Search Engine Marketing and PPC Management News & Info

Hot Search Engine Strategies in Cold Chicago

I enjoyed chatting to Susan Kuchinskas about the upcoming SES Chicago and how the flurry of new search engine technology will impact search engine marketers. "Search as we know it will evolve. People will no longer go to Google just to search for Web p
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Search Engine Lowdown Picks Flickr for New Moblog

Yes, we've finally set-up a moblog, just in time for SES Chicago. ;-) I don't yet know how often we'll update the moblog, but as I have a cameraphone, it could become a habit! We'll certainly be adding photos from SES Chicago, so be sure to bookmark th
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Google Desktop Ads Surface

It's not news that Google has been advertising its AdWords service. After all, it generates more than 95% of their revenue. But, what is interesting are the ads that have surfaced, promoting Google Desktop Search. Take a look at the screenshot below and a
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Big Search Engine Marketing Announcement Coming

Check back here on Monday for a big announcement. I can't reveal any details but it will be worth you stopping by at around 8:30am Monday.
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AOL to Use Copernic for Desktop Search

AOL is not very good at keeping secrets. News is out that AOL's desktop search solution will be powered by Copernic, which pretty much assures that an agreement is in place between the two companies. While Yahoo has announced a deal with X1, AOL's pact
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May we Suggest Google?

Thanks to SEW for pointing out Google's new lab project "Google Suggest". I've been testing it out and absolutely love it. How does it work? Simply start typing in your search query and Google will offer search phrase suggestions, on-the-fly, based upo
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Danny Sullivan on Yahoo Desktop Search

Danny has a nice summary of Yahoo's planned desktop search.
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Search Engine Roundtable Celebrates

Congrats to Barry Schwartz (aka RustyBrick) as he celebrates one year of Search Engine Roundtable. Barry is a great guy and he has done a fantastic job with SER. I think commercial blogs become successful when they focus on a niche - ours is the busine
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Ask Jeeves on the Move

It's going to be a busy week for Ask Jeeves. Not only do they plan to launch their desktop search tool on Wednesday, but on Monday they move to their new digs in Oakland CA.
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Yahoo Will Launch Desktop Search...Eventually

Nothing's better that to announce something that will happen in the future. You get the publicity without actually having to deliver the goods. That holds true with Yahoo's announcement that they plan to launch a new desktop search tool in January. Acc
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Find Unique Domains Linking to You - And their IP's

Threadwatch member jimsthoughts pm'd me this little tool sometime today. As im not generally keen on linking to ranking/link check tools (cos everyone and his dog has one) it took me a little time to get round to looking at it (been a busy day :-)

It's a cracker though, really nice work. It'll find all the unique domains that link to you and then grab their IPs - now, if it could sort those IP's by unique C-blocks jim...

You can find some discussion of the tool over at the SEW post threadlinked above.

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Google.com now Redirecting to .co.uk (for brits)

Word comes in from Threadwatch member Andy that UK users are being redirected from .com to .co.uk google addresses.

This has always happened in Denmark as far as i can remember and i beleive elsewhere.

What does it mean for UK search marketers? Anyone in the UK wanna fill us in on the details...

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Mobile Advertsing - Speculation on what the Future may Hold

Some interesting speculation in the threadlink above as to what the future may hold for advertisers when mobile net traffic eventually exceeds web traffic. It's a little out there, but not so far that it's unrealistic i think.

The basic line goes: Companies will have to create truly amazing services/portals to advertise their brands.

Go have a look, it's interesting stuff...

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...and Speaking of Browsers: Penn State Tells Students to Ditch IE

Penn State University on Wednesday issued an alert to students and staff recommending that they dump IE and use a different browser.

The university's Information Technology Services (ITS) gave the advice "because the threats are real and alternatives exist to mitigate Web browser vulnerabilities," ITS said in a statement. It cited the security problems in IE that have been the focus of both media reports and recommendations from such organizations as the US-CERT, the federally-funded computer response team housed at Carnegie Mellon University.

Hooray!

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FireFox Secrets - How to Hack FireFox

Many of you probably know this but here's a nice detailed post on getting deeper into the Firefox preferences that the normal menu will allow. The one i've been fond of for a while is turning off the referer headers :)

via geek news central

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Blogs vs. Comment Spam

Article on O'Reilly references "chongqing" - no direct links to sites for reasons that may become obvious plus "spam vampires" - a variation on the recent Lycos screensaver hoohah.

Chongqing was named after the Chinese city - the location of the comment-spammer who was first targeted by this:

the immediate goal was to knock that spammer's pages off the front page of search results for the keywords he spams

Declaring war on DaveN:

By posting hyperlinks from the spammed terms to the chongqed.org site, blog and wiki operators can throw spammers to the mat. As the Chongqed.org site proclaims to spammers, "All your page ranks are belong to us."

Doesn't seem particularly successful at the moment, but the combined power of wikis and blogs could become potent...

