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SearchWrite SearchNews
Optimizing Visible Results in Search Marketing
Vol 30, Issue 110, 5.29.08
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Archived SearchNews:
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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
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Microsoft-Yahoo Seek Marriage Counseling: Is the Search Slice in the Wedding Cake?
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That love-crossed, on-again, off-again search couple named Microsoft and Yahoo, are seeing if they can patch up their differences, tied to the possibility of Yahoo betrothing a part, if not all, of its empire. Microsoft has its eyes on Yahoo Search proper, including its organic search, meta-directory and paid search platform. While the couples counseling may eventually pay off, Google is playing the role of jealous spoiler, making overtures of its own for a Yahoo paid-search revenue share. Google co-founder Larry Page even reiterated the argument that a Google-Yahoo deal could be structured to avoid anti-trust concerns during a speech to the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, with two eligible suitors bringing him flowers, Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang is smelling like a rose.

If you’re following the moves on the chessboard, Yahoo suffered the departure of one of its board members this week, Edward Kozel. The company decided to delay its annual shareholder meeting and reduced the number of directors from 10 to nine and it renominated all nine directors for the next term. They will go up against an alternative slate of directors nominated by investor Carl Icahn who has mounted a proxy battle for control of the Yahoo board (to force a deal with Microsoft).

Want the corporate raiders to leave Yahoo alone? Sign the Let Yahoo be Yahoo petition! <http://www.letyahoobeyahoo.com/>

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Google Factory Tour: View from the Assembly Line ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Google held a "Factory Tour" of its production line before the Memorial Day holiday. Universal Search was reviewed by search quality product manager Johanna Wright, who discussed the challenges of integrating multiple content types, which now include video, maps, news, books, images, products and blogs, into a single ranking algorithm that seeks to capture user intent. Wright also announced that Universal Search is now global, with localized results for each of the content categories for 100 languages in 150 countries (which integrate cross-language search results).

Trystan Upstill, Google software engineer, also discussed "metro localization," which will use geography to determine relevance based the user's metro area. An example used was the ambiguous query "Zoo." A Los Angeles based user will get a different result than a person in Seattle. (This can be done with IP targeting.)

For other types of queries, (e.g., restaurants), that are even more local, Google will prompt the user to enter a zip (in a field) and will store that information. That zip-level information will then influence subsequent Google search results. (me: It also gives Google zip-level ad targeting as well. Google can also get this information from user registration or through inference via Google Maps usage).

The first announcement of the day was about the integration of image ads (with text) in Google image search. Picture AdWords but with included thumbnails of product images tied to the text copy. RJ Pittman, Google's Director of Search Properties, described hundreds of millions of searches are being done every single day on Google Image Search. 'Image search is more than just pretty pictures. We're really looking for a true user experience alignment not just running a stack of ads down the side or across the top."

View the video at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BraxN10dHmU>


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Live Gets Livelier: Joins Social Bookmarking Game,
Adds Graphical Ads & Paid Search for Mobile
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With new vigor, Microsoft has previewed a new social bookmarking tool. The tool does not break any new ground when compared to Delicious or other current social bookmarking services but it does have the full faith and credit of Microsoft behind it. Like other tag-and-brag applications, you can bookmark any URL across the Web then apply tags to those URLs while saving them in the new My Bookmarks tool.

Microsoft has set up a support forum for discussion about the new tool at Microsoft Forums.
<http://forums.community.microsoft.com/en-US/bookmarks/threads/>

Meanwhile across-campus, the Windows Live team has launched a new homepage for mobile search and the company has introduced graphical ads and paid search for mobile. For the first time, invited advertisers can create keyword campaigns through Microsoft adCenter that target customers on the go while they are using Live Search Mobile. The beta is currently available in the U.S. and will be expanded in the second half of 2008.
Those interested in trying out Microsoft’s mobile Web services such as Windows Live for mobile, MSN Mobile and Live Search Mobile can visit http://mobile.msn.com or http://mobile.live.com from a mobile handset with an internet browser.

Advertisers who want more information on how to advertise on MSN or Windows Live for mobile can go to http://advertising.microsoft.com


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Leaping Ahead: The Seeds of Search 4.0 Are Being Sown
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Search seer, sayer and setter Danny Sullivan is a search engine analyst who makes market leaders cower virtually every time he opens his mouth. In November of 2007, Danny inaugurated what he dubbed Search 3.0, which he explained was the milestone search engines achieved by blending vertical or specialized results into "regular" web listings. Here are the historic peg points in Dan's Ascent of Search.

Search 1.0 (1996): Pages ranked using "on-the-page" criteria

|Search 2.0 (1998): Pages ranked using "off-the-page" criteria

Search 3.0 (2007): Vertical search results blended into regular search results
Danny confides, “The evolution above is not perfect. For one thing, some "Search 3.0" blending started to happen years before 2007. It's just that in 2007, all the major search engines made the leap into Search 3.0 in a significant way.”

