategies Events
+ Top Stories Since Our Last Report
+ Search Engine Watch Blog Recap
+ Our Search Newsletters & Feeds
+ About The Newsletter

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Greetings & Introductions
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Greetings, loyal readers. As you may recall, in the last issue of the SE Report, Danny Sullivan said goodbye. Since then, there have been many changes here at Search Engine Watch, and I’d like to start this issue by introducing you to the new editorial team at Search Engine Watch.

Some of you may know me already, from either the SES circuit, or from the Search Engine Watch discussion forums, where I have acted as an the Community Editor for over 2 years. Since April 2006, I have been the Managing Editor of Search Engine Watch, working behind the scenes under Danny’s direction, and taking care of day to day site operations. I’ve recently been named Editor, and I have mainly been working to put the new staff in place, as well as write the monthly newsletters.

During SES Chicago, Rebecca Lieb was named editor-in-chief of the ClickZ Network, which includes Search Engine Watch, and in her new role, she will now be responsible for the editorial direction of Search Engine Watch. Rebecca and I have already been working closely together to assemble a new staff of search correspondents, and are actively working on plans for the site in 2007.

As I just mentioned, we have been putting together a new staff of blog correspondents to bring you search news as it happens and these search experts will provide critical insights on happenings within the search industry. To help coordinate this effort, Kevin Newcomb joins us from ClickZ, as the daily news editor for both sites. Kevin has also taken over the production of the Search Day newsletter from Chris Sherman, who we also said goodbye to at the end of December.

I would like to take a moment to introduce a few of the experts, and their respective topic areas, who have already joined us on the SEW Blog:

  • Chris Boggs: Organic Search & Industry News
  • Michael Boland: Local Search
  • Greg Jarboe: News Search
  • Debby Richman: Social & Behavioral Marketing
  • Frank Watson: Paid Search
  • Amanda Watlington: Multimedia Search

You can read more about the new staff members on this page, and check it for future additions, as we are continuing to build our staff and coverage areas.

 

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Upcoming Search Engine Strategies Events
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Meet the new editorial staff of Search Engine Watch! Join me, Rebecca Lieb and Kevin Newcomb at the next Search Engine Watch LIVE! networking event, to be held at the Adams Mark Hotel in Dallas, Texas, on January 25, 2007. This informal, afternoon event features local speakers from the Search Engine Strategies series, and other special guests, discussing the hottest topics in search marketing.

There are just a few slots remaining for the morning training session, which focuses on strategies for Keyword Research with Christine Churchill of Key Relevance and Dan Thies of SEO Research Labs, as workshop leaders.

See the SEW LIVE! in Dallas Web site for full details. Here are other upcoming SES events:

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Top Stories since our last SE Report:
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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.

=== Dec. 5, 2006 ===

Next-Gen Keyword Research Tools Part 1 of 2 by Christine Churchill: Keyword research tools have evolved dramatically over the past decade, and now offer feature-rich options that no serious search marketer can live without. Today and tomorrow SearchDay takes an in-depth look at two of the best next-generation keyword research tools on the market.

=== Dec. 6, 2006 ===

Keyword Research from Hitwise Part 2 of 2 by Christine Churchill: Ever wanted to spy deep inside a competitors search marketing campaign? A competitive intelligence tool from Hitwise shows you exactly which search terms are driving the most traffic to your competitors’ web sites.

Major Corporate Reorganization at Yahoo! – Yahoo announced a sweeping reorganization, creating three operating groups and shuffling top execs. As of January 1, the company will realign its operations into two customer-facing groups, one for audiences, and one for advertisers and publishers. A third operating group will focus on technology. See also:

=== Dec. 7, 2006 ===

Study: Search Driving Offline Conversions for Local Service Businesses New research suggests that internet users are increasingly relying on search to find local service businesses, potentially taking mind-share away from traditional print yellow pages and classified advertising.

Botnets and Click Fraud and Terrorists, Oh My! – Webmaster Radio’s Jim Hedger caused quite a stir with his exposé on botnets, click fraud, and terrorists profiting from Google’s AdWords program.

=== Dec. 10, 2006 ===

Forbes.com Reports on Search Arbitrage – Forbes did an article on search arbitrage Friday featuring interviews of Jeremy Shoemaker and Michael Gray. Shoemaker said he had made $2 million over the past two years arbitraging Google.

=== Dec. 11, 2006 ===

Google Says Click Fraud Makes Up Less Than 2% of Invalid Clicks – Google’s click fraud guru Shuman Ghosemajumder says click fraud makes up less than 2% of all “invalid clicks”, which means the actual click fraud rate is more likely just a fraction of one percent.

