Seo Alchemist

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• 
  YouTube Improves YouTube Mobile Version
  A New And Improved YouTube For Mobile from the YouTube Blog announces that they have improved their mobile version at m.youtube.com. The new features include: Many more videos added, specifically tens of millions of videos. Community features now available on the mobile version. Mobile phone uploads available within moments. YouTube…
• 
  The 2008 SEMMYS Awards Are Open
  The SEMMYS Finalists Are Ready, finally! Matt McGee has announced that we can now go over to The SEMMYS and vote for our favorite posts of the year. The voting starts at 12:00 pm ET (9:00 am PT) today. The finalists are listed over here for all 15 categories. Those…
• 
  DoCoMo and Google In Japanese Mobile Partnership
  Reuters and InfoWorld describe a new partnership between Japan’s largest wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo and Google. NTT DoCoMo is a member of the Google-sponsored Open Handset Alliance, as is Japan’s number two carrier KDDI, which is a Google partner as well….
• 
  Politically Tinged Promotion For Live Search
  Microsoft has launched another would-be viral online campaign for Live Search that conceptually mimics the earlier Ms. Dewey campaign but is politically themed for the election year. The site is called Left vs. Right and (probably) takes its inspiration from the old Saturday Night Live skit point/counter point, featuring Dan…
• 
  Day 2: Search Stocks & Is Search Recession Proof?
  Let’s do the stock thing again. As with yesterday, the chart above shows Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) against the NASDAQ, over the past month. The key difference is that while the latter three stabilized, Google kept dropping. That leads some to wonder if search is going to…
• 
  Digg Updates Algorithm - Digg Community Revolts
  Two days ago, Digg went down for a short while while changes were being implemented in the system. While nothing was immediately apparent, Brent Csutoras noticed some slight changes, and after several hours, a bigger trend emerged: the algorithm had changed and you needed a lot more votes to hit…
• 
  YouTube Readies For “Super Tuesday” With Mapping Site
  Google has been plotting election results from the US presidential primaries on maps. Those maps have included candidate and news videos. But now for “Super Tuesday” (February 5) Google is doing something somewhat more ambitious over at YouTube — call it “Super Tubesday.”…
• 
  Leveraging Social Media Sites To Increase Search Visibility
  Traffic from socially driven news sites has been called many things. There are people that love it and call it a godsend (SEO 2.0), and there are others that hate it and think that it’s useless. Regardless of what you think, there is no doubting the fact that online marketing…
• 
  Google Testing Click To Call Again?
  Search Engine Journal alerted us to an apparently renewed test of click-to-call at Google. Google had been testing click to call in 2005 and 2006 with an eye toward implementing pay-per-phone call. Rather than show local or 800 tracking numbers, Google was using a field that remembered users’ telephone numbers…
• 
  SMX Search Bowl: Nominate Search Marketers To Take On Search Engines In Quiz!
  For years, a conference idea banging around has been a trivia quiz involving the search engines. For our SMX West search marketing conference this Feb. 26-28 in California, we’ve got it happening! SMX Search Bowl will have teams from Ask, Google and Microsoft competing against each other to test…
• 
  Hyper-Local “News” Site EveryBlock Emerges
  EveryBlock is a new local “news” site that seeks to answer the question, “What’s happening in my neighborhood?” It aggregates data and content from a variety of sources and currently covers three US cities: Chicago, New York and San Francisco. EveryBlock competes with Outside.in, YourStreet and Topix to some degree….
• 
  Google Gets Demographic Targeting, But Didn’t They Already Have That?
  Today Google announced that you can demographically target ads showing up on its contextual network as part of a new beta test. But back in 2006, Google rolled out what seems to be exactly the same feature….
• 
  Think You’re Successfully Flying Under Google’s Radar? Think Again.
  Have you been trying to “fly under the radar,” engaging in activities outside of Google’s guidelines but subtly so as not to get caught? More and more SEOs are moving into this dangerous territory as the guidelines continue to broaden (prime examples of which being the expanded definition of…
• 
  Taking The Fear Factor Out Of Paid Search For Small Businesses
  A friend recently presented me with a tiny kitten she and her daughter rescued from a busy intersection. This kitten was not particularly adept at walking and would occasionally fall over, but she kept trying, using her tail to keep her balance and become more skilled at walking. I…
• 
  Customizing Your Search With Ask.com
  Don’t like the backgrounds available on Ask.com? No problem. Now you can upload any image you want. For instance, maybe you’d like this one! The new background feature is part of the skinning ability launched as part of Ask3D last year. The other engines offer some customization features as well….
• 
  Google Health Close to Launching?
  Philipp Lenssen and Tony Ruscoe at Google Blogoscoped have noted that the login page for Google Health is now live, although the service itself is not (and www.google.com/health currently redirects to the Google Coop page about health). Gabriel Stricker, Google spokesperson, told us: “We’re very interested in working on products…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Give Me Some Skin: Ask Gets More Personal, Ask.com Blog
• How To Make Google Gadgets - Lesson Two, SEOish
• Your Gmail stories, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Translate bug mixes up Heath Ledger, Tom Cruise, News.com
• Uses of iGoogle Tabs, SEOish

