Release of Windows Live Search
- September. 18, 2006
Release of Windows Live Search Well the day has finally come. Microsoft stepped up to bat and it’s hit in the air, it’s going, going it’s off the fence for a ground rule double. What I’m referring to has noting to do with the pennant race it ...
Pinging 101
- September. 15, 2006
The problem with content on the web is not one of creative but of visibility. In other words, how do you notify the world that you have new and fresh content online before any of your competitors do, and then get the world to actually visit your webs...
Simple SEO for Blogger
- August. 29, 2006
After my first month on being blogger I checked the number of pages I had indexed in Google by going site:manojjasra.blogspot.com and noticed that Google showed: Results 1 - 1 of about 30 and further down the page: In order to show you the most r...
StatCounter Integrates With Google Maps
- August. 18, 2006
Something I do everyday is log-in to StatCounter to see how some of my sites are doing, today I received the following message: "We''ve added a feature that lets you view your recent visitors on a Google Map. Click on a marker and you will be given...
Yahoo Releases New Crawler… Welcome Yahoo Slurp the Second
- July. 28, 2006
Today Yahoo announced the release of their new spider, Yahoo Slurp. Wait a second wasn’t their spider already called Yahoo Slurp? Yes it was, but this new version is apparently faster and more efficient that the old one. Isn’t that ...
Google Sitemaps Continue to Improve
- June. 23, 2006
I’ve been a fan of Google Sitemaps since their initial release last year. For myself, I felt that the true benefit of Google Sitemaps would be to provide insight as to various potential indexing issues with my client’s sites. However in t...
Ready Your Stations; The Battle has Just Begun
- June. 7, 2006
There is a lot of speculation and rumors floating about regarding the recent release of Google Spreadsheet, however, I highly doubt that Google is strictly going after the entire desktop office suite market. Personally, it looks to me like we are s...
Ads and Apps
- May. 18, 2006
When Apple first came to the market, their core product offering was hardware. That’s where the money was, because nobody was mass producing an affordable home PC. IBM was still run by clones in blue suits and white shirts. Apple wanted to not only ...
The Release of Google Co-op
- May. 16, 2006
Last week, Google released a few new products. One of the more interesting features within the new items released was Google Co-op. The premise behind Google Co-op is a product that allows so called "experts" to share their expertise. The first ...
The Battle for Query Generation
- May. 10, 2006
Yahoo! has just launched a new search technology on its AlltheWeb property that rivals Google's instant suggest feature in the beta release of Google Toolbar 4.0. The AlltheWeb Livesearch tool displays search results instantaneously for suggested key...
Wall Street for FREE: Online Publishing Pains
- May. 4, 2006
This week, the Wall Street Journal has done something quite revolutionary. As one of the most popular newspapers in the US, with a worldwide average daily circulation of over 2.6 million, it is second to only USA Today in domestic readership. In fact...
Innovate or Pay
- May. 2, 2006
Whether or not you attribute the discovery of radio to Marconi, Lodge, Dolbear, or Tesla is inconsequential to the truth that 100 years ago, the US government declared that the air had no individual ownership. People could own property, but all of t...
Google Sitemaps: Some New Updates
- May. 1, 2006
Last week was much-anticipated for me...not only did the NHL hockey playoffs start (with my favorite team the Edmonton Oilers taking on the Detroit Red Wings), but Google Sitemaps also rolled out some new features (strange that the two get me equal...
A NEW FACE FOR GOOGLE?
- April. 26, 2006
There is this old adage that everything is new in spring: new love, new blossoms, and new hay fever symptoms. Of course, there are always new reruns and new excuses to do nothing other than sit on the couch and watch the play-offs... For me, spr...
The Route to Online Success is in Design
- April. 24, 2006
Unlike the Kevin Costner movie, there are no guarantees that just because you build a website, people will come (at least, not the Chicago Black Sox). In fact, getting the right visitor is the primary concern for almost every Webmaster, SEO Marketer,...
Analytics: You can’t afford NOT to track
- April. 20, 2006
Budget, especially for smaller organizations, is often a major factor when researching which Analytics package to implement on a given website. There are business owners who continually push off the purchase of analytics until their company is financ...
Google Calendar Arrives
- April. 18, 2006
Google has released Google Calendar, a new shareable online calendar and I must say that it is actually pretty cool as it lets you organize your hours, weeks and months with relative ease. There are some great features, including: Gmail inte...
A Week of Announcements
- April. 13, 2006
It's the last shift before four days of golf, gluttony, and passive aggressive arguments - everything that is a family oriented holiday - and here I sit, virtually mired waist deep in articles about everything from the media market gone crazy to th...
Analytics: Advanced Analysis
- April. 6, 2006
Attending Omniture’s Web Analytics Summit last week has made me realize the extent of segmentation and analysis an analytics suite can provide for an organization. As stated in a previous article, about half of search marketers use analytics.&n...
Google Related Links
- April. 4, 2006
Google has released Google Related Links which is a new feature that would allow Google to add dynamic relevant content links to your website. These related links will be placed on the side of your site offering users with navigation to related cont...
Top 10 Search Engine Happenings Early 2006
- March. 31, 2006
As the first quarter of 2006 nears an end, I thought that we needed yet another Top 10 list. I mean after all, you can never have enough Top 10 lists… just ask David Letterman and he’ll tell you. We all know that with any Top 10 list, the rankings ...
Podcasts are the Handsome Prince to the Content King
- March. 30, 2006
And Sergey came down from the mount, screaming “Content is King,” and the masses cheered for keyword density. And with a motion, the Great Sea that is the Internet parted, and the masses cheered for keyword density. And the Webmasters rallied i...
My Last Article
- March. 23, 2006
The time has come for me to say goodbye to readers of my articles on Searchengineposition. I have decided to move on to other things, but I’ll still remain in the SEM industry. I was trying to figure out what my final article should ...
Performancing Blog Analytics
- March. 15, 2006
I read in a forum today that some users who are using Google Analytics are noticing that their sites seem to be getting removed from Yahoo! While this seems strange at first it does make sense in a way. After all, Yahoo! doesn’t want ...
Duplicate Content can get You Banned
- March. 1, 2006
By now everyone should know that duplicate content can (and likely will) get you penalized if not banned in the search engines. But many times, we get questions asking what exactly duplicate content is? For example, we recentl...
Promote your site with Wikipedia
- February. 23, 2006
I am always looking for new ways to promote my clients websites. And sometimes “regular” link building just isn’t enough. I mean, you can spend hours and hours looking at competitors and searching out new opportunities only to find t...
Google’s New Spider - Friend or Foe?
- February. 16, 2006
Ever since we first heard of Big Daddy, Google’s new data infrastructure I’ve been watching for anomalies across the Googlesphere. And there was something interesting that began even before Big Daddy was announced. There was a new...
BMW.de Got Banned & So Can You
- February. 8, 2006
By now you’ve probably heard that BMW.de was removed from the Google index for spamming. They were using a combination of Javascript and Doorway pages to rank for terms they shouldn’t have ranked for (such as used cars). What BMW.de...
Google Base - SEO Opportunity
- February. 1, 2006
When you own a website your quest generally is to be top ranked in Google. Whether its in the top position or merely above the fold, ideally you want to be where the most eyeballs will see you and hopefully click on your link. But ma...
Is Link Building Dead?
- January. 25, 2006
I’ve been thinking about links a lot lately. Wondering how important they are. After all, we’ve been preaching link building to clients for quite a few years now. And every so often someone will come along and say “yes but with t...
Artful Link Building - Link Baiting
- January. 18, 2006
Since the early days of search engines, inbound links have been important tools used to gauge a site’s importance. In fact Google is built on that premise and even has an algorithm - the PageRank algorithm - which is used to determine that link...
CES Google News
- January. 13, 2006
As you are probably already aware, the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) was another smash this year. The buzz word at the show was “convergence” and I wrote about it recently here. While I’m not terribly impressed with Google’s offering...
Googles BigDaddy Datacenter
- January. 5, 2006
Last month Matt Cutts mentioned that there was a new datacenter Google was testing, however he didn’t get into too many details about what it was or why they were testing it. Today, Matt unveiled “BigDaddy” (the name they gave it) in his blo...
Using Feeds to Promote Your Site
- December. 29, 2005
I love web feeds, also known as RSS or XML feeds. They are so flexible and can provide you with so much information. That's why in this week's article I'm going to explain how you too can develop a deep admiration for feeds. This is because the use ...
Google News Means Change
- December. 21, 2005
There have been a couple of interesting bits of Google news in the past few days. These announcements could dramatically change how search is perceived on the Internet. The first is the huge Google/AOL deal. For $1 billion Goog...
Search 2006 - Predictions
- December. 14, 2005
So it’s that time of year again. The time of year when I look forward to determine what I see as the big trends in search for 2006. And like every year you will find some that you agree with and some you may not. But before you...
Yahoo!s Site Explorer
- December. 8, 2005
There has been a handy webmaster/sem tool at Yahoo! for some time. One that is probably the most helpful tool in helping you understand how Yahoo! sees your site. The tool is called Site Explorer and today I’m going to show you what it...
The Value of Links
- December. 1, 2005
With the recent Google update, nicknamed Jagger, and for the past year or so, many in the industry have been saying linking is not important, or that large numbers of links just don’t cut it anymore. In fact, the Jagger update may lead one t...
Are Search Engine Results Seasonal?
- November. 24, 2005
The other day I was checking search engine rankings for a few of my clients. I was noticing some trends with their results in Google. It seems as if their rankings had gone up for a few months during their peak seasons. Then when th...
Proper Sitemap Usage
- November. 23, 2005
Sitemaps are great things. Not only do they provide searchers with a way to easily navigate your site, but they also let search engine crawlers find all your content. As such, sitemaps have become a regular tool in the SEO arsenal.&nbs...
State of Search Fall 2005
- November. 17, 2005
It’s been almost 6 months since I last sat down to take a look at how search is doing. At that time I was looking for relevant and timely information on a Tsunami that happened off the California coastline. Prior to that I had written ...
Writing Articles to Improve Positioning
- November. 10, 2005
I’ve been writing articles here for over 3 ½ years. That’s over 300 articles I’ve published on the topic of search and its impact on our world. And over that time I’ve watched our search engine referrals and visitor sessions climb each...
Is a Google Sitemap Necessary?
- November. 3, 2005
During a call with a client today an interesting question was posed: Is there any value in submitting a Google Sitemap? For those who don’t know, Google now offers users a way to submit an XML based sitemap of their website to help e...
The Invisible Web Still Exists
- October. 27, 2005
Improve your security...
Branding is Big and Growing
- October. 20, 2005
I listened to the Yahoo! earnings call this week and one thing struck me as quite interesting. The use of branded keywords in paid search is growing. In fact Yahoo! claims that its top 200 advertisers use Yahoo! paid search to promote their brands...
Know your Online Audience
- October. 13, 2005
In an article published by our Head Sponsored Search Strategist there is a great point made on the importance of targeting your audience if you are trying B2B marketing online. I highly recommend reading it even if you aren’t a B2B marketer. ...
Integrated Search Marketing - Possible?
- October. 4, 2005
Our company president wrote an article about integrated online marketing campaigns and how some companies tend to focus on specific areas of search engine marketing without considering the other areas. Then our Head Sponsored Search Strategist ...
Some Optimization Quick Tips
- September. 29, 2005
Often I review many different sites a week. As part of that review I have some standard things I look at - Does it have meta tags? Are they unique on every page? Does the site use a sitemap? And so on. In this article I’m go...
The Importance of Analytics
- September. 15, 2005
I was recently reading some new research out which discusses the ROI being generated by PPC and SEO.While the conclusions were no real news to me, what I did find interesting (And somewhat concerning) was that half of the respondents didn’t measure, ...
Taking your site global? Read This
- September. 7, 2005
The trend these days seems to be going global. While a few large companies already have global sites, some smaller companies are looking to other countries as well. The problem with going global, however, is that if you begin to duplic...
The Internets Impact on Tragedy
- September. 1, 2005
Sometimes it amazes me how involved the web is in our daily lives. Take the Hurricane Katrina tragedy that is unfolding in front of us. I live about as far away as you could from the southern US coast, yet I feel as if things are unfolding nea...
Google On The Desktop
- August. 24, 2005
If you follow Google at all then you know that they recently released a fairly major upgrade to the Desktop Search application. But what you may not know is how much this new application, and others from Google, affects the competitiveness o...
The future of search is Vertical
- August. 18, 2005
Some co-workers just came back from the SES in San Jose and one thing that they said that made me take notice was how much the search engines were pushing verticals. Now before I get too far I should mention that what you and I may conside...
Building an Effective Website – Pt.7
- August. 11, 2005
In this series of articles, we decided to go back to basics when getting into the web space. In Part 1, we were introduced to a fictional company that wanted a website. In Part 2, we went into more detail on the site, including picking...
Building an Effective Website – Pt.6
- August. 4, 2005
In this series of articles, we decided to go back to basics when getting into the web space. In Part 1, we were introduced to a fictional company that wanted a website. In Part 2, we went into more detail on the site, including picking a d...
Building an Effective Website – Pt.5
- July. 28, 2005
In Part 1, we were introduced to a fictional company that wanted a website. In Part 2, we went into more detail on the site, including picking a domain name while part 3 gave some tips on picking a web host, and part 4 dealt with some i...
Building an Effective Website – Pt.4
- July. 22, 2005
In this series of articles, we decided to go back to basics when getting into the web space. In the first article, we were introduced to a fictional company that wanted a website. In Part 2, we went into more detail on the site, including pick...
Building an Effective Website – Pt.3
- July. 14, 2005
In the previous 2 articles, I touched on what you should do if you wanted to set up a new website. In the first article, we were introduced to a fictional company – Ekko Heating and Air Conditioning, which has a new product which it wants ...
Building an Effective Website – Pt.2
- July. 7, 2005
This is the second part in a series of articles discussing the considerations which must be made with regards to a new website. Last week I talked about getting your message figured out. Even before you go out and buy a domain or figure out hosting,...
Building An Effective Website - Pt. 1
- June. 29, 2005
With today’s search engines, there doesn’t seem to be an end to how much data they can index. It seems as if everything that could be found online is found online. And with the growing popularity of local search, you may be thinking to yourself that...
