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SearchWrite SearchNews
Optimizing Visible Results in Search Marketing
Vol 35, Issue 146, 3.12.09
Archived SearchNews:
http://www.searchwrite.com/Pages/searchnews.htm
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Published by SearchWrite Search Marketing
http://www.searchwrite.com
Your Editor/Publisher: Larry Sivitz
For a free consultation on your Search Marketing
and Advertising, contact 206.842.5420 or larry@searchwrite.com
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OPTIMIZING VISIBLE RESULTS IN SEARCH MARKETING

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Catch and cache past installments of SearchWrite SearchNews in the
Archives.

http://www.searchwrite.com/Pages/searchnews.htm

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Milestone Moment: Google Launches Behavioral-Targeted, Interest-Based Ads
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Ever visit a Web page containing Google AdSense advertising? Your Web tracks have been duly noted. Now, as you continue your perambulations across the Web, Google can serve you more personalized advertising it thinks might spark your interest. That's the idea behind Google's new Behavior-Targeted, "Interest-Based" advertising.

The Mountain View searchopolists announced yesterday that they will begin offering ads on YouTube as well as partner AdSense sites that deliver messages based on the sites users have visited in the past. These are Google Content Network ads, not Google search engine ads -- at least not yet.

In case you're wondering, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have been customizing ads based on the past activities of specific Web browsers for some time. Until now, Google had been tying its ads solely to search requests and the general content on Web pages. Google intensified its monitoring activity in December when it began putting a sliver of DoubleClick's computer code, in the form of a "cookie," on advertising partner' sites.

Privacy advocates are of two minds on the subject. First, they have praised Google’s decision to give users access to edit their profiles and modify the information that has been gathered about them. But the privacy groups also said Google needed to do more to notify people that they were being tracked. “We think more needs to be done on how to educate people and tell them how to opt out,” said Ari Schwartz, chief operating officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

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Microsoft Gets Equally Personal with Kumo and your Personal Definitive
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Erik Selberg, one of the original architects of Microsoft Search, (and a personal pen pal). is helping to create and define the next-generation algorithms for Live Search based on a a user's personal history . Eric remarks that the new Live Search will soon display related searches on the Results page, and then add a very interesting section: “Your History.” Yep, Live Search will start to show you your previous searches and possibly let you do something with them!

The basic premise of Microsoft's new search concept, and patent, is that when two different people are searching for the same query term, chances are that the answers that they are trying to find or the sites that they might want to see are different, and that a search engine might be able to help each of those searchers find what they are looking for based upon past experience, and past searches and search result selections.

The concept of “Personal Definitives” is at the heart of the patent filing. A personal definitive is the “best” answer to a given search query as it relates to a specific searcher. Information collected to identify a searcher’s personal definitives include such things as Cookie or login information, terms or phrases used to search upon in the past, search results or a representation of those results in response to queries, and selection counts for previously presented search results.

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FaceBook's New Real-Time Homepage Goes Live
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This week, Facebook is rolling out an update to user homepages that brings a new look, an enhanced filter system, and most importantly, instantaneous, realtime updating. Real-time updates are Facebook’s response to Twitter, which has been able to thrive on offering users immediate updates from their friends and favorite celebrities Facebook’s original News Feed took hours to update.

The new design also includes an emphasis on sharing media and links with friends. Before now, the Facebook homepage offered a “What are you doing now?” message nestled at the top. This has now been replaced with Facebook’s ‘Publisher’ interface, which lets users share status updates, photos and links, as well as content from their Facebook Apps.

Because the real-time stream will only display items for a brief period of time (depending on how many friends you have), Facebook is using a new ‘Highlights’ sidebar to show some of the older stories that it thinks you’ll probably be interested in (similar to the old News Feed).

<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=59195087130>

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Grand Central to Relaunch as Google Voice
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GrandCentral, a phone management service that first launched in 2006 and was acquired by Google for $50+ million in 2007, hasn’t been in the news much lately. Get ready for that to change as the service prepares for a public launch under a new product name: Google Voice.

Google’s added new features and plugged some big holes that limited the original service. Some of the more useful and innovating new features are:

Text Messaging: Now, Google Voice will accept text messages and forward them on to your mobile phone. You can respond to those messages as well. Google is using the existing Gateway technology (which is used by Google Chat) to power this feature.

Voicemail Transcriptions: Google also added a nifty transcription feature (which is using the same subscription service as Google 411) for voicemails. All voicemails are transcribed easily saved into the system and searchable. Users can add notes or tags to voicemails and each transcription details how confident

Friend Settings: Google has added new settings that allow users to route calls from specific people straight to voicemail, or your mobile phone, etc, instead of having to state their name and then be forwarded accordingly.

