Highlights from the SEW Blog: June 5, 2006
Featured posts from the Search Engine Watch blog, as well as our customary search headlines from around the web.
Featured posts from the Search Engine Watch blog, as well as our customary search headlines from around the web.
Featured posts from the Search Engine Watch blog, as well as our customary search headlines from around the web. If you’re not familiar with our blog, click on any of the links below, or visit the blog’s home page at http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/.
Kozoru Opens Public Beta Testing Of Byoms
Kozoru Inc. opens public beta testing of byoms (build your own mobile search) today. Ive spent some time exploring some of the byoms that are available, and creating my own. I found the system easy to use, reasonably intuitive, fast and generally effective. As a searcher its going to be something that will be a useful addition to the search tools available; both the ready made byoms and more importantly those that you make yourself.
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DOJ Asks Microsoft, AOL And Google To Keep Records
Last week during meetings with executives, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asked several Internet companies to retain records for aiding in their prosecution efforts of terrorists and child predators. They requested lists of emails sent and received and web search information be kept for a reasonable length of time. The content of emails aren’t part of this request, since the proper legal channels through which such information can be sought is by subpoena only.
Reputation Management: How To Handle Saboteurs
The [failure” GoogleBomb had become well-known enough to have seen Marrissa Mayer post a response on the Google company blog last September. I first heard the phrase “Reputation Management” as applied to search from Heather Lloyd-Martin during a private conversation a long time before this. It was obvious Heather was on to something because we’ve all seen search results that produce unexpected listings. David Dalka recently posted his frustration that Googling his name could confuse searchers into thinking he is a millionaire. This may be a personal example, but what if you have a bona-fide saboteur?
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Google Base Absorbs Froogle Feeds; Other Submission Systems Remain Independent
When I was at Google last this month, I got an update on Google Base for a forthcoming article. One of the things I was told was that Google Base was now the preferred way for merchants to submit content to Froogle. Really? Then why was Google still telling people on the Froogle site still to submit Froogle feeds? That oversight has now been corrected. As Garett Rogers notes, the feed submission mechanism formerly in the Google Merchant Center has now been replaced with Google Base submissions. Garett also highlights specific help pages about the change here. The consolidation is good, as Google Base is meant to be a central submission point of all content for Google, as I’ve written before (and SEW members, see also this). However, that goal still remains far off. Google Co-op, Google Sitemaps, Google Book Search and Google Scholar all remain independent ways to submit content of various types independently of Google Base, as the links for those services explain. I’ll come back to this issue in more depth, in the future.
Yahoo Video Allows Uploads & Sharing
Yahoo Video, previously offering content found only by crawling the web, now has changed to also allow uploads from content owners, similar to services that YouTube and Google Video offer. I’m away at our SES London show, so I can’t take a longer look at the service now. Instead, TechCrunch has a short review here and the press release is below. TechCrunch is disappointed that the product isn’t integrated into Flickr. Putting video into Flickr is something that Yahoo’s debating, they told me when I talked with them about upcoming changes last month. However, there’s a concern that it might change the style or usage of Flickr too much and remains something the company is examining and debating. So stay tuned. The press release:
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MSN adLab Launches With a Variety of Keyword Tools
MSN first announced adLab back in January, but it has now been made available to everyone (in beta) with a wide variety of interesting keyword tools for advertisers and marketers. They have launched with 11 demos, broken down into areas Paid Search, Contextual Advertising, Behavior Targeting and Emerging Markets.
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Contacting Yahoo Search
Last week, Yahoo posted helpful contact information at the Yahoo Search blog. Yahoo has a new contact form that can be accessed at http://help.yahoo.com/search/feedback and completed to submit feedback and questions to Yahoo. In addition, Yahoo improved the Yahoo Search Help section and also posted a useful Webmaster Resources section.
NOTE: Article links often change. In case of a bad link, use the publication’s search facility, which most have, and search for the headline.