Google Speculation
- June. 22, 2005
We live in interesting times. The World Wide Web is growing so fast, and has embedded itself so much into our lives that we may wonder how we got along without it. After all, the multi-billion dollar industry that employs me and everyo...
The True Power Of Search Engines
- June. 15, 2005
This is a true story. If you live on or near the west coast of North America you likely had a stressful hour or so this past evening. This is because a tsunami warning had been issued for all coastal areas between the California/Mex...
Other Online Sources
- June. 9, 2005
Last week I wrote about the different market shares that the main engines have, and how maybe many online marketers put too much emphasis on Google and should focus on others. Today I’m going to go even deeper and say that perhaps focusing o...
Search Engine Rankings
- June. 2, 2005
If you frequently browse any of the main search engine forums you know that probably 75% of most search marketer's efforts are on Google, at least in terms of organic or algorithmic search. That is probably because Google is a tougher nut to c...
Why PageRank Is Important
- May. 26, 2005
Ever since the Florida Update SEO and SEM firms have been speculating on what Google did and why they did it. We developed our own theory in which we believe Google used some of the Applied Semantics technology to build one of the world’s large...
Rank Checking Tools
- May. 19, 2005
It seems like every few days there is a new search engine patent out there. Just yesterday a Yahoo! patent was discovered which appears to indicate they have some sort of semantic algorithm they are or soon will be using, in addition to other n...
Hosting Multiple Domains
- May. 4, 2005
As I was performing a review of a recent new client, I came across an interesting issue which I thought I’d share. Over time, the client has purchased multiple variations of their domain name and simply parked them on their web server and pointed...
Google Search History
- April. 20, 2005
I almost missed this one as there was an obscure post relating to MSN and they mentioned it as an aside but Google now has a new way to help you manage your search history. If you go to Google labs you'll find a new tool called "My Search History" w...
Hosting Frustrations
- April. 14, 2005
If you are a hosting company you may want to stop here because I am going to rant a bit on hosting. This is not a hosting issue in general, but there are specific cases where I become frustrated with web hosting companies. Take a case which happened...
Google Patent
- April. 6, 2005
If you haven't already heard, there is a new Google Patent circulating which outlines what may be happening within the Googleplex in terms of rankings now (and in the future). The fact that most people in our industry have tuned in on seems to be th...
Why Blogs are Good
- March. 30, 2005
I have been waiting for Yahoo! 360 since I knew it would be coming out earlier this year. I am excited for this product because I think social networking of this style is the key to offering us more relevant search results. By doing some non-obtrusi...
Value of RSS Grows
- March. 28, 2005
If you do any searching on Yahoo! regularly as I do daily, you may have noticed that there has been a slight change to the search results. Of course, if you are looking at the page you won't likely see it, unless you can read the HTML as it is execu...
IAC/Ask Jeeves Implications
- March. 21, 2005
By now you are well aware that Ask Jeeves has been bought by InterActiveCorp - A company which has been very active in the past. We've been watching them for some time now and knew that an acquisition such as this was around the corner. If you look...
Yahoo goes communal
- March. 16, 2005
I don't often get excited about new search technology. Ok I do get excited but not overjoyed. Ok in some cases I do. My point is, I'm very happy to see Yahoo! entering the blog/communities space. I've been talking internally how the engines need to...
Google News Goes Custom
- March. 11, 2005
You likely have already heard of this, but if you use Google news you can now customize how the Google News home page looks. You can add more or less stories, and even add custom sections, based on keywords (of course). My first question i...
Do you want your own blog?
- March. 8, 2005
Blogging seems to be all the rage today. I can say that I am swept up in it myself, working on 3 of my own blogs plus contributing to countless others. It's a big question that we hear from clients these days - what's this blogging thing, and how do ...
Search as a platform
- March. 7, 2005
One of the highlights of this year's Search Engine Strategies conference in New York (aside from the fact that I got to go to New York and see the city) was the keynote speech by Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! While the talk was interesting and he...
Google Calendar?
- February. 23, 2005
If you are a regular reader of these articles, you know I have been speculating on the future of Google and commenting on other recent developments. Recently, I came across an interesting blog post, thanks to a co-worker. In the post, the author stat...
PPC Click Fraud
- February. 21, 2005
A few days ago, I received an e-mail from our Sales Department with a link to the latest internet article spelling out the appallingly high rate of PPC click fraud on the internet. The article used the often quoted "50% of clicks are fraud" and paint...
Searching for relevancy
- February. 2, 2005
I read an article the other day from a well known technology site which said that in order for search engines to move forward they have to improve the relevancy of search results. Google moved a step in the right direction with the Florida...
Future Search Markets
- January. 25, 2005
It is ironic that Google launched TV search yesterday, because I was thinking about where search will go, and I think it will follow a similar pattern to television. When I was growing up, we only had 2 channels until I was about 12 or 13....
MSN search using RSS
- January. 20, 2005
In the "That's cool but what's the use" category, a new entry from MSN. In order to perform this experiment there are a few prerequisites; A news aggregator or a browser that supports reading feeds, or some other way of reading an XML or R...
Google the ISP?
- January. 19, 2005
Recently, in the news, there was a post about a job listing on Google's site. They are apparently looking for someone with experience in "identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts." Does this mean that Google wants to become ...
Local search has a long way to go
- January. 17, 2005
So I changed search engine hats over the weekend. I became a user researching a product I wished to purchase. It was an electronic gadget so I was able to easily find lots of information on what I was looking for. I was looking for a devic...
Search 2005
- December. 30, 2004
2004 has been quite a year. We saw the emergence of 2 major players in search debuting their own technology, while the third recently doubled the size of its search index, and filled its founder's pockets with money. We also saw improvements...
Black Hat or White Hat?
- December. 23, 2004
I was at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, and was fortunate enough to attend the seminar entitled "Black Hat, White Hat and Lots of Gray" and it really opened my eyes. Depending on which definition of black hat or white...
Desktop Search and Search
- December. 10, 2004
As you have probably heard by now, Yahoo has entered the desktop search fray, planning to release a Yahoo! branded desktop search in January. This now means that there are close to 1 dozen vendors supplying free desktop search. While this ...
Online Opportunities Part 2
- December. 8, 2004
Yesterday, we looked at the current online opportunities out there for someone who has a web-based business they wish to promote. Today we cover what could be (and probably will be) the next great online promotion tools. If you've watched ...
Online Opportunities Part 1
- December. 7, 2004
When a business goes online, the first place they look to is usually a search engine - either for free organic listings, or paid listings via one of the major players like Google AdWords or Yahoo!s Overture. And while these are generally the first pl...
Keyword spending up this holiday season
- December. 6, 2004
A company by the name of Fathom Online tracks online keyword spends and sorts them by category. According to Fathom, spending on keywords in November was up over October in all categories except 2. The average cost per keyword in November was US$1.6...
The Big 3???
- November. 22, 2004
When you mention the Big 3 in our industry, you don't think Ford, GM and Chrysler (unless you are an SEM firm in Detroit). If you are in the search industry when you hear the Big 3 you think of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Speculation is ra...
Search Writes the Yellow Pages Obituary
- November. 18, 2004
The news piece was buried on page 36 of the business section in a major Canadian daily newspaper. It was just one paragraph, a mere 46 words, announcing that the Yellow Pages Group had signed a deal with Google, making their information available on ...
Do We Want a Smarter Search Engine?
- November. 18, 2004
SEARCH ENGINES ARE KNOCKING ON the door of the future. The 800-pound gorillas of search and brash new upstarts like Blinkx and Gurunet are working to find a way to make search more intuitive, ubiquitous, and intelligent. Someday, search will be int...
Google Does it Right, and Still Makes Money
- November. 18, 2004
We’ve done 3 studies now on how people react with search engines, and one finding that has been consistent across all three studies still amazes me. All other things being equal, Google dominates as the search engine of choice. In the latest survey G...
Why Microsoft doesn't need to compete
- November. 10, 2004
There are many people in our industry who are wondering why Microsoft is taking so long to get into the search game. After all, Google has stolen the market from under their noses. With such a commanding domination of the desktop market, a...
New Spam Tactic
- November. 2, 2004
I work on a few different blogs in my spare time, some of which are work related - to see how and where I can get them to rank, and some are just for fun. On one of the blogs I am more involved with, I noticed a bunch of comments posted from "Cheap ...
Google Browser?
- October. 27, 2004
Gbrowser.com - it is a domain name that Google recently registered. This led many people to believe that Google is developing its own internet browser. This seems to be backed up by the fact that they recently hired a bunch of development heavyweight...
Securing Your Computer
- October. 26, 2004
I write articles like this every so often to reinforce the point of how vulnerable the internet still really is. Despite the fact that software makers work diligently to try and help protect us from ourselves, especially when it comes to the ho...
New Yahoo! Features
- October. 20, 2004
It all started when Yahoo! dumped Google earlier this year in favor of its own algorithmic results. I hadn't paid much attention to Yahoo! until then (because if it was in Google, it was in Yahoo!). Sure I knew some things about it. Like getting a di...
Windows Marketplace
- October. 13, 2004
If you are wondering where to buy Windows compatible hardware or software components, you may not need to look any further. Microsoft recently announced a new addition to their online presence. A site called the Windows Marketplace, on whi...
A search engine to watch
- October. 6, 2004
Outside of our industry, not many people know who Bill Gross is. He is one of the driving forces behind one of the most recent changes in the web to make a huge impact. I am talking about paid listings. Before Goto, paid advertising on th...
Optimizing Dynamic Sites
- October. 4, 2004
Ok, you have a huge database driven site, and based on our previous article about URL rewriting, you have implemented some form of rewriting which helps to get all your pages found. Now what? Well it's great if a crawler can get deep into ...
The butler is back with changes
- September. 21, 2004
A tanned fit butler now greets you when you go to Ask.com. He also brought back a few new features that he acquired during his sabbatical. On the home page you will see a "MyJeeves" button. This has some very interesting features. Ones I'm sure the ...
Some Recent News
- September. 15, 2004
There are some new and exciting changes happening in our industry. This article outlines just a few of the most recent. Google Local Google has recently added new features and a new look to its local search. The new look now includes maps on resu...
There is a new king on the horizon
- September. 14, 2004
It was almost 4 years ago that we published an article on why content is king on the internet. And content has been king ever since then. Even after the now famous Florida Update when Google put even more emphasis on site content as oppos...
Is Google Broken?
- September. 13, 2004
I wrote about this topic last year, but it seems to have come to surface - the fact the Google may have hit their limit on the number of pages they can index. As you probably already noticed, if you watch the web closely, Google doesn't se...
Google Enters Chat - Sort of
- September. 8, 2004
Will it go portal or stay search? Will it get into desktop search or instant messenging? Will it offer its own free operating system? These are all theories about the future of Google that I have heard lately. Today I heard of a new applic...
The on demand world
- September. 7, 2004
Every day I receive hundreds of emails from Google news about the changes in our industry and the internet in general. And my first response is always "wow that is so cool – it's going to make our lives so much better." In essence, what is h...
URL Rewriting
- September. 2, 2004
During my typical work week, I get called into many consultations where clients, or prospective clients, need help understanding what a URL rewriter is and how to effectively implement one to improve search engine rankings.A lot of times, prospective...
Microsoft Research
- August. 31, 2004
If you haven't visited Microsoft's research site lately you might want to take a look. Aside from the fact that they've recently changed it a little, you may want to browse the current list of projects they are working on. I did, and here are a few t...
The Growing Pains of Search
- August. 27, 2004
The Growing Pains of Search Ahh…our fledgling little industry is growing up. The little search marketing companies are unfurling their new wings and trying to peer over the edge of the nest. Suddenly, VC firms are looking at search...
Search 2nd most popular
- August. 27, 2004
In a somewhat surprising shift in online usage, a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and comScore Networks, search engines usage accounts for the second most performed online activity. While email reigns as the most...
What Could Google Be?
- August. 26, 2004
A couple of days ago I wrote an article speculating on what Google could do now that they have raised so much money. Last night I came across another article speculating on other things they could do, based on some recent hirings they have...
Internet sales tax a reality
- August. 25, 2004
When I first started hearing about an internet tax a few years ago my first that was, "yeah right, how are they going to collect and enforce it, and who is going to get all of that money?" Well, it appears that Michigan has answered some o...
What now for Google?
- August. 24, 2004
What would you do if you have almost US$29 billion in the bank? If you are Page and Brin of Google, you look at the competition. At least, that is what I would do if I have that much money burning a hole in my pocket. So what should they b...
Desktop search heats up
- August. 6, 2004
With the recent acquisition by Microsoft of an integrated Outlook search tool (Lookout) we saw Microsoft's first move into the desktop search space. Sure they have been talking about it for over a year, as part of the eagerly anticipated n...
MarketingSherpa new research
- August. 5, 2004
According to new research performed by MarketingSherpa, 81% of companies using online marketing find both organic and paid listings to be somewhat-to-very-effective. It is interesting to note that most of the people surveyed only found organic search...
SEI Reports
- August. 3, 2004
One thing that has always disturbed me about "traditional" reporting software was that it did not differentiate between rankings on one engine versus rankings on another engine. For example, we get much more traffic to this site from Google than we d...
Terra Sells Lycos
- July. 28, 2004
Bought for $12.5 billion in 2000, Lycos is a steal today at a mere $170 million. That's right – TerraLycos will again just be Terra, as it has reached an agreement to sell Lycos to an as yet unnamed Korean company. The writing has been on the wall ...
The Future of MetaSearch
- July. 23, 2004
There is a new application out which, to me at least, indicates where the future of search is going. It is a desktop application called Blinkx and it is pretty amazing. What caught my eye about this product was that it is probab...
What is modem hijacking?
- July. 21, 2004
While this is not a search related article today, it is an article which I think needs to be written to help others who may not know about the potential threats out there. This one is important because the end result is probably the extreme to which ...
Google's Picasa
- July. 20, 2004
If you go to the Google homepage, chances are you will see a link to download their latest offering, Picasa - an image sorting and cataloging application which you download and install like any other desktop application. While this may be ...