Business Issues

• Meg Whitman to Step Down as President and CEO of eBay, eBay Press Release
• IAB Search Council to launch online best practice resource, IAB UK
• John Donahoe’s Plan to Save eBay: Better Search, New York Times

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google LatLong: Reordering features in My Maps, Google LatLong
• Four days at the zoo, Official Google SketchUp Blog
• SEOize your iPhone, SEO Wrench

Link Building

• Internal Link Percent, Shimon Sandler
• How Links Can Build Value , SEO Book
• Link Building Case Study for Luxury Hotels, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Inside AdSense: Hebrew AdSense Help Forum launched, Inside AdSense
• The Brand Optimization Revolution - The Metrics are Coming! The Metrics are Coming!, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog
• How to Fit General Keywords into a Profitable Campaign, PPC Hero
• International Google Traffic Estimator Tool Data Off, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why You Must Optimize New PPC Campaigns before Activating in Google Adwords, Justin Davy

Searching

• Read me first: You say you’ve never considered the politics of search engines?, The Guardian
• Google News Searches Stop Working Temporarily, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• Domain Development , John Andrews
• SEM’s Midlife Crisis, ClickZ
• Does SEO have an image problem?, Huomah.com
• What is Search Engine Optimization?, BlueVerse
• Women of Internet Marketing Series - Will The Show Go On? It’s All Up To You!, Search Marketing Gurus

SEO & SEM

• Interview: Craig Newmark on Online Real Estate Part 2, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Optimizing the Fortune 100 - Enterprise SEO, Online Marketing Blog
• Avoid Scope Creep Money Pit SEM Jobs, AIM Clear Blog
• Some clarification about maintaining your rankings , Brisbane SEO Blog

Social Media

• What’s Your Twitter Threshold?, www.rheadrysdale.com
• Blogging as a Social Media Method Drives Product Awareness, Techipedia
• The Best Twitter Client for Windows Desktop, Digital Inspiration
• How to Use Twitter - Tips for Bloggers, Problogger
• Orkut at 4!, Orkut Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Yahoo Eyeing Online Music Service, AP
• YouTube to feature on wider range of mobile phones, Reuters
• Google on Automatically Annotating Images and Videos, SEO By The Sea

Web Analytics

• Bruceclay.com - 2007: A Turning Point For Web Analytics?, BruceClay.com
• Tracking Clicks with GA Pt. 2: Basic Implementation, www.epikone.com

Other Items

• MapReduce Explained, Google Blogoscoped
• Why Search Is Still Prehistoric, Search Engine Watch

Last 20 Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• When is Usability More Important than SEO?
• Why You Have To Attend Search Marketing Expo
• Two Diggs One Cup
• Reputation Management: 5 Feeds We Monitor for Clients
• 200 Diggs 1 Voice: Diggers Had Enough
• Diggers are Revolting
• SearchRank’s SEO Toolbox
• What’s in store for mobile advertising?
• Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson Address Digg User Concerns
• One contest for bloggers
• The Domain Name Market in 2008: Buy or Sell?
• Dropped Search Engine Rankings
• 9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers
• Social Networking Automation Review: Ekstreme Socializer
• Interview with Patrick Bisaillon of Piggy Bank Pie
• Improving Search Traffic … Using Social Media
• Social Media Can Be a Great Way to Stretch Your Ad Budget
• Links Subject to Copyright Concerns?
• Internal Link Percent
• Going Local in StumbleUpon
• Will Vertical Search Crush the “Do Everything” Search Engine?
• 10 Reasons to do Blog Interviews
• China to be Biggest Web Population in 2-3 Months
• Seo Discussion With Danny Sullivan Now Available
• Yahoo Tests Delicious Integration In Search Results

Yahoo! Inc. and AT&T Inc. announced Tuesday that they have signed a multi-year deal to share revenue from advertising on mobile phones and personal computers.  This deal expands upon a pre-existing alliance the companies have shared since 2001, and will bring Yahoo advertising to approximately 70 million AT&T customers.

