SeoAlchemist

Google has named a new chief information officer after the departure of Douglas Merrill to EMI Records earlier in the month. Benjamin Fried, who led the Morgan Stanlet Application Infrastructure group, will be taking the CIO position in May.

Fried, who worked for Morgan Stanley computing operations for nearly 14 years, has experience in the area, though. According to the memo, he worked on Morgan Stanley’s first Web site, its workstation software, and its intranet.

CNet reports that Fried has a long history with Google and helped them with the big Google IPO back in 2004

Last Thursday we posted asking you to take our Search Engine Land audience survey. Thanks to the more than 200 of you who took the time to help us out!

For everyone else, this is a quick reminder that by taking the survey, you will be entered in a drawing to win a ticket to SMX Advanced in Seattle in June. Fill out the survey by April 23 at 6PM PDT. Travel and accommodations are not covered, sorry. If you can’t make it, you’re free to exchange it for another SMX ticket or give it to someone else.

Please, take our audience survey!

The Live Search blog has announced the xRank Celebrity, which according to the post is a ranking of all celebrity related searches done on the Live Search portal. Yes dear readers, its a celebrity search zeitgeist, complete with links to images, video, biography, albums and movies of top ranking celebrities based on searches conducted using their names on the Live Search portal. (more…)

Millward Brown, a unit of mega ad agency WPP, has named Google the world’s top brand in its annual “Top 100 Most Powerful Brands” survey (report available here). The Guardian UK also covers the study. Millward Brown calculates the ranking based on corporate earnings, consumer survey data, projected future growth, and a host of subjective intangibles.

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On Wednesday, Google turned over approximately 3,261 files to a Brazilian senate commission charged with looking into allegations that illegal images of minors were posted in restricted-access photo albums on Google’s Orkut social networking site.  In turning over the data on suspected pedophiles, Google gave into the pressure to lift their confidentiality duty to its users.

In terms of social networking sites, within Brazil, Orkut is by far the post popular choice.  It beats out rivals MySpace and Facebook, and about 27 million of Orkut’s 60 million members hail from the country of Brazil.

Orkut has been suspected as being an online gathering spot for pedophiles and child predators, and the Brazilian government claims to have received over 50,000 allegations of pedophilia in recent years, 90% of which they say are related to Orkut.

Demostenes Torres, a member of the senate commission, said that he believes that Google’s information will help to incriminate around 200 pedophiles.

Google met with Brazilian authorities on Wednesday to strike the deal that will see the hand-over of information.  In the past, Google had been threatened with both criminal and civil lawsuits if theyd id not comply and release the data.

The Chinese Internet has surpassed the US in terms of overall users. According to BDA China (reported in USAToday), there are more than 220 million Chinese Internet users (17 percent of the population) compared with 216 in the US (71 percent). This is simply a function of the huge scale of the Chinese market, with much more growth to come.

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I’m sure that readers have noticed a good amount of new names and faces popping up in their Google Reader and RSS aggregators. Search Engine Journal is currently in the midst of running a guest blogging competition where we are offering the winner different prizes from Search Engine Journal Sponsors adding up to over $10,000 in search marketing services.

Here is an overview of our contest sponsors :

• $1,000 in Blog Reviews &; Links from SponsoredReviews.com
• 6 month free subscription for SingleFeed’s Data Feed Management and Optimization service : $1,074 value
• $500 in free advertising from Text Link Ads
• 6 Month Free Subscription for Adapt Paid Search Management Software (a $1,194 value)
• One Year Subscription to Keyword Discovery (a $599 value)
• $500 from Pepperjam Search
• 3 months free at SEOBook (a $300 value)
• SEO Audit & Site Makeover from Search Engine Journal Services (a $5000+ value)
• Submittals of up to 4 sites to Aviva Directory Network (a $400+ value)

If you like these guest posts, I highly encourage you to show your support for these entries by :

• Contributing Ideas and Comments
• Sphinning Them
• Linking to Ones You Like from Your Blog
• Giving Them a Buzz via Yahoo Buzz
• Bookmarking them on Del.icio.us
• Sending them to Your Friends or Posting the Ones You Like on Twitter
• Submitting or voting for them on Propeller, Mixx, Digg ..etc.
• Sharing via Facebook

All of these forms of contributing, conversation and promotion will have a direct effect on which blog post wins. (more…)

The AdWords Addict reports on the recent test of Google AdWords in Yahoo search results. Apparently changes were reflected equally quickly on both Google and Yahoo and performance on Yahoo (CTRs) was good, though no specifics are provided. Overall, the convenience of managing both engines from a single interface is also praised.

Look for questions surrounding this test (and its potential future) when Yahoo reports its earnings tomorrow afternoon.

Hands down, content is the most important part of your web site because it’s why visitors stay on your site. They may come to see a great design, watch a new video, or research an idea, but they stay when your content is magnetic. Magnetic content, though, can be difficult to write even if you’re an experienced writer, so what do you do when you’re not a great writer? Write anyway; keep your content strong, tight, right, and easy; and you’ll be writing magnetic content in no time.

1. Write Strong.

Not to completely rip off Lance Armstrong, but writing magnetic content is about being strong, both in topic and in your abilities. First, you must have a strong topic. Generally speaking, concrete subjects are better than abstract ones, so write about that which is tangible. Whatever your topic, both personal experience and extensive research can be used to strengthen your content.
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With two reports about Google’s paid clicks being down, comScore helped fuel a perception among financial analysts that Google might under-perform in Q1. However, Google’s earnings handily beat estimates and the stock saw a 20 percent gain in a single day on Friday as investors were buoyed by Google’s results. By comparison, comScore saw many in the press and on blogs critically question its methodology in an effort to explain what happened. Now comScore, in a blog post on Friday, attempts to reconcile its data with Google’s earnings.

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