Search engine news w/e July 16, 2004
- July. 19, 2004
Normally, I write these summaries on Friday. Granted it has been a while, but somehow last Friday disappeared on me. I was at the office all day, but it just seems like I got here in the morning and before I knew it, it was time to go home. &nbs...
Dynamic Pages and Search Engine Rankings
- July. 14, 2004
All too often, we come across sites which are powered by a content management system. While a CMS can be an invaluable tool to those who need to manage a large amount of data, many Content Management Systems can cause problems with search engine posi...
New Website Research
- July. 12, 2004
A research group called the Customer Respect Group has just released a study outlining how well 100 websites do when dealing with their customers.The sites surveyed included Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Chevron, Ford and General Electric to name ...
Investors are a funny group
- July. 8, 2004
It was recently reported that Yahoo made over US$112 million dollars in the second quarter of its fiscal year. That's more than double the US$50.8 million it made the same period last year. You would think this would be good news to shareh...
Reputation Management
- July. 6, 2004
If you monitor the SEM industry at all you may have noticed a lot of buzz the past week or so about reputation management. That is, using the web to influence your (or someone else's) reputation, either positively or negatively.Reputation management ...
MSN Search Improvements
- July. 5, 2004
By now you have probably heard about the new MSN search look. Launched July 1 of this year, MSN appears to have reworked their ranking algorithms somewhat so that results are displayed in a different manner. Also, they have changed the app...
Local Search Offerings: Google and Overture
- July. 2, 2004
The two biggest sponsored search providers, Overture and Google, have both stepped into the local search arena and are offering solutions for local advertisers and the web users conducting geographic-specific searches. Google has two local s...
A look at Google
- June. 26, 2004
This is the second in our series of articles which give a snapshot of the engine and why it may or may not be important in the overall scheme of things. We started with Yahoo! as it arguably one of the most powerful sites on the web. Next we profile ...
AskJeeves Site Submit to end (Finally)
- June. 24, 2004
A few months ago, when Yahoo! launched its own branded search engine, it took some people by surprise. Many were thinking that it would simply roll the Inktomi database into the search results and re-brand them. Even though they had their own crawler...
How does Google do it?
- June. 23, 2004
I read an interesting article the other day in which they interviewed one of the chief IT people at Google and a point was made which I hadn't really considered. They were talking about managing the cluster of servers that is Google, and how much wor...
There has been lots of recent news
- June. 22, 2004
Like any industry ours has its peaks and valleys when it comes to mergers, acquisitions or news in general. Last week, there was virtually nothing happening. This week, already, there were some fairly major announcements. Some of the biggest and po...
Is targeted advertising a good idea?
- June. 16, 2004
Many people don't realize that all of those toolbars that you install in your browser do more than offer you handy links to your favorite search engine. In fact, they also track your online usage. While some people don't mind, there are ot...
Search engine news w/e June 11, 2004
- June. 11, 2004
This week there were some significant changes in the search engine realm. Changes which will have implications for months and years to come. While we know that the search engine world is ever changing and evolving, some of the changes taking pl...
Ask Jeeves Gears Up
- June. 10, 2004
By now I am sure you have heard that Ask Jeeves bought a small unknown company called Tukaroo. What you may not know is that Tukaroo was in the business to build a search application which could search both your desktop and the web in a seamless "end...
Why use landing pages?
- June. 9, 2004
About a month ago we brought you an article on the art of PPC bid management. In it we explained how, based on our research, bidding on broad terms might not be as effective as more specific targeted terms. However, if you need to build up your custo...
Internet Address Registrations are up
- June. 8, 2004
63 million. That's roughly the number of registered domains on the web right now. That works out to about 1 domain name for every 100 people on the planet. The growth is likely due to the increased numbers of root domains available, such as .INFO an...
Google and Yahoo! face off
- June. 4, 2004
There has been lots of speculation lately as to when Yahoo! could realistically challenge Google for web supremacy. In fact, the battle lines have been drawn and over the past few months and Yahoo! has made some inroads into the Google dominated s...
New search engine forums available
- June. 2, 2004
Anyone familiar with search is familiar with searchenginewatch.com. It is one of THE sources of reliable search engine information on the web (outside of our site of course ;) ). One thing that the site has been lacking is a way to communi...
Is a Yahoo! Directory submission worth it?
- June. 1, 2004
I've been reading a lot in the forums lately about whether or not a paid directory submission to Yahoo! is worth the US$299 submission renewal fee. After all, it's not like it used to be where if you were listed in Google and had a Yahoo! directory l...
MSN has some ambitious search plans
- May. 28, 2004
When we recently profiled what the future of Microsoft search would be, I don't think we really appreciated the scope of the project. Being a search marketing company, we were most concerned with how MSN search would impact our industry. A...
Google testing new spider?
- May. 27, 2004
It all started when I was approached for help in determining if there were issues with a client not being indexed as soon as it should have. My first thought was, outside of a server configuration error, that there must be a roadblock to indexing whi...
Search is hot…and getting hotter
- May. 25, 2004
If there was ever a time to be concerned about online advertising spending, now isn't it. According to recent numbers released by IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers, spending on online advertising is up almost 4% from the last quarter of 2003, and up alm...
Google Desktop Search?
- May. 20, 2004
Anyone who is familiar with Google knows that the company is synonymous with search. In fact, to "Google" someone or something is another way of searching for them. This phrase was recently made popular on many hit TV shows. Google recentl...
Google likes banner ads?
- May. 14, 2004
I thought we’d seen the death of banner ads. In my opinion there was so much negative feedback from web users that I thought for sure that the whole banner ad issue was as dead as popup ads. Of course they still appeared from time to time...
The art of bid management
- May. 10, 2004
If you manage a paid campaign on the internet, you have probably used, or thought of using, a bid management software package. These tools are godsends for those who must keep on top of large (and sometimes expensive) paid campaigns. If you are deali...
Search Engine Mission Statements
- May. 6, 2004
With the recent Google IPO, I have been doing a lot of speculating as to what Google will do with that money. We know that, in order to remain competitive, they have to be able to easily bankroll new initiatives. So I started to wonder just what Goog...
What does a Google IPO mean?
- April. 29, 2004
So by now I'm sure you've heard - Google has filed papers to start the IPO process. The filing states that the initial offering will be US$2.7 billion (yes billion) dollars. That's a lot of money for such a relatively young company. Keep in mind that...
Want a Piece of the Google Pie?
- April. 28, 2004
While the rumored Google IPO seems imminent, I started to wonder - does the average Joe have a shot at buying Google stock when and if it happens? I am not saying whether or not I think it is a good idea, I am simply wondering... If I really wanted a...
Looksmart: Why they are still around
- April. 23, 2004
I thought Looksmart was supposed to have disappeared by now? Raise your hand if you thought that, after they ended their distribution deal with MSN in January, Looksmart would be phased out. In December 2003, we outlined new features that Looksmart w...
Google partners with Real Player
- April. 20, 2004
It seems odd that a search engine and a media player would partner in a distribution agreement. After all, what benefit would it be to either Google or Real to offer their downloadable products together? Surprisingly there could be many benefits for...
Different results in Altavista/MSN/Yahoo!
- April. 7, 2004
A team member of ours did some checking recently comparing results between Yahoo! and its search subsidiaries and found some interesting results. So much so that it begs the question: Why are there different results between the sites? I am...
Gmail privacy concerns?
- April. 6, 2004
I'm sure you've already heard, but Google is getting into the email business. We speculated about Google email a few months ago, but were unsure about the whole mail thing. It seemed to be a change in a direction that Google wasn't used to. After all...
Net IQ Buys First Place Software
- April. 5, 2004
An interesting press release hit my inbox today, so I thought I would outline it as it likely affects most webmasters or site owners. Two of the most well known software packages designed to help site owners achieve the most out of their w...
Users and the anonymity threshold
- April. 2, 2004
We recently completed a focus group study session and published a whitepaper on our results. We decided to study how people search and this week our President published an article on the white paper and its results. You can download the whitepaper fr...
Why MSN won't buy AOL
- March. 25, 2004
You may have seen the online headlines this week "MSN in talks with AOL execs to buy AOL from Time/Warner." At first glance you may think "wow that would make MSN pretty powerful." After all, while AOL's customer base is shrinking, it is still substa...
Been banned by Yahoo!?
- March. 19, 2004
It is interesting to watch the varied reactions to the new Yahoo! search. As a spectator I can sit back and take it all in and form my own opinions. I can then apply my ideas to my clients and watch them succeed. One such topic of interest of late is...
What's going on with PPC?
- March. 18, 2004
Times are definitely changing in the search engine world. Search engines are evolving their PPC components just as much as they are changing their algorithmic search. Two weeks ago we outlined the changes involving the new Overture Site Match and Xch...
What is RSS?
- March. 15, 2004
By now you have probably heard lots of talk about RSS news feeds or XML news feeds. In fact, if you look at our home page you will see that we offer a link to our own XML news feed. So you've probably been wondering - what the heck is an RSS news fee...
What to do with Yahoo!
- March. 11, 2004
Chances are, if you have a website and were previously paying for an Altavista listing you received something like this: "AltaVista's Paid Inclusion Program has changed. A New sign-up is necessary for existing AV express inclusion customers to becom...
Search engine news w/e Mar 5, 2004
- March. 5, 2004
It has been a while since we've done one of these. I felt it was time, considering the incredible amount of change happening this week, no doubt as a result of this weeks search engine strategies conference in New York. So, where to begin. Yahoo! ha...
Ask Jeeves is Growing
- March. 4, 2004
It has been a while since we looked at Ask Jeeves. I've always liked Ask. They have a really nice, clean interface and a unique way of looking at search (by allowing users to search in the form of questions). Recently, they announced, after Yahoo! a...
Overture's new Site Match
- March. 2, 2004
Last week we saw the launch of the new Yahoo search. Gone are the days of Google results being displayed in the Yahoo listings. Similar to the Paid Inclusion services offered by Inktomi for the past few years, Overture is now jumping into...
Yahoo! Submissions
- March. 1, 2004
You gotta love webmaster forums. While they can be a double edged sword in that sometimes you get contradictory information, from time to time you find tidbits of gold which make your life easier. I am referring to a post in the WebmasterWorld forum...
New internet usage research
- February. 23, 2004
Nielsen/NetRatings reported today that in January 2004 1 in 3 American's (about 114 million) used a search engine. Of that, Google reigns supreme with almost 40% of the audience. Following close behind were Yahoo! search and MSN search at 30% and 29%...
Yahoo! Pricing Models
- February. 19, 2004
One day after the change and we are already trying to figure out how Yahoo! is going to monetize on its new search offering. We have always felt the only way Yahoo! would enter algorithmic search was to sell it, as opposed to Google's free listings. ...
Yahoo changes search
- February. 18, 2004
I am glad I am not a betting man, or I am sure I would have big guys named Vinnie and Freddie knocking on my door looking for their money. I have been trying to guess when Yahoo! was going to change results providers virtually since the time they bou...
Privacy policies and trust
- February. 16, 2004
If you do business on the web, chances are you have put in place an online privacy policy. Something stating that you will not share personal information and so on. In fact, in many cases you are required by law to have such a policy in place. But do...
Lycos leaving search
- February. 12, 2004
There are few internet web properties that were making news in 1998. Lycos was one of them. Once a powerhouse in internet search (and one of the hottest properties on the web) Lycos was soon bought by multinational Terra Networks to become TerraLycos...
What is Google up to?
- February. 9, 2004
You have heard us talk about the Google dance and how, during the period known as the dance, Google performs an update to its index. Many webmasters and SEO's alike tend to lose sleep during this monthly ritual. There is even a website devoted to th...
Google Florida update - 2 months later
- February. 3, 2004
By now, if you market on the web, you know all about the Florida update, and have likely heard of the Austin update. But in case you haven't - a little reminder: Back in November 2003 we began to notice a fairly major change occurring in the Google ...
Time to think summer
- January. 29, 2004
Today, January 29th I'm sitting at my desk looking out the window at the snow. We have a blizzard warning up as I type this Marketing Monitor. We are to expect between 8 and 10 cm (about 3 inches) on top of that same amount of snow we've received dai...
Site rankings gone?
- January. 27, 2004
As you may already know, a good part of my job is researching how the organic search engines work. Trying to figure out how the algorithms work in ranking pages is crucial to our day to day operations. Occasionally, we come across sites which seem to...
Mapping the web
- January. 26, 2004
Did you ever wonder what the internet looked like? In other words, from your home or office, did you ever wonder how many "hops" you go through to get to your final destination? For those who don't know, a "hop" is the distance between you and the ne...
Keyword Analysis reviewed
- January. 20, 2004
If you are a regular to search, you have no doubt noticed the changes in Google lately. If you have a site, you DEFINITELY know that Google changed. Chances are you lost some, if not all, of your rankings due to the Florida Update. You have probably ...
Google gets into email
- January. 19, 2004
In a somewhat interesting move, Google appears to be moving into the email market, to a certain extent. Reuters recently announced that Google appears to be developing systems to offer targeted AdWords on emails sent to those who opt in for emails a...
Yahoo versus Google
- January. 16, 2004
You know it's big when it's on the evening national news. Last night as I was watching our national news, a story came on about Yahoo and Google and how there is a war brewing between the two for supremacy on the web. The way the story was presented,...
Dealing with spam
- January. 15, 2004
I received an email the other day from our automated spam filter on our mail server. The numbers were quite surprising (Notice the time period): From Jan 11 04:02:49 to Jan 13 14:19:12 Total number of emails processed by the spam filter 2081...
Yahoo reports 4th quarter earnings
- January. 14, 2004
Do you know what I wish? I wish I was an executive at Yahoo! right now. Because I am sure that they are getting hefty quarterly bonus checks right now. Yahoo reported its first full quarterly earnings after its Overture acquisition and to no ones su...
Why is Google so fast?
- January. 13, 2004
Perform any search on Google today and you should see results in about 1/4 second. If you see anything over 1/2 second than there's a problem. In fact, except for when the Florida update occurred, I rarely see results take longer than 4/10 of a secon...
Alternatives to search engines
- January. 12, 2004
There was a fair bit of hype over the past couple of weeks regarding "new" search engines like Vivisimo and Grokker. In fact these aren't new; we told you about Vivisimo 2 ½ years ago.Despite this, I thought I would share with you my favorite Meta ty...
