February 2008
Feb. 29, 2008 at 2:31pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 29, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
By Barry Schwartz 
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Feb. 29, 2008 at 1:02pm
Updated: IAC Ready To Drop Ask.com Search Technology & Partner With Google?
IAC: Ready To Bail On Ask? from Silicon Valley Insider reports an insider tip that IAC may sell off or abandon their search technology and outsource it to Google.
Here is the tip:
There is indeed a big shakeup coming. A new Ask. Some think a reduction in workforce is likely. There are no sacred cows, Teoma may be sold or simply abandoned which is hundreds of engineers who work on the core search engine, in place of just using Google's search with our special brand of user interface.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 29, 2008 at 12:28pm
Are You An Agency SEM Pro? Take SEMPO's Salary Survey
SEMPO is undertaking a salary survey of agency search engine marketing professionals, similar to its in-house SEM salary survey that we reported on in January. If you're an agency SEM pro, SEMPO would like to hear from you, whether you're a SEMPO member or not. To qualify for the survey, you must:
- Work at an agency devoted solely to SEM, or
- Work at an agency with an SEM branch or division, or
- Work at an agency that offers SEM in its mix of services
Ready to go? Take the SEMPO agency search engine marketer salary survey today.
By Chris Sherman Permalink 0
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Feb. 29, 2008 at 11:43am
Search In Pictures: SMX Bowl, Google Jeans, Bart's Chalk Board
In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 29, 2008 at 8:44am
YouTube To Add Live Video This Year
Steve Chen: YouTube to Add Live Video from NewTeeVee reports that YouTube's founder said they will be adding live video support this year. Videoblogger Sarah Meyers asked Chen about video blogging, in which he said:
2008. We'll do it this year.Live video is just something that we've always wanted to do, we've never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually do it this year.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 9:06pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 28, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 9:00pm
SMX West Day Three Coverage
SMX day three, the final day, is now complete. I am sitting in the airport for the next few hours, so I thought I'd push out this last recap. Here is all the coverage I found on day three:
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 1:48pm
Google Webmaster Tools: Now On Your iGoogle Homepage
Google's Webmaster Central is giving you a new way to access the diagnostics and stats for your sites. Rather than log into your Webmaster Tools account, you can add the Webmaster Tools gadget to your iGoogle page and access information from there. You can choose what components to display on your iGoogle page.
Below are details about what components are available and when each was initially launched as part of webmaster tools.
By Vanessa Fox Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 1:00pm
Local Business Listings: Dealing with Negative Reviews
Last month, I wrote about Why Local Businesses Should Be Like the Jerk, which examined the basics associated with businesses being listed in local listings and results. Now I want to take a look at the logical next consideration: How can businesses respond when they receive less-than-favorable reviews?
By Chris Linnett Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 10:27am
Google Sites Launches: Replaces Jotspot With Team Sharing Software
Google launched Google Sites, basically a relaunch of Jotspot but with many more features. In short, this new software allows teams to share much like you could with Microsoft's SharePoint.
Google sites offers users five templates, as TechCrunch explains:
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 9:44am
Google Health Formally Announced This Morning
Google Health has been an open secret for more than a year. Last week the company announced a pilot program with the Cleveland Clinic as a prelude to a formal announcement of the service. That formal announcement came this morning at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in Florida, in a keynote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Google's Marissa May wrote the Google Blog post this morning on the service. There's also coverage in the Wall Street Journal.
By Greg Sterling Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 8:50am
Does Your Site Have Sex Appeal?
The secret's out: men and women are different—in person and online. Gender differences matter in web design, content, and marketing. It takes more than a girlish color scheme and soft focus photos of smiling children to draw women to your site and earn their loyalty. Color and design matter, but so do content, safety, and service. And oh, by the way: men want compelling visuals and for you to just get to the point. Surprised? You shouldn't be, as these research findings demonstrate.