Terms of the deal, which includes revenue sharing, were not disclosed. Nevertheless, the new agreement covers both pay-per-click web search ads and display ads where are preferred by corporate brand advertisers.  Yahoo will also create a “new look and feel ” for AT&T’s web portal.

Marco Boerries, executive VP of Yahoo’s Connected Life division, said in a conference call that, “We are now the search engine and the advertising engine behind all of (AT&T Mobility) customers.”

This announcement came on the heels of a disappointing forecast by Yahoo.  Shares fell last night in after-hours trading by about 11%.

A New And Improved YouTube For Mobile from the YouTube Blog announces that they have improved their mobile version at m.youtube.com. The new features include:

• Tens of millions of added videos.
• Community features now available on the mobile version.
• Mobile phone uploads available within moments.
• YouTube for Mobile is available and localized for the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, Germany, and Russia.

Click to continue reading…

Wednesday morning, Google announced that they had done an overhaul on their Korean-language search engine, adopting universal search for the Korean site. Google is attempting to gain significant ground in South Korea, which just happens to be one of the world’s most wired countries.

Lee Won-jin, director of Google Korea, said that the results-blending concept of universal searc, which has already been implemented in Google.com, has now been implemented in the Korean language version of the popular search engine. (more…)

The SEMMYS Finalists Are Ready, finally! Matt McGee has announced that we can now go over to The SEMMYS and vote for our favorite posts of the year.

The voting starts at 12:00 pm ET (9:00 am PT) today. The finalists are listed over here for all 15 categories. Those that vote are expected to review each finalist and then click on the “VOTE NOW IN THIS CATEGORY” link under each of the 15 categories. A new window will open up, where you can place your vote for your favorite article/post of the year. You can vote until the end-of-day (PT) on January 30th.

Click to continue reading…

Word around the web is that Google is preparing to launch an offline version of Google Docs through Google Gears, a rumor which has been fueled even more now by what look to be screenshots of Google Docs in offline mode.  To date, the only official integration for Google Gears is Reader.  Google Blogoscoped, however, is claiming that Google Docs now has partial offline access.

Google Gears, which was announced last May at the company’s annual Developer Day, is a browser extension for Internet Explorer 6.0+ and Firefox 1.5+ which enables web applications to provide offline functionality through JavaScript APIs.

The screenshots over at Blogoscoped look pretty convincing, and it appears that Google is at least working on getting more of their tools to work with Google Gears.  For the time being, however, it appears that this Google Docs offline functionality is just being tested and is in the very early stages of integration.

Reuters and InfoWorld describe a new partnership between Japan’s largest wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo and Google. NTT DoCoMo is a member of the Google-sponsored Open Handset Alliance, as is Japan’s number two carrier KDDI, which is a Google partner as well.

Click to continue reading…

When markets are healthy and growing that growth can hide major issues, but when the markets swing toward a loss the winners are separated from the losers. As the markets consolidate and the thin arbitrage opportunities fall away the market leaders own a much bigger piece of the market.

The above chart could just as easily be a finance chart comparing Google’s 5 year performance to Yahoo’s, or any other industry undergoing heavy consolidation. Google’s brand is search. Yahoo’s brand is ???

Many people view you how you view yourself and label you with the labels you attach to yourself. Something to consider when creating a new business in a saturated field.

If you are not considered the #1 site in your class / vertical then you need to change your brand, find ways to add value (like editorial content, unique data formats, syndication, or open APIs), build an organic advantage (using a strong domain name, a great site design, and through public relations) or do something else to change the rules.

We have seen various search engine performance statistics of the three major search engines for the last quarter of 2007 and Google topped these reports statistically. So, it would hurt a bit to add another report which again shows that Google’s top rivals, Live Search and Yahoo Search are lagging way behind Google in terms of search performance.

The report was a result of a research conducted by Efficient Frontier, a search-marketing tech provider, which analyzed data across a fixed set of Efficient Frontier clients from Q4 2006 to Q4 2007 to find trends in search engine performance for spend levels, CTR, CPC, and ROI. (more…)

Microsoft has launched another would-be viral online campaign for Live Search that conceptually mimics the earlier Ms. Dewey campaign but is politically themed for the election year. The site is called Left vs. Right and (probably) takes its inspiration from the old Saturday Night Live skit point/counter point, featuring Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtain, which was itself a parody of a long-running “60 Minutes” debate segment.

A left-leaning male and a right-leaning female commentator snipe at each other and make quips while they wait for users to input terms into the search box.

Click to continue reading…