How big is too big?
- January. 8, 2004
It was about 20 years ago when Bill Gates proclaimed that he wanted to see a personal computer on every desk in the world. Flash forward to now, and we see that is almost the case. Personal computing growth has exploded in the past decade. In fact, s...
Yahoo change impact
- January. 6, 2004
I know, you are probably tired of hearing about this from us by now, but we feel it bears repeating. As you know, the inevitable changeover should happen this month. (I had previously said January 13th but I recently found out that is too soon and th...
2003 online sales
- January. 5, 2004
2003 turned out to be a banner year for online retailers. Overall, there was a 27% increase in revenues generated from online sales versus the same time period in 2002, according to research firm ComScore Networks. On-line retail spending during the ...
Netscape rises from the ashes
- January. 2, 2004
Just when you thought the battle was over, Netscape is back for round two. Last year we told you about how Netscape had been doomed to a slow and painful death by AOL, because they had licensed Internet Explorer from Microsoft as part of a lawsuit se...
The web is a soap opera, and we are its biggest fans
- December. 31, 2003
It was like a soap opera this year, looking back at the news we brought to you. Microsoft tried to buy Google, but Google said no, so Microsoft said "fine - if we can't buy you, we will crush you." They then began working on their own algorithmic eng...
Internet usage increasing
- December. 30, 2003
Recent studies completed by Nielsen/NetRatings between September and November show that internet usage overall, as well as the number of new internet users continues to grow. While average page views decreased from September to November in the...
There is an interesting new engine out there
- December. 29, 2003
In the ever complex world of competitive search it is nice to see a new algorithmic engine come along. It seems almost weekly that you hear of a new PPC engine - someone else out trying to figure out how to make a buck in the hot pay-for-p...
Looksmart in the New Year
- December. 24, 2003
There will be a number of changes around the corner for Looksmart in 2004. Some of their new features are already rolling out. Below is an overview of the new features.Beginning in January 2004, MSN will be removing the Web Directory Sites section of...
Yahoo Inktomi Anniversary
- December. 23, 2003
It was one year ago today, December 23, 2002, when Yahoo! announced that it planned to acquire Inktomi. Which leads to the question - What has changed? The answer is; not much on the organic front. Yahoo! still displays Google as its' prim...
Search engines like India
- December. 22, 2003
India has long been a place to turn to if you need inexpensive quality programming. Microsoft has done it for years. Now it appears that others are looking to India as well including search engines. Google recently announced plans to set u...
Kanoodle ramping up to compete
- December. 17, 2003
Kanoodle has announced that they plan to introduce a service similar to Google's in which advertisers can pay to have ads placed on category pages related to the products they sell. In an effort to compete with Google and Overture's target...
UK web advertising increased
- December. 16, 2003
UK web based advertising dollars spent has increased by 85% over the same period last year. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK, web based advertising grew to 151.6 million pounds (US$264.3 million) in the first half of 2003 from...
Yahoo switching to Inktomi?
- December. 15, 2003
I took a leap a few months ago, predicting when Yahoo! would change search results providers. I thought my theory was sound, but apparently Yahoo! seems to have a few different ideas.I figured, based on their history of rolling out new features a few...
E-tailing keeps growing
- December. 12, 2003
November was a record month for online retailers. Shoppers spent 55% more online this November than the same period last year. The study is based on a collaborative effort from Goldman, Sachs & Co., Harris Interactive, and Nielsen/NetRatings.&nbs...
Notes from SES Chicago
- December. 11, 2003
Hello from the Windy City. The first Search Engine Strategies to be held in Chicago wrapped up today. Attendance was very good and the sessions were probably the best I’ve seen. There wasn’t a dud in the batch. Of course, the main topic of conversati...
Looksmart announces layoffs
- December. 11, 2003
We knew that this day would come. Earlier in the year, Looksmart confirmed that MSN was ending their agreement to supply listings. Now, just a few weeks shy of the actual last day of the contract, Looksmart has announced that it plans to layoff ½ of ...
Google Florida Update
- December. 9, 2003
November 16, 2003 will be a date to remember in search engine history. It will be remembered as the day that Google raised the bar on search engines. It is the day that they changed the rules as far as ranking pages and returning search results. As p...
Google and Trademarks
- December. 8, 2003
Google is now involved in a long running legal issue which is sure to stir up some emotion over web advertising. I'm not talking about the Florida Update, although it did stir a lot of emotion and even more lost sleep than the average Google Dance. ...
New forum for Overture ads
- December. 2, 2003
It was inevitable. Web based advertising had to begin to creep into non-traditional web properties. What better way to maximize exposure and ROI than displaying PPC ads somewhere other than on a search engine or website? Overture has rece...
Need help to increase online sales?
- November. 26, 2003
A Jupiter Research study was recently completed. This study asked users what would encourage them to visit and/or buy from an e-commerce site. The focus of the study was to find out if a personalized website encouraged shopping. That is, a site which...
Spam or Advertising?
- November. 25, 2003
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about spam in which I asked the loaded question - What is spam? The issue came up because, at that time, US lawmakers were attempting to draft a bill outlawing spam. This lead to the question of who decides ...
LookSmart Partners with BellSouth
- November. 20, 2003
LookSmart and BellSouth have announced a partnership to help BellSouth advertisers increase their exposure for their businesses amongst the web. LookSmart and MSN's partnership will be coming to and end as of January 15th, 2004. It is very appar...
Should Google worry about the new MSN?
- November. 18, 2003
When we brought you news that Microsoft had developed a search engine crawler, we knew that the web would be drastically changing within the next two to three years. Microsoft later announced that they were targeting Google. While we agree that Googl...
Google Hiccups and how they affect you
- November. 13, 2003
There is something that is almost as scary to many people as the Google dance. That is when Google "Hiccups" as it did today. Some of its features were not working correctly. Today, the Toolbar seemed to be the culprit. So while not as critica...
Are portals a good idea?
- November. 10, 2003
So I was having lunch today when a coworker came to me and commented on how he liked my article about Google and AOL. Apparently some members of our programming department have enough free time on their hands to read my articles....
Google on your desktop?
- November. 7, 2003
It's true. In one of the best moves Google has made to date, they have released the Google Deskbar. So why is this so important for Google? We have already told you how Google needs to stay ahead of Microsoft's MSN, because Longhorn will have search ...
Search engine news w/e Nov 7, 2003
- November. 7, 2003
There was not a lot of new news out there this week, so we brought you some interesting and insightful looks at search. We started the week by speculating about what Google may be up to. In it we speculated about how Google may have its sites o...
Notes from Ad-Tech Fall 2003
- November. 6, 2003
Online is back and stronger than ever! Over 3000 attendees at New York's annual fall Ad-Tech show enthusiastically sang the praises of online to whomever would listen. The hot topics at the show included search (of course), affiliate marketing, onlin...
What is Google up to?
- November. 4, 2003
We told you last week how MSN is attempting to lure Google again by either a merger/partnership or takeover bid. What we didn't get to was the deal recently made by Google to acquire paid listings provider Sprinks from its parent company Primedia. Th...
MSN courting Google (again)?
- October. 31, 2003
If you haven't already heard, Microsoft and Google have been in talks in recent weeks to form a partnership, or merger. Microsoft even hinted at takeover. We already know that Google snubbed Bill earlier this year when Microsoft made an offer to buy...
Page Hijacking Explained
- October. 23, 2003
As if you didn't need yet another reason to keep your operating system up-to-date, there is a new threat out there that will affect your internet browsing experience, if you let it. The new threat is called page hijacking. It occurs when a ...
Top US Internet Properties for September 2003
- October. 21, 2003
In addition to announcing the top US internet properties for September 2003, comScore MediaMetrix also announced that the total number of US internet users surpassed the 150 million mark for the first time ever. In addition, the total time spent on t...
Website Annoyances
- October. 20, 2003
In the past we've brought you articles on what not to do with regards to web design. These primarily deal with things that could get your site banned in the search engines. In other words, they are optimization techniques which you wouldn't wan...
Overture and MSN Extend Relationship
- October. 17, 2003
We were expecting this. Once MSN dropped Looksmart, we realized that Overture was going to remain MSN’s key PPC supplier. After all, there is no one else out there, other than Google AdWords, but since Google apparently snubbed Microsoft’s attempt to...
Increasing Traffic to your Website
- October. 15, 2003
This is one thing that is always on a website owners mind. How to increase Traffic to their site. A few things we will touch on today is Search engine optimization, link building, PPC Advertising and finally making the most out of your current traffi...
Search engine news w/e Oct 10, 2003
- October. 10, 2003
This weeks news we brought you news on Looksmart losings its MSN deal, Yahoo posts 3rd quater profit and more news on Yahoo/Overture and Google/AOL In what may prove to be the end of the one true independent PPC supplier, Looksmart announced today t...
Yahoo posts 3rd quarter profit
- October. 8, 2003
Today was earnings day for many high profile shares, including Yahoo! and analysts were already expecting an improvement over last year at this time. The company reported a net profit of $65.3 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with the same pe...
Yahoo/Overture and Google/AOL news
- October. 7, 2003
Today could be a very important day when we look back at the history of online marketing. Why? Because there were two fairly important happenings. First and foremost, Overture announced that their shareholders have approved the sale to Yahoo! This m...
MSN Ends Looksmart Relationship
- October. 6, 2003
In what may prove to be the end of the one true independent PPC supplier, Looksmart announced today that MSN will no longer be carrying its paid listings after January 15th 2003. We brought you news that MSN was considering dropping Looksmart. Now i...
Search engine news w/e Oct 03, 2003
- October. 3, 2003
This week, the top news items are Yahoo, Looksmart and Google. First we brought you our theory on when to expect a possible Yahoo! change. Second, Google purchased Kaltix and lastly, Looksmart has entered the PPC market. Yahoo! generally tends to ma...
Looksmart enters PPC market
- October. 2, 2003
Looksmart entered the highly competitive PPC market today by launching a new product called "sponsored listings." While Looksmart already has a form of pay for performance listing, this new product gives the advertiser more control in that they can ...
More Looksmart PPC Details
- October. 2, 2003
As mentioned in the previous article Looksmart enters PPC market, it is apparent that MSN needs their own Paid search component. They are currently relying heavily on Looksmart for the listings displayed in the web results section. The Sp...
Google is in a buying mood again
- September. 30, 2003
A few weeks ago we told you about a new startup whose goal was to improve on the Google algorithms which calculate PageRank by making them faster. The company was formed by 3 members of the Google PageRank research team who decided to go out on their...
When Will Yahoo! Change?
- September. 29, 2003
I've been debating this for some time. Whether to post an article online explaining my crystal ball theory about when Yahoo! will drop Google in favor of Inktomi results. I've had a date in my mind for some time, but have not been too sure about maki...
Search engine news w/e Sep 26, 2003
- September. 26, 2003
This week we touched on new developments in Yahoo and MSN. The first article was on Yahoo and preparing for the changes that are to come. Second, MSN has updated how it displays the overture listings on its results page, and lastly Yahoo has revamped...
Yahoo! revamps Yahoo! Shopping
- September. 24, 2003
Yahoo! Has re-launched their Yahoo shopping incorporating a new design and including new feeds for shopping resources for consumers. Yahoo! Shopping is incorporated into the regular Yahoo results with the Products tab located on the far right of the ...
MSN New Fall Look
- September. 23, 2003
MSN has launched a new look. Some of the Sponsored Sites (pay-per-click advertising) from Overture which used to appear immediately above the web search results – have been moved to the right hand side of the page. However, for some search resu...
Preparing for Yahoo’s imminent change
- September. 22, 2003
Yahoo purchased Inktomi earlier this year with plans of replacing the current Google results. Yahoo is a major player in the search engines and they should not be overlooked and you should start preparing now for Yahoo’s imminent change. Yahoo is cur...
Yahoo, Sponsored Searches and ROI
- September. 18, 2003
Yahoo is expecting sponsored search queries to more than double by 2006 from 2 billion to 5 billion in 2006. Sponsored search offers website owners to pay for their desired listing. We know that PPC is not going to be going away and that it is a ver...
AOL Time Warner to drop AOL
- September. 17, 2003
We knew this day was coming for some time. There were rumblings a few months ago that AOL Time Warner was debating on whether or not to remove AOL from the company logo. It looks like the board of directors for the company will make that decision tom...
LookSmart Settles Lawsuit
- September. 15, 2003
A lawsuit brought upon LookSmart by its customers because of the one time fee for being listed in the directory, which changed when its services changed over to a Pay Per Click Model has been settled. Customer claims are expected to reach up to USD 2...
Search engine marketing tips w/e Sep 12, 2003
- September. 12, 2003
This week, I finished up a series of articles on the total cost of website ownership. Normally, on Fridays, we post the search engine news that we have brought to you, but this week dealt with search engine marketing tips. The reason for this s...
Virtual & Dedicated IPs - A Further Look...
- September. 11, 2003
With todays article, I am going to revisit IPs (Virtual and Dedicated IPs). I briefly touched on IPs in this weeks article ‘Total cost of website ownership - Web Hosting’. This will continue from where I left off. It is important that you understand ...
Total cost of website ownership - SEO & PPC
- September. 10, 2003
So, you have the perfect URL registered, a reliable web hosting company and you have a professionally designed website. So now, you have to market your website in the search engines and directories. This is not too much different than marketing a reg...
Total cost of website ownership - Web Site Design
- September. 9, 2003
So, you have a URL picked out, a hosting company that you like, next is the web design for your new website. Each web design company will have different rates, either hourly or per site design, and depending on their experience, this will infl...
Total cost of website ownership - Web Hosting
- September. 8, 2003
Lets assume that you have your url registered for your widget company, now we will look at getting a web hosting company for your new url. Hosting for a website can start as low as $10 per month. You should be even able to find some at lower prices...
Search engine news w/e Sep 5, 2003
- September. 5, 2003
This week was kind of a slow week for us, at least in terms of search engines. We found out this week that Yahoo in the US is testing Inktomi in about 2% of their search results. They didn't give any date as to when they throw the switch on Google, b...
Total cost of website ownership
- September. 4, 2003
So the editorial department was brainstorming ideas the other day for new informational articles and an interesting idea popped up: What is the total cost of ownership for a website? We started researching and decided this would make a good topic for...
