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July 1, 2009

Microsoft Pushes Bing in a Big Way

Microsoft is investing big ad dollars in big splashy display ads for Bing.

In case you didn't notice, Microsoft is the latest advertiser to use a pushdown ad -- a new unit introduced by the Online Publishers Association. The Bing ad appeared on wsj.com today and nytimes.com yesterday and June 8. A similar ad also ran on Msnbc, according to a Microsoft spokesman.

What's more, Microsoft is using creative from the campaign in other placements -- including including interstitials, homepage and channel roadblocks -- on Huffington Post, Slate, and Federated Media, the spokesman said.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

May 1, 2009

Financial Times Digs at Search Engines with new Campaign

The Financial Times is launching an ad campaign poking fun at search engines, and the hit and miss nature of their results.

The creatives aim to highlight the discrepencies between the information required, and the information recieved, when conducting searches for financial-related terms. 'Unlike millions of other websites, we know exactly what you are looking for,' the FT claims.

In addition to the "baby bond" example (right), one execution shows a search for 'EMU' resulting in an image of the emu bird, presumably instead of information on the The European Economic and Monetary Union. Another search for "prolonged recession" reveals information on hair loss.

Exactly why prospective FT customers would search for financial information using an image search isn't quite clear, but I see their point.

Created by DDB London, the campaign will launch online and across global press on Monday, as part of the paper's 'We live in Financial Times' campaign.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 22, 2009

U.K. Conservatives Snap up Budget-Related Google Ads

The U.K. Conservative party has used Google PPC ads to drive traffic to a site denouncing today's budget from Labour Chancellor, Alistair Darling.

Searches for key phrases from the Chancellor's budget speech, such as "scrappage scheme," "tobacco duty," and "budget deficit," throw up ads pointing to the Conservative site, on which the party offers a rebuttal of what it describes as a "dishonest budget."

Incidentally, it appears U.K. newspaper the Telegraph has either cottoned on to the idea, or had a similar one itself. A number of those terms also invoke ads pointing to the newspaper's own online coverage.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 20, 2009

Ask.com Reverts to "Ask Jeeves" Branding

After three years "traveling the world in a quest for knowledge," Jeeves, the iconic butler, is resuming his role as U.K. front man for search engine Ask.

InterActive Corp quickly decided to ditch the beleaguered butler and the Ask Jeeves brand after acquiring the site in 2005, opting instead for the simpler, and perhaps more user-friendly Ask.com domain. Now, it seems user demand, and presumably diminished recognition of the new branding, has prompted a rethink.

"During my sojourn, research showed the public wanted me back, which I found jolly touching. And in that time the engineers toiled hard to make the site look better, work harder and be more personal...just like yours truly," Jeeves wrote on the site today, in answer to the question, "Why are you back?"

Jeeves himself, based originally on a character by PG Wodehouse, has also undergone a slight revamp, and is now presented in rendered 3D in place of the traditional cartoon- style illustration.

To support the new (or should I say old) brand identity, profiles on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are being maintained by Jeeves, much like the efforts of ComparetheMarket.com's Aleksandr the Meerkat.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 15, 2009

iCrossing Partners With Russian SEM Firm

I recently wrote about Eastern Europe's growing appeal for global digital players, so news that iCrossing has partnered with a Russian SEM firm comes as no surprise.

The Moscow-based outfit, Ingate, will help support Russian-focused campaigns for the firm's global clients. iCrossing alsostruck a similar deal with Chinese SEM agency Beijing Gridsum Technology Co. late last year, and said at the time it plans to open its own Asian office by 2010.

As Western firms look for ways to offset slowing revenues from established markets, heading East appears to be the order of the day. Aegis, WPP and Google invested cash in Eastern Europe in 2008, and SEO competitors such as Webcertain claim to be actively pursuing opportunities abroad.

Ingate itself currently serves global brands including Procter & Gamble, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Peugeot, and Honda.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 6:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 7, 2009

Amazon Cuts Off Affiliate Search Bidding

If you're a merchant with a large affiliate program, you've certainly given plenty of thought to whether referral partners should be permitted to buy search keywords. Allowing the practice drives traffic and leads, but it also raises keyword prices and fills the coffers of Google and other search engines.

Amazon, which runs one of the Web's largest affiliate programs, has just come down on the side of controlling keyword costs. As of May 1, U.S. and Canadian referral partners in the Amazon Associates program will no longer be reimbursed for driving conversions through paid keyword bidding, the company said.

Not only that, but anyone using search ads to send traffic to Amazon product pages will have their accounts shut down. Of course Amazon phrases this in the kindest possible terms: "As long as you stop your paid search activities relating to our US and Canadian sites and otherwise remain in compliance with the terms of the Associates Operating Agreement (e.g., by sending users to our websites through links on your site), your Associates account will not be closed," the company notes in a FAQ on the policy change.

It seems possible, based on that aggressive step, that Amazon is in a hurry to reduce its search ad spend. I'd be curious to just know how much this move will shrink that spend, and conversely how much it will cost Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 6, 2009

Deadly Earthquake Strikes; Advertisers Slow to React

Nearly 18 hours after a deadly earthquake struck L'Aquila in Italy, a Google search for "L'Aquila" displayed sponsored links for four travel sites promoting hotel reservations and deals in the medieval Italian town.

"Visiting L'aquila? Official L'aquila Travel Site! Find Great Air and Hotel Deals," reads Kayak.com's ad.

Three other reservation sites -- TripAdvisor.com, Italy-Bookings.com, and Venere.com -- had apparently bid on the keyword, "L'Aquila," to appear as a sponsored link on Google. But none pulled their ads after the earthquake hit.

A click on the link for Italy-Bookings.com leads a Web site visitor to a page that reads, "page not found," while the other sponsored links lead to landing pages promoting "hotel deals" in L'Aquila.

More than 100 people were reported dead and 1,500 injured in the region about 60 miles north of Rome.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 2, 2009

Growth in U.K. Online Ad Spend Slows, Search Continues to Grow

Growth in U.K. online ad spend halved during 2008, increasing by 17.1 percent to £3.35 billion, down from the 38 percent year-on-year increase it achieved in '07, according to the IAB U.K.'s bi-annual online advertising expenditure study. The U.K. market slowdown mirrors that of the U.S. market; the growth rate here was also sliced in half in '08. According to the report, online now makes up almost 20 percent of overall U.K. ad spend, up from a 15 percent share in 2008.

Within online itself, paid search spend grew 22.7 percent year-over-year, representing almost 60 percent of all online spend in 2008. Perhaps unsurprising given the current financial situation and the relative accountability of search, display grew far less rapidly, at 7.7 percent, and represented 19 percent of spend. Online classifieds made up the remainder of spend at 21.4 percent, having grown 22.2 percent from 2007.

The IAB points to ad networks as a growth driver, and notes they now account for 44 percent of display spending. However, network spending is only up marginally from its 40 percent share in 2007.

In terms of verticals, recruitment leads across all formats, accounting for 23.8 percent of overall online spend, followed by Automotive at 13.5 percent, Technology at 11.2 percent, Property at 9.7 percent, and Finance at 7.6 percent.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 5:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 11, 2009

Has the Search Ad Slump Arrived? It Depends How You Define Slump.

Google's unexpectedly great fourth quarter earnings may have been its last truly upbeat news for awhile, as indicators begin to pile up suggesting the recession has caught up to search.

Agencies have begun to say publicly and privately that their clients are spending less on search advertising -- or at least less than they'd expected. Razorfish noted last week that while the category has so far been relatively inoculated against the fall-off in demand that's hurt display ad sellers, that will change. "We do anticipate that as budgets tighten, search will also be impacted by the economy this year," the agency said in its Digital Outlook Report this week.

Meanwhile a survey of search marketing pros suggests spending will increase by about 9 percent this year, to $14.7 billion. That may sound like the search business is still riding a gravy train, but the growth rate would be less than half what was projected in 2007.

"Issues constraining growth include the global economic recession, which affects both demand and supply-side factors, including a drop in inventory in certain categories as consumers scale back spending (and consequently searches)," according to the report. "However, the global recession also means advertisers are looking for the accountability and efficiency provided by search engine marketing."

The recession's ongoing impact on search budgets will become more clear when Google reports its Q1 earnings next month. Eric Schmidt, speaking at an investor conference last week, acknowledged Google is "not immune" to the increasingly generalized economic pain. However any negative impact on the search marketplace as a whole will likely mean slower growth for Google; bets are the company will not lose money. As Schmidt put it in January, "We're certainly prepared to get through this no problem."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 23, 2009

OrangeSoda Sees Trend, Opens Service for Larger Brands

Search engine marketing is undergoing change, and agencies are reacting to the call. Today Utah-based OrangeSoda opened up OrangeSoda Enterprise, a search engine marketing service for large companies and national brands. While it targets the larger customer, it still addresses the local market the agency knows well. At launch of business, Enterprise already works with national brands such as Re/Max and Jiffy Lube to strategize, create, implement, and track online campaigns.

Just last week northern Michigan-based Oneupweb refreshed itself with a new Web site and white paper entitled, "Search has Changed. It's Time to Stand Up and Take Notice." In it Oneupweb identifies the DNA of the new Web -- which includes maps, wikis, link popularity, site architecture, content optimization, news, meta tags, blogs, PR, widgets, social profiles, videos, local search, and more - and how the new landscape is affecting search.

The direction both agencies are taking (and it's my guess other agencies are doing the same whether we'll see the changes publicly or not) is a sign that things are changing in search and on the Web. The social Web and Web 2.0 applications are also changing how sites are measured using Web analytics.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 20, 2009

Search Spend Declines Slightly, But News Isn't All Bad

Search advertisers withdrew dollars in Q4, according to a report from search marketing agency Efficient Frontier released today. Across the board Q4 spending was down by 8 percent year-over-year, though the retail sector increased its spend by 9 percent in the same timeframe. Some of the findings in the report were reported by the Wall Street Journal, including search in the recession.

By contrast, a slight uptick in search spending was measured by competing firm Clickable. Max Kalehoff, VP of marketing at Clickable, posted Q4 numbers that showed increases in spending among search advertisers over the last four months of 2008.

A breakout of search engine marketing trends and trends by vertical market for Efficient Frontier's report is available over at Search Engine Watch. A few key points:

• A measured 63 percent year-over-year increase in spend on Google Content spending among spending an index of Efficient Frontier's customers was observed.
• Finance sector spending declined by 25 percent, with a 16 percent quarter-over-quarter drop in Q4. Impressions were up by 5 percent year-over-year due to customer demand, however fewer qualified conversion reduced CPC by 10 percent.
• Small advertisers in the U.S. accounted for a greater decrease in search advertising spend than larger, more established brands. Advertisers with budgets of $50,000 or less per month cut spending by 23 percent year-over-year, with many cuts occurring between Q3 and Q4. Larger companies with budgets over $200,000 reduced spending by about 9 percent in the same period.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 30, 2008

Politics and Financial Crisis Dominated the Year in Search

Obama was on the minds of the U.S. in terms of search in 2008, according to Google. But the fastest-rising search term for Google's global results in its Zeitgeist was Sarah Palin. That's what's listed in this year's top search term recaps from Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask.com, and Lycos. The election weighed heavily in several categories including fastest rising, overall searches, influential women, and top news stories.

The financial bailout ranked high on search, too. On Google people searched for "financial crisis," "bailout," and "mortgage crisis," while Yahoo saw top economic terms such as "oil prices," "gold prices," and "Sallie Mae." AOL visitors looked for financial terms "Wachovia," "Washington Mutual," "Merrill Lynch," and "AIG," among others. The top news stories on Lycos related to the economic collapse and bailout, though stories of the death of actor Heath Ledger, and the Eliot Spitzer scandal were also popular.

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 2, 2008

Virgin Media Joins T-Mobile, Adopts Yahoo Mobile Search Tool

U.K. mobile network operator Virgin Mobile has partnered with Yahoo to power search functions on its re-launched mobile portal. As of December 8, the portal will take on the branding of its parent company, Virgin Media, and will integrate Yahoo's oneSearch technology.

Yahoo also said today that it plans to deliver mobile sponsored search results and contextually served sponsored listings via the portal early next year, and that it is focusing on, "creating the monetization engine for the mobile Internet."

Despite its troubles, the Internet giant appears to be making decent progress in the mobile search sector, having secured an exclusive deal with T-Mobile in February, representing 11 European Markets. At the time, a Yahoo spokesperson described mobile search as a "key area in the future of Yahoo."

Search results via the Virgin portal will now include photos from Flickr, financial data, integrated information from Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers, and downloadable content such as ringtones and mobile games.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 26, 2008

SEMPO to Ring NASDAQ Bell on Cyber Monday

Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) chair Dana Todd will ring the opening NASDAQ bell on Cyber Monday, December 1. SEMPO members in the area are invited to join her but shouldn’t just show up at Times Square. Instead, get in touch with SEMPO to make arrangements.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 25, 2008

Gearing up for Black Friday

Three days to go before Black Friday.

And, retailers and Black Friday Web sites are bulking up on their paid search advertising.

A Google search for "black friday" this morning turned up these ads, left.

Even Google is getting in on the action, promoting merchant discounts on Google Checkout.

On Yahoo, advertisers buying the keywords "black friday" included Fujitsu, Staples, Lego, and Target.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 4, 2008

Yahoo/Google Deal Revision Would Give Marketers More Control

To appease Justice Department concerns about their search ads tie-up, Yahoo and Google have offered to cap what Yahoo can make through the deal at 25 percent of its total search revenue, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Perhaps a bigger deal for search marketers: The revised deal would let advertisers opt out of having their ads distributed on Yahoo results pages.

That would partly address concerns of some marketers that they'll wind up bidding against themselves, but it may also reduce the available Yahoo inventory for those who choose to opt out.

As Kevin Lee put it back in September, "In order for [Yahoo] to even to consider serving an ad out of Google, that ad has to be 15 percent more expensive," to allow for Google's cut.

Yahoo's extra revenue from each ad served by Google comes at the expense of brands that bid on both platforms, and so letting those brands abstain from ad syndication between the parties. Yet having the option not to pay the higher price to appear on Yahoo SERPs doesn't mean they'll still get in at the lower price.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 28, 2008

AOL Dumps Its Online Video Player

AOL's online video player heads to the digital junkyard, sharing the same fate as the vinyl record player.

AOL, a unit of Time Warner, will instead use Brightcove's technology, for online video, according to published reports. It will also integrate its online video ad technology into Brightcove's, according to a WSJ.com report. Typically companies that use Brightcove's video player also use its ad technology.

Fred McIntyre, senior vice president at AOL, told Multichannel News, that the change will allow AOL to deliver content more efficiently than it could using its internally developed tools.

He said it will also enable AOL to devote more resources to its video search technology, Truveo. AOL acquired the video search company more than two years ago.

In the latest development, Truveo last month launched a trial of Truveo Mobile Video Search, which is intended to make it easier for mobile phone users to find video from the Web on mobile phones.

AOL had put resources into media player technology ever since it acquired Nullsoft, the developer of Winamp, back in 1999. AOL took a minority stake in Brightcove of Cambridge, MA, in 2006.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

Russia’s Blossoming Online Ad Market

More news from the blossoming Russian ad market…

Bolstering its presence among the growing ad competition in the region, Russia's largest search site, Yandex, has acquired display ad agency Mediaselling for an undisclosed fee.

Mediaselling already had a deal with Yandex through which it sold ads on some Yandex properties. Writing on the company blog, Mediaselling CEO Lev Gleyzer said the firm has "relied on partnership and friendship" with Yandex over the past few years. The firm also represents other Russian sites including Eurosport.ru, Kommersant.ru and Gazeta.ru.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 5:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 20, 2008

Parties Back McCain and Obama’s Online Ad Strategy

An interesting point made in SendTec's latest report on Barack Obama's and John McCain's search ads is that “the McCain campaign is not bidding on any terms relating to [William] Ayers.”

The thing is, though, the Republican National Committee has been buying Ayers-related keywords; the RNC uses Campaign Solutions, the online consulting firm handling McCain’s Web efforts. Last week I spotted an RNC ad in search results for “Obama domestic terrorist” and “Obama Ayers.” Those link to BarackBook.com, a Facebook spoof naming Ayers as a member of Obama’s “Friend Feed.”

The fact is the presidential campaigns have been in lock-step with their parties, at least when it comes to some campaign components. The Obama campaign, for instance, has run the same display ads as the Democratic National Committee – aimed at voter registration.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Obama's National Search Campaign

SendTec has a new report out based on research conducted after the last presidential debate. The SEM firm looked at three of the most-searched political keywords: Economy, William Ayers and, of course, Joe the Plumber.

SendTec’s reports have drawn fire from Eric Frenchman, the guy who runs John McCain’s search ad efforts. Rather than delve into that drama, I do want to note one of the key points made in the latest report. According to the company’s research, “McCain is outbidding Obama in the battleground states, while Obama is bidding nationally….”

As an example, SendTec says, “The McCain campaign is bidding on Joe the Plumber and variations of that keyword in battleground states only. McCain is not bidding on these terms in states that are firmly established as either voting Democratic or republican (such as Illinois or Texas).”

In contrast, “The Obama campaign is bidding on Joe the Plumber and variations of that keyword in every state.”

This appears to follow Obama’s television ad strategy, which has also famously involved a lot of national ad buys. It could also be a function of the campaign’s huge campaign budget. Maybe the campaign isn’t limiting its Google buys to specific geographic areas because it doesn’t have to – it’s got enough money to blanket all states with them.

Which leads to my question about McCain’s camp. Is battleground state targeting a result of limited funds, or pure search strategy? It’s probably a blend of the two, but we’ll have to wait till after the election to find out for sure. Obama’s decision to run national ads is a novel one; McCain’s targeted approach is certainly the norm for political campaigns.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 17, 2008

Google Takes Out Personal Ad for Yahoo Deal Advocates

"Desperately seeking marketers to support the Yahoo search ad tie-up."

Well, not exactly. But TechCrunch reports the company's attorneys have directly contacted at least one large AdWords advertiser. The lawyer told this person, the proprietor of ReverseMortgageGuides.com, that the company was "looking for large advertisers who use both Google and Yahoo (we do) who would be willing to provide public testimonials in support of outsourcing Yahoo’s search ads to Google."

Here's the full text of Google's voice mail:

“Hi Darren my name is Donald Burke. I’m calling on behalf of Google to talk with Adwords advertisers about the new proposed Google/Yahoo Advertising Agreement. If you have a couple of minutes to talk with me, my number is…Thanks very much. Take care.”

And Darren's response: "I told him I’m a free-market competition kind of guy so he tried to address my concerns for about 15 minutes and then called it quits."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 16, 2008

More on Joe the Plumber

As the morning moved on, more businesses and organizations bidding on the keywords "Joe the Plumber" or "Joe Plumber" started to crowd the search engine results page on Yahoo and Google.

A plumbing service out of North Carolina called Mr. Rooter topped the sponsored listings on Yahoo with "Joe Plumber." While Donald Glovan is listed as the contact at Mr. Rooter -- and no Joe -- the business appears to have a connection to a Joe. That is, Joe, NC.

A directory of plumbers, hosted by Shapel Directory, also appears in the paid results for "Joe the Plumber," along with three other businesses.

Over at Google, the Obama-Biden campaign purchased the keywords that link to a Web site that includes a calculator. There, taxpayers can input their annual salary to see how Obama's tax plan would affect them.

Cafe Press, which makes custom T-shirts, joined in the fray with its "Joe the Plumber" T-shirt.

The screen grabs, below, show sponsored Yahoo results (left) next to those of Google.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

October 13, 2008

Tonight in NYC: Talk Search, Have a Drink in Hell's Kitchen

Together with my esteemed colleague Kevin Ryan, I'm talking search tonight at a Brandhacker MeetUp in New York at 7:00 p.m. - in my own Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.

Kevin will cover the fundamentals of paid search advertising, while I'll do likewise on the topic of organic search optimization. OK, so this is slightly smaller in scale than Search Engine Strategies or SMX. But at least you won't have to pay thousands of bucks to hear us expound on our favorite topic (unless it's Kevin's second-favorite topic, after "South Park").

Hope to see you there. You can RSVP for the free, pay-for-your-own-drinks event here.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 10, 2008

McCain's Search Man Calls Out Bad Search Coverage

Ouch. McCain's search marketing whiz Eric Frenchman has some strong words for search marketing firm SendTec for reporting what he calls "curious data" on the paid search efforts of the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns. He also tears into Mediapost for covering the information.

"SendTec and MediaPost should just stop trying to figure out what the two campaigns are doing when it comes to Search Marketing.... the campaigns are far more sophisticated than you observers give us credit for."

For the record, ClickZ News hasn't published any of SendTec's data in our Campaign '08 coverage, but that's not saying we won't. Also, many of us in the media are culprits of basing a story on what may be considered too narrow a scope of information. (The New York Times Mag's 'guys with cats' trend piece being, perhaps, the most egregious example of late).

Now, the other day, I wrote a post asking, "Where's McCain's Keating Search Response?" Knowing it probably would bristle the hairs on the back of Monsieur Frenchman's neck, I based it on several searches conducted out of ClickZ's Manhattan office. I know New York is not in play and the McCain campaign could very well be running ads based on Keating-related keywords in battleground states. I noted as much in the post, and also based my commentary on the fact that I saw no organic links to McCain's site to counteract the Keating/savings and loan scandal-related attacks against McCain.

Anyway, the reason media outlets cover these kinds of reports, or do stories based on searches from one location is because there's no other information available. We're curious, and there's just not much comprehensive data out there about how the campaigns are using paid search. As Gov. Palin might put it, "Doggone it, we wanna know!"

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 7, 2008

Where's McCain's Keating Search Response?

As McCain-running mate Sarah Palin pairs Barack Obama with “domestic terrorists,” the Obama camp is flinging mud right back. The campaign is counteracting the William Ayers-related attacks, while dredging up John McCain’s Keating 5 past.

You may have heard about the new site from the Obama campaign, which houses videos and links to news articles about his rival’s connections to the financial scandal we forgot about: the Savings and Loan crisis. McCain and four other Senators were investigated in ’89 for involvement in improperly intervening on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association at the time.

Google searches for “Keating 5,” “Keating,” and “McCain Keating” all turn up sponsored links to the site, paid for by the Obama campaign.

But where are the McCain sponsored links? There are zero ads linking to official information from the McCain campaign to counteract the negative Keating association. Of course, there is a chance the McCain camp is running ads against these phrases, but targeting them only to battleground states.