Link vampires use an image-rotating script to attack bandwidth on destination sites in spam email in an effort to take them offline:

By contrast, spam vampire tools offer immediate and nearly irresistible retaliatory power. A trial run of one such program using a cable modem easily sucked down over 2 MB of bandwidth per minute from a couple of spammer sites.

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MSN Beta & Search Optimization

Okay, so there are a ton of threads thoughout the search marketing boards that are talking about MSN Beta - I've resisted temptation to post something here for a while as i personally feel that it really doesnt matter very much right at this point. However, it's probably time that we opened it up and got some opinions from TW boys and girls..

The threadlink above is to an seo-guy post where there are a number of reasonable sounding opinions on MSN Beta and how to rank in it.

Here's two of them:

seo-guy

I have pages that I haven't touched since writing them ranking #1 for ULTRA competitive terms using oldschool SEO

kw in title
kw in desc
kw in meta kw

H1 with keyword
first paragraph kw bolded and sprinkled throughout as whole and pieces if long.

H2 with kw
paragraph again contains kw

throughout the rest of the page let the kw occur naturally in your writing, dont overstuff

last P make sure it is as strong as the first for the kw phrase

Links to other pages on your site with kw as part of anchor

and clasione

It simply a 10 month old Google copy with no filters....

they'd better do better than that - if they wanna be taken seriously....

So, some questions for Threadwatchers:

• What actually matters when optimizing for MSN Beta?
• Does ranking in the beta actually matter at all?
• What do you think of MSN Beta so far....?

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A Podcasting Primer

If you browse the serious tech blogs at all, you'll have noticed the word podcasting coming up time and time again. We're ever so slightly behind the curve here at Threadwatch but are catching up rapidy, and with this in mind, i thought it might be time for a little primer.

The article threadlinked above is a great introduction to the tech and technique. You will have to put your marketers hat on to understand why it's important to Threadwatch but im confident you'll see the point :)

We have talked about it a little here in: podvertisng makes it's debut and Heineken are podcasting so do check them out to. In the first, we've got some great basic info from Threadwatchers. Of particular help are the links supplied by Brad, thanks mate!

So, before you go and read, let me give you my brief take on it to hopefully get you on at least passing terms with the notion:

• Podcasting is pre-recording media (audio and soon video) and distributing it via RSS or other syndication.
• It's mostly the domain of amateur radio at present though big corps and media outlets have been dipping their toes, the BBC included.
• It could very well do for radio and video what blogs are doing for print journalism now.
• Advertising is already happening, and will almost certainly grow to be big business
• Just like blogs, any muppet can do it.
• Which i why im reading up on it and thinking of doing a dailey podcast for TW :)

This snippet from the article:

It's a boon for audiences, too, because podcasting is the audio equivalent of TiVo. Once a listener logs onto an individual podcaster's website and signs up as a subscriber, each new program will automatically download to his digital player. That frees people to listen to shows on their schedule rather than the broadcaster's.

Podcasting is a radical way of looking at radio, says Tod Maffin, a technology futurist and producer at Canada's CBC radio.

"Instead of me listening to a single radio station for an entire day and picking up a dozen things that interest me, wouldn't it be great if I could tune to all of the world's public broadcasters and specify the particular types of content that I'm interested in," says Mr. Maffin.

Comments welcome, it's a pretty new area so let's help each other feel our way round it eh?

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AOL to go with Copernic - Mamma?

Andy Beal points to the post threadlinked above by Danny Sullivan that among much other DS news mentions that AOL will be using Copernic's DS technology in it's new browser.

The browser is in beta so one would presume, if i understand this correctly, that this deal was factored into the recent "letter of intent" from Mamma to buy Copernic.

Can anyone fill in the blanks?

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Heineken are Podcasting - Podvertising gets a rollin'

First (as far as i know) to jump onto the podvertising podium is Heineken Music with an interview with Thirst Resident DJ Daniele Davoli. (whatever that is..)

From this post at ad rants:

A podcast is a lo-fi MP3 file created on a computer (or with any audio - video will soon follow - recording device for that matter) that can be subscribed to using RSS and easily and automatically transferred to your iPod or any other MP3 device.

If you sell anything aimed at the young, hi-tech concious consumer you should be checking out the podcast: It will be a biggie..

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OldTimer's Express Why They are Addicted to SEO

This thread is shaping up to be a nice thread with the Wise Old Timers of SEO giving advice to the 'newbies' of SEO. I think, however, you don't need to be a newbie to get some great advice from this thread.

SEGURU writes:

Search has been something that I immersed myself into and it affected me on so many levels it would be hard to touch on (as this has been the longest post I've written in a year or so). To say that how I work in this space is a bit different than it was in '96, is true indeed yet my passion for it remains the same.

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TIF - the Technology Involved Female - New Study Data

Intel have just released findings from a study commisioned from Harris Interactive on american adult womens attitudes to technology.