The end of Google may be near - at least for Yahoo!
- September. 2, 2003
According to Webmasterworld forums, Yahoo! has begun testing Inktomi in the US for primary search engine results. We knew this day would come. It was only a matter of time. We heard rumblings a couple of weeks ago that Yahoo! in Australia was testin...
Search engine news w/e Aug 29, 2003
- August. 29, 2003
In this weeks news we brought you an article about research completed by the University of Michigan regarding people's e-habits. In it we told you that Yahoo! and MSN top the list of most popular portals, while Google and Ask Jeeves are the most popu...
Google under attack
- August. 28, 2003
Who would have thought five years ago that this little Stanford University student project would grow to be so big? The project is so mainstream that even television shows are mentioning it. There's entire websites devoted to pro or against views of ...
Search Engine Optimization - What not to do
- August. 27, 2003
There are many techniques people use which they call optimization to get themselves top rankings in search engines. Once you strip away all the techniques which could get you banned by engines, or have no value to your SEO campaign, you find that tru...
University of Michigan SE Research
- August. 26, 2003
For the past few years, the University of Michigan has been doing research into e-business and the web. They've been tracking such things as most popular web portal, most popular search engine and so on. They recently released their findings. There ...
The difference between viruses and worms
- August. 25, 2003
You have no doubt heard lots of news about a computer worm called Blaster which was supposed to attack Microsoft websites. You may be asking yourself - what's the difference between a worm and a virus? The simple answer is not much. A worm is a virus...
Search engine news w/e Aug 22, 2003
- August. 22, 2003
As with previous weeks news there wasn't too much in the way of search engine news that was ground breaking or earth shattering. So we managed to come up with some other information articles. Our first bit of search engine news involved MSN dumping ...
Alltheweb increases index
- August. 21, 2003
In an effort to become the best search engine results provider, Overture announced today that Alltheweb has increased the size of their database to 3.15 billion pages, which is slightly higher than Google's 3.08 billion pages. It's also alm...
Increasing Your ROI Return on Investment
- August. 20, 2003
An important aspect of search engine marketing that should not be forgotten to include is your ROI or Return on Investment into your marketing plan. In addition to achieving top rankings for your website, you should always look at ways to furthe...
Overture Launches new Keyword bid matching, Conversion Counter
- August. 19, 2003
Overture.com launched a new interface for it's Direct Traffic Centre (DTC) on Sunday August 17th. They had been promising some big changes with their Keyword Bid structure and they have now introduced a new way to do Pay-per-click. Well not exactly n...
MSN considers dumping Looksmart
- August. 18, 2003
Well, I can't really say I'm surprised. Friday MSN UK announced plans that they will begin testing new search results which don't have Looksmart's paid listings, also called the MSN directory listings. Once MSN began developing its own search my fi...
Search engine news w/e Aug 15, 2003
- August. 15, 2003
As with previous weeks news there wasn't too much in the way of search engine news that was ground breaking or earth shattering. But there were some interesting developments in technology which has the ability to change the web as we know it. This n...
Is E-Commerce Dead?
- August. 14, 2003
Back in 1999 tech stocks were the cornerstone to many people's portfolios. If you invested in anything, whether you were aware of it or not, there was a good chance you had at least some money invested in tech stocks. In 1999 the markets were hot. T...
Time to think Christmas
- August. 13, 2003
As I was driving to work this morning with all the windows down I was thinking about how hot it was this summer. We have about 45 days in a row without rain. That got me to thinking about how nice it's going to be when fall arrives and it starts to c...
Tips on Choosing Keywords For Your Website
- August. 12, 2003
Choosing the proper keywords for your website is one of the most important steps that you can undertake to properly market your website. Here, I’ll point out some common mistakes I see with people and their websites. For those aware of the Overture ...
New technology on the horizon
- August. 11, 2003
You've probably never heard of a company called Kaltix. But if what they propose holds true, you will begin to hear a lot more of them in the months and years to come. Especially if you're on the web. Let me start by explaining who they are and what...
Search engine news w/e Aug 8, 2003
- August. 8, 2003
This week, our first article was inspired by the forest fires in British Columbia this month and the vulnerabilities of the internet in terms of connectivity, and structurally, in terms of content availability. The next two articles are from Yahoo an...
Looksmart to dump Inktomi
- August. 7, 2003
With the many changes in the search engine world, who supplies results for whom gets harder to figure out. Another change due any day is going to change the search engine landscape yet again. We recently learned that Looksmart will be ending their d...
Google Adds Search For Synonyms
- August. 6, 2003
Google has updated its search to include a new operator to search for synonyms. Basically how this works is you place the tilde sign ("~") immediately in front of the keyword that you want possible synonyms for. This is a great addition to help...
Yahoo Investing in R&D
- August. 5, 2003
Yahoo! has set up an R&D center in India and by the end of the year 2004 they will have hired 150 employees. The center will be the first such center outside of the US and will play a role in creating unique products and meeting customer ne...
The Internet is Still Vulnerable
- August. 5, 2003
Over the weekend, I had an experience which outlines just how far the internet has to go both physically, in terms of connectivity, and structurally, in terms of content availability. Physically, my internet connection was down for 2 days due to a f...
Search engine news w/e Aug 1, 2003
- August. 1, 2003
As with previous weeks news there wasn't too much in the way of search engine news that was ground breaking or earth shattering. As such we brought some topics we've been thinking about for a while but weren't able to squeeze into the past few weeks ...
More reasons to use Robots.txt
- July. 31, 2003
Some disturbing news today shows just how effective search engines are at crawling and indexing a site. The report says that hackers are using search engines like Google to find pages containing passwords and other personal information for a website ...
The internet and the law
- July. 30, 2003
A recent ruling by a California judge has far reaching implications on how the internet is treated in legal terms. The case goes back almost 10 years, around the time the internet was the new buzz word. In 1994 the domain sex.com was registered and ...
A new online battle brewing
- July. 29, 2003
The internet is a great place to find almost everything you want. The problem is you usually need to go to a half dozen different websites to find it. Let me give you an example. I use Google primarily for my web searches and Google news for most of...
Who is MSN search's target competitor?
- July. 28, 2003
Back when we first noticed the MSNbot crawling, we began to speculate what Microsoft was up to. After all, the majority of the world knows that when Microsoft puts its collective mind to it, there isn't much competition standing when the dust s...
CMS - What is it?
- July. 25, 2003
If you own a website nowadays you've probably been caught up in the new acronym for what's hot on the web - CMS. CMS stands for Content Management System. CMS is a software package which allows you to easily add or modify your web site's ...
Search engine news w/e Jul 25, 2003
- July. 25, 2003
Not an incredibly busy week in the search engine game, but some significant things happening this week. First, we brought you a look at MSN in which we give a brief history of the site, and where we see it going. While this is a minor player i...
How to move a website - Part 1
- July. 24, 2003
In the past, we have presented articles explaining such things as server issues affecting website rankings. Sometimes, you can inadvertently affect your search engine rankings by simply switching your website hosting, or moving your website to ...
How to move a website - Part 2
- July. 24, 2003
In part 1 of this article we addressed how to properly move a website from one IP to another. This is assuming that the site is moving from one platform to a similar platform (I.e. Moving from a Windows server to a Windows server). In par...
Overture signs a new customer
- July. 23, 2003
Sympatico.ca, a leading internet service provider in Canada, has signed a deal with Overture in which the company would provide its highly touted "full suite" of search products. In case you don't know, Overture has planned to offer not just PPC and...
Patent wars may be brewing
- July. 22, 2003
With the recent Overture Purchase made by Yahoo! there began some rumblings about what Yahoo! may do with all the patents they will get out of this deal. In the end, Yahoo! will own about 60 web search and web index patents. So the question be...
A look at MSN
- July. 21, 2003
This is the third in our series of articles which give a snapshot of an engine and why it may or may not be important in the overall scheme of things. We started with Yahoo! as it arguably is one of the most powerful sites on the web (even...
Help Stop Spam E-mail
- July. 18, 2003
For my own personal web site, I was constantly getting unwanted e-mails, and I would occasionally change my e-mail address to lessen the number of spam messages. However, this tends to get tiresome, and the spam continued to come. So...
Search engine news w/e Jul 18, 2003
- July. 18, 2003
This week, in review of search engine news, the announcement of Yahoo! planning to acquire Overture overshadowed virtually all other news stories. It was apparent that Yahoo! was planning on a major purchase with their recent fund raising, and many ...
Netscape's Downward Spiral
- July. 17, 2003
Back in May, we brought you an article about Netscape, Death of a Browser. Netscape has seen some hard times these past few years as their popularity has dwindled to under 10% of users' browsers (as reported by Google), with our own reports showing N...
The Next Step for Yahoo, Google and MSN
- July. 16, 2003
With the latest news on Monday July 14th, where does this leave the other major search engines? Yahoo has agreed to buy Overture and Yahoo! already owns Inktomi, which it purchased last year. Overture has just recently acquired AltaVista and Allth...
Yahoo Inc acquires Overture Services
- July. 14, 2003
Yahoo! Inc. is to acquire Overture Services, Inc. with a purchase price of approximately $1.63 billion. The combined assets of the two will make Yahoo! the largest global player in the search engine world today. Yahoo! just recently purchased Inkto...
Of Search Engines & Stock Markets Pt.2
- July. 11, 2003
About a month ago I wrote an article called "Of search engines and stock markets" in which I tried to give my perception of the relationship between search engines and stock markets. It is indeed a strange relationship which is guided more by p...
Search engine news w/e Jul 11, 2003
- July. 11, 2003
We started this week with a somewhat surprising extension of the PPC agreement between MSN and Overture. It's not an extension of the duration of the current timeline so much as an extension of an agreement between Overture and MSN to supply PP...
Google Advanced Search
- July. 10, 2003
I know - it doesn't happen very often. Usually when I search I get the results I'm looking for within a couple tries. Sometimes, however, there is something specific you are looking for but just can't find. Perhaps you need one of t...
LookSmart Announces Deal with Lycos
- July. 9, 2003
LookSmart has announced a multiyear search agreement with Terra Lycos. This will provide web search and paid inclusion on the Lycos portal. Financial terms and the length of the agreement were not disclosed. LookSmart will start ...
Is there another paid placement player?
- July. 8, 2003
Sometimes, I like to equate paid search to gambling. Most of us are people who may come to a gambling establishment on vacation with a couple hundred bucks in our pockets, hoping to at least break even and have some fun doing it. So we pick our...
Overture and MSN extend agreement
- July. 7, 2003
In a press release issued today, Overture announced an extended deal which will see its PPC results show up in MSN search's sponsored listings outside North America until December 2004. The announcement comes as good news for Overture whose future p...
Website Credibility Study
- July. 4, 2003
A recent joint study prepared by staff at Stanford University for Consumer Webwatch, the same organization which publishes the highly respected "Consumer Reports" magazine, has some surprising results. The study was conducted in an attempt to deter...
Search engine news w/e Jul 4, 2003
- July. 4, 2003
We started the week with an article outlining where we see Microsoft heading with regards to its new spider, search engine, and eventually with the next version of Windows currently codenamed Longhorn. Considering that Microsoft virtually domin...
A sign of things to come?
- July. 3, 2003
That's right, in what may be a sign of things to come, Google has lost a contract to Overture. For many months now, Google has been swallowing Overture customers by offering a free and paid search component to many ISPs and internet portals througho...
LookSmart raises prices
- July. 2, 2003
In what appears to be a trend with search engines (when you leave from work one day only to come in the next day to a major change), LookSmart has completed a major change to how they do business. Up until recently, all clicks through LookSmart...
Where is Microsoft headed?
- June. 30, 2003
There has been a lot of buzz lately in the search world regarding Microsoft's new spider. Microsoft has already announced a new search engine, and their focus with the new product is Google. Many people say that Google has nothing to fear, but I have...
Internet research by PSU
- June. 27, 2003
Research published today by Penn State University shows some interesting results: "Web users are picky and impatient, typically visiting only the first three results from a query, with one in five searchers spending 60 seconds or less on a linked We...
Search engine news w/e Jun 27, 2003
- June. 27, 2003
We started the week by giving you our recommendations on paid options when it comes to search engines. Basically with the changes coming up, it’s best to cover all your bases and pay for the “traditional” paid placements. That m...
Overture to launch targeted ads
- June. 25, 2003
PPC is about to get more interesting. Back in March, as part of their fourth quarter earnings report, Overture made a seemingly inconsequential announcement in which they stated they were working on new search products including one called "content ...
A look at Yahoo!
- June. 24, 2003
This is the first in our series of articles that give a snapshot of an engine and why it may or may not be important in the overall scheme of things. We will start with Yahoo! as it is arguably one of the most powerful sites on the web. Site: www.ya...
To Pay or Not to Pay?
- June. 23, 2003
With a number of search engines on the verge of rolling out with some new search product, it may be difficult to determine whether or not to continue with paid inclusion services. We recently did a run through of what our predictions were for...
Search engine news w/e Jun 20, 2003
- June. 20, 2003
Well, another week has come and gone and we have some changes, not insignificant, in the search engine realm again. In what was a confusing change for some, FAST purchased the enterprise search unit of Altavista. This may appear confusing...
Some really far out search engine predictions
- June. 19, 2003
There's been so much turmoil in the search engine world lately, what with the changes in Google, acquisitions and so on, that I thought I'd have a little fun and try to lighten the mood of some of those who start to lose sleep around Google dance tim...
Google expands AdWords program
- June. 18, 2003
Google announced today that it would soon allow small to medium sized internet site operators to display AdWords on their pages. The new program, called AdSense, is aimed at sites with fewer than 20 million page views per month. It would ...
FindWhat buys Espotting
- June. 18, 2003
In a somewhat surprising deal announced today, FindWhat, an American based pay for performance supplier purchased European PPC supplier Espotting. You may recall recently that Espotting has lost a few key contracts to larger competitors like Googl...
Google and Googlebot Information
- June. 17, 2003
We often get asked by prospective and new clients about Googlebot, such as, "how they know if its been to their site", and so on. Therefore, we've designed this FAQ section to answer some of the more common questions.1. How do I get listed in G...