This week, Danny heralded the arrival of Search 4.0, the "Humanization of Search." Search 4.0 will be characterized by the use of human data as part of the search engine’s ranking systems. In particular, it means human data generated by you, by those you know or by human editors.

Search engines already make use of some human data. All the major search engines, for example, monitor what we click on within the search results. This helps them determine if a particular listing is drawing more or less clicks than would be expected for the position it holds. For example, if the number two listing for a particular query is getting less clicks than "normal" for a listing in that spot, perhaps it's a bad quality listing that should be replaced with another.

Another example: all the major search engines make heavy use of link data -- and that link data is largely human data, humans both "voting" with their links and "tagging" pages by the words they use in the links.

Presently, the most refined Search 4.0 implementation out there is Google's personalized results. "Previous Query refinement" has been used to improve the ads shown on Google for almost a year now. In the new era of Search 4.0, Facebook could tailor results based on what your friends are searching on. If it knows what you and your 25 friends all seem to select from results, it could ensure those sites get ranking boosts for future searches. That's similar to personalized search, except it sounds full of extra friend-goodness, right? The flaw here is plenty of people have friends on Facebook they don't know. Some people collect friends for fun (and profit). Some people get friended by others just looking to build up their profiles. Any of these instances can cause "pollution" of the social data that supposedly was going to improve your search results.

Personalized search has the most potential for another big relevancy leap!

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Google's Safe Browsing Diagnostic Tool
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Interested in protecting yourself from a malicious Web page? Who wouldn't be! Google has announced the release of a safe browsing diagnostic tool.

Have reason to suspect a site may mean trouble? To use the tool, just append a URL to the end of http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=.

For example, to test our site, you would enter http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.searchwrite.com/. Google will then return four sets of security information about that page.

<http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/05/safe-browsing-diagnostic-to-rescue.html>

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AllPlus Launches as Universal Meta-Search and Discovery Engine
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AllPlus, the web’s first universal metasearch and clustering engine has been released by WebLib. AllPlus simultaneously searches the major U.S. search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com) for webpages, news, videos, images, and blogs, and it presents all the results in an intuitive and clearly organized way through its Web 2.0 interface.

The AllPlus universal metasearch engine integrates powerful natural language processing (NLP) algorithms in query analysis and refinement, intelligent search strategy, relevancy ranking, focused drill-down, and the exploration of multidimensional information spaces. AllPlus also offers spelling suggestions based on its comprehensive English, Web, Medical, and Scientific Dictionaries.

<http://www.allplus.com>

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How to Use Yahoo Local to Rank in Google Local and Vice-Versa
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1. Link to the Yahoo Local page for your business with your target keywords in the anchor text like this: Tri Valley Widgets

2. Since the Yahoo Local page is already indexed in Google this should help push it up in Google for the targeted term - assuming your own site has at least a little authority in Google.

3. Link to your profile pages from other IYP sites (e.g. Yellowbook, Kudzu, CitySquares, etc.) that have your profiles indexed in Google and Yahoo with variations of the target keywords in the anchor text.

4. If you see a SERP from another search engine or IYP ranking well for a particular search (e.g. a Yahoo Local page that ranks well in Google Web results) then optimize your listing for that search engine (e.g. add your biz to the YLocal category that’s showing up in Google, if relevant).

And that’s the trick.


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Google Analytics Dominates the Top 500 Websites
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Google Analytics has only been available for about two years, but is already used by one third of the top 500 websites in the world. How many of the world's top web properties use it? We put the Alexa global top 500 websites under the microscope and found that 161 out of these 500 websites are using Google Analytics, which is 32.2%.


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AOL's Leaked Searches Get Turned Into Play: USER 927
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Remember when AOL accidentally released private search information back in August of 2006? Well, that story is now back in the news, after a two-year hiatus. Ars Technica reports that a stage play has been created around one of the searchers, specifically searcher number 927. The play is named "USER 927: U are what U Seek" and is coming to a theater in Philadelphia on June 6th.

<http://www.bratproductions.org/tickets.html>

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SEO Tip of the Week: Turbo Charge Your Traffic With Flickr Groups
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Flickr can be a powerful tool when it comes to driving unique visitors to your Website.
Here's how to use your images and Flickr to plug into that traffic:

• Upload your photos in a deliberate order, tell a story, win attention up front
• Use great titles, geo-tags, content tags and descriptions
• Be selective: use your best photos, not all of them
• Participate in Flickr groups
• Become a Flickr Pro Member for access to stats reports
• Create and promote an RSS Feed of your photos
• Page Rank Follows from Profile and Group pages so link to those pages
• Geo-tagged photos can end up in Yahoo Local News
• Use the correct Creative Commons license to build inbound links
• Link to your profile page and photo-stream from your blog or website
* Consider Flickriver, a third party app, to display your photo pool on your website. Flickriver refreshes the pool so different photos are highlighted and redirects viewers back to the members photo-stream.

Flickriver <http://www.flickriver.com/>


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