Another problem: the McCain site isn’t well optimized when it comes to the issue. None of the organic links on the first page of results for those searches goes to a McCain-affiliated page. In contrast, the Obama camp has used search to refute attacks throughout the election season. A search on “Obama Muslim” turns up a sponsored link that reads “Barack Obama is a Christian. Get the facts at his official site.”

As for the latest connecting Obama to William Ayers of Weather Underground fame, a sponsored Google link in search results for “Obama domestic terrorist” and “Obama Ayers” reads, “Obama Ayers Connection? FightTheSmears.com/Obama Don't Believe the Lies. Get Facts About Anti-Obama Swift Boating.”

The Republican National Committee is taking up the Ayers attack mantle, though. Those same searches turn up a link to BarackBook.com, a Facebook spoof naming Ayers as a member of Obama’s “Friend Feed.”

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

October 2, 2008

Dana Todd: (News)Force of Nature

Chair of SEMPO, partner in Sitelab, Dana Todd continues to be something of an interactive marketing force of nature. And now, she's one of the founders of a new advertising/PR hybrid play called Newsforce.

The newly-founded company places press releases - in their entirety - in premium ad positions on major publisher sites. Really major publisher sites, like WashingtonPost.com, USA Today, Time, and Slate.

As you'd imagine, Newsforce gets the PR game. Naturally, they're already generating their own media coverage.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 18, 2008

King of Search to Meet Queen of England

It seems the Queen's interest in the digital world has evolved since admitting, as she awarded Bill Gates with an honorary Knighthood in 2005, that she didn't own a computer.

Following the success of a dedicated RoyalChannel on YouTube, Her royal highness Queen Elizabeth II will pay a visit to Google's London headquarters on October 16 to tour the offices and meet staff, with husband the Duke of Edinburgh in tow.

The YouTube channel itself has racked up over 22,000 subscribers since launching in December, Google says. A statement from the search giant and YouTube owner read, "The Queen has a keen interest in technology and we're looking forward to showing our guests some of the exciting projects we're working on."

I had wondered if Elizabeth herself would be quite as excited by the prospect, but I came across a statement from Buckingham Palace stating, "The Queen supports all forms of new technology and pays interest to the latest developments."

That pretty much clears that up then: The Queen loves search.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 17, 2008

Can Sex Sell a Search Engine?

Really, Ask.com?

I'm trying to get some decent seats for the Neil Young show at the Garden in December and here I am, minding my own business on the Garden's site, when all of a sudden the seating chart page starts giving me a lap dance. OK, not quite, but it does automate a video ad for Ask.com featuring a chick in next-to-nothing gyrating on a pole.

"What are the Best Aerobic Workouts?" The ad inquires. "Need Answers? Just Ask.com." Hey, if I were getting my daily fix of Maxim, I'd expect this sort of ad. But sitting here in the middle of an open office trying to accomplish a utilitarian online task with a poll dancer going at it on my monitor is not what I bargained for.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 10, 2008

Click or No Click, Google Says Paid Search Pays

Position matters in paid search, according to Google.

The search engine released findings of custom research performed by Millward Brown on its behalf. And Sprint was the guinea pig in this project.

The goal was to determine the value of an impression beyond the click, measure the impact of paid search ads, and find out how much search placement matters.

Brand recall was greater in the top-sponsored position, and was reduced in lower positions, the study found. You don't even need a click to increase branding. "When you get a search impression, it's free," a tech commerce marketing manager at Google told me. "It's an expanded way to use search in strategy."

The research reinforced a conversation I had with another Google executive. In a recent interview, Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik, said on any given day Google is conducting around 150 to 200 experiments worldwide. To hear about the study and how the team tested search engine results pages (SERP) with sponsored links from Sprint high on the page, or not there at all, is just another example of how the Google continues to tune its engine.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 4, 2008

U.K. Marketers Neglecting Site Usability, Blinded by Paid Search

Businesses are focusing too much of their online marketing budgets on paid search instead of ensuring they have usable and customer-friendly Web sites, according to research commissioned by U.K. digital consultancy Rawnet.

The company's 2008 Online Conversion Report, released today, suggests that 78 percent of British consumers have been put off from dealing with companies because of usability flaws on their sites. In addition, one in five people have found that the most creative and spectacular sites are usually difficult to navigate, the report says.

Rawnet's managing director, Adam Smith, believes that marketers are too "preoccupied" with search rankings and expensive paid search listings, than they are with converting subsequent leads to sales.

Speaking with me yesterday, he said, "It's easy to just throw money at Google, but marketers can put their budgets to better use. In tighter economic conditions getting that lead, sale, or enquiry is far more important than simply boosting your Web site's traffic."

He added, "A shocking number of companies are losing out on a massive amount of potential business simply because their Web design agency has focused too much on what looks great, or too much on non-essential technical features, and failed to actually produce a Web site that works for the business."

The research report was commissioned by Rawnet and conducted by YouGov, which polled a sample of around 2,000 U.K. adults.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 29, 2008

Microsoft Nabs European Shopping Search Player

Microsoft has entered a deal to acquire Greenfield Online, an attitudinal researcher and owner of European comparison shopping player Ciao GmbH, for $486 million. Microsoft's in it strictly for the shopping search platform, which it dubs "commercial search," and has already found an (undisclosed) buyer for the research/survey business.

"Integrating Ciao's capabilities into Live Search will provide a strong launchpad for our commercial search offer in Europe and enhance our e-commerce offering on MSN," said John Mangelaars, consumer and online VP for Microsoft's operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Ciao boasts 26.5 million monthly uniques in seven countries, according to comScore numbers cited by Microsoft. It aggregates merchant and product reviews and enable purchases in a manner similar to U.S. sites like eBay-owned Shopping.com.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yahoo Set to Run First Google Search Ads in October

Eric Schmidt tells the Seattle Times that Google and Yahoo still plan to move ahead with their search advertising deal in October, despite recent questions from the Senate about whether the arrangement will raise prices for advertisers.

"We are going to move forward," Schmidt said Thursday. "We are in the process of talking to the government. They've not indicated one way or the other how they're dealing with us."

When the companies paired up in June, they said they'd delay implementation for up to three and a half months to allow a U.S. Justice Department review, though such a postponement isn't required by law. In a July 15 hearing, a Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concerns the pact would remove an important check on Google's dominance of the search advertising market.

Schmidt's conclusion: "We always worry a little bit, but we think our arguments are pretty strong."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 22, 2008

Verizon Wireless Searching for Deal

Verizon and Google may be close to a search deal for the carrier's wireless customers, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Journal says, "It's the latest sign that telecom companies are finally conceding that their homegrown search services have stalled -- and that they need help from the Internet's big guns."

What it all could mean for Verizon's ad relationships with AOL and Millennial Media remains to be seen.

This may just be about finding the right partner, as Google is the most used search provider on the Web. In July it maintained a 61.9 percent market share, according to comScore. Putting aside past disagreements and competition -- on things such as the spectrum auction and Google Android -- Verizon sees that Google has already gained some dominance on the handset. Google held 61 percent of the mobile search market share in Q1, according to Nielsen Online.

Verizon has worked with white label mobile search provider Medio for some time now, which has included search and advertising. The article speculates Medio will manage the relationship between the carrier and Google. For display advertising, Verizon currently splits its inventory. AOL's Platform-A sells the lion's share, and Millennial Media also sells a portion.

Will Google be happy with just search? It's got mobile display ads. That may be down the line. The Journal says the next deal after mobile search could be a Google search box in Verizon's broadband and TV services.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 19, 2008

Where Search Is Headed

Yesterday's Search Engine Strategies session on universal and blended search provided search engine marketers with updates on newer features offered by Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask.com, and smaller engines such as BooRah and Cooliris.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it there -- with five simultaneous sessions to choose from at one time, it's impossible to be in more than one place at one time. You know the drill.

Check out "Search Engines Search for Better Understanding" by SF Chronicle business journalist Deborah Gage.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2008

ShopWiki Focuses on Storefront Deals & Global Expansion

ShopWiki may be the best shopping search engine you don't know about. Because it's crawler-based, it doesn't rely on managed XML feeds as do its better-known competitors over at Yahoo, Google, Shopping.com and the plethora of other comparison shopping engines. And because it searches the whole Web, CEO Rory Cumming says it delivers the lowest price about 80 percent of the time.

I caught up with Rory yesterday. He came on board last Fall, along with a fresh infusion of funding. He's focused on optimizing the site for search, as well as on international expansion. The first week the site launched a German version, it garnered more traffic than Shopping.com in that country. His sights are also set on Australia, France, the UK and the Netherlands.

At home, he's taking another approach: creating storefront technology for sites too small or unwilling to create and manage feeds for the larger shopping search engines. He's also struck a deal with a motorcycle afterparts dealer, and a high-end luxury goods browsing site is also on the drawing board.

ShopWiki's edge, he claims, is shopping's long tail -- its ability to help consumers find products they otherwise couldn't easily find online. It works really well at that, too.

SEO is going to be the ongoing challenge. Virtually all the site's traffic comes from Google -- a fact that applies to other shopping search engines as well.

Cracking the code of shopping search customer retention could remain the sector's impossible dream.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 5, 2008

Click Fraud As A Career?

Stumbled upon this salary benchmark information on Indeed.com.

No mention of benefits, but $93K to click? Not bloody likely.

Sounds like click fraud perpetrators are scamming the clickers as much as they are search engines and their advertisers.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 3, 2008

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Collaborate for IAB U.K. Search Help Site

The Interactive Advertising Bureau U.K. has launched its dedicated Search Help Centre, offering advice to marketers on best practices, policy and legal regulation regarding search marketing.

Content for the site is supplied by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, alongside a panel of agencies and advertisers from the IAB U.K.'s Search Council.

The free resource is intended to provide regularly updated information on issues surrounding trademarks, copyright, invalid clicks, click fraud, user privacy, and intellectual property. It will also include help and advice for advertisers on how to go about hiring a search agency.

Intellectual property will form a key focus for the center. An IAB U.K. release issued today read, "Protecting intellectual property is a growing area of concern because it has become extremely valuable, therefore marketers need to understand what campaign property they own and how to protect it.”

Jack Wallington, chair of the IAB Search Council told me, “For advertisers this is important because they may not be aware of the increasing value of [intellectual property] in search marketing and how to handle and protect it. For agencies it will become a larger issue because they need to decide exactly what they are willing to share with each other and their clients – what is and isn’t competitive information for instance.”

He added that the IAB now recommends making intellectual property a key consideration when starting a relationship with an agency.

The Help Centre resource goes live today.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 15, 2008

iPhone Applications, Google, and PPC

Over the weekend, a Google search for "iPhone applications" turned up an assortment of sponsored links.

Google Mobile appeared as the top sponsored link in the right-hand column. (See right.) Visitors who clicked on that link were directed to applications, including maps and search, designed for the iPhone or BlackBerry.

And, AT&T was touting its "Media Mall," a site to download games , ringtones, and other applications for cell phones. AT&T is the exclusive provider of the Apple iPhone.

And Apple appeared in the sponsored links that appear across the top of the search engine results page, along with Zinio, which was promoting magazines for the iPhone.

For the words, "AT&T and iPhone," Google Mobile also turned up as the top sponsored link, followed by AT&T Internet, which was promoting DSL service for $19.95 a month.

The estimated average CPC for the keywords "phone application" was $2.24, while "cell phone application" was $2.74, according to Google AdWords. It did not show an estimate for "iPhone application."

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 30, 2008

'Sex and the City' and Search

The opening today of "Sex and the City," the movie, got search engine marketers into action, using paid search on Google and Yahoo to promote everything from bling (GiltyCouture and Ziamond), to ringtones, to an online video site (MyHubTV).

What, no Manolo Blahniks?

Yahoo paid search results, below.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

Ads See Light of Day on Google Image Search

When a Google exec mentions in an interview the search giant is thinking about a new ad product, it's hard to say whether it will become available to advertisers tomorrow, next quarter, or be swept under the virtual rug. In early May Marissa Mayer said in a Bloomberg Radio interview that monetization of its Image Search was something Google was considering. It was hard to read from the interview, though many interpreted her response as a done deal, when we might see image ads with our image results. Depending on your search queries, that day may be today.

At Google's factory tour it was discussed that the ad format was being tested. A Google spokesperson provided further information for ClickZ. "As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation and to help users find new and better ways of getting the information they're looking for, we are currently conducting a small test to show ads on the results page for Google Image Search. The experiment is restricted to a limited number of U.S. advertisers."

A few random searches turned up no ads so far.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 7, 2008

Google Dominates Europe, but Eastern EU Sites Gain Share

Today, ComScore released its March data on European search engine market share. Unsurprisingly Google sites came out on top, commanding 79 percent of searches across the continent. Yahoo and Microsoft came in fourth and fifth place, each with about 2 percent of search market share, respectively.

Worth noting however, is the increasing share for engines in the Eastern European markets, which are dominated by non-English language search technology.

Two Polish properties, Nasza-Klaska.pl and QCL Ricardo have shown considerable relative growth in comparison to ComScore's February figures. Nasza-Klaska.pl clocked up 1.3 percent of European searches in March, up from 1.1 percent in February. QCL Ricardo also increased to 1.2 percent in March.

In addition, Yandex, Russia's premier search facility trumped both Microsoft and Yahoo with its 2.2 percent share, slightly below the 2.3 percent it managed in February.

"With Russia's online population now the fastest growing in Europe, it is likely that some of these local search engines will continue to gain traction and market share," Jack Flanagan, EVP of comScore said in a statement.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 30, 2008

Politics, Religion, Race, and Paid Search

A day after Senator Barack Obama denounced his former pastor and his statements, a search for "rev. wright" brought up these sponsored results:

The first to appear comes from PreachingSermonsToday.com. The site says it has over 300 sermons for sale, including the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s "The Audacity to Hope" speech. It's available as a Word file for $4.95.

Another paid link, labeled "The Audacity of Hate," leads to a column in the Philadelphia Church of God's publication. The "audacious message of hate…does little in the way of helping the black community," Steven Flurry, the columnist, writes.

"Jeremiah Wright Supported," links to a site registered to Boyce Watkins, a CNN commentator, a finance prof, and self-described "huge fan" of Rev. Wright. "The point that Pastor Wright makes is both correct and clear: America is a racist country. It has been in the past and continues to be to this day," Watkins writes.

And they say politics and religion don't mix. Need further proof?

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

IAC Earnings: Rising Google Lifts All Search Partners

IAC's media and advertising revenues enjoyed a Q1 boost thanks to the company's renewed ad partnership with Google. Ask.com improved both its revenue per query and overall revenues during the period, "even excluding the benefits of the renewed contract." However it's clear from IAC's statement that the company's buddy up in Mountain View deserves much credit for its solid search performance, especially considering total queries were down. A reduced marketing budget also helped profits.

Meanwhile, there was predictable pain over in IAC's Lending Tree unit, which is set to be spun off along with other non-advertising businesses. The company noted it had lowered its marketing investment for lending products, which translates to reduced spending on online lead generation. Again, no surprise there.

IAC's not the only Google partner sitting pretty today. Another party to benefit greatly from its relationship with the borg is TW's AOL, which today reported strength in search advertising thanks in part to the relationship. Meanwhile display advertising revenue on its own sites shrank -- largely due to anticipated factors, it should be said.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Clinton: Bitter about Search Ads?

McCain remains the clear frontrunner in paid search, and Clinton isn't spending much at all. While more Web users from all political persuasions searched for "Barack Obama" than "Hillary Clinton" or "John McCain," McCain is still number one in paid search.

According to a new iCrossing report, McCain's camp spent an estimated 60 percent of the total spent by the three top presidential candidates. Obama came in with 25 percent and Clinton an estimated 15 percent. Just how much that is in actual dollars is unclear.

"McCain is also the only candidate with paid coverage on competitors’ names in addition to his own, including candidate keywords hillary clinton, barack obama, obama, and clinton," notes the report, released today. I'm not sure how many years Web consultants have been telling political campaigns to buy their opponents' names....

The presumptive Republican nominee's campaign (i.e., mainly this guy) did the bulk of issue-based search ad spending among the three hopefuls. McCain spent an estimated 70 percent of dollars spent on issue-based keywords, including abortion, border security, campaign spending, Republican nomination, and universal healthcare, among others. Obama accounted for the remaining 30 percent, with paid links showing up in results for Democratic nomination and Democratic party.

The study follows up on a similar one conducted by the search firm last July. At the time, McCain's campaign also led the way in paid search.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008

Rapping SEMPO at SESNY

At SES New York SEMPO hosted an entertaining gathering where Chuck Lewis, AKA MOserious performed a very special rap for the search industry audience.

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 11, 2008

Eliot Spitzer, Pay to Play

A newspaper and a retailer that sells surveillance devices each bought the keywords "Eliot Spitzer" on Google a day after the news broke that the New York governor was allegedly a customer of a high-end prostitution ring.

Newsday.com, the Web site for the Long Island, NY, based newspaper, calls attention to its coverage of the Spitzer scandal. The sponsored result, headlined "Spitzer Prostitution Ring," promises news, pics, and gossip about the guv.

Brickhouse Security sends visitors to a landing page, "Catch a Cheating Spouse" that features for sale semen detection test kits, covert GPS trackers, and other items.

Not to be outdone, NYPost.com also purchased the keywords, "Eliot Spitzer," promising readers: "New York Post has Complete New York Coverage. Check it Out!"

On the other hand, there's no takers for the keywords, "Emperor's Club VIP," the name of the escort service that apparently arranged the tryst.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 10, 2008

Murdoch: News Corp. Won't Fight Microsoft for Yahoo

Speaking at the Bear Stearns Media Conference in Florida today, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch put to bed rumors of a possible tie-up with Yahoo, stating, "We're not going to get into a fight with Microsoft, they have a lot more money than us."

He went on to say that Yahoo had "missed out" in the search arena by failing to invest in Overture quickly enough after acquiring it in 2003. He added "We're very happy to be in the Google camp; they sell our search advertising and pay us well for it."

Speaking further on social networks, Murdoch said that existing sites should attempt to introduce social aspects to their offerings. He suggested that News Corp. may attempt something along the social network lines with its Wall Street Journal site, and that users would be "interested to talk to each other about their investments."

When asked about future deals, Murdoch said he was not looking for big acquisitions, but may be tempted into some smaller ones. He added that he was cautious of the high price tags assigned to online properties at present, and that it would be "very easy to throw away a lot of money on Internet sites."

Regarding the current financial climate, News Corp. is apparently in "good shape" to face a weakened economy, having reduced its dependency on advertising from 41 percent to 23 percent of revenue.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 7, 2008

Obama SEO Wins and Losses

Apparently a lot of people want to know whether Barack Obama is a Muslim. So they Google things like, "Barack Obama Muslim." At Wednesday's Politics Online Conference in Washington, D.C., search marketing consultants discussed how SEO can be used to counteract the barrage of negative results appearing in such searches. One way the site could improve rankings: if the page title were more specific.

A listing linking to BarackObama.com scores points for linking to a very relevant page, which states the candidate is a "committed Christian," and includes lots of video and text supporting that. However, the page title is totally generic: "Barack Obama/Change We Can Believe In."

Another Obama SEO error: the homepage features a giant image and lacks sufficient text, so as far as search crawlers are concerned, the page may as well be blank.

I guess Obama site optimizers can also make a few...er...changes.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 5, 2008

Does Ask.com Matter to Marketers?

You may have read that Ask.com has cut 8 percent of its work force and plans to bring back the questions-based query model preferred by its core audience of women in the Bible and Rust Belts. Reuters and WSJ separately reported details on the business decision yesterday.

The search community clearly hates this development, which it sees as helping pave the way (along with Microsoft's bid for Yahoo) for a duopoly in search. Ask had become known in recent years as "the little engine that could," and with its move today the company has given up being a real contender in search.

Ask doesn't matter a ton to marketers since it outsources most of its advertising to Google. However it does offer placements across its own search and content network through Ask Sponsored Listings. I won't be surprised if that program becomes more lucrative in the short term, as Ask narrows its focus on women in the heartland.

The long term is a different story. Over time, the new strategy will lead to searcher attrition and eventually obsolescence as all those thirty and forty year old women become fifty and sixty year old women, then seventy and eighty... well, you get the idea. As for future Ask.com acolytes, there will be none. Who really believes all the twenty-something girls in the Midwest are suddenly going to hit thirty and give up Google for Ask?

Update: Ask challenged some of my suppositions above, including that the company will focus completely on women. "We don't agree that there won't be future Ask acolytes," a spokesperson said during a lengthy discussion this morning. "We have to and we're going to tip our hat to that key demographic [women], but there are a lot of factors that go into this strategy."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 29, 2008

ComScore Weighs in on Google Click Volume Debacle Sparked by Its Data

Earlier this week, when comScore set off a GOOG selling frenzy on Wall Steet with data showing click rate growth had flattened, I called the research firm for comment but to no avail. Amazing what 48 hours can bring. After a continued outcry, comScore has now issued a lengthy statement with additional data and charts (previously unavailable to non-clients) arguing, basically, that everyone should just calm down. Here's the money quote:

While we do not claim that these concerns are unwarranted, we believe a careful analysis of our search data does not lend them direct support. More specifically, the evidence suggests that the softness in Google’s paid click metrics is primarily a result of Google’s own quality initiatives that result in a reduction in the number of paid listings and, therefore, the opportunity for paid clicks to occur.

ComScore also shared the following chart, which demonstrates that click rates declined for much of last year, long before economic fears began bleeding into the nation's collective consciousness. It also shows how ad coverage, defined as the percentage of queries that display at least one ad, has declined roughly in parallel to click volume growth.

So you see, comScore says, Google is pumping fewer ads to its users and receiving fewer clicks in return. ComScore theorizes that reduction will be counterbalanced by an increase in revenue per query under the click quality initiative

On a separate but related note, agency heavy SearchIgnite has said it's seen none of the click volume declines described by comScore data, nor revenue shortfalls either. The agency, which claims to represent $200 million in search spending, said ad impressions for the first six weeks of 2008 were up 79.5 percent year over year, while paid clicks were up 47.2 percent. Additionally, ad spending on Google grew by 40.1 percent among the same group of clients (In other words the data doesn't include new business).

SearchIgnite's research should not be considered representative of the search industry at large, as it's just one agency with a defined group of clients who all share one thing in common: they follow SearchIgnite's advice. But then, can comScore's data be treated as really representative of consumers' click behaviors? After all, the company was seriously challenged by the IAB last year, and publishers of all stripes love to take potshots at its audience and traffic estimates.

