Webmaster News

Archive for May, 2008

SearchDay: Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us?

May 24th, 2008 at 03:07am Under Uncategorized

Today’s search engine marketing news and opinion: Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us?; How to Take on a Major SEO Client; What’s In Your Travel Tool Bag?; and more.

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[Source: Search Engine Watch]

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Microsoft’s Ballmer Says Yahoo Bid Was ‘Never Strategic’

May 24th, 2008 at 03:07am Under Uncategorized

Yeah, you read that headline correctly. In a statement that no one believes, Steve Ballmer said in Moscow today that the bid for Yahoo was ‘never strategic.’

Ballmer has been going around saying that Microsoft wants to catch Google in the search game, which was the reason behind their Yahoo bid.

strategy noun - a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result (via Ask.com’s recently acquired Dictionary.com)

The Microsoft CEO is now boasting that it has $50 billion to spend on all sorts of acquisitions. Not that they’re strategic or anything.

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Google’s Page Says Microsoft Does ‘Bad Stuff’

May 24th, 2008 at 03:07am Under Uncategorized

Google co-founder Larry Page was in the nation’s capital making the case for white spaces when the conversation inevitably turned to Microsoft-Yahoo. According to several news outlets, Page said, “Now, if you put 90% of communications all in one company … that’s really a big risk, especially one (Microsoft) that has a history of doing bad stuff. So if you want to have good products you need to have some degree of openness.”

There are obvious problems with Page’s statement. One is, why is Page acting threatened? Google more than dominates search engine queries and advertising.

Another is, if a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would produced closed products, and if good products require openness, then what in the world is Page worried about?

Besides rethinking his logic, Page may also want to do some number crunching. USA Today pointed out that comScore predicts that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal would combine to have 70% of email and instant messaging market share in the U.S.

During the same speech, Page said that a Google-Yahoo ad deal would pass the antitrust test. Together, Google and Yahoo dominate 80% of the search ad market.

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Get in on the Conversation about the Future of SEO

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

There has been much discussion about the future of SEO lately. A-list bloggers galore are writing SEO’s obituary, much to the dismay of site owners and search engine marketers. Earlier this week, Mike Grehan delivered his thoughts on the matter over at ClickZ. He also started a thread in the Search Engine Watch forums to discuss his post.

Here are some main takeaway points from Mike’s post:

SEO will give way to a new form of digital asset management and optimization. This new SEO will place a much larger emphasis on optimizing a range of file types, from PDFs to images to audio/visual.
More effort will be placed on feeds to search engines. Not just XML feeds into paid inclusion and shopping comparison, but also feeds with other types of information, such as local, financial, news, and other verticals.
Mobile will become much more popular, search will gradually become more of a personalized experience.
Personalization and digital asset optimization will end 1999-style ranking reports, as search engine results will be based on blended results from end-user specifics, such as geographic location, time of day, previous searching history, and peer group preference.
Online, monitoring the customer voice will become more important than pushing a brand message. Reputation management will become more important as marketing continues its reversal from a broadcast medium to a listening medium.
Marketing into networks will see huge growth, and social search will grow with it.

Over at the forums, Grehan is looking for feedback on the following:

Should search engine ranking algorithms continue to be based only on the data they have about people who happen to have web sites and therefore have text pages and can link to others. Or is the voice and opinion of the end user now being heard much more clearly?
Do I really think that a number one result at Google for the term blue widgets is a fair result if only people who have web sites can vote for its top ranking position? Or should the millions of people who use blue widgets and dont have a web site also be able to have some influence on that ranking?

Get in on the conversation about the future of SEO. Head over to the forums and share your thoughts.

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SearchDay: What’s the Future Hold for Search?

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

Today’s search engine marketing news and opinion: A Conversation about the Future of SEO; Educational Standards For Learning SEO?; Link Building for Dumb Asses; and more.

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[Source: Search Engine Watch]

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ad evaluation tools

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

Does anyone know of a tool that could check a large quantity of ads for uniqueness/matching, meaning, etc…? Thanks!:)

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[Source: Search Engine Watch Discussion Forums]

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Google Sees Search Share Growth in April, Others Decline

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

Google was the only one of the “big” search engines to experience month-over-month growth in April 2008, according to U.S. search engine rankings released by comScore. Overall, searches by Americans declined by 2%. Core search engines received 10.6 billion of the total searches, with Google seeing over 6.5 billion, Yahoo 2.2 billion and Microsoft 961 million. Here’s the stats:

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Microsoft to Bring Advertising to Live Search Mobile

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

Microsoft has announced the upcoming availability of advertising for Live Search Mobile. The service is currently in private beta, but Microsoft hopes to expand it in the second half of 2008.

The software giant also announced the availability of display advertising on its Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail products.

“In today’s connected world, the mobile device is emerging as a prime opportunity for advertisers to reach their audience,” said Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president of Mobile Services at Microsoft. “This announcement is evidence of our commitment to providing advertisers with further opportunities to connect and engage consumers throughout their ‘digital day’ — at home, at work and on the go across multiple platforms, devices and geographic regions.”

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Turning buyers into customers

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

There are tons of places out there to *buy* buyers. What I mean by that is you can post your products or services on tons of different venues, platf

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[Source: Search Engine Watch Discussion Forums]

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SEW Experts: How to Take on a Major SEO Client

May 23rd, 2008 at 02:18am Under Uncategorized

Search Engine Watch Expert - William Flaiz Taking on a large search engine optimization client can be a daunting proposition. In today’s SEM Agency Issues column, How to Take on a Major SEO Client“,” William Flaiz shows that it’s simple, when you break it down: first, give them what they need; then give them what they want. Finally, give them what they don’t yet know they need.