=== Dec. 12, 2006 ===

Geeking out on Statistics Finding reliable statistics on the web isn’t always easy, but a massive central data source called Nationmaster.com offers a handy way to search multiple stats repositories.

Yahoo “Panama” Platform Opens to US Advertisers – An earlier-than-expected launch in October for existing Yahoo advertisers has apparently gone well, since Yahoo today opened up the platform to new U.S. advertisers. The move will still be optional, and does not yet include the new ranking algorithm, which will be put in place in the first quarter.

Va. Pushing For Sex Predator Register Email, IM Info – In a move that could help keep track of sex predators’ whereabouts on the web, Virginia legislators will vote on a bill in the New Year that will require sex offenders to register all email and IM names they use online.

=== Dec. 13, 2006 ===

Shopping Search, Via Mobile Phone: Many popular shopping sites offer mobile versions of their search tools, which can be especially useful for those always on the go.

Ho, Ho, Ho – Holiday Shopping Search Skyrockets – This year’s Cyber Monday numbers shattered the record books, with significant increases of online shopping site visits and a reported $600 in online retail sales, up about 42% over last year. But to call it the biggest online shopping day of the year may be premature.

=== Dec. 14, 2006 ===

Nayio Gives New Meaning to “Hum Me a Few Bars . . .” – Navio has launched a new search tool which will guide consumers to songs even when they don’t remember the words.

New social search engine, Decipho, launched today

=== Dec. 15, 2006 ===

Google Apps Gets aDFor Domain Registration, that is. Google announced today that Google Apps for Your Domain now offers domain name registration services via eNom and GoDaddy.com, as part of the website management services offered by Google.

=== Dec. 18, 2006 ===

Keyword Research Best Practices – Correspondent Chris Boggs makes some observations on a thread at Search Engine Watch forums by Paid Search Guru Ian McAnerin. A member had asked Forum visitors which industries they “would not touch with a 10 foot SEO pole?”

Special Reports From Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2006:

=== Dec. 20, 2006 ===

A Keynote Conversation with Danny Sullivan and Jason Calacanis – Andrew Goodman covered this hot session from SES Chicago 2006, recapping the widely controversial comments of Jason Calacanis.

=== Dec. 21, 2006 ===

Optimizing Video for Search Engines – Guest writer Amy Edelstein of Ascent Copywriting, shares key optimization tips for video files and video search, a special report from SES Chicago.

=== Dec. 26, 2006 ===

Meet the Mobile Search Engines – Mobile was hot in 2006, and is still building steam going into 2007. Shari Thurow continues the series of SES reports, with insight on usability issues and optimizing for mobile search.

=== Dec. 27, 2006 ===

Contextual Search Ads: Boon or Bust? – Sara Holoubeck reports on this session, noting that the two agency reps and Comedy Central employee on the panel were all “bullish” on contextual advertising.

=== Dec. 28, 2006 ===

Optimizing Images for Search Engines – Grant Crowell’s coverage is loaded with practical optimization tips for the hottest photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Webshots, PBase, Fotki, and covers the use of images on social sites such as mySpace and Facebook.

A Special Goodbye from Chris Sherman

=== Dec. 29, 2006 ===

Farewell, Search Day! – This issue marked Chris Shermans’ last day at Search Engine Watch as Executive Editor. Join him as he looks back on the history of the publication. Chris Sherman will continue to organize SES events for us in 2007, but we’ll miss him on the editorial side. Goodluck, but not goodbye, Chris!

2007: A New Year in Search – Top Stories in January

=== Jan. 2, 2007 ===

In the First Week of New Year’s, My SearchDay Gave to Me: – The jolly ol’ soul of Greg Jarboe shares a yuletide carol to the tune of search.

=== Jan. 3, 2007 ===

Are Vertical Search Engines the Answer to Relevance? – In Eric Enge’s debut as a Search Engine Watch contributor, he focuses on some leaders in specialty search, and has commentary from Tim Mayer of Yahoo and Shashi Seth of Google on building custom search tools.

=== Jan. 4, 2007 ===

It’s Time to See What’s In the PPC Sausage – The first scoop from our recently appointed news editor, Kevin Newcomb! Kevin dove head first into Jeffrery Rohrs’ “Sausage Manifesto” document, which added fuel to the click fraud fire.

=== Jan. 9, 2007 ===

In the Second Week of New Year’s, My SearchDay Gave to Me: – Part II of Greg Jarboe’s exclusive look at at some of the organizations that will set the agenda in 2007.

=== Jan. 10, 2007 ===

The Bigger Question of SEO – John Tawadros of iProspect weighs in on the recent debate over the complexity and value of SEO, a conversation ignited by the comments by Dave Pasternack and Kevin Lee of Did-It.