New User Interface: The primary user interface for Google Voice is through your phone via an audio menu. But users can also log in to the website to administer the account and view activity. All SMS and transcribed voicemails are searchable and taggable, which is very useful and will change the way people interact with these messages. Google also says that full integration with Gmail is coming, but won’t say when. You can also respond to text messages from the interface and initiate phone calls, which then calls your designated phone and then the recipient.

Conference and International Calls: Google Voice also added a conference calling feature allowing conference calls of up to six participants and recording abilities. International calls can also be made through the system at very reasonable rates. For example, voice calls to France are $0.02 per minute, to France mobile phones $0.15 per minute, and to China $0.02 per minute. These rates are about the same as Skype’s international phone rates.

Google Voice <http://www.grandcentral.com/>

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Flickr and Getty Images Launch The Flickr Collection
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Getty Images, and Flickr, a Yahoo! Inc. service and one of the world’s largest photo sharing communities, today announced the launch of the Flickr Collection, a creative imagery collection now available exclusively on gettyimages.com for commercial licensing. With the debut of this first-of-its-kind collection, customers can easily access and license the inspirational and unexpected photographs for which the Flickr community is known.

Photographs for the Flickr Collection were selected by Getty Images' editors based on their expertise in licensing digital content and insights into customers' needs. The collection features a variety of conceptual imagery, such as everyday scenes and believable subjects, and original and regionally relevant content. It is a living collection, with thousands of new images added each month to meet the evolving needs of Getty Images' customers. Images from the Flickr Collection are available in both royalty-free and rights-managed licensing models.

Getty Images will continue to build this collection over time by inviting select Flickr members to participate. Members who choose to participate will benefit from the global reach and distribution power of Getty Images to help market their images, as well as its unmatched expertise and experience in rights and clearances of digital media.

Visit the collection at <http://www.gettyimages.com/flickr>

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20+ Web Tools for Price Watching and Protecting
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In recessionary times like these, every purchase counts. The good people at WebWare have put together a list of 22 different tools that let you buy at the best price, and with relative ease. Most only work on Amazon.com, but a few will keep an eye on the entirety of the Web to let you know about sales, price drops, and increases.

Amazon Price Watch (aka NukePrice.com)
<http://www.nukeprice.com/onlinetools.html>
Amazon Price Watch may sound like it's only Amazon.com prices, but it actually works with around 100 online retailers. You can have it watch the price of something by dropping its link into the service's Web form, or by installing a browser add-on that lets you start tracking from the retailer's site.

Apnoti
<http://www.apnoti.com/>
Apnoti watches Amazon for price drops. You can use it either by dropping in the Amazon product link and your e-mail address or installing a tool bar that adds the option to watch a price to Amazon.com. Apnoti refreshes its price index "continuously" so you can be notified when a price drops usually within the hour.

BeatThat!
<http://beatthat.com/>
BeatThat is primarily a deals site that lets users add deals they've found in return for cash. However, each product on the site can be watched to see if it drops below whatever price threshold you set. You must be a registered user of the site to make use of this feature.

Buy it Later
<http://www.buylatr.com/>
Buy it Later is a tool that's been designed specifically for Amazon.com. You install a small browser add-on, which will add a new button to Amazon product pages that lets you opt-in to buy it at a later date. Once you click this the tool will start tracking the price. It also gives you the heads up when an item comes back in stock, which can be useful if you're looking to buy something with a low supply.

CamelCamelCamel
<http://camelcamelcamel.com/>
While camel imagery does not bring price watching to mind, the site does a great job at it. You can search items on Amazon and a few other retailers. It's also got a great grid of products that have had the biggest price drops by day and week both in dollar amount and in percentage. One of the most important things the site does, however, is show you a price history from the past month both from Amazon and third-party retailers.

EDealInfo
<http://www.edealinfo.com/>
EDealInfo may not be the prettiest site of the bunch, but it's got a simple and powerful way to build a deal alert without too many specifics. For example, you can keep track of an entire genre of products for price drops, like all digital cameras from a certain retailer, or group of retailers. It's also registration-free.

FatWallet
<http://www.fatwallet.com/toolbar/>
FatWallet is mainly a deals forum site, but it also has a few tools that can harass the wisdom of the crowds to save you some cash. Firefox users can install the site's extension which will cross reference the deal to see if there are any coupons or special cash back offers. Consider this a good place to double check a deal you're tracking using one of the other sites on this list.