My take continues to be that while the click rate fall-off is not necessarily the result of a lack of consumer confidence, a lack of confidence is bound to result in a reduction in click volume. More succinctly: No, Google's not insulated from a recession and no, comScore's findings are not (necessarily) a bad sign.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 26, 2008

Leap Year: Let's Party

Are you a Leaper?

Some calendar challenged people, going by the name of The Quadrennial Council, want your attention -- and sympathy.

"People born on leap day suffer more than most know," reads the council's Web site.

How so? "Retirees charged and arrested for under-aged drinking," the site says.

The council, which says it's based in "Leaptown, DE," purchased keywords on Google for "leap year parties."

Headed up by "Bjorn A. Leepur," the council contends it wants to improve the lives of people born on Feb. 29. It's calling for Feb. 29 to be added to the calendar each and every year.

The man (and woman) behind the curtain appear to be a PR team based in Alexandria, VA: Bremmer & Goris Communications. The firm registered the domain name, leapday08.com.

Okay, so where's the party?

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 22, 2008

European Regulators Delay Verdict on Search Data Storage

EU regulators have delayed their verdict on the length of time that search engines such as Google and Yahoo can legally retain user data.

At a meeting in Brussels this week, The Article 29 data protection Working Party continued discussions on the matter, but did not deliver the draft opinion it was expected to.

Google has already cut the amount of time it retains search data to 18 months in response to criticism from the Working Party last June. Microsoft followed suit, while Yahoo cut its retention to 13 months. Search engine Ask.com now allows users to erase their data entirely.

Search engines fall under an EU Data Protection Directive if they are collecting users' IP addresses or search history. The directive applies to companies outside of the EU, providing they have an establishment within an EU member state.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 20, 2008

A Vegan's Search Recipe: Beef Recall

What do the Humane Society of the United States and "The New York Times" have in common?

Each purchased the keywords for "beef recall" on Google, giving the organizations the top placement this morning on Google's search engine results page. By buying the keywords, each organization stands to drive traffic to their sites.

The Times refers Web visitors to its business news coverage of the nation's largest beef recall. About 143 million pounds of beef have been recalled from the Wetland/Hallmark Meat Company after the Humane Society released a video showing plant workers kicking injured cows and using electric prods and forklifts to make move.

The Humane Society connects visitors to its Factory Farming Campaign, including a video that depicts the cruel treatment of sick cows at the slaughterhouse. The advocacy group also provides a call to action: animal rights proponents can fill out a form urging U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Edward Schafer to toughen federal policy and prohibit sick cattle from becoming part of the food supply.

Three other sponsored links appear in the right-column of Google's search engine results page today: Levick Strategic Communications, a crisis communications firm; Revolution Health, a health and medical information site; and SparkPeople, also a health site and online community.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 1, 2008

Microsoft Wants to Buy Yahoo: Convergence, Continued

There have been rumors of late about some sort of Microsoft/Yahoo hookup -- and here it is. Microsoft just tendered a $31/share bid for Yahoo. All of Yahoo.

It's about the advertising. From the press release: "The online advertising market is growing at a very fast pace, from over $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. The resulting benefits of scale along with the associated capital costs for advertising platform providers make this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners."

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO said in a statement: "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market."

After the jump, Ballmer's letter to Yahoo board members. We'll be following developments closely, promise.

Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft's closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!'s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft's share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that "now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction." According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board's confidence in the "potential upside" if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

-- Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale
economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one
competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and
non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value
proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the
combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.
-- Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering
resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search
index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new
levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences,
breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities.
Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that
today neither of our companies has on its own.
-- Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and
duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of
the combined entity.
-- Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering
resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video,
mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is
greatly enhanced.

We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.

Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!'s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 28, 2008

Microsoft Live Search: Left, Right and Sony

Branded search terms are more effective than generic search terms, according to a survey conducted by Microsoft and comScore for Sony. Following a two month online panel conducted by comScore of Sony ads on Microsoft Live Search last summer, the survey found that search ads with branded terms were 15 percent more effective at driving brand lift than those with generic terms. They also increased the likelihood of viewers recommending Sony to others by 14.8 percent and that branded search ads yielded a 14.5 percent increase in purchase intent.

As the research was conducted of the Sony brand, the electronics company declined to give Microsoft permission to describe the base numbers associated with the survey and held them to only describing the proportional changes, Beth Uyenco, global research director for Microsoft digital advertising solutions told me. She also said it took several months for approvals to pass between the two companies before the results could now be released. Even so "we found that branded search works much more effectively at the bottom of the funnel, in terms of lifting things like purchase intent and likelihood to recommend. Generic search works well among consumers who are still in the very broad mindset."

Uyenco also said the survey found that aside from actually visiting a store to handle a product before purchasing it, "search is the second most useful tool in product research, and we kinda of knew that."

Separately, Microsoft Live Search is getting into the political swing of things in this election year, and has launched a "political satire" version of its Live Search site. Titled LeftvsRight, the site lets users not only search for whatever term they are interested in, but it also includes snarky comments from two commentators akin to a "Face the Nation" program. The two video hosts, Patrick O’Neil representing the liberal left and Britt Hayes the conservative right, trade barbs as search results are displayed between them. The site was created by McCann Worldgroup San Francisco.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

iCrossing integrates British Search Brand 'Spannerworks'

British based search and social media specialist Spannerworks is to be re-branded iCrossing, almost a year after it was acquired by the U.S. digital agency.

Former Spannerworks CEO and founder Arjo Ghosh has been named CEO of iCrossing U.K. Ghosh will be based in Brighton, and will lead the company's development and operations within Europe.

Jeffrey Herzog, founder and global CEO of iCrossing stated in a press release, "For the past year, Spannerworks and iCrossing have been operating as one company, with a shared belief that search is the common pathway to all digital marketing. One brand, supported by this common belief, will fortify iCrossing’s position in the global marketplace and strengthen our ability to deliver global digital marketing programs to our clients."

Last week Ghosh was also appointed chair of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising's (IPA) search council.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 23, 2008

Roost's Bullish on Real Estate Search

A San Francisco startup today has jumped into the online real estate advertising and marketing fray, joining Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate, ZipRealty, RealtyTrac, Cyberhomes, HouseFront, and others.

"What are you drinking?" ClickZ asked Roost CEO Alex Chang. "Lots of coffee," Chang replied, laughing.

With the housing market in turmoil, why another real estate site now? Turning serious, Chang says Roost's a search engine for homes, similar to a meta search engine for a vertical such as travel. No coincidence, then, travel site Kayak.com directors Greg Slyngstad and Joel Cutler sit on Roost's board.

Under its business model, Roost charges on a cost per click (CPC) basis for traffic sent to brokers' and agents' sites. He declines to disclose the company's rates, but says rates will vary by market based on demand.

"Roost is totally focused on search. The actual search experience is cleaner and faster [than other sites]. We're not trying to create content. We're great at search and delivering high quality traffic to our partners on a CPC basis," he says.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 15, 2008

The Truth About Cats & Dogs

Your dog's not fetch-optimized?

Your cat's not curious?

Check out this Search Engine Strategies New York session: "How to Train Your Pets to Search."

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 8, 2008

Search Wikia Launches: Could Community Search Kill SEO?

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales yesterday unveiled an "alpha" version of his open source community-driven search engine, 'Wikia Search.' The basic premise is that instead of using a typical algorithm to prioritize search results, users can rate them on relevance.

I had a play with the site today, and it appears this will initially take the form of a simple five star rating system placed alongside each search result -- though the system is not yet active.

Although Wales insists the engine could eventually become a significant player in the search space, its reliance on user feedback means that it will take some time to become effective. As a result, don't expect it to challenge Google in terms of depth and relevance of results any time soon.

It does however raise some interesting questions surrounding the future of SEO, SEM and paid search. For one, the advent of user recommendation places emphasis back on the quality and relevance of site content, rather than optimized copy and metadata. Of course, should socialized search take off, marketers may find new ways to subvert and profit from the results.

Search Wikia will have no relation to Wikipedia, and will instead come under the umbrella of Wales' for-profit organization, Wikia Inc. That suggests it will still present marketing opportunities in some form, perhaps as Google-style sponsored links.

Meanwhile, Google is trying to take a bite out of Wales's empire with the development of its own user-generated online encyclopaedia to rival Wikipedia. Called 'Knol', the service will allow users to generate and edit content.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 31, 2007

NJ Senator Already Running Search Ads

I’m doing some research on search ads targeted to issue-based keywords by political campaigns. Lo and behold, a Google search on “Iraq War” turned up an ad for none other than my octogenarian New Jersey Senator, Frank Lautenberg.

Protecting America
Read About Senator Lautenberg
& His Plan to End the War in Iraq
www.LautenbergForNJ.com

A search for "end iraq war" results in a similar ad:
It's Time to End the War
Read About Senator Lautenberg
& His Plan to End the War in Iraq
www.LautenbergForNJ.com

The ads link to an Iraq-centric page on Lautenberg’s reelection site, which states, “Senator Lautenberg strongly disapproves of President Bush's handling of the Iraq War and, just as strongly, supports our troops.”

It doesn’t come right out and say the soon-to-be 84-year-old will run for another term, but the site's navigation button to “Contribute. Help Frank Stand Strong for New Jersey” is a pretty good indication. And the fact his campaign is running search ads makes it pretty obvious.

Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 28, 2007

InfoSpace Completes $135M Sale of Mobile Business to Motricity

Motricity, a company that builds and runs mobile storefronts for carriers, said today it completed the $135 million acquisition of InfoSpace's mobile services business.

InfoSpace's mobile services unit provides the portal and search functions for AT&T and Verizon in the United States; Motricity offers a storefront, catalog, and other applications that enables its customers to offer ringtones, games, and other content on mobile devices.

InfoSpace, moving forward, will focus on growing its online search business, according to a statement from Jim Voelker, InfoSpace chief executive. InfoSpace's metasearch technology is used by other Web sites such as Dogpile and WebFetch.

Ryan Wuerch remains as Motricity's chairman and chief executive, while Steve Elfman, former executive vice president of InfoSpace's mobile services business unit, becomes Motricity's president and chief operating officer.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 11, 2007

Verizon Gets Evil-er

Net neutrality opponent Verizon is busy on other fronts in its efforts to break the Internet -- and to profit in the process.

Last June, the broadband provider announced a plan to "help" users who mistype domain names into their browsers by redirecting to an "Advanced Web Search" page bearing Yahoo search results -- and Yahoo Publisher Network's ads on Verizon's own pages. This DNS redirect service allows the ISP to profit off of its users' errors (but they aren't always errors, as I'll illustrate below), while at the same time overriding other search pages and, as Verizon acknowledges, causing other potential technical problems.

Recently, many of Verizon's high-speed FiOS customers in varying pockets of the country have fallen victim to the hijacking, which seems to be spreading. My Brooklyn-based friend (and Verizon DSL customer) Steve shot me an enraged e-mail the other day full of examples of how Verizon is hijacking not mistyped URLs, but rather the "naked domains" (to coin a phrase) virtually all experienced users have been trained to type in the address fields of their browsers.

The examples he provided include typing "google" (rather than painstakingly typing "http://www.google.com"), "gmail," "apple" and "gawker." As Steve put it, "It goes to a Verizon page with a bunch of clickly links and the URLs in eensy-teensy type below...I can type other things and it behaves normally...but this thing is a freakin' ROADBLOCK."

And it happened out of the blue. My friend is no Web savant, but he's reasonably Web savvy. Verizon is quite obviously overriding his Firefox browser.

Verizon's DNS redirects are not, as the company claims, helping customers who make typos. They're leveraging -- and hijacking -- established Internet user behavior. Overwhelmingly, users type naked brand names directly into their browsers' address fields, confident they'll get to their intended destination. Unless, of course, they're Verizon customers. The redirects can strike anywhere, anytime.

Oh, but Verizon is playing the opt-out card. Only way too subtly, and making opting out of these redirects way too difficult for the average user. See any opt-out instructions on this Advanced Web Search page? Hint: click the "About This Page" button in the upper right hand corner. The link takes you to an about page with yet more links for opting out (depending on the type of service you subscribe to. You're then presented with a long list hardware options, each with its own set of opt-out configuration instructions.

But wait -- it gets even worse. For kicks, I clicked on the Westell Ethernet Modem Verizon provided me with for my DSL service, only to find the message "to change the DNS server settings in this modem to opt out of the DNS Assistance, you must change your DNS settings in your operating system."

Another click to find those instructions reveals a dead end. Verizon only provides information for changing DNS settings for various Windows platforms. Mac owners (like Steve and I) have just followed six links to nowheresville. As he put it, "somewhere {there's an opt-out option, but then it seems unduly complicated."

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 30, 2007

Clock Ticks on E-Tailer SEO Plans for Holidays

On your marks, get set… "Merchants have less than a 30 day window from now, until roughly the end of November, to get some of those last-minute structural changes in place," said Brian Klais, VP of search at Madison, Netconcepts, a Madison, WI-based search engine marketing firm. He's referring to search engine optimization, and getting Web sites running smoothly and cataloged by the search engines. At the top of the list are cleaning up structural changes in URLs, fixing any 301 redirect issues, and reviewing on-page content.

"What retailers can do now with very little spare time is to think about merchandising strategies. If free shipping is featured in the merchandising mix, then retailers can maximize the offer by keeping an eye on those dates for searchers," Klais advised. He went on with a few tips: Make sure the title tags and the content on the pages have an offer within. Include the words free shipping in the title tag. "It might be enough to convert searcher activity into a click and then into a sale," he said.

Ideally, SEO will be in place by mid-November for most retailers, if it's not already done, in order to allow for indexing by the search engines. That requires about a two-week buffer to obtain proper indexing and link juice, according to Klais.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 23, 2007

Search Continues to Drive NYTimes Co Traffic and Revenue

The New York Times Co's digital business revenues grew 26.5 percent in Q3 over the same quarter of '06, the company said during today's earnings call. The firm's digital businesses, which include its flagship site and About.com, accounted for 11 percent of total revenue.

As far as online ad revenue breakouts, the company said display ads account for over 40 percent of online ad dollars, 23 percent comes from classifieds and 15 percent comes from sales of its paid archives.

SEO is directing much of the traffic that's driving the firm's steady online growth. "Over the long term, we expect to see the scale and inventory benefits that accrue to us through [SEO] significantly outweighing the revenue stream" from "the paid tier," said SVP and CFO James Follo.

Follo also noted some recent digital-only advertisers on NYTimes.com, including Amex and Tiffany. Chanel was another; the luxury brand promoted a watch via a homepage image of the timepiece displaying the correct time.

The company will introduce a new online property, T Online, to complement its T Magazine style print mag in early December. "We're in the process of selling this exciting new digital magazine to luxury advertisers," said President and CEO Janet Robinson.

Other significant Web related events in Q3 included a restructuring of About's operations, including the hiring of additional sales staff, as well as the launch of a new NYTimes.com branding campaign with the slogan, "All the News That's Fit to Click."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mozilla Revenues Soar with Search Marketing Fortunes

Mozilla continues to grow by leaps and bounds, largely owing to the long-standing search distribution deal between Firefox and Google. Between its open source foundation and its corporate arm, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker yesterday reported 2006 revenues were $67 million, up 26 percent from 2005, when we first looked closely at the foundation's results. The money comes from payments Google makes to Mozilla with every search query originating from Firefox. The foundation gets the cash regardless of whether a searcher clicks an ad, though a Mozilla source suggested the amount of its commission rises when ads are clicked.

All total, Mozilla now has some $74 million in the bank, money its using to expand its open source programs and to fund accessibility initiatives for the blind and disabled. It gave $300,000 to such efforts in 2006, an amount it calls "a small first step."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Eyes Have It

Congratulations to our longtime paid search columnist Kevin Lee. His new (and first) book, The Eyes Have It: How to Market in an Age of Divergent Consumers, Media Chaos and Advertising Anarchy, was just released.

It's so new, we haven't even received our review copy yet, but we do know that in the book Kevin addresses digital marketing issues far beyond the scope of search alone. Topics include how marketers can know if their agency is capable of executing a profitable digital marketing campaigns; how agencies can ensure they remain competitive; how to build an in-house digital marketing team; auction-based media markets; and media planning in a dynamic digital environment.

If you follow Kevin's columns on this site, or have ever heard him speak on digital marketing (which he does virtually non-stop), you know this is one book that's going to be worth picking up.

Good going, Kevin!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 10, 2007

The Opposite of SEO

You probably don't want to do this for your business...

Tonight, I'm meeting a friend at a super-secret new New York City bar. You have to know the address. You have to know the phone number. You have to know how to get in, which involves an access code for a telephone booth at the back of an innocuous hot dog stand which opens a concealed panel, Get Smart-style.

Would you believe a place this secret has a Web site? Well, they do. An opposite-of-optimized Web site. The URL is an acronym of the bar's name. There's no metadata. There aren't any links. And all the text (which consists only of a name and a phone number) is contained in a graphic.

It's an almost perfect example of how to build a Web site that's nearly impossible to find.

Unless your business is mega hyper-buzzworthy, I wouldn't try this at home. (And sorry, I can't provide the URL -- they'd never let me in!)

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 5, 2007

The Halo Effect

Microsoft reported "Halo 3" reached $300 million in sales in its first seven days at retail. The attention spread to the Web with a 150 percent increase in searches for the term "halo 3" in the four weeks ending September 29, 2007, according to Hitwise. People primarily searched for the game's skulls, release date (September 25), cheats, weapons, and reviews.

At Advertising Week held in New York last week I met with Microsoft and Massive executives, and attended a handful of panels on in-game advertising. The coveted title is and always will be off limits to in-game advertising, but there are ways to align your brand with "Halo" and other out-of-boundaries games. There is "around game advertising" which is largely sponsorships of tournaments both online and offline, inserts in boxes, co-branding promotions, and advertising on enthusiast Web sites. Discovery Channel entered a strong co-branding opportunity with Halo's Master Chief to promote its "Last One Standing" show where Master Chief played as a contestant, and headlined a sweepstakes. For Microsoft, Massive primarily handles in-game ad placements, but the Xbox team has some innovative solutions around the game including placement on the heavily-trafficked Xbox Live.

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 2, 2007

What Might New Yahoo Search Mean for Advertisers?

So, Yahoo is revamping it search results, in part by including video and image results along with standard text results. Ask.com and Microsoft have been making similar adjustments to accommodate the increasingly video-centric Web, and Google made a big splash in May with its Universal Search launch.

What's the "new Yahoo Search" mean for advertisers? At this point, you'll probably hear the same speculation about that as we heard back when Google's Universal Search launched.

We could see more multimedia ads -- video, other rich, interactive display units -- available in and around search results. Another thing surmised when Google's new search came out also might apply to Yahoo: more interest in Yahoo search from brand advertisers. While search has long been primarily the domain of direct response advertisers, the fact that brand advertisers tend to have a lot of image-, audio- and video-based content means they might want to optimize that content to take advantage of the new multimedia search results, or pay to get their multimedia assets in the results.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 1, 2007

Telefonica's Global Search Partners

Madrid-based Telefonica's been busy. Today it said it will partner with Yahoo to bring the search engine's OneSearch, which was launched earlier this year to its users in Ireland, Latin America, and the U.K. Those users will also have access to news, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr photos, Web images, and Web and mobile Web sites. They'll also have access to Yahoo Mail.

Just last week Telefonica and JumpTap announced a deal to enable JumpTap's search capabilities for music, images, and games channels. This service is available to users in Spain, the mobile phone company's home country. JumpTap said it makes Telefonica the first operator in Spain to bring a complete search and advertising solution to the mobile screen.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 28, 2007

You Know It's Time to Modify Your AdWords & AdSense Campaigns When...

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 26, 2007

Microsoft Talks Up its Live Search Update and Tweaks MSN Video Ads

Microsoft knows it's running in third place behind Google and Yahoo in the battle for search, and at its Silicon Valley offices today the company showed off its latest efforts in improving its Live Search service for its current users, and to bring more users to its system. Separately, the company also changed the manner in which it will place ads on its MSN Video by providing them to users based on how long they're viewing the player, and not at the start of each clip no matter the length.

At its amusingly titled Searchification 2007 event, Satya Nadella, corporate vice president Search and Advertising Platform Group for Microsoft, did lay claim to nearly 70 million -- or 40 percent -- of the U.S. based searching public as using Live Search, but admitted that only 11 percent of them are standalone customers. Mostly due to searchers using more than one search engine.

Looking to improve on its placement, the company is in the midst of upgrading the Live Search core capabilities, which it intends to do on a regular six to 12 month schedule. Nadella said the first thing Microsoft did was examine the search results it had been providing with its previous system.

"We did was look at a lot of the click log analysis to try to get a top level feel about how satisfied are customers and users with search results," he said, and noted that they monitored if a user clicked the first result of a search response. "We found that 46 percent of all searches are not satisfied and that's a large number. And 54 percent is either fully or partially satisfied. So that gives us a lot of room to get more people into the green area."

Live Search is not only getting upgrades to its index size and neural processing systems to provide better search results, but it's also breaking content into verticals for easier searching, including Local/Maps, Entertainment, Health and Shopping areas. And while the new features did seem worthwhile, including some admittedly eye-popping 3-D maps of San Francisco with high resolution picture overlays taken from space for map directions, what was conspicuously absent from the Searchification event was any mention of its Microsoft adCenter ad network system and how it will be tied to the updated Live Search.

When I caught up with Nadella after the event, he acknowledged the absence but promised "We have a major update in adCenter coming in the next couple of months." His co-presenter for the event, Brad Goldberg, a general manager for the Search Group, went on to say that Microsoft realizes that the update is about "Having a greater share and inventory. We're looking at inventory and verticals and providing different experiences. We're going to open up the ad models around things like health and entertainment, and that commitment is something that advertisers want and understand."

In another announcement, Microsoft also changed the advertising delivery model for MSN Video by giving viewers a pre-roll advertisement before the first video, and then playing an additional video no more than once every three minutes of using the player. Considering the vast number of less than :30 videos floating around the Internet, the move is clearly intended to allow for less users annoyance while using the MSN Video system.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 18, 2007

Location-Aware Mobile Search

When you leave your neighborhood, or even time zone, your phone can sense you're in a different service area, yet targeting for advertising and search defaults to your home area unless you tell your phone otherwise. Through a partnership between Sprint and Microsoft, users on the Sprint network can opt-in to an integrated GPS location-aware mobile search service. Additionally, Microsoft will include a version of voice search with visual results by Live Search using Microsoft property Tellme available for download. GPS-enabled search is a permission-based service, subscribers do have to acknowledge the GPS functionality of the phone in order to take part.