=== Jan. 11, 2007 ===

Social Features Key to Yahoo Local – Kevin Newcomb dives into Yahoo’s local search offering and the impact of social utilities and user generated content on the relevance of Yahoo Local results.

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More from the SEW Blog
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Below are more important 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.

=== Dec. 1, 2006 ===

SEW on “The Alternative” Webmaster Radio Show with Jim Hedger – Get the archived Mp3 file here.

=== Dec. 5, 2006 ===

SimplyHired Teams With New York Post, Launches Resume Post Service – SimplyHired, a vertical search engine focused on employment, has partnered with the New York Post to supplement that publications job listings.

Avenue A | Razorfish Releases “Actionable Analytics” Report – The report discusses in detail the topics of media analytics as well as web site analytics and CRM issues.

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=== Dec. 10, 2006 ===

WhoToTalkTo.com: Job Search Engine With a Twist – This method of growing a job listings site reflects the growing use of social networking. How the experiment works in this niche should be interesting to watch.

November Search Trend Data Released by Compete.com – Compete.com, a new search popularity tool bar and measurement service, similar to Alexa, released their data for November 2006.

Baidu Starts Chinese Blog Search Engine

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=== Dec. 11, 2006 ===

Ingenio Grows its Mobile Pay-per-Call Network – Pay-per-call provider Ingenio has added JumpTap, the mobile search provider behind Alltel and other carriers, to its ad network. It now has five mobile partners, including AOL and Microsoft.

US State Dept. Uses Google When CIA Says No – When the CIA refused to share the information with the State Department, a junior Foreign Services agent was assigned the task of using Google to make a list of possible names.

Berkowitz Tells NYT about Microsoft’s Challenges – Steve Berkowitz, former CEO of Ask.com and now senior VP of Microsoft’s Online Services Group, overseeing Windows Live and MSN speaks with the New York Times.

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=== Dec. 12, 2006 ===

Search Results Getting Safer – McAfee’s SiteAdvisor monitors the changes in search results and measures the level of what they call “dangerous” sites in all the major engines.

Mamma.com Launches New Video Search Engine – Mamma.com has launched a Video Search engine in Beta format.

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=== Dec. 13, 2006 ===

Blogger declares page view stats are dead – Steve Rubel, a senior VP in Edelman’s Me2Revolution practice as well as the author of the popular Micro Persuasion blog, also writes a column for Advertising Age.

Yahoo! Organic Rankings Update Confirmed – Yahoo! has been updating its organic search results database since Sunday night and states they will complete the process by the end of today, December 13, 2006. Initial feedback is naturally louder on the negative side, but the topic is being discussed in various areas, including the Yahoo! Search Blog announcement from Tim Mayer.

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=== Dec. 14, 2006 ===

Microsoft Improves Monthly Budgeting in adCenter – Microsoft has tweaked the monthly budgeting settings in adCenter to spread a campaign’s impressions more evenly across a month.

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=== Dec. 15, 2006 ===

Yahoo!’s Overture Korea Renews With Top Korean Engine Naver – Yahoo! announced it has resigned their agreement to provde Naver, Korea’s leading search portal, with their sponsored search listings.

Jaxtr Providing Phone Links To Social Networks – Jaxtr launched a phone application that connects people at social networks and blogs without needing to download a desktop application.

=== Dec. 18, 2006 ===

2006 Top Searches – Following Yahoo’s release on December 4 of its top searches for 2006, last week AOL, Lycos and MSN Live released their top searches for the year 2006.

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=== Dec. 20, 2006 ===

Podzinger Powers Search Capabilities for Thames Valley – Amanda Watlington Reports on the international growth of this podcast search tool.

Visits by college students to MySpace power its lead in page views – More reports solidify that that MySpace is not just for teens anymore.

The Link Building Conundrum – Eric Ward’s View – Chris Boggs recaps an interview with Link Moses, aka Eric Ward.

Regifting SEO tools, calculators and images for the holidays – SEO tools you can really use.

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=== Dec. 21, 2006 ===

NYTimes.com hires former Yahoo executive – The print world struggles to catch up with digital advertising.

Wall Street Journal getting comfortable with blogs – A spotlight on traditional media evolution as it shifts to the popular online format.

Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts – The controversial topic of pay-per-post.

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=== Dec. 22, 2006 ===

Bringing Small Businesses Online – Small businesses get creative with their online advertising and using the social medium.

Do top news stories drive top news searches? – Greg Jarboe investigates the descrepancies between popular news and Web search terms.

Australian Court Ruling Could Impact Search – Aussies crack down on illegal Video downloads.