NetHaggler
<http://www.nethaggler.com/howitworks_new.jsp?current_tab=2>
NetHaggler is a service designed to let users band together to get a lower price from a retailer by buying a single product as a group. It also has a price tracking feature that lets you bookmark items you'd be interested in buying for a certain price. Its system will then send you an alert either if your product falls within the price you've set, or if it's been able to haggle down the price by bulk buying with other users.

Ookong
<http://ookong.com/>
Ookong is another Amazon deal finder. It's currently for Firefox only, and requires you to install it to make use of its price-dropping prowess. Once it's on your machine you get a new button on all Amazon product pages that lets you track an item for any price drops. If the price goes down you get a little pop-up message in the bottom corner of your browser.

PriceDrop
<http://pricedrop.stuffstuff.org/>
PriceDrop is an extension that users install in their browser to be alerted when the price of a product from Amazon.com goes down. You can monitor all your alerts in one list, and it gives you a real-time pop-up in the corner of your screen when it's time to alert you. Considering the tool only checks for price changes once every 18 hours it may not be the fastest, most real-time option, but it's one of the simpler options that won't clog up your e-mail in-box.

PriceGrabber
<http://www.pricegrabber.com/ulists.php>
PriceGrabber's claim to fame is that it does the comparison shopping for you, but it's also got a robust alert tool that will let you know when an item's price fluctuates. To add items you simply search for them through PriceGrabber's database. You can also add any item to this list from its special PriceGrabber product page. You must be registered with PriceGrabber to use this tool, which many other services on this list don't require.

Price Pinx
<http://www.pricepinx.com/>
Price Pinx, like most other services on this list, lets you drop in a URL to set up a price alert. However, most will find it useful for tracking public price drops. Once users begin tracking an item with the service Price Pinx makes it public, and puts some of the biggest sales on its front page, making it good for deal hunting.

Price Protectr
<http://www.priceprotectr.com/>
Price Protectr is a simple tracking service. You just drop in the URL from a retailer's product page then set whether you want it to give you alerts about price drops, or e-mail you if there's been a price drop. For retailers that have a price protection plan this might save you some cash. The service works with around 150 online retailers and has a special toolbar where users can begin to track an item from any of these sites.

Savvy Circle
<http://www.savvycircle.com/>
Savvy Circle has one of the longest lists of support stores in this bunch. Just like all the others you just tell it the products you want to keep an eye on and it sends you an e-mail when it goes on sale. You'll need to register with the service to get alerts though.

Shop It To Me
<http://www.shopittome.com/>
Shop It To Me is the one service on this list that's dedicated specifically to clothes. Its sister site Shop It To Me Running also does specific shoe brands and sides. With both sites you give it your sizes and specific brands you like and it will give you the heads up when items in that size go on sale. This is one of the better ways to make sure you don't head off to some sale only to find everything is three sizes too big or small.

ShoppingNotes
<http://shoppingnotes.com/>
ShoppingNotes is one of the simplest tools on this list. There's no sign-up, you just give the site the product page URL (or URLs as a group) and your e-mail address. It then sends you an e-mail if the price goes down. Besides its main site there's a bookmarklet you can add to your browser to begin watching a price from any site you're on.

Slickdeals
<http://forums.slickdeals.net/dealalerts.php?do=adddealalert>
Slickdeals, like Fatwallet is mainly a deals forum. It also has a deal alert tool. Unlike some of the other tools though, it won't scour the entire Internet to find out when something goes on sale. Instead it will keep an eye on new forum threads and send you an e-mail or private message. Note that you must be registered with the site to use this feature.

Trackle
<http://www.trackle.com/>
Trackle is one of the newest services on this list, having just launched in early February. It's an alerts service where you can have it keep a lookout for price drops, deals, and reviews on new products. It also has a special filter that can look for the same items on Craigslist in case you want to skip retail entirely.

Waitable
<http://waitable.com/>
Waitable is a price watcher that works with both bar codes and Amazon.com product pages. You set the price and it will send you both an e-mail and an SMS alert when it hits that price. It's not the prettiest service of the bunch but it does a great job, and lets you manage your alerts on a single page and subscribe to alerts in an RSS feed if you don't feel like junking up your e-mail in-box or mobile phone.

WishRadar
<http://wishradar.com/>
WishRadar is designed specifically for Amazon.com. If you're a registered Amazon user, you can simply add items you find to your wish list. WishRadar then tracks those items and will let you know if there are price changes, or if the prices come down to what you've set.

Yotify
<http://www.yotify.com/default.aspx>
Yotify works much the same way Trackle does, by letting you set up an alert for a specific product, or genre of products. It then goes out and scouts the Web anywhere from one week to when you tell it you're no longer interested. Unlike some other tools Yotify doesn't offer a whole lot of refinement over which retailers you want to limit your search to, but if you're looking for the lowest price, this may not be important.