FAST Acquires AltaVista enterprise search
- June. 17, 2003
Once again there is a shuffle in the world of search engine technology. Much like the game of Monopoly, the buying frenzy continues as each SE company is striving to stay ahead of the competition. Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), a developer of en...
An opinion about spam
- June. 17, 2003
Spam. We all know what it is. And no, I'm not referring to the canned ham variety. I'm talking about the stuff that clogs your email inbox on a daily basis claiming to help you lose weight overnight, or help you find romance, or pro...
Search engine news w/e Jun 13, 2003
- June. 13, 2003
This week was a bit slower with regards to articles compared to last week, but none the less still a busy one. The first article was on Yahoo with a deal with InQuira to provide self-service search software for the portals help page, second was a com...
A theory about Google's last update
- June. 12, 2003
The topic of this article may be a little out there, but it does provide an interesting insight into what may be happening with the most recent Google update. As you probably already noticed, if you watch the web closely, Google has been up to ...
How SEO and PPC are analogous to cars
- June. 12, 2003
When I first started working here I lived a fair distance away. Since I didn't have a very fuel efficient vehicle, I quickly determined that there were two options to get me back and forth to work every day: I could buy a bus pass, or I c...
Yahoo!s search irony
- June. 9, 2003
Last week we brought you an article about irony in how sometimes the price of a share in a search engine isn't necessarily reflective of the real value of the company. This week we found more ironic news regarding search engines. You would have thou...
Search engine predictions
- June. 6, 2003
Usually every year, around Christmas we start to make predictions on search engines for the coming year. While this is usually a fun task, it's often difficult to see what will happen, especially in a years time where search engines are co...
Search engine news w/e Jun 6, 2003
- June. 6, 2003
Upon reviewing the articles we've brought you this week I'm somewhat amazed at the number. While it seemed like a quiet week on the search engine front, we managed to cover a lot of topics. The lawsuit against Google brought on by Search King ...
Thinking AdWords? Think harder!
- June. 5, 2003
While Google seems to have jumped into the PPC market late in the game they have made great strides in signing large customers which they can supply ads to. Back in March it seemed that Google had made it big when it made a deal to supply AdWords to...
Of search engines and stock markets
- June. 5, 2003
You may have seen me mention that I have a stock ticker running on my computer to get the latest stock information. It's not for me, and I only have 5 or 6 stocks showing. I keep track of the publicly traded search engines (AOL, Yahoo!, O...
A Brief History of AOL - America Not Online?
- June. 5, 2003
With all the news AOL has been making in the past weeks, we though we should take a brief look into the history of the company from its beginnings in 1985. AOL is going thru some tough times as of late, with a 26 billion debt, shareholders dumpi...
Google Dance Syndrome?
- June. 4, 2003
If you're a regular reader of our articles, you may have caught on to a lot of "webspeak" which we use from time to time. We refer to spiders crawling - not real eight legged things, but software designed to index a website. You may have ...
Google continues to reach more people
- June. 3, 2003
A recent deal signed between AOL and Google, where Google will supply AdWords sponsored listings to the Canadian internet portal provides even more potential customers to Google AdWords advertisers. While Google already supplies free indexed listing...
Is the end of AOL near?
- June. 3, 2003
In what could be a last ditch attempt to save a money losing branch of an empire which has been taking a beating in the news lately because of such things as insider trading, fraudulent accounting practices, AOL has agreed to open up more ad space to...
SearchKing lawsuit against Google dismissed
- June. 2, 2003
SearchKing, a web-based directory of sites has been involved in an ongoing legal battle with internet powerhouse Google. Back in January we told you how Google was sued by SearchKing because the directory said they had been unfairly penalized b...
Is Microsoft testing a spider?
- June. 2, 2003
One of the things I do on a regular basis is pick a client at random and check their log reports. After all, you'd be amazed at what information this seemingly simple report can show you. We told you a while back how you can detect hack attemp...
Death of a Browser
- May. 30, 2003
Ever since the first computer was built back in the 1940's, which was fed its programming through a series of punch cards, engineers have been working on improving the software and hardware to make it smarter easier to use. It wasn't until the inter...
Search engine news w/e May 30, 2003
- May. 30, 2003
The search engine marketing and optimization industry got a boost this week when studies were released showing that traditional brick and mortar companies may be considering the web as a viable alternative to advertising. Companies such as McDo...
Ask Jeeves making headlines
- May. 29, 2003
One of the things I do to keep up on things it subscribe to news services providing search engine news headlines. Imagine my surprise when I came in to work this morning and saw no less than 5 emails from the news services all talking about things A...
Marketing Sherpa releases research results
- May. 29, 2003
Marketing Sherpa, a leading internet research firm, recently released results of a survey they conducted in which they asked marketing managers of various companies the following question: "If Your CEO Handed You $50,000, What Would You Spend i...
Traditional Advertisers consider web advertising
- May. 27, 2003
With the increased adoption of broadband in the US advertisers are beginning to explore the option of providing an additional form of advertising to their customers. While most companies still prefer to invest heavily in media and print advertising,...
Search engine news w/e May 23, 2003
- May. 23, 2003
This week we saw some interesting developments with OASIS, Overture and Google Adwords. OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards has announced that it's Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) s...
Google AdWords Price Drops
- May. 21, 2003
Google has lowered the price on some of its higher priced keywords to 5 cents per click to entice more advertisers to use their AdWords campaign.Studies show that Overture ads are producing a higher conversion ratio of 2.6 percent (generating $2,024 ...
Overture's European Expansion Continues
- May. 21, 2003
In its quest to become the leading pay for performance search results provider, Overture today announced the opening of its sixth international office in Italy. "Overture's launch into Italy is an important step in our European expansion and targets...
New standards set basis for regionalization
- May. 20, 2003
It seems like it was only yesterday when I said we felt the next big search offering would be regionalized search. Well, it was only 16 days ago, but it appears as if we as internet users may be a step closer to having the ability to search for...
Will Overture be bought by Yahoo?
- May. 16, 2003
There has been much speculation in recent weeks as to what Yahoo! would do with the money they raised almost 6 weeks ago. We mentioned back in April, after the announcement that they had come across $750 million, that Overture would be the like...
Search engine news w/e May 16, 2003
- May. 16, 2003
This week produced some new and interesting changes to the search engine world. On Monday we brought you news that Google News had gone global with new regionalized news search services in Canada, the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and India...
Online Retailers Showing Profit
- May. 15, 2003
From an annual survey from Shop.org (a unit of the National Retail Federation), online sales grew 48% for Multichannel Retailers in 2002. Online sales in 2002 were up 3.6% and for 2003, the total retail sales are expected to reach 4.5%....
Revisiting Submission Guidelines
- May. 14, 2003
Going back to September 7, 2000 we brought you an article on submitting to the major search engines. Back then we recommended what we considered to be the best practices for submitting to the major engines at the time. Flash forward 2 ½ years ...
Google News Growing
- May. 12, 2003
In Google’s quest for world domination in the search industry, we bring you news of yet another Google product. Google news, which crawls thousands of news sources in minutes to bring you the latest headlines, has launched a Canadian, U.K., New Zeal...
Overture is cutting jobs
- May. 9, 2003
Overture announced Thursday that they would cut about 100 jobs, equivalent to 10% of its workforce. The positions eliminated are primarily duplicate positions found in Overture, Altavista and Alltheweb – sales and finance related. They also announce...
Search engine news w/e May 9, 2003
- May. 9, 2003
There were more interesting developments in the search engine world this week. The top newsmakers were Overture, AskJeeves, and AOL. We started the week telling you how Ted Turner sold more AOL stock. The largest single sale he’s made si...
What will the next form of search be?
- May. 8, 2003
With the recent globalization of the major search engines or search results providers, we begin to wonder just what’s up with the web. For instance, the WWW didn’t really represent World Wide Web until the past couple of years, when the major player...
Ask D.C, Jeeves
- May. 7, 2003
In April, we mentioned that Ask Jeeves updated its software providing improved results. They have also seen continued improvement with its shares as they have climbed from about $2.50 in October 2002 to just under $10.00 May 2003. The District ...
Ted Turner sells more AOL stock
- May. 6, 2003
In a move that maybe wasn’t so surprising, Ted Turner had another fire sale on AOL shares. In his largest single sale this year, Turner sold 60 million shares of AOL stock. The sale, valued at $789 million, represents more than half the over 1...
A discussion about Yahoo!
- May. 2, 2003
Over the past few weeks we’ve written many articles about the major acquisitions made by either Google or Overture. We’ve talked about some of the new technology out there to measure the search engines. We’ve even revisited some of our past article...
Search engine news w/e May 2, 2003
- May. 2, 2003
This week there were some significant changes in the search engine realm this week. Changes which will have implications for months and years to come. While we know that the search engine world is ever changing and evolving, some of them ...
Google hires former Wall St Analyst
- May. 1, 2003
In what could be an indicator of the future public availability of Google stocks, they recently announced the hiring of a former Wall Street analyst, Lise Buyer. The new “Director of business optimization” will be responsible for finding problems wi...
Overture's Altavista deal closes
- April. 28, 2003
Overture announced today that their deal to buy Altavista has closed. We announced to you that Overture had agreed to purchase Altavista back in February. A few days later they announced they were also buying Fast/Alltheweb. These purcha...
comScore Media Metrix Launches qSearch
- April. 28, 2003
comScore Media Metrix qSearch(TM) has announced the launch of a breakthrough system to accurately measure the consumer usage (from actual consumer search queries) amongst the 25 major search engines and portals providing more complete inf...
Search engine news w/e Apr 25, 2003
- April. 25, 2003
Well there were some interesting developments at the Overture camp this week. On one day they announced that they had closed the Alltheweb deal, and their second big announcement was that their pay per click offerings in South Korea had officia...
Google acquires Applied Semantics
- April. 24, 2003
It’s been a while since we last talked about Google. There was a time not too long ago that Google was topping our news articles on a daily basis. We haven’t heard a lot out of the Google camp until lately. They recently announced a new ...
Overture having shareholder problems?
- April. 24, 2003
Yesterday Overture announced that they were adjusting their financial outlook down for the year, even though revenue for the quarter were up 57% over the same period in 2002. Citing a lower than expected average price on their PPC ads (curren...
Overture made two announcements recently
- April. 22, 2003
Overture recently made two major announcements concerning their search service. The first is that the deal to buy Alltheweb has been completed. The deal, for $70 million cash and an additional up to $30 million as a performance incentive,...
Ask Jeeves providing improved results
- April. 21, 2003
Ask Jeeves updated its software this weekend after a year long process. The new Ask Jeeves provides news headlines, pictures provided in results, more content and faster page load times. The focus is to give the users what they want and to lesse...
Search engine news w/e Apr 18, 2003
- April. 17, 2003
Well, it’s been another somewhat quiet week on the search engine front. There were some interesting headlines however. Overture announced it plans to grow in the European markets, and even announced that it would be opening an office in Dublin...
AOL execs accused of insider trading
- April. 15, 2003
AOL/Time Warner has made more news again, but not the type of news they like. Sources from the University of California and Amalgamated Bank’ Longview Collective Investment Fund charge that top executives pumped up the share price of AOL before...
Review of cloaking and stealth techniques
- April. 15, 2003
In June 2000 an interesting article was published on our site about cloaking, stealth, and spamming. You can get descriptions of these techniques in the previous article. In essence, these are techniques used to serve up different web content ...
AOL takes spammers to court
- April. 15, 2003
AOL is working for their customers in an effort to end spam. Today a legal battle was launched that pits the internet giant against a group of companies and individuals it feels are spammers. Spam can be loosely classed as any form of internet commu...
Overture announces growth plans
- April. 14, 2003
The web really is going global (finally). No longer is it a North American phenomenon. While it’s true that about 2/3 of internet users are from the US and Canada, there is growing acceptance of the web as a viable advertising alternative. This ca...
Search engine news w/e Apr 11, 2003
- April. 11, 2003
As I look through this weeks archives, I am somewhat surprised at the number of new articles there for the week. Normally we get about one newsworthy item per day – sometimes we’re scrambling just to get that. This week, however, seemed to be a bu...
Putting your eggs in one basket?
- April. 10, 2003
Since Easter is right around the corner, I thought now would be a good time to talk about eggs and baskets. Not Easter eggs though. We’ve touched on this subject before time and time again. Many times a website or SEO tends to focus its web placem...
Google SafeSearch Over filtering?
- April. 10, 2003
Google’s SafeSearch feature, which is used to filter out adult websites, may be blocking out many other sites that it was not intended to. As reported by Harvard University’s Berkman Center, Google’s SafeSearch is blocking thousands of WebP...
Google is most popular in UK
- April. 9, 2003
Jupiter MMXI, a well known internet research firm, has announced the results of their study on UK internet usage. According to their results, the most popular search engine is Google.com, replacing Askjeeves.co.uk as the most popular search ...
Yahoo posts first quarter profit
- April. 9, 2003
Yahoo announced today a profit of $46.7 million, which is much better than the $53.6 million loss reported last year at this time. Yahoo attributes the income to revenues generated from increased subscription services and an improved online adve...
Link popularity & the bowtie theory revisited
- April. 8, 2003
Back in June, 2000 we presented an article to you from a researcher at Planet Ocean Communications. As many experienced SEO’s are aware, Planet Ocean is the source for new ideas and solutions to everyday SEO problems. They presented an...
Gator and Overture sign Three year deal
- April. 8, 2003
Gator and Overture has just signed a three year deal that will display its sponsored search listings on pages that pop under those of rival and partner websites. For those not familiar with Gator, it allows advertisers to reach members of the Gator...
Yahoo! offers new search features today
- April. 7, 2003
Google competing with….Google??? That’s right – in a sense. Yahoo today rolled out a series of improvements to their search features which they hope will attract users away from Google. Although they still primarily use Google...
What's Yahoo! doing?
- April. 7, 2003
If you are a regular Yahoo! user you may have noticed some changes to the site today. With a simplified search interface, it seems obvious that Yahoo! is taking its cues from Google. But that's where the similarities seem to stop. The new Yahoo! sea...
