Search Engine Marketing and PPC Management News & Info

The State of Search Engine Marketing - SEMPO Study 2004

Proof that we give credit, where credit is due... SEMPO recently completed its first comprehensive survey of the search engine marketing industry. This survey established important benchmark information about the SEM industry, including: * The size
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Google To Launch Major Pilot Program with Harvard, Stanford, U Mich, Others

John Battelle has leaked news of a big initiative by Google to digitize millions of documents held by Harvard and other universities.
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Exclusive - First Look at Ask Jeeves Desktop Search

So some of our readers had been hoping that our “big announcement” today was going to be something a little more extravagant than the world’s largest SEM company, hiring one of the top SEO guru’s and launching a new service. We’re not going to apologize,
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New Study Reveals the Impact of Search Engine Usage on Consumer Buying

comScore and Overture joined forces on a new study to determine how online consumer searches impact offline sales. The results are an eye-opener. ....the study revealed that 25 percent of searchers ultimately purchased a [consumer electronics or comput
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Looking for the tips from Search Engine Strategies?

Search Engine Roundtable is providing a running commentary of the different sessions from SES Chicago.
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Geico v. Google Trial Begins Today

Gary Price has some interesting preview notes on today's court case between Google and Geico.
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Search Engine Strategies Chicago - Interesting Tidbit

According to JupiterResearch analyst, Niki Scevak, one in three searches are of a commercial nature and of those, one in seven click on a paid/sponsored listing. That means that those companies relying purely on paid search to attract customers, are re
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Search Engine Strategies Sexiest People Alive?

Recently, Meredith Roth brought us the best-dressed people in search. Today, she goes a little too far with her "sexiest" list. I understand the premise behind the list - generate a little buzz - but it's a little demeaning, considering the intelligen
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Photos from Search Engine Strategies Chicago

Don't forget to keep an eye on our new photoblog. We've been adding photos from the SES show and will continue adding over the next few days. Leave your "I'd like to see" requests in the comments section. Note to JupiterMedia: why is there no wi-fi
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New MSN Toolbar Suite Beta with Desktop Search

The launch of MSN desktop has finally arrived and we can now all sit down and evaluate the new MSN Desktop Search (MDS) alongside Google, Copernic, Blinkx and others. The official announcement is here and you can download the toolbar at this web site.
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WebSourced Hires Heather Lloyd-Martin to Launch New In-House Search Engine Marketing Services

So here is our big announcement. Under the radar of everyone, we successfully wooed SEO rock-star, Heather Lloyd-Martin and persuaded her to head up our new in-house search engine marketing consulting and training services. Now, the world's largest sea
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Monday at Search Engine Strategies Chicago

Alan, if you're reading this, please don't pick Chicago as the location for next Fall's SES, it's too darn cold! That gripe over with, today should be a fun day at SES, with the sessions aimed at newbies and those interested in the business-side of SEO
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MSN Search Conference Call Today

Don't miss Yusuf Medhi's conference call today at 1pm EST / 10am PST. They're hoping that all bloggers will spread word of the announcement...as if we are that easily manipulated...oh wait, never mind.
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ICANN: .jobs & .mobi given Preliminary Okay

ICANN have given the sponsor proposed TLD's .JOBS and .MOBI a preliminary nod of approval.

I tend to agree with techdirts point about the .mp domains not really being needed and although i can see more use in it than .mobi, the .jobs tld is well, superfluous to say the least.

The .jobs domain situation is even worse. Were people really having that much trouble finding the "jobs" pages on various company websites? That seems unlikely. In fact, the stories we've seen suggest recruiters are being inundated with resume spam from undeserving candidates. All this really means is that all these companies will now feel the need to go out and register their company name with the .jobs registrar, even if they have no real need for it.

This from the AP story threadlinked above:

Sponsored by leading mobile phone and technology companies, including Nokia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and T-Mobile, the ".mobi" domain would set apart Web sites and other services that are specially designed to work around the limitations of cell phones, including their smaller screen size and data capacity.

and this:

The ".jobs" suffix, meanwhile, would go to members of the human resources community.

A company might keep job postings at "Company.jobs," rather than force visitors to navigate the main site, whose home page tends to have only general information about a company and its products.

You can also find the ICANN .job & .mobi prosal details here

Well, what do you think, are they useless or fantastic? I'll be getting a .mobi for sure but im not convinced on either tld...

via techdirt

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SES Chicago Covarage by Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz has started his covarge of SES Chicago. Catch the updates in the threadlink above at SEW and do stop in and say hello if you're at SES this week and reading Threadwatch...

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Minimo Interview with Doug Turner - Mozilla for Small Devices

"We can be ported to many platforms that Opera can't," he said. "Mozilla has been developed to work on every flavor of Unix and every type of processor, chip or widget set."

Turner said there are two mobile phone companies that are already using Minimo. He would not reveal the names of the companies that it is working with, but he said there will be at least one announcement in the near future regarding a partnership with a television manufacturer.

Some nice insight from Doug Turner on the future of mobile browsing.

More on Minimo here

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Serve the public only really, really old news -MSN vs Google

Microsoft's ace in the hole is the ability to put its search tools in Windows and Office.

This angle was covered to death in the forums months ago. In a way, I'm glad to see JohnQ getting a (small) reality-check, but I'm not sure if I can stomach too much of it.