From the above threadlinked press release:

A new, tech-savvy woman has emerged and Intel calls her "Tif," short for Technology Involved Female. She spans generations and backgrounds, from the young women who have grown up with technology, to women who have been exposed to technology at work, to motivated self-learners. Tif is closing the technology gender gap, with women at the youngest end of the spectrum actually surpassing men in their intent to purchase a laptop. Half of young women say their next computer will be a laptop as compared to 43 percent of men their same age

and some quick figures for you:

• 58% of women feel as lost as men do (56%) if they dont check email once a day
• 62% are enthusiastic about learning new features on their PC's (men 66%)
• Women lead the way with wireless adoption - 39% vs 29% feel it's important
• Women are less tolerant of poor experiences - they want it to work, and work now.

The survey concludes that women still lag behind men in some areas including confidence in their decision to purchase computers. "According to the survey, men are more likely than women to be confident in their technology purchases," said David Krane, senior vice president of Public Policy and Public Relations Research at Harris Interactive. "It makes sense for companies, such as Intel, to focus on women as a key audience and to create programs that educate them about technology."

Im certain there will be some opinions on this one, Elizabeth Albrycht was less than impressed.

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Tips for a Winning Email Campaign

Unsurprisingly, research shows that the most read email of any new newsletter sign up is the welcome mail. Mktg Sherpa have some pretty nice tips on improving yours. Here's the short version, check out the threadlink above for the full shebang...

• Welcome coupons
• For corporates - 20 words of personalized welcome & copy of last letter
• For long sales cycles - break the welcome up over several emails - keep it personal and include one educational facet of the overal picture in each
• For repeat biz, like hotel bookings - Pre & Post sale warm fuzzy emails

There's a ton more detail at the article itself so if you run email news letters or anything similar check it out, it's pretty good.

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DaveN Has a Blog - Gentleman, start your bots....

Dave Naylor, a notorious blog spammer, search marketer, fat bloke and all round diamond geezer has a blog!

Presuming he can find time away from the wine to actually post coherently (not the norm) it'll be a fantasitic read!

Dave is a TW member, a good mate and a nice bloke. Go visit his blog and say something rude :)

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Google Suggest - New Beta Tool from Google

A great tool by google :)

Suggests searches as you type!

Nick W
Great find! From the FAQ

As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's "Did you mean?" feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. For example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "progr," Google Suggest might offer you refinements like "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse.

and TW member Wit posted this just about the same time (a fraction earlier i think..)

The Google boys and girls seem to have come up with a search enhancement - again (?). As soon as you start typing search terms, a list of options - together with their "total number of hits" - appears.

This is of course a useful tool for internet searchers AND a quick one for people looking for popular (??) keywords to optimise for.

Fascinating without a doubt, here it is directly: Google Suggest Option

Thanks to Seochat's new sunnymonkey for spotting that.

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Nick Becomes a Father

Word on the street is that Nick has just recently become a father.

Robyn is now the the heir to the TW fortune!!

Congtrats Nick

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AOL's Garden Walls Crumble as Ads Move in

The walls surrounding America Online Inc.'s well-manicured gardens are crumbling. In a move both risky and essential, AOL is abandoning its strategy of exclusivity and will free much of its music, sports and other programming to non-subscribers in hopes of boosting ad sales.

Jeremy Z said

Welcome back to the world of the relevant, AOL. It's a bold move, but it's about time you woke up and noticed the World Wide Web.

Can't help but agree, the walled garden approach is tried and tried again from forums to content networks to ISP's and it (surprisingly enough) seems to enevitably backfire in the end...

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Yahoo! Domains less than $5 till end 2004

Just spotted this on The Register that Yahoo are cutting the costs of a domain name to under $5!

This is almost definately being undertaken as a loss leader as the wholesale cost is $1.50 higher. Will Yahoo become the dominate force in hosting and domain registrations if not search?

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Msn Desktop Search Live

Msn has got their sights directly targetting Google on this one. Havn't managed to give it a go yet because download seems down atm.

Find anything on your computer
Documents, photos, music and more!
Find email messages in seconds

From Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express
Try the new MSN Search

Search the web smarter and better
Block those annoying pop-ups

Surf without interruptions
Fill out forms online F

Fill out forms and web site passwords in one click

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Purchase Stats Relating to Search Queries

Some interesting stats from a new comScore survey on the influence of Search on consumer buying in the consumer electronics / computers category point out by Gary.

Here are the highlights:

• Vast Majority of Search-Influenced Buying Occurs Either Offline or in Subsequent Internet User Sessions
• 25 percent of searchers ultimately purchased a CE/C product
• 92 percent of these purchases occurred offline
• Among the 8 percent of post-search purchases that were made online, the vast majority occurred in subsequent user sessions
• Only 15 percent of online purchases following a CE/C search occurred in the same user session as the search itself
• With 85 percent of conversions occurring in a latent (or non-search) session
• Nearly 40 percent of all purchases occurred 5 to 12 weeks after the initial CE/C search was conducted.

There's quite a bit more at the threadlink above...

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