While there was no advertising immediately announced about GPS-enabled search, it's ripe for geo-targeted ads. Sprint was an early adopter among U.S.-based carriers to allow advertising on deck. On the Microsoft side, it can't be too hard to make inventory available to advertisers here.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 22, 2007

Intelligence Express for the Small Search Advertiser at SES

At the SES conference in San Jose this week, search engine marketing intelligence agency AdGooroo reached out to the little guy, by offering AdGooroo Express for small search advertisers.

Intended to help companies with 50 keyword or less, the system will integrate with Google AdWords campaign data, identify problems, list competitor keywords and make recommendations. The system just finished an early trial with 30 small companies, and is moving into a free open beta phase for the next month. Once the beta is over, the company will charge for the service on a monthly or yearly basis, with yearly fees of approximately $900, according to Gary Allen, CEO of AdGooroo.

"We can't ignore 80 percent of the market," he told me at their booth. "Marketing intelligence for search can help any aspect of an online campaign."

This week, AdGooroo also penned a research deal with William Blair & Company to provide the investment firm with numbers and analysis for its quarterly report on the search industry. Earlier this month, the company signed a deal with Publicis to provide campaign analysis and other services to the French company's advertising divisions.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 21, 2007

Yahoo Search Maketing Adds Quality Score Alerts, PayPal Billing

At SES yesterday, Yahoo introduced some new features for Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers. They include adding PayPal as a payment option, the introduction of a quality score alert system that notifies individual advertisers when their score drops, and enhancing the ad creation process. The latter group of changes includes these items, taken verbatim from the company's announcement:

* Advertisers will be able to create, edit, copy, delete and view all saved ads (up to 20) for an ad group and in one place. And view the performance of their ads against one another with one click.

* Additionally, advertisers will be able to view examples of ads using selected keywords. A best practices tip sheet will be available to view directly in the interface.

* Lastly, once a new ad is created, advertisers will be prompted to create another one. Creating a second ad activates ad testing, which allows advertisers to compare how ads in a specific ad group are performing against one another in order to help improve quality index score.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2007

Interview With Mike Grehan, SEO Extraordinaire

Lee Odden just posted a great interview with our own Mike Grehan, the most-traveled SEO on this (or any other) planet.

When Mike talks, anyone hoping to make their Web site more visible would do well to listen.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 3, 2007

Talkin' Yahoo on NPR Today

National Public Radio's All Things Considered asked me to discuss Yahoo on this evening's program.

Topics Laura Sydell raised include the company's ability to compete with Google, its ability to overhaul its ad sales operations, and the overall online advertising climate in terms of search, display advertising and audience.

Check your local listing and give it a listen if you're near a radio or Web steam, or download the podcast later on.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 19, 2007

Landing Page Slip-Up

The name and identity of the site have been protected: I clicked through the sponsored link to a social networking site and landed on a page with the above message. To add insult to injury, the redirect to the homepage just refreshes the same error page. What's your search guy up to these days?

Posted by Enid Burns at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 7, 2007

Google Bathing in Gravy as Marketers Squeeze Margins to Win Search Bidding Wars

Despite continued growth in search spending, ROI on search campaigns in Q1 was down 43 percent since last year, according to the latest search trend report from DoubleClick's Performics unit. That makes sense when you think about it, since more and more advertisers are competing for the same limited pool of clicks, bidding up prices and squeezing their margins in the process. The winner in this bidding war is Google. The losers: everyone else.

Performics said the lowered ROI is also due to greater use of search as a branding channel, but I'd expect that's a smaller factor than the rising cost of keywords for direct marketing campaigns.

In any case, average cost per click and cost per keyword both spiked. Campaigns included six times as many keywords with a cost per click above $1 and used 54 percent more keywords than they did a year ago.

The report had some other interesting findings, including that Yahoo search costs are down sharply, a further validation of Panama and Yahoo's quality rankings. Sales and transactions through Yahoo were down, but advertisers purchased fewer clicks and spent less overall to acquire them.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 6, 2007

Can't Miss Concept! Eliminate Click Fraud - By Eliminating PPC Advertising

In an unsavory atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt (F.U.D.), combined with click fraud alarmism over a core of domain leasing, a new company that officially launched today called LeaseThis.com promises to eliminate click fraud -- basically, by eliminating PPC advertising.

Yeah, and you can eliminate drunk driving by banning alcohol and cars, too. Hope all you V.C.s out there are pricking up your ears.

"New Online Advertising Model Eliminating Industry Problem of Click Fraud" screams the overwrought press release that landed in our inboxes today.

This is completely whack.

In its own words, LeaseThis.com "...bypasses search engines and directly connects the advertiser with the domain owner...For the first time, advertisers can lease a domain name for a specified time period, with the option to purchase it after the lease has expired."

Well, they got that first part right. If you don't advertise on search engines, you're not going to be a victim of click fraud. No siree. What you are going to do as an advertising client of LeaseThis.com is not lease a domain, but sublease one from it's "owner." As we all know, domains aren't really owned, they're leased themselves.

The company is betting consumers increasingly bypass search in favor of direct navigation. My hunch is the tactic works with brand or corporate names (Sony, Apple, Starbucks, Bloomingdales), but not with domain names like "BestBar.com" or "Pizza90210.com."

And that's to say nothing of what happens to a domain when the sublet clause expires. Whatever moves in next could have an effect on the first advertiser equal to, if not much more devastating than, the effects of click fraud.

Is the domain leasing concept fully without merit? No.

But LeaseThis.com's marketing strategy unequivocally is.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 4, 2007

AdSense Goes Glam

Glam Media has let it be known they've inked a multi-year deal with Google. The deal feels so glamorous, in fact, that announcement dominates the home page of the women's lifestyle site. Could this mean Google's now a fashion accessory in addition to everything else?

Google will become Glam's exclusive Web search provider, as well as deliver contextual AdSense ads to the property.

“Our strategy is to provide our audiences and advertisers with the most integrated and contextual entertainment experience possible, and our collaboration with Google provides additional and different contextual ad opportunities for advertisers," said Glam Media Chairman and CEO Samir Arora in a statement.

The #2 women's property after iVillage, Glam claims 12 million unique monthly visitors.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2007

Google Trial by Jury

So, the never-ending trademark suit against Google by American Blind & Wallpaper Factory will be tried by jury. Selection day for the jury is November 9. The case, like several others filed against Google, alleges its AdWords program enables competitors to infringe upon American Blind's trademark by targeting ads to its name.

The fact that this is a jury trial is key here. Not only will jurors have to grasp the fine nuances of trademark law, but also, presumably, the Google ad system. It ougtta be interesting….

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 26, 2007

FT Looks at GoogleClick - From Another Planet

The "Financial Times" published an editorial today, "Google clicks twice," about the search engine's DoubleClick acquisition, that would indicate one of the world's leading business publications understands little about Google (or search, for that matter), and still less about online advertising.

I just keep reading sentences in it over again in utter bafflement. Take this one: "Google plans to acquire the oddly named Doubleclick - most web adverts land you in an online casino with one or sometimes zero clicks - for $3.1bn."

It's not like Google just dropped over $3B on an obscure start-up that serves pop-up casino ads -- or am I missing something?

It only gets stranger: "Google is like a TV station, attracting viewers and then selling their attention to advertisers. Doubleclick is more like a media buying agency, buying space from broadcasters on behalf of advertisers."

That would be so true...if, for example, Google conceived of, produced, bought and/or created and distributed content. Like TV stations do. Google is no more a TV station than DoubleClick is a media buyer. Or am I missing something again?

How about this: "Buying Doubleclick does not increase Google's share of the total web audience, a more meaningful measure of the market."

Google a TV station, remember? It's all about the ratings.

But wait -- there's more: "The real questions are why Google wants to be in advertising...Google is good at wacky stunts and has unusual office furniture, both advertising staples, but its laid-back computer engineers probably lack the necessary lunching skills. The right career advice for Silicon Valley's finest: an adman's pointy calfskin loafers are all very well, but the real money is in search engines."

Where has the FT been all this time? Google's a $150 billion market cap company that should stick with search and stay out of advertising? A company lacking the qualifications, experience, or the staff to broker ad deals? A company that could have achieved this level of success in less than 10 years' time reaping the rich financial rewards inherent in being a search engine with no significant monetization model?

I'd always assumed the FT's editors knew a thing or two more about financial models than ClickZ's editorial staff and our readers. Perhaps they do, and we've all been missing the real value in search engines: charging users 5 cents per search.

Sure, that'll work. We always knew this keyword bidding thing was way too complicated to last.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Women on the Media Career Path

A few weeks ago at Search Engine Strategies (SES) the trend a few of us picked up on was the increase in female attendees. And we're not talking about Ms. Dewey, who burst onto stage in the middle of Danny Sullivan's interview with Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz.

Some would argue the observations are inaccurate. Sullivan posted on his own blog that "there has always been a strong presence of women commenting on search and search marketing" including attending the show. He maintains speaker and panelist discussions are programmed to have a mix of men and women at the podium. Though some attendees I spoke with called this into question, "panels have a token female." On the third day of the show I noticed something interesting. A panel with all men on stage had more women than men in the audience, though it was about even. The next panel I sat in on had three women speaking and more men in the audience.

Additional reports of the trend include columns on ClickZ written by Rebecca Lieb and Shari Thurow (who spoke on the one female-dominant panel discussing image search) discussed what it means to be a woman in the search space. All three of us attended the informal yet well-attended lunch for women in search arranged by Li Evans who contributes to Search Marketing Gurus where the industry's women, whether you contend it's few or many, are regularly highlighted.

Whether more women are in the industry, and attending SES and other industry shows, or we're just waking up to it, there are a few theories: Data isn't just for men anymore. SES attendance is expanding from search to related professions held by women. Those related fields are sales, marketing, PR, and marketing pros at brands. It is clear there has always been a core group of women in the search field.

Somewhat related, the New York Women's Media Council released the results of a survey of New York area senior professionals working in film, television, and advertising. Survey respondents chose to work in media for several reasons including passion for the work (43 percent); personal interest (44 percent); intellectually stimulating and challenging (26 percent). Advice for women, which can be applied to search fields, is to learn the skills and knowledge of the business; be flexible; keep up with technology; learn multiple skills; and look for opportunities to network and get recognition.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 17, 2007

Yahoo and PayPal Give Merchants Incentive to Use Yahoo Search

Today Yahoo said it will be offering online merchants a $100 credit if they buy search ads through its system, as part of an extension of the Yahoo/eBay/PayPal relationship. Yahoo sponsored search ads will feature a shopping cart icon linking to sellers that accept PayPal. Google already promotes its own online payment system in a similar way.

Yahoo also has reinforced its ISP presence, extending its relationship with United Online. Yahoo powers search for start pages of United's NetZero, Juno and Bluelight brand ISP services.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 13, 2007

Google: No Sponsored Links for Don Imus?

CNBC invited me on last night to discuss the Don Imus brouhaha. I was at Search Engine Strategies when they called, where someone pointed out that yesterday, shortly after Imus was fired from CBS for his very reprehensible remark, all the sponsored links disappeared from Google's results page for a "don imus" search.

Yahoo and MSN were still running paid ads yesterday.

Today, ads are running on Google again for a search against the unemployed DJ's name, but only two. Houghton Mifflin is promoting a book, "The N Word," by Jabari Asim. AOL property TMZ.com's ads point to ongoing coverage of the story.

Both the above ads can only be post-scandal media buys. MSN and Yahoo, in contrast, are running a grab-bag of legacy paid search ads that link to eBay, Shopzilla, www.bearadiohost.com, and trivia quizzes.

Haven't had a chance to verify this, but it certainly appears as if Google took a rapid and decisive step to un-associate their advertisers from the search term in the wake of the firing (and advertisers such as Verizon and American Express dropping their sponsorship of the show). Yahoo and MSN didn't do anything.

Who was right? I'd love feedback from anyone whose ad was turned off by Google.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 10, 2007

Candidates Missing Issue-Based Keyword Opportunities

Prezvid and BlogP.I. each have in-depth reports on what Google AdWords ads are resulting when searching on Presidential candidate names (thanks TechPresident). Sure, campaigns this year are doing a lot more buying against names of their opponents.

But where are the issue-based keyword buys? I figured I'd punch in a bunch of timely issues people with an interest in current events and politics (yep, the ones who actually vote in primaries) might be searching on. Guess what? My searches came out with nada, zilch, zip.

The only candidate campaign that bought on any of the words I searched for was Obama, who is targeting a generic link to "Iowa," which seems too vague if they're trying to reach people in Iowa (who might be searching on Ethanol, for instance, which came up with no candidate sponsored links).

Anyway, here are the keywords I searched Google on which resulted in zero sponsored links from candidate campaigns (nor even from congressional members with definite stakes in a lot of these issues): iraq war, troop surge, social security, poverty, global warming, climate change, new hampshire, homeland security, terrorism, immigration, us attorneys, alberto gonzales, iran, iran nuclear, nuclear weapons, china trade, trade deficit, wmd, afghanistan, pelosi syria, british sailors, retirement, gay rights, women rights, feminism, labor rights, minimum wage, living wage, abortion, pro life, roe v wade, draft, military draft

Oh, and on a lark, I did a search on "Obama smoking." It actually resulted in a sponsored link to none other than conservative news site, NewsMax.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 4, 2007

Even More Search Expertise

Borrowing a concept from ClickZ, our sister site Search Engine Watch quietly launched it's own selection of daily columns by search engine marketing practitioners.

We're calling it SEW Experts. If you're an avid follower of ClickZ's search engine marketing experts, you may do well to check it out.

Topic line-up:

Search Ads Everything you need to know about creating and maintaining successful paid search campaigns

au Natural -- Organic search engine optimization and best practices.

Little Biz Savvy search engine marketing skills for the smallest start-up.

Big Biz High level strategies and complex tactics for big brands and large enterprises.

By the Numbers A hands-on approach to using Web analytics to measure success and improve ROI.

Link Love Get other sites to notice you, and build popularity and traffic with linking efforts and social media optimization.

In-House -- Tackling the issues in-house search marketers face daily.

Outsourced The inside line on SEM agency issues.

Vertical Search Each week, a different search specialty, including Multimedia, B2B, Travel, Local and more.

Of course, you can subscribe to these topics individually either as feeds or e-mail newsletters.

So get your search on! SES starts next week, after all.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 13, 2007

Pixsy Launches Ad-Supported Oscar Search Site

Today image and video search platform company Pixsy launched its Oscar-themed search site, AndTheOscarGoesTo.net. It'll feature photos and videos of this year's nominees for the coveted awards, along with past winners, red carpet shenanigans, that sort of thing.

Basically, Pixsy creates sites like this one to use as demos, displaying to distribution partners the types of themed vertical search sites they can build for them. They've also got a Mardi Gras one, a Super Bowl one, etc.

"All of this content is just sitting in our index," Pixsy CEO Chase Norlin told me last week. "Success has to do with how you grab stuff that's interesting and package it."

While ad revenue is one reason distribution clients would want to offer such a search feature on their sites (the company offers targeted display ads served through various ad networks), Norlin affirmed my hunch that SEO for large search engines is another big one. The company updates its database every fifteen minutes, continually alerting search engines of its presence.

"We haven't commented to the market the SEO benefits of that," he said, adding, "We know people are using [Pixsy's vertical search product] for SEO….They're looking for new ways to increase traffic."

Up next for Pixsy, said Norlin, is a March Madness portal and photo video search engine.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Belgians Monetize Newspaper Content (Thanks, Google)

The WSJ is reporting a Belgian court ruled this morning that Google violated the country's copyright law by publishing "snippets and links to to Belgian newspapers" without permission.

The retroactive fine is €3.45 million, and rising up at a rate of €25,000 per day.

Kudos to the Belgians. If they aren't selling papers, at least they've come up with a means to monetize their content.

Google's defense, after all, is asking the newspaper group why they didn't just opt-out of making their material available in the first place.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 12, 2007

iCrossing Buys U.K. Search Firm

iCrossing has picked up a European footprint with the acquisition of Spannerworks, a Brighton, England-based search marketing firm. The company, which two months ago bought Bay Area search firm NewGate, is on a major growth tear. As it swallowed Spannerworks, it also announced it has closed $18 million in funding for future acquisitions and expansion. iCrossing's headcount is 350 after the buyout.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 7, 2007

Google to Move MySpace off Top 8?

Pardon the lame MySpace humor, but as far as The Wall Street Journal is concerned, Google might move the social networking site off its top eight friends list. An article in the paper today implies, at least, there's a bit of tension between the partners that is stalling the search distribution deal they made in August.

"Before it signs a longer document finalizing the agreement, MySpace wants to ensure that the terms originally agreed -- as outlined in a hastily drafted deal letter of intent in August -- don't limit its ability to work with third parties such as eBay, according to people familiar with the discussions."

The story says Google's ecommerce goals (read: Google Checkout) are threatened by a potential pair up between MySpace and Ebay. Oh, and let's not forget Google's free classifieds service Base and Ebay-evading hopes to transform auctioneers into direct AdWords buyers. Evidently, MySpace has been flirting with Ebay to form a "peer commerce" relationship. The Journal writes, "The idea is to let MySpace users buy and sell items from each other using eBay's online-commerce technology and its PayPal payment system….MySpace users would be able to post items for sale on their profiles, and their eBay auctions would be automatically updated, according to one person close to the discussions."

Man, can't these companies have discussions without somebody leaking them to the Journal? Seems like some of these insiders could find a fitting home working for the Bush administration….

Google, of course, is riding a thin line, considering Ebay is one of its biggest AdWords buyers. (I just searched Google for "Narcotics" and got a sponsored link with this copy: "Get new Narcotics on eBay Express. Happy Shopping!") Yes, very happy shopping.

The story fails to note another frost-causing factor: MySpace and Google are big competitors in the video space now that Goog owns the Tube. Google rival Yahoo is also in bed with Ebay.

I can't help but think the article's headline ("MySpace's Pact With Google Hits a Snag") is a bit misleading, too, considering further down in the piece, it says, "The differences over eBay aren't likely to derail the ad pact between Google and MySpace. People close to the situation said both companies have been meeting their commitments since the beginning of this year and the payments don't hinge on the current round of talks."

What it comes down to is these are all big players who will most likely be doing the co-opetition thing for a long time to come.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 26, 2007

SEO: Rocket Science? Cancer Cure?

Maybe they should call it something other than link love...

SEOs and ClickZ readers are doubtless aware of the kerfluffle recently over whether search optimization is rocket science -- or not.

It all started when Dave Pasternack wrote a piece saying it isn't.

The experts -- and the blogosphere -- lost no time in taking sides. Danny Sullivan's in the oh-yes-it-is camp. Pasternack's boss, and ClickZ columnist Kevin Lee is firmly on Dave's side, both here and here. Ditto Mike Grehan.

These are the articles, mind you. Not the flame wars.

You can take sides, too. So heated is the debate that Threadwatch has turned the whole thing into an SEO contest to see can rank #1 on Google for the term "Dave Pasternack."

The gauntlet has been thrown, and Did-It is countering. Kevin Lee has issued an appeal to marketers to link to Pasternack's bio on the company Web site. I notice they've also added that link and name to the site footer.

Did-It promises to donate the $1,000 prize to the American Cancer Society should they win it.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 19, 2007

Vertical Search Auctions on Portals Coming Soon?

Will keyword bidding on Yahoo and MSN -- the search players with portals -- soon be carved into optional, more expensive vertical niches? It appears so.

At a lunch Yahoo threw this week to announce its new personal finance section , I asked a number of Yahoo executives if they'd considered a marketplace in which, say, a financial advertiser could bid for two tiers of keywords: one on Yahoo Search, and another higher bid for contextual search ads appearing only on search results within the personal finance section.

"It's certainly something we looked at," said Tanya Singer, director of product development, who spearheaded the project.

That amounts almost to a confession. With the recent introduction of Panama on the Yahoo side, and upgrades scheduled for MSN's auctionplace interface, the content portals would have to be nuts not to consider enabling more vertical SEM buys.

Google's not a portal, but it could certainly play along with buys aimed at specific sections such as Book Search or local, though that's a mushier landscape given the precision to which a local buy can already be targeted.

The end effect would be more targeted advertising, to be sure. But also more complicated search advertising, which only the more sophisticated clients are ready for. SEMs would also have to rush to tweak their proprietary bid management and metrics applications.

Still, it seems the move is inevitable. The only question is, when? Yahoo's promised to get back to me on this.

I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 16, 2007

Baidu Teams With EMI for Ad-Supported Streaming Tunes

Chinese search giant Baidu announced it's teaming with EMI to launch a an ad-supported streaming online music service in China.

EMI's Typhoon Music Chinese repertoire will be available free to Baidu users in a specially created 'EMI Music Zone' residing on China's leading search engine (62.1%, according to the recent figures). The two companies will split the ad revenue, which a press release calls "a pioneering approach to monetising and promoting digital music in China."

The move is obviously geared toward promoting EMI's catalogue in China, with DRM and copy protection overtones: "The cooperation...also moves us towards jointly controlling digital piracy, something that is important to EMI in the Chinese digital music market. Our co-operation with the world's largest Chinese search engine is also part of EMI's strategic roadmap to expanding digital music development across the region," said Norman Cheng, Chairman of EMI Music Asia and director of Typhoon Music, in a statement.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 15, 2007

News Wire Services Pushing Web 2.0, SEO

Last time I was in a marketing gig, I recall screaming at our rep from one of the major wire services when they started charging us a per-item clipping fee (I think it was $0.50) for snail-mailing us hard copies of our own press releases -- verbatim -- which had been "picked up" on Yahoo News, Google News, and all the other usual suspects.

Now, the news wires have stopped charging and are working hard to sell these and other Web effects to companies as unique advantages. Today, PR Newswire, on of the two leaders in the space, announced FreePRWeb, "Everyone from business owners to consumers and even the local church may submit news and press releases via a global online news and press release distribution service with powerful distribution points such as NBCi News, AskJeeves News, Lycos News, Excite News, Topix News, MSN News and Google News...They are also syndicated through more than 20,000 RSS feeds that get re-published on thousands of Web sites that collectively reach millions of consumers and journalists daily."