A good quote or two, though. OK, well, one good quote:

"previously neglected with the complacency only a monopolist can muster"

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IBM wants to be the Google of Entreprise Search

As IBM dumps it's PC biz it's making a play for a higher margin software / solution model:

The new database-related software will let corporate customers store documents in XML, or Extensible Markup Language, format, which will greatly speed up text-related queries, she said. An early, or alpha, version of the tool is being tested with about 30 customers and is expected to be completed in the second half of next year. IBM has not named the product or decided how to package it.

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MSN Desktop Search Beta - Now 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

Added: Official Announcement
David Dawson, the group program manager for MSN Desktop Search just blogged the official announcement.

Added: More.. blog coverage
Charline Li and Gary Price have just put out reports including additional information and a link to the press release - Ok, that's it for updates, im sure the rest of the search blogs will follow shortly, but this is old news to Threadwatchers now :)

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Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database

Google is on it's way of indexing the worlds information with an estimated 15 millions books with a indexing cost of around $10 a piece! Question is how they going to monetize it.

Note: It's a New York Times Article so you need to register to read full article or use Bugmenot :)

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.

Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.

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Google Library: Google Adding Major Libraries to Database

Google is on it's way of indexing the worlds information with an estimated 15 millions books with a indexing cost of around $10 a piece! Question is how they going to monetize it.

Note: It's a New York Times Article so you need to register to read full article or use Bugmenot :)

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.

Although Google executives declined to comment on its technology or the cost of the undertaking, others involved estimate the figure at $10 for each of the more than 15 million books and other documents covered in the agreements. Librarians involved predict the project could take at least a decade.

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Google, Filters and Penalties

This one gets asked a lot but there is some decent advice and comments on this one.

Marcia

The discussion about whether or not there is such a thing as "filters" being applied by Google has come up several times, so it seems it would be good idea to examine the issue and get a clear picture about how filters operate.

Good idea Marcia :)

DaveN

some google penalties

Banned

“Slow Death”

-30 ( )

PR0

Guestbook / Links Pages

Site Has PageRank but will Not Pass it On

Prime Keyword Penalties ( oop )

Other Factors
Redirects, Duplicate Pages or very simalar Pages

I wonder how many of these Mr DaveN has encountered personally? hehehe

All in all a top thread, one for the bookmarks to show people. Knowing the faces present here, would anyone care to add? Perhaps even suggest some known Yahoo ones?

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Tis the Season for Hiring

Did-It.com today announced that Kevin Ryan will be joining them as Executive Vice President.
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Search Engine Filters and Penalties

This one gets asked a lot but there is some decent advice and comments on this one.

Marcia

The discussion about whether or not there is such a thing as "filters" being applied by Google has come up several times, so it seems it would be good idea to examine the issue and get a clear picture about how filters operate.

Good idea Marcia :)

DaveN

some google penalties

Banned

“Slow Death”

-30 ( )

PR0

Guestbook / Links Pages

Site Has PageRank but will Not Pass it On

Prime Keyword Penalties ( oop )

Other Factors
Redirects, Duplicate Pages or very simalar Pages

I wonder how many of these Mr DaveN has encountered personally? hehehe

All in all a top thread, one for the bookmarks to show people. Knowing the faces present here, would anyone care to add? Perhaps even suggest some known Yahoo ones?

Threadwatch links: threadwatch home xml feed recent threads
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Yahoo! & Nextel Team up for Yahoo! Mobile

Yahoo! and Nextel have reached an agreement to provide Yahoo Mobile services on Nextel handheld devices.

This will inlude email, messenger, news and games.

Doug Garland, vp of Y! Mobile said:

"Our new relationship with Nextel and the launch of Yahoo! Mobile Internet across their network is further proof of Yahoo!'s appeal to our carrier partners, and we are pleased to continue to develop solutions that drive adoption and usability of mobile data services in the United States."

Sounds like a great move to me, i know were the service available to me, i'd most likely use it. What do you think?

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Predictions for 2005 - Where is Internet Marketing Headed?

Pete Blackshaw has a small piece at clickz talking about the future of advertising and specifically, predictions for 2005 - The main points are:

1. Blogs continue to trail blaze, monetization becomes key
2. Cinema adds to get squeezed as consumer backlash breaks out
3. Product placement makes it BIG as traditional ads continue to catch flak
4. More integrated branding cock ups. TV ads failing to sync with the company website become more and more common
5. Noisey ads get ditched in favor of sponsored quiet time: "this moment of silence was bought to you by..." :-)

So, with those general ad predictions out of the way, what do we think is in store for internet advertising / marketing in 2005?

Here's a couple off the top of my head:

• Podcasting breaks all possible rules and becomes the no.1 viral ad form for companies aiming at the younger markets
• Viral becomes much, much bigger
• RSS ads: Overture's contextual RSS ads prove a success, google follows suit
• Yahoo launch a contextual ad network
• We see at least another 100 (well, maybe not..) contextual ad networks spring up and the 80/20 rule sets in leaving just Adsense, Overture and Kanoodle as the main players
• Towards the end of the year, we see the first real examples of mobile advertisng that normal websites could use

Come on, embarrass yourself by trying to predict the future...

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