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=== Dec. 23, 2006 ===

Wikipedia and Amazon Taking on Google – More details on the plans to compete with Google in search.

Yahoo! Organic Rankings Update Confirmed – Yahoo! has been updating its organic search results database since Sunday night and states they will complete the process by the end of today, December 13, 2006. Initial feedback is naturally louder on the negative side, but the topic is being discussed in various areas, including the Yahoo! Search Blog announcement from Tim Mayer.

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=== Dec. 26, 2006 ===

Google Adsense the New Gator? – A spotlight on contextual advertising bloopers.

Yahoo’s Panama Not Enough? – More speculation on how the new advertising platform will compete with others.

Google Maps Offers Speech-Friendly Alternatives – Another win for visually impaired users.

Vertical Strategies in Local Search – Mike Boland takes a closer look at the verticalization of search.

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=== Dec. 27, 2006 ===

Image Search Engine in Beta – Photo recognition software gets sophisticated, and privacy issues arise.

ClipBlast! Top Video Searches in 2006 – The meta video search tool released its Top Ten list of most popular videos.

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=== Dec. 28, 2006 ===

Branding Buys in the Social Whirl – Deborah Richman discusses the validity of brand-oriented advertising in SEM.

Google Still OK With Erotica – A look at how adult oriented sites are appearing in Google.

Google’s blog search engine takes over top slot – Google Blog Search tops Technorati in market share.

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=== Jan. 1, 2007 ===

Searching for the next Google – Will any search engine get as big as Google? Here are some contenders.

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=== Jan. 2, 2007 ===

Louisville Grad Student Gets Grant To Study Click Fraud – News about the National Science Foundation supporting the study.

Collected Predictions for 2007 – Kevin Newcomb does a roundup of prediction posts.

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=== Jan. 3, 2007 ===

Yahoo, Dash to Offer Local Search On the Go – GPS gets a boost from geo-targeted ads.

Placeblogger: Searchable Directory for Local News Blogs – Blogs get their own localized search engine.

Windows Live for TV Enters Public Beta – The latest in the convergence of the Web and traditional broadcast.

China Fines Sohu For Posting US Movies Online – Chinese courts crack down on illegal video distribution.

Google Gets New Patents – The engine is granted two more patents on technology.

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=== Jan. 4, 2007 ===

Has Google mastered shameless self-promotion? – The engine starts marketing itself.

Miva Drops Yahoo Adds Google – The new deal starts Google ads in late January 2007.

MapQuest Enhances Mobile Mapping Products – The market leader keeping up the pace.

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=== Jan. 5, 2007 ===

Google Buys Into Chinese Video Download Site – Google keeps acquiring video sites.

PayPerPost/Performancing Deal Called Off – The controversial deal falls through.

Online Spending Tops $100 Billion in 2006 – Cyber Monday gets beat out by other top shopping days.

Video Ads Are Small Potatoes – Limited inventory may prevent revenues from growth.

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=== Jan. 8, 2007 ===

Yahoo! China To Become Business Search Engine – The engine will shift to a vertical business focus.

Online video usage increasing as TV viewing declines – Solid evidence Web viewing is growing.

ChaCha Gets Big Boost in Funding in 2006 – News breaks about private funding for the human search tool.

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=== Jan. 9, 2007 ===

Yahoo Acquires MyBlogLog – Confirmation of the deal.

You May Target With Trademarks – A US court rules you can use other trademarks when bidding for search ads, just not in the ad copy itself.

New Social Search Engine Targets Boomers – Kevin Newcomb has an indepth look at Cranky.com.

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=== Jan. 10, 2007 ===

Google Number One Place To Work – According to Fortune Magazine. See what other Search Engines made the cut.

Is Apple iPhone the Key to Unlock Mobile Search? – More on the Apple iPhone, the most wanted gadget of 2007.

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=== Jan. 11, 2007 ===

Friendster Using Google Search and Ads – The social site stops being friends with Yahoo.

Microsoft Live Analytics Enters Alpha Stage – Confirmation of rumors on the rival to Google Analytics.

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=== Jan. 12, 2007 ===

Analyst Says Google/CBS Radio Deal Near – Google Radio spreads its frequency of ad sales and revenue.

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=== Jan. 14, 2007 ===

Video From The Professionals – Video sharing and search sites get a shot at the big time.

DMOZ Taking Site Suggestions – The sleeping giant awakes.

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=== Jan. 15, 2007 ===

The Neutrality Debate – Regulation of open Web access continues to be a hot topic.

Findory Set to Coast to a Halt – Is it fair to let it die a slow death or put it out of its misery?

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Our Search Newsletters & Feeds
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About The Search Engine Report
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