Well, yeah, that's exactly what happens when you distribute news via a wire service. What interesting here is the free level of tiered service, as well as the fact Google Checkout will be accepted for payment. That's a real change in how these services do business.

And, all you publishers and Webmasters out there -- it's a great link-building strategy, at least short term. The engines may well have to adjust their algorithms soon against a wave of SEO-optimized press release spam. It'd be nice if they didn't have to -- but I fear this could generate an awful lot of very lightweight "news."

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 11, 2007

Cruisin'

If metasearches have forever changed the way we search for airline flights, then why not for ocean cruises too?

That appears to be the strategy for travel search engine Kayak.com. It's now offering searches of several cruise brands including CruisesOnly, Cruise411, Cruises.com and Vacation Outlet all through a partnership with World Travel Holdings (WTH).
Kayak plans not only on offering searches of all the usual cruise destinations like the Caribbean, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Alaska, but it's also offering a special checkbox to look for senior deals if you're 55 and over.

Of course, considering how proportionally small the number of seniors using metasearch engines are these days, perhaps their kids will still have to book the trip for them.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 9, 2007

Real Estate Listings Go Mobile

Real estate listings are going online in a big way. As a vertical real estate search is getting pretty big, too.

Now, real estate listings are going mobile.

Commercial listings service Catylist just announced the launch of Catylist Mobile, a real estate search engine. "Mobile device owners can now point their phones or other handheld Internet-accessible appliance to dozens of Web sites to search for available commercial property located through the US and abroad," said the announcement.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 28, 2006

Would that be YahooOL, AOLahoo, or yAhOoL?

A recent research report from Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen speculating that either or both AOL and Yahoo could be heading toward an acquisition in 2007. One possibility she put forth is a merger between the two:

"We believe there are several trends that could push either AOL or Yahoo towards a major transaction, with each other or with another competitor," Reif Cohen wrote. "Although not without its problems, we believe that an AOL-Yahoo combination is one of the more logical combinations in this arena."

Another option as an acquirer for either company would be Microsoft, according to Reif Cohen.

The report points out that the Google/AOL relationship struck in December 2005 includes a "change in control" clause for AOL that would allow an acquirer, such as Microsoft or Yahoo, to replace Google's ads on AOL with their own.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 23, 2006

When AdSense Acts Like Gator

Dunno who called and woke me up this morning, because the phone battery died the minute I picked up the handset.

That meant it was time to go online and shop for Panasonic cordless phone batteries. The first result I click (a paid search advertiser), had obviously drunk the Google Kool-Aid, given AdSense ads occupied the bulk of his site's real estate. And what are those ads touting? Why, batteries, of course -- the only product this particular merchant sells.

Lots has been written about contextual ad bloopers, but considerably less about merchants who should perhaps think twice (or three times) about filtering the ads they allow on their sites. AdSense was, after all, created for publishers. You merchants already have ways to monetize your site.

This calls to mind those endless lawsuits against Gator (the ones that forced the copany to change its business model and become Claria). Only in this case, the poor schmuck whose prospective clients are being cordially invited to shop elsewhere are being invited to so so by the merchant himself, not by a scummy adware product.

Or could it be that it's more lucrative to be paid for clicks to batteries than for the batteries themselves?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 11, 2006

Microsoft May Scuttle 'Live' Branding

If you haven't followed all the ins and outs of Microsoft's efforts around search and online services, the New York Times has a good up-to-the-moment summation. The story centers on Steve Berkowitz, former steward of Ask and now head of Redmond's online business group, and the befuddling pile of Internet brands he's inherited.

ClickZ's own Kevin Lee is quoted here, to the effect that Widows Live hasn't earned the verb status Google and Yahoo have. That's clear. Office Live and Windows Live simply haven't taken off as brands, and according to Berkowitz himself, may eventually be scuttled. “I don’t know if Live is the right name," he told the Times. For the moment though he's more focused on improving the search experience.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 27, 2006

Yahoo's Peanut Butter and Microsoft's Ketchup

Ever since Yahoo's peanut butter manifesto became public last week, I've been harboring a theory that all the challenges faced by competitors to the ever-ascendant Google can perhaps be analyzed in light of their identification with a food spread or condiment. If Yahoo is peanut butter -- cheap, easily digestible and spread a little too thin -- then of course Microsoft is ketchup, perennially imitating the online innovators. Ask.com must be Grey Poupon, I think, in deference to the retired butler. eBay is, what, pepper? Grainy and zingy, yet common. FIM is probably maple syrup, favored by the young 'uns. If you want to get international, Chinese portal and Google nemesis Baidu would be soy sauce and Japan's NTT DoCoMo wireless carrier/portal, wasabe. But perhaps that's insensitive. It's so hard to be sure in this day and age.

I'm not sure about AOL though. A colleague suggests Aioli, the garlic mayonnaise popular in Valencia and Catalonia, since it's spelled and pronounced in a similar fashion. And, well yes, if you strip out the haute cuisine part, AOL is mayo all the way. Please leave your own suggestions in the comments.

So if I'm right, all the jabbering speculation about whom should acquire or join forces with whom in the online turf wars with Google can be reduced to the simple question of which spreads and sauces go best together. Mayo and mustard? Ketchup and Mayo? Soy sauce and maple syrup? I just hope all these players remember about the meat (or preferred meat substitute).

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 17, 2006

Lycos Sells Another

Lycos is reprising its summer divestiture of Wired News, this time ridding itself of online lead generation unit GetRelevant. Primis-owned RedSail bought it, and will rebrand the business under its own name.

Lycos has been shedding non-core business units all year. It sold the Quote.com financial portal to IDC for $30 million, and is now trying to build out a video entertainment business.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 9, 2006

With Ads, Google Rivals Try to Break the Borg's Spell

The other search engines are getting busy pitching their products directly to consumers. The screen grab above is from an e-mail Yahoo sent to my personal address. True to form, the portal takes the lifestyle approach.

Ask's TV spots go all out for the emotional connection. This one shows a small guy on a big guy's shoulders ("If you don't Ask.com, you don't get.") Another shows founder Apostolos Gerasoulis with his ten-year-old son Eli, who says, “Google isn’t better, it’s just more popular.” Then of course there's the Bigfoot-goes-on-a-date spot.

Microsoft meanwhile tackles the reasoning businessperson with a full page spread in the The Wall Street Journal last week. Copy sensibly plays up the "first inning" meme and talks about Virtual Earth's 3d mapping features.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 8, 2006

'06 Election Coverage: Heard on the (K) Street:

While in D.C. for the FTC conference, a consulting firm source of mine shared a tidbit or two about what some candidate campaigns were doing search-wise this season. One congressional campaign pumped $20,000 into online search ads this year.

In stark contrast, Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign had a daily minimum of just $10! Well, it's not like she had much to worry about, so maybe the surprise is that she put any money into search.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 7, 2006

Google Tweaks Landing Page Quality Scoring

Following up on its July decision to begin factoring landing page quality into its bidding algorithm for search ads, Google today tweaked that algorithm, and expanded its use into contextually targeted ads in addition to its search ads. Google says landing page quality will not affect ad rank, it will only force those with a poor-quality landing page to pay more.

How does Google determine what makes a quality landing page? They're not saying, except to suggest, "it may be instructive to put yourself in your customer's shoes and closely examine what it is that leads you to explore and do business with a site rather than simply click the 'Back' button," according to "Andrew C.", product marketing manager for Ads Quality initiatives, on the Inside AdWords blog. They did release a testing tool last month that incorporates Google Analytics, which may give more clues to what Google is looking at.

For advertisers who may be providing a poor experience on their site, this will likely cause their traffic across the content network to decrease, and their minimum bids for Google.com and the search network to increase. In most cases, Google expect the higher minimum bids to force out low quality ads on search. Google expects this to affect a "very small portion" of advertisers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 6, 2006

Let it Rain

In what one can only think is great news for British search media buyers, but not so great for California ones, a new white paper suggests that (surprise!) when there’s nice weather outside people don’t spend as much time online searching the Internet.

Latitude, a search engine marketing specialist, used Yahoo! Search Marketing market search data for the UK financial sector for the study and found that online searching increased an average of almost 7 percent on bad weather days, but fell by an average of 11 percent on good weather days. The company compared search volumes against temperatures for each day between July 7 and August 5, 2006, for its report How the Weather Affects Internet Search Volumes in the UK Financial Sector.

We are refraining from making “when it rains, it pours” analogies, however.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 18, 2006

MTV Pacts With Baidu and New Chinese Mobile Provider

Fresh on the heels of its distribution deal with Google, MTV has reached a distribution agreement with another Internet Goliath. China's leading search engine, Baidu will help extend the MTV brand deeper into one of the media industry's most coveted markets.

MTV and Baidu will initially distribte some 15,000 videos online, as well as MTV programming such as "Pimp My Ride." Some will be free to viewers, others entail a yet-undetermined fee. MTV's sister network, Nickelodeon, will also supply material.

According to Bill Roedy, vice chairman of MTV Networks who has long been responsible for the network's international expansion, censorship won't be an issue as the programming will already have been approved for broadcast. About 70 percent of MTV videos available on Baidu will be by Chinese performers.

MTV also pacted with China's second-largest mobile provider, China Unicom, to offer ring tones, entertainment news and other services. The company already has a similar agreement with China Mobile, the country's leading provider. The company says it now has access to all of China's 400 million mobile phones.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 16, 2006

Stupid Monkeys and More Fun with Political Search Ads

Every once in awhile I like to test searches to see who's buying sponsored links in the political keyword arena. I stumbled upon some interesting buys when trying out a few searches on Google today, some of which included names of states with highly contested Congressional races.

Highbrow CGM site Gather.com seems to have purchased the term "senate" along with every state name, including "New Jersey Senate," "Florida Senate," and "Pennsylvania Senate." The ad text is altered a tad depending on the state, but the general template is "Debate The 2006 [insert state name here] Senate Race Now Through Election Night. Election2006.gather.com."

This kind of thing strikes me as really smart. New York Times and Electoral-Vote.com both have similar sponsored links resulting from a search on "Senate 2006."

"GOP elections" brought up an ad for the National Republican Senatorial Committee: "2006 Elections Help the NRSC elect Republican Senators Today! www.NRSC.org." "Senate races 2006" turned up an NRSC ad with the same text. "GOP elections" also resulted in an ad for "Official GOP Site" which read, "www.GOP.com Support the Republican National Committee and make a difference."

Of course, candidates and their cohorts are buying search ads, too. "Pennsylvania Senate" also brings up an AdWords ad for Republican Rick Santorum ("Discover More About Rick Santorum Working Hard For Pennsylvania State www.RickSantorum.com"). I'm pretty sure my pals at Connell Donatelli are behind this buy.

A search on "Minnesota Senate" resulted in an ad for Democrat Amy Klobuchar who you may have caught on this Sunday's Meet the Press. The text reads, "Join Klobuchar for Senate Support Democrat Amy Klobuchar Elect Minnesota's next U.S. Senator www.amyklobuchar.com."

"Democrats" turned up an ad for John Garamendi, candidate for Lt. Guv in California. Ad text: "Garamendi for Lt.Governor Learn How to Help John Fight for Education and Our Environment www.garamendi.org."

"Florida Congress" and "Democrats election" result in ads for Bob Bowman, Democratic candidate for Florida's 15th district House seat. The ads read, "Bob Bowman for Congress
www.bowman2006.com A combat veteran against the war. Send Dr. Bob Bowman to Washington!" He's not the only Dem expressing his military side online this year.

Though I didn't even attempt to do a search of terms based on names of tight race candidates today, I did notice this pleasant ad when searching for "Jim Webb," Senate candidate running against Republican George Allen in Virginia: "Jim Webb Is a Macaca By "Macaca" I mean the slang word for stupid monkeys. Vote GOP! www.LiberalsMustDie.com."

I don't know a thing about LiberalsMustDie.com. However, after browsing around for a few minutes, and stumbling upon an array of over-the-top misspelled statements such as," WWJD? Kick a Liberal in the Balls," I can't help but think it's a parody site created by left-wingers.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 11, 2006

Is Yahoo in Pain?

Saul Hansell at The Times issued a rather determined smackdown against Yahoo this morning, using Google's YouTube acquisition as a fulcrum on which to hang the argument that Semel & Co. are lagging severely behind the big search kahuna in technology, media deals and talent retention.

All I can say is, pity the marathoner who's in second place. He's always worse off than the one in third, tenth or 10,000th for that matter.

While a bunch of the allegations in the story are true – Yahoo's lost several lucrative distribution deals for its contextual network, the Panama search interface is behind schedule – others are not. For instance, the phenomenal success of Flickr clearly shows the company is not "losing its initiative" with regard to social networking, as the story says. Google getting YouTube is a black eye for Yahoo only in the narrow estimation of the investment community and neo-fetishists. Remember: Yahoo is a company with half a billion global users. It has only rarely been a great innovator; rather, it's strengths are in mass services.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 3, 2006

SEMPO Needs Data Donors

As it continues to gather data for a click fraud study to be conducted by Fair Isaac, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) is putting out the call to find more advertisers willing to share PPC data to include in the study.

Allow me to step up on my soapbox:
Everyone agrees that click fraud is a problem of some size to advertisers buying pay-per-click ads, and this could be a big step toward coming up with solutions. There will be no resolution unless enough data can be gathered to get a real look at the problem. Yes, it might be a pain, and yes, it might not lead to anything. But if there's ever going to be a chance to fix this industry-wide problem, people are going to have to go out of their way, think of someone besides themselves, and make a sacrifice.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 2, 2006

Google's New New York Office

Google moved into stylish, cavernous, and very Google-y new digs in New York this morning. Some cameraphone shots of the new Chelsea offices.

Auditorium.

Playroom

one of many scooters help speed getting down the city-block length hallway

one of several mini-kitchens where employees can grab free snacks and hang out

...one perk still to come.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interested in an "SEM Scholarship"?

Have you got tips, tricks, or secret tactics to share about search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising or social media optimization? Submit them to Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim, and you could win a $5,000 "SEM scholarship," including a pass to our own Search Engine Strategies in Chicago, a few SEM books, SEM tools, and one-on-one consulting with Beal.

Each Monday in October, beginning next week, submissions will be posted on Marketing Pilgrim's site. The most popular article each week will get an SEM book. At the end of the month, the four finalists will be judged by a panel of experts to determine who will win the package of SEM goodies.

If you're not interested in the scholarship, you can still learn from this contest, since it's a great example to follow when you try to create link-bait for your own site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 22, 2006

You Know You're Working Too Hard...

...when you can't even walk by a sushi bar without thinking about search.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 19, 2006

Search Share in China: Google Slides

Baidu rises in China, while Google struggles for market share in the country. The "Chinese Google" has a much younger audience than the U.S. version, and much smaller revenues. But its market share has swelled to vast proportions in that country. From the Times' story: "the Chinese market is littered with the wreckage of American Internet companies that have failed to dominate here." This shouldn't be taken as any sort of post-mortem on Google's China plans, but it's the first real assessment I've seen of its progress there.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 12, 2006

If I Were A Trademark...

I was mucking around the Web doing some research for my column this week when stumbled on a company that's been buying my name as a keyword on Google's AdWords.

No, I didn't find it via a vanity search, but rather on B.L. Ochman's blog.

This is jarring on a number of levels. First, it's my name. I may be relatively well know in this space, but sheesh. It's not like I'm Madonna or anything. So yeah, I feel violated.

The other thing that bothers me is that the company that bought this ad is AdWords Qualified by Google. Let's put aside for a moment whether or not buying private individuals' names is a good search marketing practice or not. In this case, the headline and body copy have nothing whatsoever to do with the landing page: the SEM company's homepage.

Otherwise put, not only is the ad not relevant, it certainly doesn't qualify as AdWords Qualified.

My gut is that the keywords (i.e. my name) were rock bottom cheap, clicks were zero, and the ad disappeared in short order. The bad taste in my mouth will linger, however. And given I'm an individual, not a trademark, even if I wanted to take action, it wouldn't be easy given Google's procedures and the fact the company in question is offshore.

So, I guess I'll vent by blogging it.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A Video Guide for Your Mobile Device

Just what you've been hoping for -- a programming guide for your phone.

The SmartVideo Entertainment Program Guide launches today from Action Engine Corp. According to the company, it "lets consumers quickly search for television programming from the company's large library of live mobile television and video-on-demand, including ABC News, CNBC, DIC, Fox Sports, ifilm, NBC Mobile, The Weather Channel, and more."

Says compay EVP Jim Souders, "Action Engine is focused on making sure that consumers don't get frustrated trying to find and access that media. Our mobile search technology lets consumers discover services, like television programs, music videos, and news images, with dramatically fewer keystrokes and trips to the network than competitive offerings."

So far, the platform is only available for Windows Mobile devices, but compatibility with more devices is promised for later this year.

Can advertising and sponsorship models be far behind?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 5, 2006

TrackMeNot: More Search Privacy

Worried about search privacy?

Plenty of users are in the wake of the much-ballyhooed AOL personal search data leak, as well as the profiling practices of the major search engines.

Enter TrackMeNot, a Firefox plug-in that obfuscates your personal search history.

"It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one's tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation...actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view...TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines, e.g. AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN, and requires no 3rd-party servers or services," claims the Web site.

via Threadwatch

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 15, 2006

AdCenter Launches in U.K.

Microsoft today began serving 100% of its paid search ads in the U.K. through adCenter, replacing all of the Yahoo Search Marketing ads it had been showing previously on MSN and Windows Live properties. AdCenter has been in pilot in the UK market since early June, and now joins France and Singapore, which launched in September, and the U.S., which went live on adCenter in May.

In order to win share away from Google and Yahoo, Microsoft is touting its audience intelligence and advanced targeting capabilities, which it says will deliver advertisers a higher ROI.

"By offering access to improved audience intelligence and generating increased conversion rates, we expect Microsoft adCenter to deliver a higher return on investment to our search advertisers," Sharon Baylay, general manager of Microsoft's online services group in the U.K., said in a statement.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 9, 2006

Eric Schmidt, Measureable Advertising & AJAX

In addition to his keynote discussion with Danny Sullivan today at SES, the press were granted an unusual additional hour of Q&A with Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt.

We're going to have lots to tell you about what he said, but one of the more interesting points was when I asked him about how new technologies such as AJAX (which he'd earlier touted as being developed thanks, in no small part, to advertising dollars) would influence advertising going forward. For all Google's support of measurable advertising, isn't this a instance of technology that's going to freak advertisers out -- again?

"It is true that AJAX is a change in pageview modeling," Schmidt replied. "In many ways you're seeing the old model falls away. {The inability to measure page views] is an example of something I hadn't started thinking about, but I certainly will go back and do that."

Fear not, Advertiser. Google's on the case.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Dance 2006 Photos

Every year I promise to take a lot of photos at the annual Google Dance, and every year I forget to bring anything beyond my cameraphone.

Well this year I had it more together. And in honor of the fact that Google's Picasa finally released Mac-compatible software, I'm able to keep the shots in the family, so to speak, rather than go to the competition or clog the blog.

Here's the link to the mini-album.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 8, 2006

Update: Google Audits Click Fraud Auditors

Breaking: Here at Search Engine Strategies, Google just let it be known they're auditing the click fraud auditors -- and finding fault with their methodolgy.

Take a look at Google's AdWord's blog for an overview. We're working on a longer story for ClickZ News. Obviously, Google has a financial interest in discrediting click fraud detection tools, which have been popping up like weeds for the past year or so. Which is all the more reason why the tools themselves require auditing.

Interesting, cicuitous stuff here. Stay tuned for deeper coverage.

Update: Alchemist Media's Jessie Stricciola, a eader in the battle against click fraud, is giving Google a thumbs-down, calling the report a "roundabout attack."

"We've always been very upfront about presenting these reports," Jessie told me. She -- and others -- are upset that Google effectively sprung a 17 page report at a session here with no opportunity for prior review. Moreover, several of the vendors criticized in the report are claiming only a couple of their datapoints were analyzed, rather than their entire methodology.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 7, 2006

User Search Data: AOL Gives Away the Farm

AOL this morning released search log data on more than half a million of its users. A hefty 439 MB file available on the company's research Web site shows queries conducted during a three-month period earlier this year. While AOL said the data was anonymized (users are identified only by an ID number), it's entirely possible to use the file to compile very personal and detailed search histories on individual users, and possibly identify them. The tech blogs are covering this angle extensively, and while AOL has yanked the file, it has already been widely mirrored and downloaded and the situation looks to be an unmitigated disaster for the company.

Affiliate and search marketers will be all over the keyword data it provides, including high traffic search terms and common misspellings. As some have pointed out, a whole crop of low quality AdSense sites optimized for this data are gong to crop up, lowering the quality of orgnanic results. Needless to say, AOL search partner Google will not be pleased.

Update: AOL just sent me the following statement with additional facts:

"This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant.

"Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize. We've launched an internal investigation into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of thing never happens again.

"Here was what was mistakenly released:

* Search data for roughly 658,000 anonymized users over a three month period from March to May.

* There was no personally identifiable data provided by AOL with those records, but search queries themselves can sometimes include such information.

* According to comScore Media Metrix, the AOL search network had 42.7 million unique visitors in May, so the total data set covered roughly 1.5% of May search users.

* Roughly 20 million search records over that period, so the data included roughly 1/3 of one percent of the total searches conducted through the AOL network over that period.

* The searches included as part of this data only included U.S. searches conducted within the AOL client software."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 4, 2006

Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Search marketing luminary Andy Beal is on the move. He announced today on his Marketing Pilgrim blog that he is stepping down as CEO of Fortune Interactive, the SEO firm he founded less than a year ago.

Some of you may remember the events of last summer, where Beal parted ways with WebSourced, in what he then described as a "philosophical differences" with his former employer. The situation at Fortune Interactive appears to be similar, in that Beal says there's a difference in the direction he'd like to take the company compared to where it's investors are headed.

Beal plans to do some SEM consulting while pondering his future, which may include starting a new company or joining an existing one.

So if anyone has any ideas for what Andy should do next, you might want to head out to San Jose for Search Engine Strategies, where he'll be speaking, drumming up new business, and considering what to do with his new-found freedom.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 1, 2006

Microsoft Adds Another Search Exec

Microsoft has added some more heft to its search team, hiring Harrison Magun, formerly managing director of Avenue A/Razorfish Search, as its new director of media analytics. A Microsoft spokesperson was able to confirm the hire, but could not provide any details on what Magun's new position will entail. Magun, a frequent speaker at search and online marketing events, joined Avenue A when it acquired eonMedia in December 2003.