By Christine Churchill Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 8:05am
Video Search Engine Optimization: Catering To The Masses
Video is easier to digest than ever before. High speed wired and wi-fi services, iPhones, and other video-enabled mobile devices are helping hungry users scarf down a smorgasbord of video treats.
And publishers are going back to the kitchen to serve up more and more. How do publishers scale their operations to meet this seemingly insatiable appetite? And, how do they bake search engine friendliness into every serving?
By Eric Papczun Permalink 0
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Feb. 28, 2008 at 7:59am
Is Your Website Copy Crystal Clear?
Pretend you don't know anything about what your company offers and you stumbled onto it somehow. Can you tell immediately what it's all about? Can the search engines? Do this exercise with each inner page of the site as well. Is what each page has to offer truly crystal clear? Or does your website presume that people already know who you are and what you're about? If it's the latter, you may have an online brochure on your hands, which isn't a good thing.
One of the differences between a website and a printed brochure is that a brochure is often requested by people who already know about the company, but who are looking for more specific information regarding their offerings. Although not ideal, for those browsing the websites of companies they are already familiar with, an online brochure may certainly suffice. Which is probably why so many websites seem to be written like one! Often, when a website is originally designed and written, nobody thinks about the fact that people unfamiliar with the company might be visiting it. However, if you want to gain new customers from the search engines, i.e., people looking for your type of product or service (or even information) who never heard of you before, they need to know within a few seconds that they've landed in the right place.
By Jill Whalen Permalink 0
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Feb. 27, 2008 at 9:13pm
Sitemaps.org Update: You Can Now Store Your XML Sitemap Files Anywhere!
The major search engines have announced an update to the sitemaps.org protocol which enables site owners to store their XML Sitemap files in any location -- even on a different domain than the one referenced in the Sitemap. This will be a welcome change for those who manage multiple domains and would like to keep all Sitemap files in one place, as well as for those who would like to store their Sitemap in a location other than the root.
The only caveat? You have to be able to edit the robots.txt file of the domain the Sitemap file references.
The search engines made the announcement today on the Search Engineers Q&A panel at SMX West. Below, more about how this works and how to implement it on your site.
By Vanessa Fox Permalink 0
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Feb. 27, 2008 at 9:05pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 27, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 27, 2008 at 9:01pm
SMX West Day Two Coverage
Day two is pretty much over now. We still have the Google Grove later, but the sessions are now complete. Here is coverage of the conference, picking up from where we left off last night.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 27, 2008 at 10:45am
Google Takes Top Prize At SMX Search Bowl
Last night was the first ever SMX Search Bowl. Basically, the Search Engine Land team created fifty questions that were asked to the various teams. The teams consisted of two players from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Live Search, and the SEM All Star team. Danny displayed the questions on the screen and the first team to buzz in had a chance to answer the questions. If they answered correctly they scored points; if they answered incorrectly, they lost points.
Google won the contest by a landslide, but the All Star SEM Team did come back from a negative score, which would have been embarrassing. If you want more pictures and even a video of a small portion of the event, make sure to check out the Search Engine Roundtable.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Feb. 27, 2008 at 10:35am
Yahoo's Apex Preview: An Ambitious, Unified Ad Platform
At the IAB conference in Phoenix on Monday, Yahoo President Sue Decker made some tantalizing allusions to a new ad platform called "Apex." According to the NY Times, this stands for "advertiser publisher exchange."
By Greg Sterling Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Yahoo: Display Ads, Yahoo: General, Yahoo: Mobile & Go, Yahoo: Search Ads, Yahoo: SmartAds
Feb. 27, 2008 at 10:19am
Microsoft's Chief Strategy Officer: "Google Owes Its Business To Us"
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium, Microsoft's Chief Strategy Officer Craig Mundie made the perhaps technically correct but strange remark that Google's business was essentially derivative of Microsoft's success. "If we didn't succeed at the PC, they wouldn't have a business," Mundie is quoted as saying.
Yet Microsoft didn't invent the PC, nor does the company offer its only operating system.