Search engine news w/e Apr 4, 2003
- April. 4, 2003
There were some interesting developments in the search world today, and guess what? They weren’t all about Google. Although Google did make the news again. But first, let us talk about Overture and Microsoft. Microsoft a...
Yahoo's raising cash - to purchase?
- April. 4, 2003
Yahoo recently made an announcement that they were offering $750 million worth of bonds to investors. A Yahoo! spokesperson did acknowledge that the new cash could be used for acquisitions but refused to speculate on what those acquisitio...
Google AdWords win again
- April. 3, 2003
Since Google announced it’s targeted AdWords, it has been actively recruiting new advertising partners. Recently Google stole Disney and Go.com from Overture, one of their first contracts in the PPC game. Also recently announced was a ...
Will MSN develop it's own brand of search?
- April. 2, 2003
Research group Soundview technology group recently announced that Microsoft plans to develop its own version of pay per click engine as part of their renewed focus on search. Although Microsoft officials denied the report, they did admit to exp...
Overture's investment rating cut
- April. 2, 2003
Research firm Soundview Technology Group today announced that they were lowering Overture’s investment rating from "neutral" to "underperform". An analyst from Soundview, Jordan Rohan, said that due to increasing competitive pressures on Overture th...
Google makes deal for AdWords on 24,000 sites
- March. 28, 2003
Just a few short weeks after announcing their new targeted AdWords program in which they will serve up ads on websites which have content similar to the ad, Google has announced a partnership with two ad networks, Burst Media and Fastclick to supply ...
Search engine news w/e Mar 28, 2003
- March. 28, 2003
As I review the past few weeks of search engine news I am noticing a theme which I feel I need to dispel. It appears that we are pro Google in that many of our previous articles have been primarily about Google. This is not entirely tr...
Google made a decision about its IPO
- March. 26, 2003
There has been much speculation over the past few years about Google offering and IPO to the general public. In fact, back in July 2001 there was speculation about an IPO that had investors excited. We explained then that it wasn't in Google's immedi...
The importance of patching your computer
- March. 25, 2003
Normally we dedicate this space to providing you with new and important search engine news. We also devote some of our time here to bring to you some of the issues which may affect you or your website or search engine rankings. Today I th...
Looksmart's Ambitious Plans
- March. 21, 2003
Back in January Looksmart quietly bought a company called Grub. The purchase didn’t make the news. In fact most search engine watchers wondered what their plan was. Why buy a company that develops software which allows home computer...
Search engine news w/e Mar 21, 2003
- March. 21, 2003
There has been some news this week with search engines. Not as big as past weeks, but still some interesting things. Inktomi shareholders recently approved the sale of their company to Yahoo. You may remember that Yahoo made a bi...
A Brief Description of Google PageRank
- March. 19, 2003
Over the past few months, there has been much debate in the search engine world over Google and it’s dominance in the search engine market. Sure it might not be as popular as MSN or Yahoo! but in terms of pure relevant search, it is as big as t...
Part 2 of our Description of Google PageRank
- March. 19, 2003
Google developed an easy, user friendly way to qualify pages. They called it PageRank. In essence, what page rank does is gather hundreds of points about a site or page and use those criteria to qualify the page and assign a ranking to it...
Part 3 of our Description of Google PageRank
- March. 19, 2003
As I’ve shown in the previous 2 parts of this article, although PageRank has value in search engine rankings, it is not the only criteria used to achieve high search engine rankings. Google’s other factors include the meta title and description...
Search engine news w/e Mar 14, 2003
- March. 17, 2003
This past week there were some fairly major announcements made in the world of search. Google won away a big contract from Overture. They now supply results to Go.com and Disney.com. This could be a big hit for Overture as they h...
Google opens its first office outside of US
- March. 12, 2003
Today Google announced it would be basing its European operations in Dublin Ireland. It was planning to create 200 jobs for the company over the next 3 years. There has been much speculation over the past few months as to where Google ...
AOL accounting practices under investigation
- March. 12, 2003
It appears that AOL has had yet another stumble in its efforts to grow, or at least maintain the status quo. An investigation is ongoing by the US federal government into whether AOL allegedly worked with other companies to artificially inflate t...
Google wins a new search agreement
- March. 11, 2003
G-O-O-G-L-E. What’s that spell? Well, if you go to Disney.com or Go.com you will see that it spells money for Google. The Overture rival has won the contract to supply search from these two sites away from Overture, who has had the contract since...
Search engine news w/e Mar 7, 2003
- March. 7, 2003
Well, we were holding our breath in the office this week, wondering what huge and surprising deals would come out. And you know what? Nothing too major happened. That’s not to say that nothing happened, after all a couple notewor...
Fast/Alltheweb gets a facelift
- March. 4, 2003
Less than one week ago Overture stunned the web world by buying FAST search. This just shortly after they announced that they also bought Altavista. During a conference call with investors, Overture executives stated that it would likely take a year ...
Search engine news w/e Feb 28, 2003
- February. 28, 2003
And here I thought last week was going to be the big week in search engine news. Boy was I wrong. Last week I mentioned the surprise purchase of Altavista made by Overture. After all, for a company like Overture to shell out $140...
Google has made the news again
- February. 27, 2003
Google has been doing some interesting things in the past few days. Recently it was proposed that Google become part of the English language dictionary. To “Google” was to perform an internet search for a person, place or topic, prefer...
Overture Purchases FAST/Alltheweb
- February. 25, 2003
Last week we announced that Overture bought AltaVista and we thought that was big news. In fact it was. It’s not too often that one search service buys another one. The last few months the news has been about which search engine is ...
Search engine news w/e Feb 21, 2003
- February. 21, 2003
Well it has again been quite a week in the search engine world. What started out as a quiet week soon had everyone talking about the major deals made. In particular: Google’s purchase of a Blogging software manufacturer, Overture’s ...
Overture Purchases Altavista
- February. 18, 2003
Overture has signed a deal to purchase search provider Altavista for $140 million. The new deal would provide Overture with the ability to use crawler based technology to further improve their own customer relations by offering not one but two ...
Google Goes Blogging
- February. 18, 2003
For those of you who are unsure, blogging (also called web logs) is a form of web communication that lets you post your thoughts, ramblings and ideas on the web quickly and easily. It’s a kind of content management software that you can download for...
Search engine news w/e Feb 14, 2003
- February. 14, 2003
Well, it’s been a relatively quiet week on the search engine front. Some speculations have been made on whether Google is close to making an IPO. Personally, I don’t see a reason for them to do so. Google is making enough money as a...
Recommendations when using flash
- February. 11, 2003
As an SEO firm, we often get asked our opinion on a lot of design issues. One topic which regularly comes up is whether to use dynamic effects such as flash. Although Flash is nice, and generally attractive to users, it can harm your search en...
A study on the internet and how it’s used
- January. 31, 2003
Occasionally, in our industry, an SEO professional gets caught in the trap of “I must increase my website's exposure, so I can get more traffic” without giving much consideration to the people who are actually doing the searching. That is, what happ...
More changes to the search engine world
- January. 29, 2003
As the title suggests, there have been a flurry of major and minor changes with search engines. Some of these most recent headlines may or may not affect how a site performs in a search engine while some have the potential of major changes in t...
Yahoo! hires Overture executive
- January. 28, 2003
What is Yahoo! up to? Back just before Christmas Yahoo surprised everyone by announcing they had purchased Inktomi Search service (See our article about this here). This led to much speculation that Yahoo! intended to eventually replac...
Is Alltheweb a Viable Search Alternative?
- January. 21, 2003
Alltheweb.com has long been a search engine trying to find itself. While it does offer good search results with a high relevancy, it has always struggled against engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In an effort to improve their share ...
Overture - Increased Cost for Advertisers?
- January. 20, 2003
As Overture has expanded into the International market this past year, and with higher Traffic coming through it's Search Partners, they have announced that the "traffic acquisition costs" will increase in the fourth quarter. CBS Marketwatch in San F...
Google sued over PageRank
- January. 10, 2003
There is a very interesting legal battle about to unfold in Oklahoma. Internet giant Google is being sued by a company called SearchKing who openly advertised that it would sell PageRank™. For those who don't know, PageRank™ is Google's way of "rec...
Search Engines 2002 Year in Review
- January. 9, 2003
Well, it’s been quite a year in search engines. Virtually every engine went through some type of change, whether it be cosmetic, functional or otherwise. Probably the biggest change, which really surprised SEO’s all over the world was ...
Virus Hoaxes Explained
- January. 8, 2003
We have gone into great detail, in the past, explaining some of the terrible things to watch out for with regards to viruses. We’ve also told you what some of the effects of a virus can be, from being an annoyance on your computer, to wiping ou...
Yahoo Purchases Search Service Inktomi
- December. 23, 2002
Monday Dec 23, 2002 Yahoo, Inc. announced today that it would pay $235 million for search service Inktomi. The deal paves the way for Yahoo to become self sufficient once again, after recently signing a deal to purchase search results ...
Froogle - Google's Shopping Search Engine
- December. 17, 2002
For years now Google has been on the cutting engine of Search Engine technology with algorithms that rank websites in Google’s database based on quality content and link reputation. They are now applying this technology to the simple task of searchin...
Hotbot gets a facelift
- December. 17, 2002
Hotbot has been looming around in the background for quite some time. They've been categorized within the top 10-15 Search Engines for the past 3-4 years, and they have finally made major changes to the look and style of the site. Some may argue that...
Server Issues which could affect rank - Pt.2
- November. 21, 2002
I wrote an article a few months ago explaining some of the server side issues which could affect a site’s ranking. This article prompted an email from a reader who asked if I could provide more information. His questions were so good that...
Internal vs External Search Engines
- November. 7, 2002
Many websites are incorporating internal search features into their websites to make it easier for their clients to find what they are looking for. This makes sense as many sites can be hundreds of pages. An internal search engine that is...
Overture adds Keyword Match Driver
- November. 6, 2002
Originally introduced in August 2002, Overture’s Match Driver was, according to Overture, implemented to “deliver more qualified leads to our advertisers while ensuring that users get the best and most comprehensive search results we can offer.” Mat...
Rumors of RealNames Rising Again
- October. 27, 2002
Despite the persistant rumors to the contrary, there is no successor to RealNames, the keyword based enhancement to Explorer that allowed users to just type in keywords in the address bar. RealNames closed up shop earlier this year and Microsoft has ...
Yahoo Chooses Google
- October. 11, 2002
After months of speculation that Yahoo would be dropping Google as its secondary results provider, they are now displaying google results as their default listings. Prior to these changes, a search at Yahoo would display Overture paid listings ...
The importance of link building - pt 1
- September. 20, 2002
There has been lots of talk lately in the web world about link building. What exactly is link building you ask? In a nutshell it’s collecting links that point to your site and submitting them to the search engines. Doesn’t seem t...
The importance of link building - pt 2
- September. 20, 2002
So, Why isn’t it that simple to collect good links? Because although you may be able to get a bunch of sites to link to you on the term “widgets” you don’t know how qualified they are to give you that reference. You see, while you are ...
The importance of link building - pt 3
- September. 20, 2002
Next, do a search on your key phrases to see who’s ranking in the top five to ten spots. This is your biggest competition. You will want to have at least as many good quality links as these sites, in order to boost your visibility in the search eng...
Google Continuing to Gain More Power
- July. 31, 2002
With Google's continuing success, Canoe.ca is the latest to use Google's search results. This is a newly implemented feature that was added with their new design layout during the week of July 22nd - 26th. Canoe's Google search feature is curren...
Google Juggling
- May. 29, 2002
When you catch Google during the midst of their 4-5 days a month when they have finished spidering and are updating their database a few things happen: They alternate between www.google.com, www2.google.com and www3.google.com. At any time and...
AllTheWeb Adds Functionality and Overture
- May. 14, 2002
Anyone visiting AllTheWeb lately will have noticed a few changes on the site - From the graphical layout to the functionality and choices of search. Very noticeable in a prominent location at the top of a search results page are Overture listings, d...
RealNames = RealBust?
- May. 14, 2002
Touted to be a possible “viable alternative, if not future successor, to the current domain name system”, in a quote taken from an article on Danny Sullivan’s The Search Engine Report, dated May 03, 2000, RealNames was expected to make conventional s...
Google Powers All of AOLs Search Results
- May. 1, 2002
Lately it seems that Google can do no wrong. With its long standing following of loyal users that cite useful, unbiased search results as their main reason for using the site, to its new offering into paid listings called Google AdWords Select,...
Overture and Yahoo Sign Three Year Deal
- April. 26, 2002
In a previous Marketing Monitor article, we informed readers of the initiation of a partnership deal between Yahoo, one of the web's most popular search services/portals, and Overture, the current industry leader in "pay-per-click" search services....
Server Issues which could affect SE rankings
- April. 11, 2002
There are many issues which could affect a website’s rankings on search engines which could be out of the site owners control. Below are some of the issues: Issue 1 – Changing a Site’s IP Address: Moving a site to a new IP (eithe...
Inktomi & Symantec partner against Viruses
- April. 11, 2002
Inktomi – one of the worlds largest providers on internet results, as well as internet appliances (such as internet traffic caching appliances) has partnered with one of the worlds leading virus protection software manufacturers – Symantec – to provi...
Fast to provide search results for Telus
- March. 28, 2002
On March 26, 2002, Norway's Fast Search and Transfer (FAST) announced that Telus, a Canadian communications company, would be using FAST technology to provide search results for all of its online portals. These portals include popular Canadian site...
Google Paid results appear on CompuServe
- March. 26, 2002
Without fanfare or any official announcement, CompuServe has added paid listings from Google's AdWords Select to their search results, in addition to the pay-per-click results they've been partnered with Overture to display for some time now. ...
Hosting may be harmful to Inktomi rankings
- March. 12, 2002
ARTICLE UPDATED! 6:30pm - see bottom of article 10:30am - Certain site owners lately checking their stats on Position Tech for URLs they've registered for inclusion with Inktomi have been receiving error messages similar to this one we came acr...
Detect hack attempts through log analysis
- March. 12, 2002
There is another good reason to view your web server site logs. Recently, while performing a routine review of a client’s logs, we came across some disturbing errors. We thought we’d pass on this information, as anyone who owns or hosts w...
