Today’s search podcast covers Windows Live Local getting new UK images and
easier ability to share mapped points, Microsoft’s many shopping moves, a new
tool to detect if a site in search results is “safe” or not, Ask’s smart answers
for stock searching; a tool to help tell if you are spamming search engines; a
search magazine makes its debut and more!
Tune-in by listening to this
MP3
file, listening via WebmasterRadio
at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our
Odeo channel or through
iTunes via this
link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained
here) or
though our Yahoo Podcasts
channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the
Daily
SearchCast FAQ.
Below are links to items discussed:
- Windows
Live Local Adds Traffic and Sharing
Yesterday some people spotted Microsoft?s roll out of aerial photography in
the UK (and Canada). That was part of a set of new enhancements to Windows
Live Local that were more fully introduced this morning. (TechCrunch does a
nice run-down.)…
- Seeing Stonehenge The
Right Way — Private Access
Microsoft Talks Shopping
Last week I briefly introduced three of Microsoft’s e-commerce initiatives:
MSN Shopping, Windows Live Shopping, and Windows Live Product Search. This
week I talked with Jim Barr, GM of Microsoft’s Shopping and Marketplaces group
for a little more insight. Here’s an excerpt: ?Search is very important. Half
of the shopping starts in search. 15-25% of all searches go to a shopping
site. MSN search will not win unless we are good at commerce search. That?s a
strong reason why we invested.? ?Windows Live Product Search goes on the
presumption that the audience wants to see as much selection as possible….- New Tool
Scandoo Scans for Scumware in Search Results
The reports of hackers poisoning search results by optimizing landing pages
that included links to viruses, spyware and other malware alarmed many people.
Now a free new service called Scandoo serves as a front-end to Ask, Google,
MSN Search and Yahoo, scanning results for potential nasties. It identifies
potential threats in real-time without requiring a plug-in or download.
“Clean” results are labeled with a green checkmark; those with potential
threats are labeled with a red “X” (see it in action with this search for “warez”).
More about Scandoo and how it works here….
- New
Search Patent Applications: May 23, 2006 – Yahoo Wallets, Microsoft Answers,
and Google Phrases
A number of patent applications published last week proved intriguing. The US
Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) filings offered us additions to Google
phrase searching and predictive queries, some enhancements to interacting with
ecommerce sites that appear to be from Yahoo, a Microsoft Answers system and a
page location based bidding process, a link-based ranking system from Oracle,
and “phone gestures” from V-Enable….
- New
AdWords Layout Being Tested?
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning that people are
noticing a new layout for the AdWords ads on the Google search results page.
The new layout shows two ads at the top and four ads at the bottom of the
results. There are currently no signs of ads on the right hand side of the
page. You can see an image of the ad at my blog by clicking on the image. I
started a rumor that possibly Google is saving the right hand side for Ask.com
zoom like features (i.e. refine search, etc.) but that is…
- Ask.com
Shows Off More Smart Answers
Gary Price, Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com, writes at the
Ask.com Blog about some of the stock related smart answers. Gary details how
Ask.com is able to give you the answer to your query quickly. Some stock
examples Ask.com gives you include; Stocks AMR, Ticker Symbol Sirius, CSCO,
Stock Quote Pepsico. But this also works well for more investor researcher
like questions such as; Market Capitalization KO (Coca-Cola), Outstanding
Shares Fedex, Price Earnings Ratio GE, or Nike stock. Personally, I have set
Ask.com to be my homepage months ago. I use it often when I want the quick…
- The Body Shop Versus
Body Time
- Yahoo’s
Annual Meeting Of Stockholders Tomorrow At 1PM (EST)
Yahoo is hosting the Annual Meeting Of Stockholders tomorrow at 1pm (EST). You
can enroll for the meeting by clicking here and providing your email address.
Once enrolled you should receive electronic delivery of the proxy statement,
annual report, and related materials. More details at the Investor Events
page….
- Google
Investor Conference Call May 31st
Google posted the details of the investor conference call today. The
conference call is to take place on May 31, 2006 at 11:00 AM PT. Google is
supposedly going to “offer more opportunities for the investment community to
interact with” Google’s senior management. The Webcast can be accessed live at
http://investor.google.com/webcast at that time….
- Larry
Page Video Interview
Channel 4 interviewed Larry Page and the video is available by clicking here.
He discusses that artificial intelligence will play an important role in the
future of search. He also answers questions about China and privacy concerns.
Watch the video at Channel 4 News….
- Search
Spam Detection Tool: How White Hat Is Your Web Site?
Nathan Weinberg spots a tool named Search engine spam detector. The tool looks
at a particular URL and classifies what elements on the page may raise a spam
flag at a search engine. So let us test it out on the SEW Blog, shall we?
:)…
- Google
Behind Others On Catching TechMeme’s New Name
SEOMoz reports that Google has been having issues ranking and indexing
TechMeme.com, the new name for TechMemorandum. Yesterday, Google did not rank
TechMeme.com for its own name Techmeme, a classic sign of what is called the
Google Sandbox. Rand also noticed that Techmeme.com was not indexed at all.
Today, this morning, the new name seems to have been indexed and is now
ranking #1 for the Techmeme name. This only happened after Adam Lasnik,
MiniMatt, took a look at Rand’s post and refused to comment on “specific
sites.” It is also important to note that Ask.com, Yahoo and MSN all…
- Search
Engines Using Search Ads To Promote Themselves
In the past week or so, I have been reporting on the different ways search
engines use search ads to promote their own search engine. I have spotted
Ask.com bidding on Google for “pimped out search engine,” which is part of
their marketing speak of the TV commercials. I have also spotted Yahoo using
Google AdSense to promote Yahoo Search products. Search engines like MSN come
up in Google AdWords for a search on search engine, MSN and Google come up in
Yahoo Search for a query on search engine also. But at this time, none of the
search engines…
- Search
Marketing Standard Hits The Newsstands
I reported last week that the new search marketing magazine, the Search
Marketing Standard was delivered to over 15,000 people. Danny first mentioned
this magazine back in April, and now it is here. The first issue has a lot of
nice beginner style articles on SEM as well as some news related coverage from
the industry. The next issue is expected by the end of August with the cover
story being “Search Engine Marketing and Web Site Usability – a Winning
Combination.”…
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.