AvenueA/Razorfish is looking for a VP to take over Magun's search duties, who will also oversee display ads.

"Having one senior executive running both display and search media aligns with our strategy of digital integration. We think the days of managing display and search media in separate silos is ending, and it is important to organize the agency in a way that supports that change," said a spokesperson.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Campaigns Forego Automation

Full service interactive ad agency PinPoint Interactive Media thinks marketers want to get back to the basics of manual bid management. The theory is "human analysis yields a more nuanced understanding of factors impacting campaign performance," said a company release. Instead of building out expansive automated programs, the firm is handing control back to the account manager and client to run campaigns. Though the practice was officially announced today, it's already had success with client Carlson Hotels. "We've experienced a tenfold increase in ROI using PinPoint's manual optimization approach over various automated bid management options," said Caroline Larson of Carlson Hotels.

Is it time to stop letting your campaign run itself and provide a little more administration? It could mean the added accountability that's missing in the industry.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 27, 2006

It's official

You know all that uproar over the $90 million settlement in Google's Arkansas click fraud case? Well, it's finished. (Until the uproar is revived in California, anyway.) Circuit Judge Joe E. Griffin approved (PDF) the settlement agreement, even though some had class members had objected.

A statement from Nicole Wong, associate general counsel at Google, says, "We're pleased Judge Griffin has affirmed the settlement as appropriate and fair to advertisers. We look forward to continuing to manage invalid clicks effectively and provide our advertisers with an outstanding return on their investment."

Here's some guidance from ClickZ columnist Kevin Lee on whether you should opt in or out.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 14, 2006

Google Advertisers Upset Over Landing Page Scoring

It appears that Google's recent changes to its landing page quality assessment has many advertisers up in arms. The search-related forums are buzzing with accounts of advertisers that have had hundreds of keywords deactivated by Google without warning, with keywords that formerly fetched pennies per click are now suddenly $10 or more.

At least some of this fallout seems to be intended by Google, as a means of purging its network of "made for AdSense" (MFA) sites. According to a product marketing manager blogging on the company's Inside AdWords site, "We realize that some minimum bids may be too high to be cost-effective -- indeed, these high minimum bids are our way of motivating advertisers to either improve their landing pages or to simply stop using AdWords for those pages, while still giving some control over which keywords to advertise on. Although it is counter-intuitive to some who hear it, we'd rather show one less ad than to show an ad which leads to a poor user experience -- since long-term user trust in AdWords is of overarching importance."

The problem many advertisers have is that Google attaches a quality score with an entire site or domain, so one bad landing page can sabotage an entire campaign. Besides that, there are several reports of AdWords reps having no information and no answers for long-time advertisers whose business is being severely impacted.

Several people have been critical of the way Google went about implementing this, with little communication with advertisers. To be fair, Google announced in December that changes would be coming, but they did not enumerate the kinds of pages that the program would be targeting, and seem to have underestimated the number of advertisers impacted.

As one poster put it, Google is "using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito." While some of the affected sites are MFA sites, others use image-based or Flash-based landing pages; or other low-text UIs, which are being judged by the AdsBot as low quality and are being penalized.

Some advertisers are supporting Google's actions, saying that reducing or eliminating search arbitrage will improve the quality of AdWords for users, leading them to click on ads more. A growing number of advertisers are beginning to weigh in on the forums with reports that their eCPM, CTR and pageviews are all up since Google began implementing the changes. It's likely many of these gains will be lost once more advertisers figure out what Google's AdsBot is looking for, but that would still accomplish the company's goal of encouraging "higher quality" landing pages.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 12, 2006

Whose click fraud numbers do you trust?

Something about this new click fraud study from MIT doesn't make sense to me.

Understandably, it's hard to find objective, third-party data on the extent of click fraud. Google and Yahoo aren't sharing their data, that's for sure. But this Click Fraud Network, which promises "100% free click fraud reporting," has always seemed to me to be a recruiting tool for Click Forensics' paid monitoring and analytics programs.

Now, don't get me wrong, they may have perfectly valid information. But it's hard to see their reports of click fraud, which are significantly higher than others', and not consider their vested interest in reporting high click fraud numbers in order to scare up more business.

And I don't mean to single out Click Forensics here either. I'm as skeptical of similar reports from research companies that also stand to benefit from painting click fraud as pervasive.

Of course, no one's going to devote resources to getting to the root of click fraud if there's no financial benefit. Short of a third-party auditor being allowed to look behind the curtain at Google and Yahoo, there doesn't seem to be an accurate way to measure the extent of the problem. Let's hope the SEMPO/Fair Isaac study can maintain some objectivity.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 11, 2006

Yellow Pages SEM Services Taking Advantage?

Yesterday's special "Journal Report" section from The Wall Street Journal featured an array of stories detailing how marketers are navigating the rapidly evolving media landscape. One story in particular on yellow pages publishers and advertisers incorporating the Web into their YP marketing mixes caught my eye.

The owner of a carpet cleaning company in Atlanta is using BellSouth's search engine marketing services. Here's his story:

Micha Anderson, president of Chastain Chem-Dry, a carpet-cleaning service in Atlanta, spends $1,625 a month for 750 clicks from BellSouth -- meaning BellSouth will keep bidding on keywords until at least 750 people click on Chastain Chem-Dry's ads and land on the business's site each month. BellSouth buys ads on Web sites including Yahoo.com, InfoSpace Inc.'s InfoSpace.com and Switchboard.com, and Ask.com, which is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp. BellSouth keeps a percentage of the monthly fee depending on how many clicks are purchased.

Mr. Anderson says he doesn't pay attention to what keywords have been purchased on his behalf. He just knows that the traffic to his Web site has nearly quadrupled since the program began. "I don't know what exactly are the mechanics of how they drive the traffic for us," he says, "but it's effective."

….Mr. Anderson of Chastain Chem-Dry pays top dollar for his clicks -- about $2.17 per click, based on a monthly fee of $1,625 for 750 clicks. The top bid recently for "carpet cleaner" on Yahoo was $1.20 per click, according to information available on Yahoo's Web site.

That seems about average, according to Kirsten Mangers, the chief executive of WebVisible, the company that manages the SEM services for YP publisher R.H. Donnelley Corp. who noted in the story, "if the average cost per click is 50 cents or a dollar, [the customer] may [actually] spend $2 or more for a click."

Sure, small business people have their hands full with doing their actual jobs, and stuff like marketing is often left on the back burner. So, if a company they already have an advertising relationship with offers them a service like this, it makes sense that some are willing to pay 4 times what they would if they did it themselves.

The thing is, small businesses can take years to get in the black, much less have enough profit to afford such a luxury. It seems as though this carpet cleaning company, or other small firms like it could hire someone -- say an enterprising college kid -- to perform a service like this for far less. I doubt BellSouth is spending much time altering keyword lists or ad copy. If the advertiser paid someone $30-$50 bucks an hour to do his SEO and SEM for 4 hours per week it wouldn't cost more than a couple hundred extra bucks on top of the average $.50 per click, still totaling far less than that $1,625 he's paying the YP publisher.

This is not to demean the work that goes into lots of search campaigns conducted by SEM consultants and agencies. Joe Schmo's hardware doesn't necessarily need that, though. Such companies really only need a bare bones solution that's reasonably priced.

I'd venture to guess it's more about a lack of knowledge than anything. The WSJ story affirms this: "'The vast majority of small businesses have neither the time nor awareness to effectively market their products on the Internet,' says Bill Hammack, an industry consultant and former executive at Donnelley."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 28, 2006

Google's Appeal Fails in France

Google's effort to appeal Louis Vuitton's trademark case against it in France has failed, according to the luxury goods maker. The search engine's fine has been upped to 300,000 euros for "trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and advertising". The court has forbidden Google "from using any of Louis Vuitton's trademarks in the scope of its advertising activity on all of its Web sites accessible from France."

An International Herald Tribune story from earlier this week says similar lawsuits against Google in France now number more than 40.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 26, 2006

MSN adCenter's Aggressive New Ad Campaign

The headline reads "She found your furniture ad on Google." The image is a little girl and her dollhouse.

MSN adCenter's full page color ad in today's New York Times business section promises a "+57% higher conversion rate than Google and 48% higher than Yahoo."

Here's the landing page (complete with a couple questionable security certificates): msftadcenter.com/nyt. Obviously, MSN is tracking conversions.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 19, 2006

Search for Brand Marketers Breakfast

This Thursday, I'm participating in a panel on search for brand marketers sponsored by Hitwise. I'll be joining some great speakers: SEMPO's Dana Todd, Performic's Cam Balzer, Spafinders' Daniel Lizio-Katzen and Microsoft's James Colborn, with Bill Tancer moderating.

Stop by for breakfast if you're in sweltering New York this week. I'm sure the hotel will have air con!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 15, 2006

Google News Gets Personal

Google News is getting personal. I visited the page for the umpteenth time today and suddenly, there's a highlighted ribbon proclaiming, "New! Search History now includes Google News."

Subsequent visits/page refreshes failed to resummon the message, by the way.

The "learn more" links to the What's Personalized Search? page.

And this in the wake of AOL's new Digg-like Netscape feature.

Just think of the targeting potential when you (or your search behemouth) know which users are searching for what news.....

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 14, 2006

SEMPO, Fair Isaac to Study Click Fraud

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) and credit fraud specialists Fair Isaac have teamed up for a research study on click fraud and click quality in pay-per-click advertising.

The study will use Fair Isaac's artificial intelligence methods to determine the extent of click fraud and to develop a solution for the search marketing industry. Fair Isaac scientists intend to apply some of the same anti-fraud technology they use for credit cards to differentiate between clicks that are genuine expressions of human interest and those that are not.

"Click fraud is probably the single biggest deterrent to the continued growth of search engine marketing today. As search expands into new markets, including local advertisers, marketers have to feel confident that they're getting full value for every click," said Gord Hotchkiss, SEMPO chairman.

SEMPO members and non-member advertisers are being asked to contribute anonymous click stream data to the study, in exchange for analysis of their search engine advertising and potential click fraud.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 8, 2006

That Ice Rocket Acquisition? Never Mind

According to Andy Beal, Think Partnership is calling off its acquisition of blog search engine IceRocket.com. The deal got lots of play when it was first announced, given Mark Cuban's backing of the search engine.

Not a dramatic surprise, I suppose, given Think's history of backing out of deals. In one instance, the company agreed to acquire Crystal Reference Systems but backed out. Crystal was later acquired by Ad Pepper Media. Think also intended to buy Proceed Interactive only to call off that deal.

I tried to confirm the Ice Rocket call-off by contacting corporate communications guy Xavier Hermosillo, but got no response.

Think recently shed its chairman and its CEO, moved from Chicago to Florida and said they would focus on operations rather than acting like a holding company. Another board member left earlier this week.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 1, 2006

Highlights from Google's Q&A with Investors

In a bid to better communicate with the investor community, Google held a Q&A session for investors and analysts yesterday. It was pretty much what you'd expect from an investor call, but from a marketing perspective, there were a few interesting tidbits to emerge.

* CEO Eric Schmidt, when asked to point to a recent initiative that disappointed him, picked the print advertising test. No surprise there, since results were reportedly disappointing.

But Google's not giving up on print yet. Schmidt insisted that the plan could still work, if Google can work with magazine publishers to more closely integrate the ads with the content. He also said Google would try to get better ads from advertisers, which were more suited to the print presentation.

* An example Schmidt gave of something that has exceeded expectations was Google's acquisition of Keyhole, which formed the backbone of Google Maps, and will enable advertising opportunities on that platform.

* Schmidt said Google has no plans for building its own Web browser to compete with Microsoft, but would continue working closely with Firefox and other browsers.

* The company plans to grow its customer base via partnerships, not mergers & acquisitions, according to Schmidt. Recently, the company has teamed up with AOL for ads, Dell for toolbar distribution, and Japan's KDDI for getting Google search on mobile phones.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 31, 2006

SEM At Any Price?

I'm at Search Engine Strategies London where I had drinks last night with some of the best minds in the biz: Mike Grehan, Anne Kennedy, and Jessie Stricchiola, to name just a few. It was astounding to hear search's old guard talk about the young Turks who are being hired as in-house SEMs. $150K signing bonuses are becoming common, as is profligate job-hopping among people with only a year or two of experience.

So why aren't all these seasoned professionals cashing in? There was plenty of laughter when that question arose.

"We're too cliquish," scoffed somebody.

"You mean no more working at home, being our own bosses, and maintaining our own sites while we pick and chose our clients?" asked another, rhetorically. A third member of the party was on her cell phone making spontaneous plans to pop over to Rome for the weekend (taking her laptop -- and by extension, her clients -- along for the ride).

Search may be in hypergrowth mode, but money isn't everything to the real pros. Perhaps something to consider when determining who's going to be responsible for your site's SEM and SEO.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 12, 2006

Gannett Scoops Up Local Search Platform

Newspaper publisher Gannett just acquired local search tech platform company Planet Discover in an effort to bolster the local search capability of its 100-plus sites which include USAToday.com.

Planet Discover's local search platform aggregates news and news archives, business listings, local site content, community information, and ads from client sites, its partner sites and the Web.

The paper publisher bought rich media tech outfit Point Roll (hey ain't that their ad up there?) about a year ago.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 10, 2006

New from Google: Notebook (Coming Next Week)

Google Notebook (in Labs debuting next week) is the company's answer to the bookmarking phenomenon. Users can save search results and other content from the Web into Notebooks, which can then be shared (or not) with others across the Web. At first glance it's hard for me to imagine how this could be especially useful to marketers, though I suppose retailers could encourage users to save product pages to Notebook, in hopes that they'd eventually come back to buy. Marissa Meyer's demonstration example, in fact, used a shopping experience -- in which she'd collect information as she was going through the purchase cycle. The data appears to live online and is therefore accessible from multiple computers. Not sure if there's a download.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New from Google: Trends

Google Trends (in Labs) is the company's answer to Nielsen BuzzMetrics' BlogPulse, sort of. The product lets you type in search terms and graph how popular they've been over time. You can also track multiple terms and see their relationsips to one another. The most interesting thing here (besides the fact that it's Google) is the ability to slice and dice by cities, regions and languages, so you can find out, for example, that searches for Tom Cruise are particularly popular in Irvine, Calif. Handy for marketers trying to tap into public sentiment, look at searches on their brand names, etc.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New From Google: Desktop 4

The main innovation in Google Desktop version 4 is the addition of "Gadgets" -- Apple and Yahoo call them "widgets." These are little mini-applications that live within the Google sidebar and can be dragged onto the desktop. We're talking weather apps, calculators, photos, and that type of thing -- things that people want to have easily accessible all the time. The most obvious application for a marketer would be something like a countdown clock for a movie (or book) debut, a bit of free content for an online publisher, and the like. The company's releasing an API for the Gadgets, so anyone will be able to build one, or two, or three. Kind of cool. But still requires a download, which will limit its appeal somewhat.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New From Google: Co-Op

I've been in Mountain View for Google Press Day, taking in (and trying to organize and make useful) all the world's information about the search giant. This afternoon, the company unveiled a number of new products with potential (current or eventual) implications for marketers. The next few posts will outline some of these products and my thoughts about them.

Google Co-Op: This initiative taps into the "tagging" phenomenon and allows user-generated content to influence search results. A subject matter expert -- who could be an individual, a company, or a non-profit organization -- tags (Google calls it "labels") search results that apply to their particular area of specialty. Then, Google users can "subscribe" to people whose tags they are interested in viewing. After that, the tags appear at the top of search results for relevant queries. Google also "auto subscribes" the entire Google universe of users to the tags of people it has determined (through Google Voodoo) are authorities. The buzz over "Google Health" this week comes because Google asked certain hospitals and other entities to tag health-related content, and is auto-subscribing everyone to those tags.

The idea is to enable Google to tap into users' expertise. It's not easy to tag these things yet, though. (In case you're imagining del.icio.us-like functionality.) You could potentially put a URL into one box, and the tag into a second and then press "enter," or you can upload an XML file with your labels. Search engine marketers, step right up... Co-op is supposedly live right now, but I can't get it. Folks here say it's being rolled out and should be operational for everyone around 6 p.m. PT tonight.

UPDATE: Besides the "labels," Co-op also lets people, companies, etc. create "subscribed links" that appear at the top of search results. Barry at SEW Blog has already been playing around with these and offers a pretty good example of how it could work for companies.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 9, 2006

Google Markets Search Box Switch to IE7 Users

We know Google is angry about Microsoft's implementation of the search box in IE7, going so far as to accuse it of anti-competitive practices (Microsoft? anti-competitive?). And we know Google has been promoting Firefox on its front page. But until I downloaded IE7 today I didn't know about the technological way Google is fighting back. If your browser is IE7 and you go to Google.com, a little window appears just below the browser searchbox. "Make Google your Search Engine in Internet Explorer," it implores. And one click does the job.

Interesting tactic. Nice workaround for those users who Google believes aren't able to figure out how to change the default search engine in the box. (It defaults to MSN Search, of course.)

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 8, 2006

iProspect: Most SEMs Hold Multiple Roles

An iProspect study conducted by Jupiter Research found that search marketers are responsible for an average of five other job functions within their organization. Most often, those roles include Web design (58% of respondents) and e-mail marketing (57%), as well as other marketing, PR (26%), and IT functions (26%).

Robert Murray, iProspect's president, pins the practice of SEMs holding multiple roles on lack of good search talent available, as well as the tendency for in-house SEMs to be picked from within the marketing department, many of whom keep their old roles as well.

"Search marketing is still relatively new at some organizations, and the lack of dedicated resources to the channel are likely due to the absence of enough early results to warrant investment at this stage," he said.

While Murray's understandably biased conclusion is that search should be handled by full-time, dedicated experts (such as those at iProspect, he notes), he admits that it is encouraging that most of the marketing job functions are closely related to search, and present opportunities for cross-channel integration.

The fact that a quarter of search marketing efforts are led by IT is concerning to Murray, who said, "Given the success of the medium as a marketing channel, I had thought that ownership of budget, management, and implementation of the search engine marketing process was very much in the hands of the marketing department, where marketing expertise resides. We had hoped that ownership of any serious marketing initiative by the IT department was something of the past."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 11, 2006

iProspect: Don't Forget Organic Search

A new study from iProspect and Jupiter Research reinforces the importance of placing high in organic search results. Among other things, the study found that 90 percent of searchers do not look past the third page of results, and 62 percent of searchers don't go past one page. Four years ago, 48 percent of searchers stopped after one page, and 81 percent stopped after three pages.

"Consumers are spending millions of dollars online, and they're using search to do it. If you're not taking an aggressive approach to organic search, consumers are going to find your competitors," Rob Murray, iProspect's president, told ClickZ News.

More users are refining their searches with longer queries on the same search engine rather than switching search engines, Murray said, making it more important for search marketers to target longer queries in their SEO efforts. The study found that 82 percent of users do this, where only 68 percent did so in 2002.

Top organic search placements can also create brand lift, since 36 percent of the 2500 respondents said they believe the companies with top organic results are the top brands in their field.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 7, 2006

Much Ado About "Project Panama"

There's been much chatter about a Forbes.com article based upon a report by RBC analyst Jordan Rohan. The gist of the article is that Yahoo! is changing its ranking system for PPC ads, so that relevance, as well as bid price, is taken into account (the Google model).

Chatted with Yahoo! folks about this a few minutes ago, and suffice it to say they aren't thrilled with the coverage, insisting that the Rohan report is rife with inaccuracies.

They admit, however, that they're considering various elements that could be incorporated into their ranking model. They also acknowledge that they're working on a new interface for advertisers to be rolled out in the second half of the year -- something that CEO Terry Semel has been talking about publicly for some time.

Don't know what to believe on this. Considering relevance would certainly make sense -- it's been plenty successful for Google.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Web Marketing Engender Phone Spam?

Is it just me, or is a potentially massive problem brewing out there?

I started fretting about this when I learned certain click-to-call services first verify the number a user inputs online by calling back before forwarding the number on to the merchant or advertiser. Initial reaction: "Well, what's to stop me from inputting my ex's number? At 5:00 in the morning?" What a number's mistyped or transposed? Someone's gonna get that call.

It's not like I have the most criminal mind in the world (or the intent to follow through), but I'm sure that idea, or one very much like it, is going to occur to more than one mischievious person out there.

My worries were rekindled today when I registered for PayPals' new text-to-buy mobile payment system. Input a phone number and a password for an account and you get a callback (right away or later, you chose) to verify the account. Send a payment via your mobile phone and PayPal calls the recipient to tell them how to claim the funds.

Currently, PayPal's new service is free. Conceivably, you could actually harass someone by paying them money -- small sums rendered at inconvenient times.

It's not like I have an exceptionally criminal mind or anything, but it would appear a new Pandora's box of Web/phone issues may be poised to open.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 6, 2006

Google's Sells Own Trademark in AdWords?

Wonder how long this ad (spotted in an RSS feed) is gonna last?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 4, 2006

Long-Time MIVA CEO is Out

Craig Pisaris-Henderson, who has presided over the company now known as Miva for a decade, is leaving the firm in a significant shake-up that has president Phillip Thune resigning, as well. Pisaris-Henderson was founder, chairman and CEO of Miva, which was formerly known as FindWhat.com. Both will keep their positions on the company's board of directors.

Pisaris-Henderson has seen the company through drastic changes both in the industry and in the firm itself. Most recently, the firm overhauled and re-branded itself as Miva, after acquiring e-commerce firm Miva and European paid search player Espotting. The management change comes after Miva hired an investment bank to explore options, including a possible sale.

Former COO Peter Corrao has been appointed chief executive officer. Larry Weber, a marketing and digital media executive who serves on the MIVA board, has assumed the position of non-executive chairman. Seb Bishop, a Miva director, the company's chief marketing officer and a founder of Espotting, will take the role of president. He'll keep his CMO duties, as well.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Confirms New Positioning Feature

Are you dead set on your AdWords ad appearing in top position, and only in top position? Or maybe you think position #4 is the top performer?

Google is rolling out a new feature, first noted by our sister site Search Engine Watch, that lets advertisers specify positions for their ads.

The usual bid price/relevancy rules still apply, but this basically means advertisers can opt-out of having their ads appear when they would have shown up in an undesirable position.

Advertisers can specify that their ad appear only when it is higher than a given position, lower than a given position, within a range of positions, or in a single exact position. Separate preferences can be set for each keyword in a campaign.