ZingSale
<http://zingsale.com/>
ZingSale is one of the prettiest sites on this list and, like the others, is set up to let you quickly put together a list of items you want to track for price drops. It's got a fast and smart search engine, with a very deep level of categorization, which can help narrow down your searches. And its e-mails lead directly to the retailer that's selling it at the lowest price.

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CC Zero: Publish In the Public Domain
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The Creative Commons Foundation has announced a new tool that lets content creators give up the rights claims they are given by default and instead send their work into the public domain. Called CC Zero, the new tool makes make content reuse and collaboration almost friction free.

US copyright law prohibits reuse without explicit permission for creative works until they enter the public domain - 70 years after the death of the author or 120 years after publication date if the date of death of the author is unknown. These lengthy periods leave the public domain pretty anemic. CC Zero will let content creators uninterested in copyright claims push their work into the public domain immediately.

CC Zero <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>

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SearchWrite Spotlight Tweets of the Week - Follow Us Daily on Twitter at http://twitter.com/larrysivitz
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SEM FYI: Search Engine Query Cheat Sheet <http://bitly.com/Qtvyt> (Google, Yahoo! and MSN)

SEM FYI: New Yahoo Air Miles Toolbar awards 5 AIR MILES for every 50 valid searches. <http://bitly.com/nicZ>

SEO Tip of the Day: How many links per page? Matt Cutts points out that 100 links is a "design & content" guideline, not a hard rule.

SEO Tip of the Day: Shout out to @lieblink 's new book "The Truth About Search Engine Optimization." A fun read for SEO myth busting!

SEM FYI: Download full Nielsen Social Media Report "Global Faces and Networked Places," <http://bitly.com/hODoM>

SEM FYI: A milestone day! Social media surpasses email in popularity. <http://bitly.com/17N4b>

SEO Tip of the Day: Back to basics. Stick with lower case syntax in tag & link construction. Google knows both but others aren't as smart.

Bonus SEO Tip of the Day: Google Image Search adds “Exact Size” advanced search option.

SEO Tip of the Day: On the Title tag topic: Google favors [Keyword Phrase : Sitename] in that order while MSN favors [Keyword Phrase only].

SEO FYI: The future of Search? It could be WolframAlpha.com, a knowledge engine that computes answers to real ?'s.

SEM Tip of the Day: LocalPrice.com hopes to use price comparison to differentiate itself from ServiceMagic, Angie’s List, and others.

SEO Tip of the Day: OneRiot is a search engine that lets you find the content people are talking about today. http://www.oneriot.com/

SEO Tip of the Day: How to Manage Multiple Social Media profiles <http://bit.ly/11EyT>

SEO Tip of the Day: Live Search Cashback now integrated in MSN Toolbar. Detects cashback offers whether searching on Live, Yahoo or Google!

SEO Tip of the Day: Realtime Twitter Search Results on Google. Greasemonkey shows the way! <http://bitly.com/gdRXr>

SEO Tip of the Day: Twitter your Search! TweetLater.com provides keyword tracking for Twitter searches. Emails a digest of search results.

PPC Tip of the Day: Google's new expandable AdWords ads (on AdSense sites) push rich media beyond the original size. http://bitly.com/Ip7xQ

SEO Tip of the Day: Google's Matt Cutts diagrams why he can't just eviscerate, demolish, murder, blow up bad pages. http://bitly.com/S8tnV

RT @Google The fastest rising search term in the US for the last 7 days: Portuguese water dog http://bit.ly/PpHyv

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SEO Organic Search Tip of the Week: Watch Your Punctuation Online
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Did you realize that URL case matters in SEO? It is yet another case where Twitter and Google do not see eye to eye.

Twitter allows both capitalized and lowercase URLs to return the same page. For example, both http://twitter.com/google and http://twitter.com/Google return the same exact page, content and information. But Google considers http://twitter.com/google and http://twitter.com/Google to be different pages, in many cases.

The ampersand (&) is another punctuation mark that may cause problems when put in a title. It is of course the starting symbol within the ASCII codes for individual characters. One is well advised to spell out ‘and’ rather than using the & within a title.

The underscore is a punctuation mark used by some, although it is not acceptable within domain names. It can be used in titles and in the body of articles without creating any problems with databases or software. However some people may find it is a distraction. If hyperlinks are indicated by underlines, then it is not possible to see whether an underscore is there or not.

The hyphen - on the other hand - can be used in domain names and titles without creating any problems. The only minor problem is if you must tell someone else a domain name then it is a little more detail to spell out.

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