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…
- August
2006 Search News Recap Posted
The latest edition of my monthly Search Engine Report newsletter is now
online, recapping top stories in search from the past month. You can read it
online or receive it via email for free by signing up here. If you’re a Search
Engine Watch member, the latest edition of Search Engine Update newsletter has
also been posted. That newsletter carries more items than the Search Engine
Report newsletter and goes out twice per month…. - Google
Launches Mobile Ads On Google Mobile
ClickZ reports that Google is now testing ads on Google Mobile. The ads are
being tested in U.S., U.K. and in Germany and are priced similar to how normal
AdWords ads are priced, based on auction. Google has a whole help section for
Mobile Ads here. It explains what the ads look like; “Mobile ads contain two
lines of text, with a limit of 12 or 18 characters per line, depending on the
language in which you write your ad. Your destination URL appears on a third
line if you choose to enter one. If you select the option that… - Top SEM
Firm Mistakes
Andy Beal wrote a blog post he named The Top 10 Business Mistakes Search
Marketing Firms Make. The first mistake SEM firms make, according to Andy, is
that they create a “set up fee” that is often not affordable for many
companies, instead, he said, charge a set monthly fee with a X month
commitment. The second mistake is “offering too many service options,”
basically keep it simple. The third mistake is not building your SEM firm to
scale beyond 5 to 10 employees, Andy gives some clues on how to make
scalability happen. The fourth mistake is a mistake…
Microsoft Adds Behavioral Targeting Features To adCenter
MediaPost reports that Microsoft has added behavioral targeting features to
the adCenter product. Microsoft has broken down Internet surfers into 18
audience segments including; mobile users, Internet power users, gamers, movie
watchers, new/expecting moms, parents, and several categories encompassing
travel searchers, and auto buyers and researchers. This now helps Microsoft
stand apart from Google’s AdWords product and Yahoo’s Search Marketing
product, PPC engines that currently do not have integrated behavioral
targeting capabilities….
Classifieds A Big Gainer In Local Landscape
comScore is reporting that the classifieds category is gaining very fast with
47% annual traffic growth. Classifieds sites, as defined by comScore,
collectively racked up 37.4 million monthly uniques in July. That’s 22%
penetration of the total U.S. online population. As one might predict the
category leader is Craigslist, which had 13.8 million users and experienced
99% growth vs. the previous year. Only two sites grew faster than Craigslist
on a percentage basis: LiveDeal (104%) and Oodle (463%)….- Google
Now Searching 200 Years of News
News search services like those offered by Yahoo, Topix.net and Google are
great for contemporary events, but none keep stories around for more than a
month or so. You can search news going back from many sources farther than
that, but all charge for access to read the articles. Google today has
launched a hybrid news search service that searches back more than 20 decades,
and offers both free and fee-based results. It’s an intriguing service, and
I’ve got more details in today’s SearchDay article, Google Debuts 200 Year
News Archive Search. Postscript From Danny: Expect us to do a…
Headlines & News From Elsewhere
- Zippy.co.uk from Dave
Naylor, Threadwatch
Diggin Digg For Fun And Profit, Oilman
Podcast: First Edition of Search Pulse Live, Search Pulse
Results of the Google Desktop Gadget Contest!, Google
Video: Crawl dates in the Google cache, Matt Cutts- Podcast: Google News Archive’s 200 Years Of News; Avoiding Mistakes
Selling SEM; Microsoft Offers Behavioral Targeting & More!, Daily
SearchCast
Social Blog Aggregators Revisited, O’Reilly Radar
Quality of Book Digitization, O’Reilly Radar
Adam Lasnik of Google Tells SEOs Not to Attend His SEO Seminar, SEO
Roundtable- Google’s instant intranet,
ZDNet - Proof Google Loves
EDU & GOV Sites, SEO Book
Relevance, Traffic and Clicks, Oh My, adCenter Blog- Thoughts on
my del.icio.us network, Jeremy Zawodny
Updates: Desktop Gadgets Galore, Google Code
The “What’s Danny Sullivan Going To Do Next” Competition, V7N- Pondering Next Steps —
Making No Fast Decisions, Danny Sullivan
Microsoft loses veteran executive to Amazon.com, Seattle Times
Amazon.com Movie Service May Launch This Week, PaidContent.org
Ex-Yahoo executive upsets Graber for Florida Senate seat, South Florida
Sun-Sentinel- How to add MicroFormats And
Why You Should, Performancing