The feature is being rolled out to all advertisers "over the coming weeks" so it'll appear at differing times in differing accounts.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 1, 2006

Google Spoofs "Contextual Romance"

Google to Organize World's Courtship Information with Google Romance
reads the headline. "Service to offer psychographic matchmaking plus free 'contextual dating' option."

Look now, who know how long Google's April Fools Google Romance beta will be live?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 27, 2006

Safa Rashtchy tidbits

I'm taking things in at the Kelsey Group "Drilling Down on Local" conference today and tomorrow, and will be blogging tidbits here and there. Some bits from Safa Rashtchy's keynote:

• Current count of about 500k online advertisers could reach 2 to 4 million with local search over the next 5 years.
  
• Ultimately, local search could lead to as much as 50 percent of all purchases online.
  

One interesting theme was the idea of real-time inventory management, enabled by RFID, as the end game of local search. This would provide the "missing link" between online search and offline purchasing.

"In big metropolitan areas, you can probably find anything that you can find on the Web," Rashtchy said. "Whatever you're looking for is probably sold someplace in big metropolitan areas, but the problem is how to find it."

Incidentally, Rashtchy is senior research analyst of internet media and marketing, and managing director, at Piper Jaffray.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Visits New Orleans

Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Small Business, together with Bell South, are hosting a seminar in New Orleans on April 7th for local small businesses affected by Hurricane Katrina.

"This seminar will provide free training and up to $1,500 in free products and services (including search marketing services) to attendees to help facilitate small biz recovery in the Gulf Coast. Additionally, we are working to have a Yahoo! developer to host subsequent seminars for months to come to show a continued effort to get businesses 'back in business.'"

Altrustic -- and smart marketing. If only my friends in the Bywater could get their Web access back up and running.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

Goog's Print Auction: Miserable Failure?

Business Week is pretty quick to dismiss Google's trial print ad auctions as a floperoo.

Now, I'm not saying the model will work. But it's the first trial, guys! This has never been done before!

BW was quick to point out how disappointed publishers were with the trial, but practically buried the line, "Google did little to market the opportunity to its network of several hundred thousand advertisers."

And those are the advertisers accustomed to buying ads on online auctions, not the usual magazine advertiser suspects.

Will Google's gamble pay off? Who knows. But let's not trash it after trial #1.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 22, 2006

Yahoo Developing Display Ad/Search Integration

Over lunch today, Yahoo's Ron Belanger told me what Yahoo's working to develop next: a more off-the-shelf product offering integrating search and display advertising.

Sure, the company's done this in the past, most conspicuously for the big brand advertisers sponsoring "The Apprentice" and other showcase projects.

But these were special cases, Ron notes. He also lamented that on Yahoo's side -- as with most advertisers -- budgets and project management for search and display campaigns remain neatly siloed. Yahoo's task will initially be to break down those walls internally. They then face the much more daunting task of getting agencies and marketers to do the same.

UPDATE: A Yahoo! spokesperson called to stress what they're working on internally isn't a product, per se, but a way to get display and search teams to work more closely to integrate campaigns, both a Yahoo! and ultimately, at agencies.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

Judge Tells DoJ No on Google Search Queries

Just posted on Google's blog by Associate General Councel Nicole Wong:

Google will not have to hand over any user's search queries to the government. That's what a federal judge ruled today when he decided to drastically limit a subpoena issued to Google by the Department of Justice.

"The fact that the judge sent a clear message about privacy is reassuring," writes Wong, "What his ruling means is that neither the government nor anyone else has carte blanche when demanding data from Internet companies."

Bravo!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 15, 2006

Search the Senators

From "John Bolton" to "Cindy Sheehan," the practice of buying search keywords based on the names of public figures is becoming a more and more popular means of driving traffic to advocacy group and political merch sites. This, however, is a bit of a twist on the usual. According to Tom Watson's blog, to promote its "Fighting for New York's Middle Class: 2001-2005 NY State Legislative Scorecard" report, The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy bought the names of all New York state legislators.

Actually, I did a spot-check and found that NYS Senator Diane Savino got left out. It looks like she was elected in the '04 election (or re-elected?), so I'm not sure what gives there.

Either way, we'll definitely be seeing more of this, especially from candidate campaigns, not just advocacy groups that increasingly buy keywords based on issues and names-in-the-news to raise consciousness.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 14, 2006

Miva Glad to See 2005 End

In its earnings call with investors and analysts yesterday, Miva Chairman and CEO Craig Pisaris-Henderson said the company has put its troubles behind and will begin to see the results of last year's overhaul of company, products and network partners.

Results for the year were disappointing, with revenue at $194.6 million, up 15 percent over 2004; and a GAAP net loss of $130.2 million, or $4.23 per share, compared to earnings of $17.0 million, or $0.60 a share, in 2004.

In 2005, the company rebranded, settled a patent spat with Yahoo! for $8 million, and repeatedly saw lower profits that it blamed on a decision to clean up its network.

Its latest efforts, outlined in a manifesto it calls the "Miva Principle," center around giving publishers the tools they need, from a non-competitive provider (as opposed to a competitor/provider like Yahoo! or Google). Last year, it acquired a perpetual license from search technology provider FAST, which has led to three new products: algorithmic search in France, Germany and the UK; Miva Match keyword matching tools; and an automated contextual ad platform launched in beta last month.

"Change is never easy, but we believe we successfully managed through our fair share of challenges. We are battle-tested and committed to the work that still lies ahead. I believe we have the right people, solutions and strategy to realize new opportunities in the years to come," Pisaris-Henderson said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 10, 2006

Clock is Ticking in Click Fraud Cases

The clock may have just started ticking for Google in its click fraud lawsuits. The attorneys in a California click fraud suit say the race is on between getting its proposed settlement approved by an Arkansas state court judge and the members of the class (i.e. advertisers), and a scheduled May 14 hearing in U.S. District Court in California, when a judge may certify a class of advertisers in that case.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 8, 2006

Accoona Launches... Again

We were invited recently to a press event at the United Nations that sounded suspiciously like a launch. "Accoona Reinvents Internet Search," reads the press release subsequently issued by the company. Hmm. This sounded familiar. Didn't this company do a well-publicized launch event, featuring none other than former President Bill Clinton, back in late 2004? The company's ties to chess master Gary Kasparov, as well as former Compaq Chairman Eckhard Pfeiffer, attracted attention at the time. But then Accoona quickly faded out of view.

Well, now it appears the company is launching once again, with news and business search features. Still coming soon is an advertising model.

From the release:

In addition, Accoona executives revealed that the company will soon unveil a new model of online advertisement. Thousands of major advertisers and advertising agencies have already signed letters of intent to participate, according to Stuart Kauder, chief executive officer of Accoona.

"Our artificial intelligence capabilities enable us to offer advertisers a compelling and unique value proposition, in terms of matching search queries to their products and services," said Kauder. "Here, too, Accoona will redefine the commercial model of Internet search."

Thousands of major advertisers and agencies? Wow. Looking forward to hearing more.

UPDATE: If you're one of those advertisers or agencies, feel free to drop us a line!

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What Should the Butler Do Next?

Search player Watson has launched a playful little poll, A Job For Jeeves.

Want to send Jeeves to Google China? Get him a gig as Watson's lightbulb changer?

And by the way, asks the page, want to try a free download of Watson?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 5, 2006

Search: Academy Awards

The Super Bowl was a big deal in search, but what about the Oscars? iVillage went through the trouble to buy "Academy Awards" and "Oscars" on Google, but didn't put together a special package for the show. The content is general "awards season" and entertainment video, what should be a link from the Oscar page.

Posted by Enid Burns at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 2, 2006

Search and Donate

While not all things with "good" in the title are what they seem, GoodSearch, a Yahoo!-powered search engine aims to keep the "good" connotations of its name. A portion of the company's revenues go to the charity of choice for each user.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Plagiarizing for the Engines

WSJ columnist Lee Gomes goes undercover to explore the seedy underbelly of Web content creation. He is asked to lightly edit dozens of plagiarized articles from various sources, all for the purpose of making his employer's site more discoverable by search engines. It's a widespread practice site owners engage in to either make money off the resulting ads or to sell cheap pharmaceuticals and other gray market products. Worth a read, if only to get an insider's feel for one of the evils search begat.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:58 AM | Permalink

March 1, 2006

SES Reacts to Reyes' Comments

I've heard a wide range of reactions among SES attendees to Google CFO George Reyes' "Law of large numbers" comments, which sent the company's stock into a brief tailspin. If you missed it, Reyes said Google faces an era of slower growth and must look for new sources of revenue.

People I've spoken with largely dismiss those who suggest Reyes' comments mark the end of the great Google hogride. Sure, the company will exit hypergrowth (at least in the States); but the consensus here is that today's horrified headlines (Daily News: "Stox Dive on Google Jolt") say more about investor and journalist expectations than about Google's prospects.

That said, people clearly smell a whiff of change in the searchosphere. Google's comments combined with new evidence of a slowdown in search query volume in the U.S. create the impression that the hottest part of the fire, as far as online marketing is concerned, may have cooled somewhat.

Update: Google issued a statement "clarifying" Reyes comments, and John Battelle notes this isn't the first time Reyes has discomforted his employer with freely uttered concerns.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 28, 2006

Microsoft does the A9 thing

At this morning's "Search Pundits" session at SES, the inimitable Robert Scoble let slip (ok, so he "announced") that Microsoft is following A9's lead and taking street-level photos -- searchable, of course -- of U.S. cities. Already, he said, the company's photo-taking van has snapped 10 million images around Seattle and "about the same number" in San Francisco. These images should be accessible by the end of the day today, Scoble said. (Actually, they are up now.) This is part of the company's Virtual Earth initiative. Like Amazon's similar functionality on A9, this has interesting possibilities for local marketers who want to ensure their retail location is easily spotted.

See the Channel 9 entry about the photo-taking.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 27, 2006

Microsoft Opens Up adCenter

Microsoft is opening up the U.S. pilot of adCenter to more advertisers, and boosting the traffic it runs through the platform by 70 percent. Jed Nahum, director of product management for adCenter, invited attendees at SES to stop by Microsoft's booth to sign up. For those not attending, Microsoft will open up signups on its site for an undisclosed period of time on March 6 beginning at 9 a.m. PST. Since the pilot started in October, more than 3,500 advertisers have signed up, Nahum said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barry Diller: "Be Evil" More Realistic

In his keynote speech at the Search Engine Strategies conference this morning, IAC's Chairman and CEO Barry Diller unveiled the new Ask.com. When Danny Sullivan asked if he had any plans to introduce a corporate philosophy similar to Google's "Don't Be Evil" mantra.

He jokingly suggested that "Be Evil" would be a more realistic policy.

"Very few companies act in a consciously evil way. Google is now in real business, and like any business, it does things that people are not going to like," Diller said. "It's a lovely mantra when you're not in business. It means nothing when you are."

Instead, Ask.com will center its upcoming campaign on the idea of "Use Tools. Feel Human," to spotlight the way having the right tools to search with will make everyone feel better...or something similarly non-evil like that.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 26, 2006

Welcome to Search Engine Strategies NYC

For the next few days, the ClickZ News team will be hosting, covering and taking in the Search Engine Strategies conference in Manhattan, along with our colleagues at Search Engine Watch. I, personally, have just arrived at the Hilton and am getting settled in for the duration. Hope to see you 'round over the next few days!

Posted by Pamela Parker at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 23, 2006

The Butler's Still Doing It

Looks like the butler's still doing it.

AskJeeves may now be Ask.com, with Jeeves off contemplating retirement plans. But rebranding is hard. The company's management team page still portrays the butler dusting off executive portraits.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Selling Cars? "Possum" Is Your Keyword

Some pretty impressive campaigns were finalists at Yahoo's first Searchlight Awards in New York yesterday. The award goes to the most creative use of paid search in a broader advertising campaign.

The finalist brands: Miller Beer; Chase; GM and the Honda Element were indeed creative. These major advertisers aren't going for the obvious, and more expensive, keywords and phrases on search engines. Instead, they're buying terms that integrate with campaign creative.

RPA's campaign for the Honda Element was the hands down winner. The creative features the car having droll little conversations with a variety of animals. So what search terms did RPA buy? Words like "element" + "possum."

Unlikely? It worked. Search traffic to the brand's game site hit the target demo perfectly.

Chase sold credit cards with "love the double" and Miller bought "beer run." All achieved traffic without blowing the budget on more highly priced words and phrases.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 21, 2006

Jeeves Goes Out in Style

Ask.com is giving Jeeves the butler a proper farewell, announcing yesterday that it will send him off with a Jeeves' Retirement mini-site. It's no surprise to anyone that Jeeves was leaving, but the official news leaves little hope for a change of heart from IAC chairman Barry Diller.

It's certainly a good way to harness the sentiments around the consumer-generated content that has sprung up, such as the SaveJeeves.com site. It's also a way for them to soften the blow and ease their brand away from Ask Jeeves to Ask.com.

Writing in the Ask Jeeves blog, SVP of search Jim Lanzone chronicled the evolution of Jeeves, both the character and the company, and said it's time for a refresh of the Ask Jeeves brand.

"When it comes to our product, we're continuously evolving and improving. Our brand deserves a clean break to open people up to seeing how good we are," Lanzone wrote. "So, we're going to take the leap and strike out for a fresh identity, one that fits more with who we've become than who we used to be. One that revolves more around the site, and what it does for our users, rather than around a character."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 16, 2006

A Name for Microsoft's Contextual Network

What? You didn't know Microsoft had a contextual network? Well, it doesn't. Yet. But
Jensense did some intrepid digging on the site for the MIX conference, and came up with a name: ContentAds. If you expected something more imaginative, well, you're just going to be disappointed.

UPDATE: Microsoft launched a blog for adCenter this week. [via SearchViews]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 14, 2006

MSN's Magic Keywords, Outed!

When MSN told me their "Search and Win" contest was based on rewarding visitors who type in certain keywords, I figured it was only a matter of time...

Yes, it appears just one day after the plan was announced, Oilman has figured out all of the "winning words" and Threadwatch has written a script that eventually resulted in a win.

But does this just fuel more interest in MSN Search?

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEMPO Elections Scandal-free, So Far

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is holding its annual elections for its board. Notably absent from the nominees are three members of the 2005 board: former chairperson Barbara Coll, from SEM firm WebMama; Chris Churchill, founder and vice chairman of Fathom Online; and Ron Belanger, former Carat Interactive VP who's now senior director of global advertiser strategy and development at Yahoo!

I called up SEMPO president Dana Todd to see if there was anything scandalous to report, similar to the organization's freshman year woes. Fortunately for SEMPO (and unfortunately for me as a journalist), Dana assured me that all was well. She pointed out that 10 of the 13 board members were seeking re-election, that those departing had valid personal/job-related reasons, and that SEMPO has been pretty darn busy in 2005.

Oh well, I suppose I can always hope that the juicy behind-the-scenes bits will be revealed in the after-hours events of SES at the end of the month. If you're attending the show and want to meet up for coffee, a drink, or just to chat, drop me a line at kevin -at- clickz -dot- com.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another Trademark Battle Flares Up

The claims, they are all too familiar.

• "Google's selling my trademark as a keyword and competitors are buying."
  
• "People looking for my business are getting diverted to competitors' sites without realizing it."
  
• "We've spent buttloads building our brand and it's all going down the drain."
  
• "Google could stop this, but it isn't."
  

Ok, so these aren't exact quotes but you get the gist. The plaintiff, in the newest case against Google, is CNG Financial, which operates "Check 'N Go" check cashing facilities. (See a PDF of the complaint here.) The case treads a well-worn path traveled most recently by GEICO, which agreed to settle its dispute with Google back in September. A similar case brought by American Blind and Wallpaper Factory is ongoing.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 8, 2006

Are Jeeves' Days Numbered?

During today's IAC investor call, Barry Diller spoke about a re-launch of Ask.com, set to take place the same day he'll be the keynote speaker at SES.

Given his past comments about the butler, and his tendency to refer to the property as Ask.com instead of Ask Jeeves, it may be time to sound the death knell for old Jeeves.

UPDATE: Looks like the BBC got confirmation that Jeeves is indeed being shown the door.

Rachel Johnson, Ask's VP of marketing in Europe, told the BBC: "We can confirm that we are repositioning our brand and that Jeeves will be retiring."

I guess it's time once again for the Jeeves faithful to fire up their efforts over at SaveJeeves.com.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 7, 2006

BMW, Ricoh TipTheir (Black) Hats

Black hat SEO suffered a severe blow this week.

Blogging about BMW and Ricoh being banned by Google in Germany for deceptive optimization practices, Danny raises some interesting points.

Sure, both companies are publicly sporting black eyes. They've been nailed for using black hat SEO techniques -- and banned by Google. What I'm liking about this all the very public attention drawn to black hat SEO.

“We cannot tolerate Web sites trying to manipulate search results as we aim to provide users with the relevant and objective search results," Google told the FT.

Google appears to be doing something very deliberate and calculated here. The message: if it can happen to them, it can happen to you.

The BMW/Ricoh debacle will bump SEO and accountability up into the ranks of senior management, where it belongs.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 31, 2006

HighBeam Launches New Contextual Ad Program

HighBeam Research announced HighBeam Advertiser Directb today. The new program offers CPC programs for advertisers on the company's research results pages. Ads appear in sponsored link sections at above and belowof search results, and also near the text of contextually relevant articles.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Spoken-Word TV Content Search

TVEyes has launched a "Spoken Word Index" that "crawls" every word in an audio or video file. So now, you can search Web TV for content -- well, at present only news content, but you can imagine the possibilities.

The TV search engine currently searches foxnews.com, cnn.com, msnbc.com, cbsnews.com, reuters.com and news.bbc.co.uk. Once you find clips containing your keyword, you can play video clips containing that keyword for verification before moving on to the news site to view or download the entire file.

TVEyes is encouraging content owners to make their sites available for indexing.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 26, 2006

Mobile Search 101

The Mobile Marketing Association just released "Introduction to Mobile Search" (download).

The paper defines the differences of mobile versus Web search, opportunities to educate subscribers about mobile search, potential business models and the challenges operators face in offering an integrated, carrier branded mobile search experience to subscribers.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 20, 2006

Search Records and the Feds

Danny Sullivan and the Search Engine Watch team have some great posts about Google's resistance to federal demands for search resords.

• The Day After: Points In The Search Trust Sweepstakes
  
• Court Documents & Summary Of United States Versus Google Over Search Data
  
• Bush Administration Demands Search Data; Google Says No; AOL, MSN & Yahoo Said Yes
  

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 19, 2006

Google's Non-Evil Stance on Privacy & Democracy

Google's refusal to hand over aggregate search information to the Bush administration -- while the other major engines reportedly have -- is zinging through the blogosphere this morning (I first read about it on John Battelle's blog).

Danny's got a great take on it from the privacy and search perspectives, but there's a marketing angle here, too.

MSN and Yahoo! are already suffering a consumer backlash resulting from their decisions to turn over information on Chinese bloggers to the authorities. There have been calls for boycotts of both companies, first in the blogosphere, now in mainstream media.

By taking the high road, Google's not only walking the walk insofar as it's "don't be evil" corporate motto is concerned, it's also garnering some serious goodwill as its competitors' reputations further tarnish insofar as democracy and human rights are concerned.

Way to go, Google.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

IAC's Barry Diller To Keynote SES NY 2006 Next Month

Yep, it's true. Danny Sullivan announced it on his blog today. We're really looking forward to being there, and this just makes the event all the more attractive.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 7:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Maps - Free Advertising

I missed this when it was originally written about, but the Google Maps "blue pointer" story prompted the MIT Ad Lab to repost an entry. Classic stuff.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 16, 2005

Google Preserves Status Quo with AOL? Yes and No

The Wall Street Journal has it today (sub req.) that AOL is now in "exclusive talks" with Google, apparently bringing down the curtain on Microsoft's aspiration to own the portal/ISP's search traffic. Base line, that means Google will preserve its distribution relationship with AOL -- essentially a status quo development -- but it also means a good bit more.

In addition to acquiring a five percent stake in the company for $1 billion, Google will promote AOL's content in its sponsored links and include AOL videos in its organic results. Even more curious is that AOL will reportedly sell display ads across the AdSense network, building on the branded CPM units Google started rolling out earlier this year.

I'm curious to see how other video content owners react to the news that Google will give special play to AOL videos. As the video content and advertising space gets hotter, this could deal a serious blow to some of them, while powerfully increasing AOL's saleable video inventory.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 14, 2005

At the Googleplex

Google's bold-faced names and press-relations folks mingled with the media last night in Mountain View at the 'plex. I took in the scene -- and copious amounts of sushi and hors d'oeuvres -- with JupiterResearch's Gary Stein and Sapna Satagopan. Since the evening's event was to be strictly off the record, I can't go into detail about the future plans Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt revealed to me. Suffice it to say the company plans to do something along the lines of organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful. (Kidding here, of course. The cocktail-party chatter I participated in was mostly of the "how are your kids?" and "I read your blog entry" variety.)

What I can report is that the evening was classic Google. A huge whiteboard along one wall displayed computer-geek humor. A crackling fire, providing a wintry atmosphere to mild Silicon Valley, shone from a plasma screen TV. Primary-colored plastic ice cubes (complete with light bulbs inside) adorned cocktail glasses. Security guards posted around the party's perimeter prevented industrial espionage. The visual focal point was a wall-projection of Google Earth, which took viewers on a virtual tour of all sorts of places I didn't recognize. And of course, the food was amazing. Well worth the trip.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

Microsoft to Share Ad Revs with Users?

A few have already noted Bill Gates' comments on an Indian TV to the effect that Microsoft may recompense people who use its search engine. Payment could take the form of cash, content or services.

UPDATE: Turns out this wasn't the first instance of a top brain at Microsoft suggesting users deserve a piece of ad revenues. This is Ray Ozzie, in a memo to senior staffers in October:

"And no one yet knows how much of the world's online advertising revenues should or will flow to large software and service providers, medium sized or tail providers, or even users themselves."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 7, 2005

Speaking of Widening Beta Releases....

As the invitations to join the beta of the Yahoo! Publisher Network were wending their way to our staffers' inboxes, I received another invite. Yes, little old me was invited to beta test MSN's adCenter. If the marketer behind powerhouse e-commerce player Tinker Knitwear is invited into MSN's beta, the test pool is getting pretty wide indeed.