Google gets Overture...in the pocketbook
- February. 21, 2002
Almost immediately after Google launches their own paid search listings product, the effects are being felt by rival Overture and its stockholders. A number of other engines in the past have adopted pay-per-click models similar to Overture's in...
Google Launches New Pay Per Click Service
- February. 20, 2002
In response to a lack of enthusiasm for its current cost-per-impression (CPM) Advertisement services, AdWords, Google has announced the development of AdWords Select. The Select service, which will run in addition to the current AdWords service, will...
The Demise of Direct Hit
- February. 20, 2002
Ask Jeeves announced recently that it would be shutting down its directhit.com property sometime within 2002. The search service will be replaced by Teoma, which was purchased by Ask Jeeves in September 2001. Direct Hit originally debuted in 1999, a...
Patent challenge for Overture
- February. 20, 2002
In the past year, Overture and its pay-per-click model have become quite successful through strategic partnerships with many of the top search engines. Rival services attempting to jump on the pay-per-click bandwagon have now started a campaign to qu...
Lawsuit over Keywords...a Weighty Issue
- February. 19, 2002
...and so it starts. A different kind of search engine war. Not the AltaVistas and Googles battling it out on the "who's more relevant" front but disgruntled website owners taking it upon themselves to right the wrongs of perceived non-relevan...
Sympatico: Switching Search Providers?
- January. 28, 2002
Sympatico is quite a popular portal up here in the Great White North. The site offers links to many informative Canadian sites, as well as offering all-Canadian (as well as international) searches, news and entertainment. Also somewhat popular for us...
Where did Overture Goto?
- January. 23, 2002
A fellow SearchEnginePosition employee noticed earlier today that she could not access Overture in her browser. Although a little interesting, this didn't seem like big news until we did a little research and discovered that the site had been do...
Yahoo Introduces Annual Fee
- January. 2, 2002
Anyone who is at all familiar with online marketing is aware of the importance of having a directory listing in Yahoo, arguably the most popular site on the web. Website owners and webmasters are undoubtedly also well aware of the $299 Express Submis...
AOL Search Using Pure Inktomi Search Results
- January. 2, 2002
It seems that paying for inclusion in the Inktomi database has increased in importance substantially, as America Online's search service is now using Inktomi results exclusively. Up until now, AOL's search results were a mix of returns from Inktomi a...
Google Announces Size Increase of Index
- December. 10, 2001
Google has announced an increase in the size of their database. Search engine size has become an advertising factor for many engines. Larger indexes are better able to boast and back more relevant results for users. Google now lays claim to 3 billion...
Google Testing Webpage Voting Technology
- November. 29, 2001
In an unprecedented move, Google has announced that they will be testing a system that will allow web users to vote on web sites ranking in their Search Engine. With the recent announcement of a partnership between Overture and Yahoo, this new develo...
Excite@home Sells Excite.com Portal
- November. 15, 2001
After two years of owning the Excite.com portal, parent company Excite@Home plans to sell it to InfoSpace. The price tag for Excite.com is 10 million dollars, much less than the original 7.8 billion dollars Excite@Home paid for it. The deal would see...
Yahoo Partners with Overture
- November. 15, 2001
Tuesday saw the announcement of what is likely the most important deal that Overture (formerly Goto) has made to date. As of Thursday, Nov. 15, Yahoo!, the most popular search portal on the internet, will begin to display Overture results as a part o...
Lycos relaunches search service
- November. 9, 2001
The popularity of the Lycos search service has been dropping for some time. Often, users of the service were presented with search results that where confusing. It could be difficult to distinguish between paid placement of site pages and regular sit...
New search features at Netscape
- November. 9, 2001
Netscape has become the uniting factor in the merger of AOL and Time Warner services. Instead of combining all of the properties now owned by AOL-Time Warner, the company is using Netscape to tie it’s interests together. In March, AOL-Time Warner int...
Anzwers changes search results provider
- October. 18, 2001
Another mainstay of the Search Engine industry has changed it's tune this past week. Anzwers, an Australian Search Engine known to many people in the search engine industry as a reliable source for gaining entrance into the Inktomi Database, now disp...
Yahoo's new search results
- October. 18, 2001
A recent Marketing Monitor article outlined changes in the way search results are displayed at Yahoo.com. We have since gathered more information (in no small part due to Planet Ocean Communications) regarding the new search results and the new algor...
Yahoo testing new Results page and algorithms?
- September. 27, 2001
On Sept 26th Yahoo introduced the new look of its Search Results Page. Previously, a search performed at Yahoo resulted in a category listing with the sites deemed the Most Popular listed directly below that Category. This would then be followe...
Excite and FAST having financial difficulties
- September. 27, 2001
The internet community has been very much buzzing in recent months with rumors of the possible demise of excite.com - or at least a large scale stripping down of the portal to focus on the Excite@Home ISP. It is commonly believed that the company wil...
Google testing new paid inclusion service
- August. 31, 2001
Representatives from Google have announced that the engine is working toward a paid inclusion service in reaction to similar services offered by rival portals such as Inktomi and Alta Vista. Google's goal is to be able to provide their customers with...
New Google competition
- August. 31, 2001
Success of the search engine offered at Google has sparked some new competition. The most present Google look-alikes are New Jersey-based Teoma and California’s Wisenut. According to Stefanie Olsen, both of these engines imitate Google by “sporting s...
eZula offers TopText
- August. 31, 2001
The buzz surrounding Microsoft’s “Smart Tags” has been replaced with the buzz surrounding “TopText” from eZula. Due to bad press, Microsoft abandoned Smart Tags, but now another company is taking up where Microsoft left off. The now abandoned Smart ...
Looksmart increases submission fees
- August. 16, 2001
The LookSmart directory has increased submission prices and added a new pay for modification option. When LookSmart introduced their pay for submission about a year and a half ago, customers could get express service for $199. The price for Express S...
Jupiter Media Metrix Study Findings on Search Engine Marketing Questionable
- August. 16, 2001
Jupiter Media Metrix has just conducted a study into search engine usage and it’s effectiveness as an advertising medium. The good news is that the study confirms something we’ve always known. Search engines are a very effective form of online market...
Teoma: New Rival for Google?
- July. 25, 2001
As other major search engines fall over themselves to sell out their traffic, drawing the ire of no less a consumer advocate than Ralph Nader, a new batch of search services are debuting that promise a return to the basics, a search engine that finds...
'Pay to Play' Engines Under Consumer Watchdog Scrutiny
- July. 19, 2001
MSN, Netscape Search, Direct Hit, HotBot, Lycos, AltaVista, LookSmart, and iWon are the eight search engines named in a complaint filed with the US Federal Trade Commission on July 16. The complaint was filed by Commercial Alert, a three year old con...
No IPO for Google...Yet
- July. 5, 2001
Despite a UK Business Report Article to the contrary, Google's not planning for an IPO in the imminent future. In an online article, Google's founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were quoted as saying that a public float could be in the plans for the ...
AltaVista Goes Pay to Stay
- July. 2, 2001
After a period of sitting back and watching Inktomi's foray into the paid inclusion arena, AltaVista has announced they're following suit. Like Inktomi, the AltaVista program does not carry any influence on actual rankings. It simply ensures that Alt...
Two more search services join the 'Pay to Play' game.
- June. 26, 2001
LookSmart and Alta Vista have become the latest search services to offer a paid listings service. LookSmart, following the Goto.com model, is offering advertisers guaranteed placement in its search results for specified keywords. Alta Vista's new mod...
Vivisimo: Hot New Search Service Wins Rave Reviews
- June. 15, 2001
It appears that the next generation of search services aren't worried about creating search engines, but rather in bundling the output from existing engines and presenting it in a more user friendly way. This has been the premise of Copernic and now ...
Inktomi dropped by IWon and Canada.com. Is Google for sale?
- June. 7, 2001
In the continuing trend amongst search portals, two more partners have dropped Inktomi as their search provider and have turned instead to the seductive siren of Goto's paid placement revenue sharing plan. Both Canada.com and Iwon.com now feature pa...
Tough Times for Inktomi
- May. 22, 2001
The Inktomi search service has had a rough couple of days lately. Search Engine Optimization newsgroups are buzzing this morning with news that Internet giant America On-Line has apparently dropped Inktomi results from its search listings. This is th...
Search Engine Listings Drive Six Times More Sales than Banners!
- May. 9, 2001
The following article was a part of the latest MarketPosition newsletter. It should shed some light on the subject of online marketing for those of us who are still unsure of the benefits of search engine optimization. The article can also be found a...
NBC shuts down Internet Division
- April. 9, 2001
On Monday, April 9, NBC announced it would be joining Disney and News Corp. in shutting down it's Internet division. Assets will be absorbed into NBC and most of the 300 employees will lose their jobs Another Major Player Gone NBCi ranks in t...
Yahoo's Sponsored Sites
- February. 1, 2001
There's a new paid submission option available to web site owners: Yahoo's "Sponsored Sites". For a fee, ranging from $25-$300 a month, sites already listed in certain business categories in the Yahoo directory will receive "Enhanced site listing in ...
The End of Go.com
- January. 30, 2001
A recent Jam! Showbiz (canoe.ca) article stated that the Disney Co. will be shutting down their internet portal at Go.com. Disney president Robert Iger is quoted as saying: "Given the fact we were not an industry leader, it was clear to us this busin...
GO.com's Premium Service
- December. 6, 2000
GO.com has become the latest search portal to offer a paid submission program. At a Cost of $199 per URL, The new 'Premium Service' offers the following benefits to customers: Guaranteed site review within 48 hours of receipt of payment Sites add...
Is Google Boosting Yahoo?
- November. 16, 2000
According to a recent article at CNET.com, a recent study shows that Google has been giving a significant boost to Yahoo directory pages in its search results since the two search engines entered a partnership earlier this year (click here for a rela...
Alta Vista partners with Goto
- November. 16, 2000
Pasadena (GoTo hq), and Palo Alto (AltaVista hq), California - Nov. 16, 2000 GoTo.com, Inc., the largest Pay-For-Performance search network on the Internet, and AltaVista Company, the current leading search and information marketplace for consumers ...
Terra Lycos and Goto Partnership
- November. 10, 2000
Terra Lycos announced Friday that two of the search providers from its network of sites, Lycos.com and HotBot.com, will be adding Goto.com's premium search results to their own searches. The two companies have apparently signed a 3-year deal, but ver...
Inktomi Unveils a new Paid Inclusion Program
- November. 2, 2000
Inktomi announced today the beginning of it's new Paid Inclusion Program. This program will allow sites to be searchable in Inktomi's 125 Web search partners, which include AOL, iWon, MSN, HotBot and others. Inktomi guarantees that sites submitted us...
All About Looksmart
- October. 31, 2000
Looksmart - a name that has been growing in popularity since the directory debuted in 1996. Looksmart is a human-edited directory, similar to Yahoo!, where submitted sites are reviewed by an editor and placed into an appropriate category if accepted....
What are my Paid Submission options?
- October. 27, 2000
The paid submissions that are most widely known are: Yahoo's business express submission, GoTo keyword purchase, LookSmart Directory, Real Names, and Google Adwords. Yahoo is one of the most important in terms of visibility (and the hardest to ...
Big changes at Infoseek
- September. 21, 2000
There has been much speculation about the future of Go.com in recent months. There had been rumors in the past that the search service was eventually going to become a more entertainment-oriented search tool, but no actual changes seemed to be taking...
Guidelines for submitting to the major search engines
- September. 7, 2000
Source: Planet Ocean Communications Submissions and Re-submissions (condensed) ...how often should you resubmit your pages, and when? By Robin Nobles -- Academy of Web Specialists Do you remember a time when submission strategies were fairly ...
Inktomi Developments
- August. 22, 2000
Inktomi's Inconsistency There has been a recent backlash against the Inktomi Corp. in the Search Engine Positioning community. Inktomi has many important partners in the internet business world, most important to us being the search engines for whic...
Inktomi instability
- July. 25, 2000
It has been hard to categorize everything that has been happening with Inktomi and their partners lately. Very little is known because there have been no press releases, but it is believed that Inktomi has been re-shuffling the web pages that are ind...
Lycos and FAST Partnership
- July. 24, 2000
Further Partnership Between Lycos and FAST Lycos Inc. announced on June 14, 2000 that it would begin using Norwegian search provider FAST (www.alltheweb.com ) technology to power its internet searches. The two companies have been linked for some tim...
Excite's Precision Search and Looksmart directory listings
- July. 21, 2000
Source: Planet Ocean Communication Last known Excite update: 6/17/00 Excite Launches "Precision Search" June 19th Excite made some significant changes to their engine. Released as the new "Precision Search", the primary change is an increased reli...
Google hits the big time
- July. 20, 2000
On June 26, 2000, Yahoo announced that it would be ending its partnership with Inktomi, which had provided search results for the internet giant since 1998. In the announcement, Yahoo revealed that Inktomi would be replaced by Google, a fairly new se...
Link Popularity and the Bowtie Theory
- June. 1, 2000
Source: Planet Ocean Communications The Bowtie Theory Explains Link Popularity...IWWWC-9 paper sheds light on indexing the most popular pages on the web The Ninth International World Wide Web Conference was held in Amsterdam May 15 to 19. This year...
Cloaking, Stealth, and Spamming
- June. 1, 2000
We have been asked by potential clients whether we using cloaking, spoofing or stealth technologies. We have always told them no, we consider these techniques unethical positioning tactics and no only do we not use them, we recommend not using any co...
Open Directory Gathers Momentum with Agreements with Hotbot and Lycos.
- June. 1, 2000
The Open Directory Project (formerly NewHoo) got a major shot in the arm recently with co-operative agreements with both Lycos and Hotbot. The Open Directory Project is a human edited directory guide to the Internet, similar to Yahoo, but with two ma...
AltaVista Ends Experiment with Paid Placement
- July. 22, 1999
On July 22, CNET news announced that AltaVista has discontinued it's experiment with Paid Ranking Results. When the announcement was made in April that AltaVista was going to be auctioning off keywords, there was a wave of dissent that this practiv...
AltaVista Auctions Off Top Keywords
- May. 1, 1999
IMPORTANT NOTE! On July 28, the announcement trickled out that AltaVista has ended this program. The article below was the original article when the paid placement program was announced. For information about the termination of the program, please c...