Separately, there's chatter about MSN building a distribution network of publishers. It's the first I've heard of it, but it totally makes sense.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bulk Keyword Buyers' Worried Minds

For every new development in search, and there are many, there's an evergreen issue that never gets enough attention. Panelists in an SES session called "Big Site/Big Brand SEM" identified a few:

Bidding Against Your Affiliates. Large search marketers are constantly bidding against their affiliates and other channel partners, driving up keyword prices. One school of thought says it's better to lose an auction to an affiliate than a competitor.

Misspellings. There's a huge market for search term misspellings. Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist for The New York Times Co., confirmed it in this panel.

Competitor Brands as Keywords. Should you bid on your competitors' brand and product names? IBM and Intel both said they have policies against it. They feel it lowers the brand, and if a consumer's searching by product, chances are they've made up their mind already about what to buy.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More moves at Websourced

It appears the reports about Pat Martin leaving Websourced in September and October were not far off the mark, if a bit premature.

Think Partnership announced today that Martin has left the company, effective immediately.

"Pat Martin is an entrepreneur whose energy and sales ability, combined with the hard work and commitment of many other talented team members, built WebSourced into a worldwide leader in search engine marketing and a truly unique place to work. I wish Pat nothing but success in his future business endeavors," said Think Partnership's CEO Gerard Jacobs in a statement.

Sounds like a nice way to say they're bringing in more seasoned businesspeople to run the show. And of course, wishing someone success in future endeavors is like telling them not to let the door hit them on the way out.

They also named Xavier Hermosillo to SVP of corporate communications and investor relations for Think Partnership, a role he was basically serving anyway as a member of the board of directors.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 6, 2005

Zunch: Spy on Your Competitors' Keyword Bids

In an SES panel yesterday, an audience member asked MSN's Jed Nahum how he could prevent a competitor from observing and mimicking his keyword bids. The answer, of course: he couldn't. It's a common frustration for smart keyword bidders whose extensive work is thwarted by adversaries who sit back and watch their work, then bid $1 higher.

So I was interested to see Zunch today launched a product, dubbed Zunch Recon, to facilitate just that sort of mimicry. From the press release:

Does your business know what your competitors are up to? Ever want to know what search engine keywords your competitors are buying, what they’re spending or which affiliates are driving their business?

As part of a suite of competitive intelligence services, Zunch offers reports on Benchmarking Reconnaissance, Organic and Paid Search, Competitive Keyword Rankings and Affiliate/Linking activities. With one or all of the reports, marketers can evaluate their own strategies and budgets for search engine optimization and marketing campaigns or learn what keywords, affiliates or search engines are driving traffic to a competitor’s website. (press release)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Homethinking Thoughts

Niki Scevak (a former colleague from when ClickZ was part of the same corporate family as JupiterResearch) has launched the mysterious project he's been working on for months. Not surprisingly, it involves local search -- specifically, search for real estate agents.

Called Homethinking, the site is meant as a resource for folks looking for an agent to help them sell their homes. In this still-very-warm real estate market, it's an important decision. Homethinking provides people with user reviews -- and objective data the company gets from home sale databases -- to help them make a determination.

Niki tells me the service will be supported by sponsored links, which will allow realtors and brokerages to get themselves noticed. Pay-per-call will be one pricing model.

Right now you can search by ZIP code or city name -- mostly in California -- but more variations are planned. Additionally, the focus is currently on selling homes, but the buy side will eventually be represented, as well.

More in a release here and Niki's blog post about it.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AOL, Microsoft Close to a Deal?

According to a report in the New York Times today, Time Warner will most likely not sell a stake in AOL or sell the business outright, but will strike a partnership with either Microsoft or Google. A story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) names Microsoft as the frontrunner, saying the two are close to a deal.

Google currently provides AOL with its organic and paid search results, and shares revenue generated by the ads with AOL. Microsoft is currently piloting its own paid search listings, and has its own organic search engine, which could replace Google on AOL. Google's current contract with AOL ends in 2006.

The Times said the deal with Microsoft could include creating a joint advertising sales force with MSN, but that Google would not be interested in such an arrangement.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Isn't Everything

Two notable quotes from yesterday's SES panel called "ClickZ Forum: Ads Beyond Search," moderated by our own Rebecca Lieb.

"Search for me personally is becoming a little less important. The way I'm accessing content I'm not yet aware of are blogs and RSS feeds, as well as directories. The directory format has been set aside because search has become so important. But I do think the directory format is going to come back." -Mark Kingdon, CEO of Organic

"There's a great deal of segregation of search and other online media planning. It creates a disconnect. I firmly believe search isn't entirely scientific. There' a real art to writing copy, for instance." -Tessa Wegert, Digital Media Strategist for Enlighten

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 5, 2005

SEMs Discuss adCenter

Search marketing execs had mostly good things to say about MSN adCenter during an SES panel today on behavioral & demographic targeting.

It's clearly a thrill for them to be able to boost their keyword pricing to a certain geography, gender or age group. They've been able to do behavioral targeting on Yahoo! for several years. AdCenter is different, bringing very detailed registration data to search targeting. They're amped about it, and they're calling on the other engines to pony up more data.

"I think the writing is on the wall for the other engines to be capitalizing very soon," said one panelist, Danielle Leitch of MoreVisibility. She noted selecting for or against demographic traits is common in e-mail and direct marketing, and she said this is the direction search will move.

But demographic targeting of keywords is really hard from a data management perspective, requiring an affinity for numbers that verges on the autistic. You can boost your bid for a gender, age segment, geography, day-of-week and time-of-day, or for any combination of these. Panelist Kevin Lee estimated a single keyword can have as many as 7,500 demographic permutations… and therefore, price points.

Danny Sullivan, who moderated, had this advice for the arithmetically disadvantaged: Ease your way into it. Decide which demographic traits bring the highest conversions by analyzing your existing customers, and start with that trait. Establish two bid levels for each keyword. A base level for ad buys not targeted on behavior, and one for those that are. Add new factors bit by bit.

Targeting also raises big privacy issues, and the panel only brushed against them. Dana Todd, SiteLab's impish founding partner and ever a voice of dissent, put it nicely: "I find it particularly ironic that this session is not called adware/spyware buys," a name commonly given to behavioral panels two years ago. "Now that 'legitimate' companies are essentially spying on you and… serving ads, it's ok,"she said.

So far, it's just MSN and Yahoo! playing in behavioral and demographic targeting, and the panelists discussed both. So three guesses which engine was the elephant in this room.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At SES Chicago

I'm at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago, where the temperature is 5 degrees. Drop me a note if we should meet: zach(at)clickz.com.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 30, 2005

Google's Online Brand Manager Tells All

Apparently Google's first online brand manager, Doug Edwards, has started a blog for Ex-Googlers called Xooglers. On Blogger and Blogspot, natch. Interesting to hear from the guy who helped the search giant establish its brand, largely through word of mouth.

On the interview process:

Sergey seemed satisfied with my answers about viral marketing and rather pleased when I told him that I didn't think a large marketing budget would be a good idea for a company in its early stages. I thought shooting hamsters out of a cannon on national TV was a waste of money. Having worked at a PBS affiliate and a newspaper, I was used to doing a lot with no budget.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 22, 2005

Back Into Pajamas

They wore the corporate name for a little over a week, but newly launched blog and news network Open Source Media (OSM) has slipped back into its pajamas.

They provide a bunch of reasons for doing so on the site which appear valid. But the elephant looms in the room. Just do a Google search for "open source media" and you'll see what I mean. If a newly launched online company doesn't appear in SERPs, does it really exist?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 16, 2005

Google Base: For Real This Time

It popped up; it disappeared; it reared its head again only to duck behind error messages. But now it appears Google Base is up and running for good. We're still checking it out, so in the meantime check out Gary Price's extensive pokearound at SEW blog.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 15, 2005

YPN and AdSense Duke it Out

It's not even out of beta, and Yahoo! has already released RSS functionality for its Yahoo! Publisher Network. Users of either Moveable Type or WordPress can set up the service to insert ads into their blog posts. Publishers can then track results either by feed or by entry.

It's just another sign of the battle for publishers ongoing between YPN and Google's AdSense. (Google rolled out a beta of RSS support in May.)

I'm testing out YPN on another blog I write, and actually got a phone call (a voicemail, actually) from a real, live person wanting to talk with me about my YPN account. I called back, and after quite a while on hold, I chatted with "Steve," who proceeded to grill me about how my YPN experience had been thus far. Was I happy with the set-up process? Was I pleased with my earnings? Did I have any comments or suggestions for Yahoo!? Before we hung up, he told me he'd send an e-mail with the support center's contact info, and invited me to get back in touch any time with comments or questions. (Oh, I should mention that Steve assured me that the long wait time on hold was an anomaly and shouldn't have happened given their staffing levels.)

Impressive that Yahoo! has built up this infrastructure to court and manage publishers. It looks like Google, too, has set up its own call center to try to woo back defectors to YPN. Hope they're using VoIP. Otherwise it looks like they're both going to be racking up some serious phone bills in coming months.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another Local Search Engine Launches

TrueLocal.com launched today, the latest offering in the local search gold rush. The new search engine specializes in local bricks-and-mortar businesses.

Listings allow local businesses to identify hours of operation, special certifications, payment methods and other criteria, as well as include graphical logos. The advantage, says the company, is "since advertising is only for businesses with physical locations, local businesses within a community are not competing with online businesses for advertising space and dollars."

Advertisers can bid by category (e.g. hotel) or Zip Code for top listings. Minimum bid is $1.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 11, 2005

Google sharing the knowledge

Google has created an area to its AdWords Help Center where advertisers can go to learn more about their industry before placing ads. The "For Your Industry" page leads to research on industry-specific user behavior and campaign tips for that industry.

It's filled with such gems as "Nearly three out of four (74%) consumers use a search engine when researching and/or purchasing travel products or services online." And "45 percent of Google users own a game console."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 8, 2005

Did-It Goes Full Service, Drops Clients

Search marketing firm Did-it says it's becoming a full-service search agency, offering its clients strategy, analytics and technology services. As a result, it's dropping some clients for which it previously provided technology, including Digitas. (Though the two will continue to work together on select accounts such as Cingular Wireless.)

Interesting move. Did-it says the switch will allow it to better serve clients like E*Trade, which it won in October.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 7, 2005

Lowering the Bar... Again

Having just eliminated its $20/monthly minimum spend in a bid to attract smaller advertisers, Yahoo! Search Marketing has reduced the minimum deposit from $30 to $5 for U.S. advertisers. YSM's minimum per-click price is still $0.10, while Google lets advertisers go as low as $0.05.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 4, 2005

Now You Can Be A Google Affiliate

Google just announced a new feature (what else is new?). In essence, it's an affiliate program.

AdSense publishers can add a referral button to their sites inviting visitors to join AdSense, or download the Firefox browser with the Google Toolbar (take that, Microsoft!).

The referring publisher earns $1 when their visitor first launches their new Firefox, and $100 for delivering a new AdSense publisher.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 26, 2005

Google Base Live

Google Base -- or at least some pages of it -- is now live at base.google.com. I haven't been able to successfully log in yet (yes, it requires registration), but will keep trying.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 24, 2005

Someone Forgot to Tell the Yahoo! House Ads People

Yahoo! Search Marketing has dropped its $20/month minimum spend, but apparently that message hasn't gotten spread widely enough yet. Caught an ad on Yahoo! Groups telling small marketers that they can "start for as little as $20 per month." Doh!

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 21, 2005

The Slings and Arrows of Search Marketing

Once again, a company's gotten itself worked up into a tizzy about a competitor using its trademark as a keyword trigger for ads. This time, WSJ.com reports (paid subscription) it's Office Depot v. Staples. The issue has been much in the courts in recent years, with suits ranging from company v. media company to company v. advertiser.

A couple of advertiser v. advertiser examples:

• Weight Watchers v. DiscreetDrugs.com
  
• L.L. Bean v. Nordstrom, JC Penney, Atkins Nutritionals and Gevalia Kaffee, a division of Kraft Foods.

  
  

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 19, 2005

Interchange Licenses Patented Yahoo! Technology

Local search player Interchange Corp, which runs the Local.com site, struck a deal with Yahoo! to license technology in one of its patents (U.S. Patent No. 6,269,361) relating to bid-for-placement business model and technology.

Under the agreement, Interchange will pay Yahoo! a fee of $664,000 in installments over 12 months, plus undisclosed royalty payments, payable on a quarterly basis through May 2019, based upon a percentage of gross revenues from Interchange's direct advertisers.

This is the same patent that Miva spent 3 years fighting in court, which finally resulted in a mistrial, and then an $8 million settlement with Yahoo! in August.

Google settled its suit in August 2004, just prior to its IPO, for 2.7 million Google shares, worth $270 million at the IPO.

Because all the suits have been settled before a verdict was reached, the validity of the patent still has not been fully decided in court. The jury in Miva's case did find invalid two of the main claims in the patent describing the overall method of selling bid-for-placement search ads. But since the trial never reached a verdict, those findings are not legally binding.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 14, 2005

The Battle of the Craigs

Well, it had to happen sometime. But the way it has come about is surprising. Craigslist -- champion of the free Internet -- has asked jobs aggregator Oodle to take its listings off the site. Could it be that Craigslist is growing more comfortable with the idea of being a for-profit business? Could it be eBay's influence?

Oodle's Craig Donato, posting on the company's blog, defended the company by saying:

We're glad to have had a good response from the 99.9% of the other classified publishers in our index and we’ll continue to work hard to make them happy. We send them free traffic. We don't compete with them by taking listings.

Job listings are, of course, one of the few things that Craigslist does charge for, so one can understand why the company would want to ensure people still come to its site to search. Why newspapers and others haven't yet asked for listings to be yanked, I don't completely understand. I find it sort of ironic, though, that Craigslist is the first to kick up a stink, given that it's been the one accused of torpedoing newspapers' classifieds business in the past. Time marches on, and now it's Craigslist in the crosshairs.

As an aside, it's interesting that Craig Newmark is watching the comments on Oodle's blog post, and commenting on the comments. We know because he chimed in to protest when another commenter accused Craigslist of furthering the "fascist state."

UPDATE: Classified Intelligence reports: "If it [the pulling of Craigslist listings] represented a policy shift, we can’t tell by reactions elsewhere. We’re asking other listing aggregators and indexers whether they’ve received similar requests from Craigslist, but so far, the move seems to be directed at Oodle. Paul Forster, CEO of Indeed.com, which scrapes Craigslist job listings and hundreds of other sites, told CI he had received no such request. Craigslist listings are still current on SimplyHired.com and Workzoo.com. Yahoo HotJobs is still indexing Craigslist, and Yahoo Search returns Craigslist jobs posted as recently as today. Google also indexes Craigslist."

[via Battelle]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 7, 2005

MSN Pilots adCenter in U.S.

When the MSN guys speaking at Web 2.0 said they'd be beta testing adCenter in the U.S., I thought they said "next month," not "later this week." Or is a pilot different than a beta? Anyway, the intrepid Danny Sullivan notes that the portal is starting to take names for potential tire-kickers as it prepares to launch the advertiser program. It's invite-only but you can register here to see if you're among the chosen. "Oilman" was the original poster of an e-mail from MSN.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 5, 2005

Search Panel - Web 2.0

I'm installed amongst the laptop-wielding masses at the Web 2.0 conference. The search workshop has yielded a couple of interesting tidbits thus far.

• Wink launch. A new "user generated" search engine Wink (formerly eBagle) will be kicking off today. The company is taking some of the user-participation concepts in vogue these days -- tagging, interactivity, the long tail, user ratings, etc. -- and using them in its search engine. It sounds like initially it will be similar to a garden variety search engine, but it will change as users give their input -- by rating, tagging or blocking results. Michael Tanne, founder and CEO of Wink, gave the presentation. He didn't say much about advertising, other than praising ad-support as "what's fueling a lot of the innovation." One could see that user interaction might result in improved search results and better targeted advertising. (As an aside, does anyone remember that interactive TV ad company called Wink?)

• Indeed partners with About.com. Probably no surprise to see job classifieds aggregator Indeed.com distributing its listings to the New York Times Company's About.com, given NYTCo bought a stake in Indeed back in August. Indeed's ad model: recruiters buy the chance to have their job listings highlighted on the right hand side of the results page. It's a PPC auction model and ad copy is automatically generated from job descriptions. Interestingly, any publisher can, AdSense-like, display Indeed job ads on their site, sharing revenue with Indeed. (Rather than being targeted by context, ads are targeted by the rules the publisher sets up.)

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 3, 2005

Websourced cleanup not done yet?

It looks like WebSourced's corporate parent, Think Partnership, is not done with its recent corporate cleanout.

A ClickZ reader points us to a job posting from Friday for the CFO position at WebSourced, currently held by Jody Brown.

UPDATE: According to a Think Partnership spokesperson, Brown is not being forced out, but is moving up the corporate ladder. It seems Brown has been doing double duty as CFO of Think Partnership and WebSourced. He'll be moving to Chicago to focus on the parent company, with a new CFO for WebSourced reporting in to him.

In addition, some of our readers were less than convinced by the company's assertions that WebSourced president Pat Martin had not been fired, but was taking personal time off and was scheduled to return to work last week. We have been assured that he is indeed back at work, with no indications that he is going anywhere.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 8, 2005

Cerf turns up at Google

Who better to evangelize the Internet than one of the technologists behind the global network? That's the thinking behind Google's recruiting of tech pioneer Vint Cerf to be "chief Internet evangelist."

Just having Cerf on the Google payroll will serve to boost the search company's already formidable technological credibility. Besides boosting the brand, the company says Cerf will help "build network infrastructure, architectures, systems and standards for the next generation of Internet applications."

"We're still in the Internet's early innings," said Cerf in the Google press release announcing his new gig. "This medium will enjoy wider-spread use than television, radio or phones, and will ultimately expand beyond planet Earth."

Cerf will continue as chairman of ICANN and will also proceed with work on NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab's Interplanetary Network, which aims to extend the Internet into outer space. Far out.

UPDATE: Cerf's post on the Google Blog.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Measuring Search

According to a new study from SEM firm iProspect, most companies engaged in search marketing are not measuring it right.

Of course it's a bit self-serving for an SEM firm to put out research to highlight the business value of SEM and ultimately convince people to spend more on it, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less relevant.

I'm curious to hear from search marketers about the way SEM is looked at in their company -- is it seen as a device to drive clickthroughs, or as a core part of the marketing plan? Do you think the way you're measuring results now justifies your budget?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 31, 2005

The Onion Announces Google's "Purge"

The Onion. Sometimes it's a miss, other times, a bullseye. Today they're right on target, laugh-wise, with "Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can't Index."

Thanks for the chuckle, guys! But hang on to your hats - this selling print ads thing is no joke!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 29, 2005

YSM Problems, Continued

We reported that Yahoo! Search Marketing (fka Overture) had been hit with technical troubles affecting advertisers' access to accounts. Now, some are talking about the repercussions. We've seen message board posts -- such as Discovery's on the Search Engine Watch forum -- and received e-mails from folks who made changes to their accounts, or turned off their accounts, on the Friday before the weekend snafu. Discovery said the problem resulted in his account being over budget by $12K, while an e-mail correspondent told ClickZ he was charged $549.59 in a week in which his account was supposedly turned off. I'd hate to be a Yahoo! Search Marketing representative right about now...

UPDATE: sebastian at SEW's forum posts an annotated version of YSM's apology letter to advertisers.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 19, 2005

More on Google's "Commercial" Organic Results

Google got back to me today with a little more detail and a lot more screenshots of the "commercial" organic search results we covered today in ClickZ News.

Google added the statement, "Google is testing an automated technique for detecting when an alternate query might help users find what they are looking for more quickly. For these searches, which are both commercial and non-commercial in nature, Google displays one or more alternate queries together with a preview of their top results."

And Kevin Lee adds another two cents, a wink and a smile: "Clearly, one of the greatest challenge for search engines are ambiguous search queries where the searcher could mean several very different things. Google's attempt to satisfy the intent of the different types of searchers, each with a specific need is in line with [the] mission. The fact that it will also result in a higher monetization per pageview on those ambiguous searches is an added bonus ;-)"

Google's Barry Schnitt was kind enough to forward some screenshots - have a look for yourself at the new results they're testing:

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 16, 2005

Confusion about the GEICO v. Google ruling

It seems that the recent release of a written decision in the GEICO v. Google case has spurred many industry watchers to say that there's a new ruling against Google. That's just not the case.

What really happened was that the judge took 8 months to write down the same ruling she made in December. What both decisions say, essentially, is that the infringement of GEICO's trademarks does not take place when Google allows advertisers to bid on them.

The infringement comes only when advertisers use the trademarked terms in the ad copy itself -- a practice which Google has never allowed, and attempts to police.

As we reported in December, the decision is mostly a win for Google. The only thing left to decide is who is responsible for the trademarked terms in ad copy. Even if Google is found responsible, it's not likely to affect their business, since they have always taken steps to limit that practice.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 28, 2005

MSN Search Staffing Up - Inelegantly

Got an e-mail from a headhunter today. Thanks heavens that's happening again.

Only this e-mail didn't have my name in the "To" field, much less in the generic "Hello" salutation line.

It read, in part:

"I am contacting you on behalf of Microsoft. Your background is of interest to me in regards to some excellent employment opportunities available with MSN....we are staffing a highly-talented team of search engine marketing professionals to work within the new division of MSN - which is handling online marketing."

Reassuring to know the search engine marketing division plans to be involved in marketing, isn't it?

Anyhow, I called the guy and gave him my name -- I wanted to see if there was any recognition factor at all. He fumbled, but vamped, "You're calling about Microsoft?" No clue who I am, what I do. He said about 85% of the positions in Redmond have been filled, but MSN is aggressively staffing the NYC office with SEMs.

What kind?

He needs an analyst "working directly with Fortune 500 companies to make sure campaigns are optimized, there's good ROI." I pointed out most Fortune 500s aren't going to work directly with MSN. They're going to work with Kevin, Shari, Mike and their ilk, or with their agencies.

"There are a lot of good people out there," the recruiter brightly told me, angling for my address book.

"No," I told him, "there are not a lot of good people out there. How many search engine marketing majors did you know in college?"

Consider this a warning, Jeeves. It's tough going out there. It ain't easy staffing a paid search start-up, not even if you're MSN.

UPDATE: Think I'm exaggerating about the talent shortage in search? Take a look at this placard a Search Engine Strategies attendee affixed to his luggage!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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