January 2007: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

Jan 31, 2007 at 11:59pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Below are Search Engine Land's 10 most popular stories from January 2007: 1) Google Kills Bush's Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs - After just over two years, Google has finally defused the "Google Bomb" that has returned US President George W. Bush at the top of its results in a search on miserable failure. The move wasn't a post-State Of The Union Address gift for Bush. Instead, it's part of an overall algorithm change designed to stop such mass link pranks from working. =================== 2) 14 "Is Google Evil?" Tipping Points Since 2001 - Earlier I [...]

Filed in: Most Popular Stories

Google Pushes Back On Click Fraud Estimates, Says Don’t Forget The Back Button

Jan 31, 2007 at 7:47pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Last week when visiting Google, I had a long background discussion with Shuman Ghosemajumder about click fraud issues. Shuman is Google's business product manager for trust and safety. I'll follow up on some of our discussion as I'm able to get some material cleared. But one of the most fascinating things was his explanation on how some third party auditing firms don't appear to be matching up estimated fraud figures with refunds or even actual clicks registered by advertisers. Some of what he explained is now covered in two blog posts up on his personal blog: Why Third-Party Click Fraud Estim [...]

Filed in: Legal: Clickfraud

Q&A With Stephen Baker, CEO Of Reed Business Search

Jan 31, 2007 at 6:00pm ET by Chris Sherman

Reed Elsevier is one of the largest, most influential publishers in the world, a powerhouse in the science and medical, legal, education and business markets. But the company also has a major online presence, with more than 1,000 web sites in just its business group. Last year, Reed Business decided to leverage this significant online presence by creating Zibb, a business-to-business search engine that allows users to search across all of Reed Business' web sites. But Zibb goes beyond that—Reed also indexes billions of other business-related URLs from all over the web, including com [...]

Filed in: Q&A Land, Search Engines: B2B Engines, Site & Enterprise Search

Google Reports Revenues Up 19 Percent From Previous Quarter

Jan 31, 2007 at 4:20pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google begins its earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2006 in about 10 minutes, but the earnings are out now. You'll find them here from the US Security & Exchange Commission and here from Google itself. Further below, live blogging from the conference call, a formal transcript, a round-up of news articles and more. From the release: Revenues - Google reported revenues of $3.21 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2006, representing a 67% increase over fourth quarter 2005 revenues of $1.92 billion and a 19% increase over third quarter 2006 revenues of $2.69 billion. Google [...]

Filed in: Google: Business Issues

SearchCap: The Day In Search, Jan. 31, 2007

Jan 31, 2007 at 3:49pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web: From Search Engine Land: How Many Words Should My Articles Be To Rank Well?Aaron Wall has an excellent write up named Optimal Word Count & Web Page Copy Length. In short, Aaron explains that there is "no universal correct or incorrect answer to how much content is right." Aaron then goes through tips on how to write good content, that is easy to... Google Can't Use "Gmail" Name In EuropeGoogle loses European GMail trademark battle by The Register reports that Google is not all [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

How Many Words Should My Articles Be To Rank Well?

Jan 31, 2007 at 10:35am ET by Barry Schwartz

Aaron Wall has an excellent write up named Optimal Word Count & Web Page Copy Length. In short, Aaron explains that there is "no universal correct or incorrect answer to how much content is right." Aaron then goes through tips on how to write good content, that is easy to read and "optimized for user experience." The article is worth a read. Not only does it detail what type of content search engines may like, but it also gives examples by publishing format. [...]

Filed in: SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Google Can’t Use “Gmail” Name In Europe

Jan 31, 2007 at 10:24am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google loses European GMail trademark battle by The Register reports that Google is not allowed to use the trademarked term "GMail" in Europe. The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) held that Daniel Giersch's trademark of the term was valid and that Google could not use it. [...]

Filed in: Google: Gmail, Google: Legal, Google: Outside US, Legal: Trademarks

Yahoo To Build “Brand Universe” To Connect Entertainment Brands

Jan 31, 2007 at 10:10am ET by Barry Schwartz

Yahoo Planning to Add 100 Web Sites for Entertainment at the New York Times reports that Yahoo is undertaking a new microsite effort named "Brand Universe." Brand Universe will create about 100 web sites built around entertainment brands and pull together content from various Yahoo properties. One such site for the Nintendo Wii can be seen here, which pulls in Flickr photos, links from Delicious, content from Yahoo Answers and more. Yahoo sees the effort as a way to "connect the dots" of content from various brands in its various properties. Yahoo views the effort as a way to track the bra [...]

Filed in: Yahoo: Brand Universe

Gmail Locks Out User For Using Greasemonkey & Reports Of Gmail Contacts Disappearing

Jan 31, 2007 at 9:27am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Inquirer reports that a user received an unusual error from Google when trying to access his Gmail through a Greasemonkey script. The error was a "lockdown in sector four" message, basically describing that the user account has been found to have "unusual usage" and the "account has been disabled for up to 24 hours." The greasemonkey script was code that was used to help the Gmail user manage his Gmail emails. He recommends that you no longer use such unauthorized scripts until you hear back with permission from Google on the matter. On a related note, Philipp Lenssen reports that many [...]

Filed in: Google: Gmail

Yahoo To Build New Keyword Research Tool & Wordtracker Launches Free Tool

Jan 31, 2007 at 9:19am ET by Barry Schwartz

There have been recent reports that the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool has been sporadically offline. In response to those reports, Yahoo issued a statement telling us that the Overture tool has been getting hit hard by users but will "continue to exist until we replace it with an improved product." The new tool is expected to be released "later this year" and will support an API and be found within the new Yahoo Search Marketing area. Since we don't have a free tool from Yahoo that is reliable at the moment, Aaron Wall informs us that Wordtracker released a new free keyword tool at http:/ [...]

Filed in: SEM Tools, SEO: Writing & Body Copy, Search Marketing: Search Term Research, Yahoo: Search Ads

Google, Microsoft, & Yahoo Ask For Help With International Censorship

Jan 31, 2007 at 9:07am ET by Barry Schwartz

News.com reports that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have asked the US government for help when it comes to international censorship policies and law. The article has some more insight into the challenges the search companies face with countries like China. Right now, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have to make "moral judgments" about international authorities' requests for information when they do not have to do the same for US requests. "That's why we need the government's help" explained Michael Samway, Yahoo's deputy general counsel. [...]

Filed in: Google: Legal, Google: Outside US, Legal: Censorship, Microsoft: Outside US, Yahoo: Legal, Yahoo: Outside US

StumbleUpon’s New Webmaster Friendly Referral Page

Jan 31, 2007 at 7:35am ET by Danny Sullivan

I regularly check our traffic referral sources, and StumbleUpon is often a large one. Today I noticed that the StumbleUpon referral page has been changed to make it easier for site owners to understand how they got StumbleUpon traffic -- plus StumbleUpon uses the new format as an opportunity to push its ad program. More on this below, plus how to add StumbleUpon links to your blog or through FeedBurner FeedFlares, using a new XML file I've created. When someone visits your site from StumbleUpon, the visit leaves behind in your logs a URL that looks similar to this: http://www.stumbleupon [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: StumbleUpon, Social Media Marketing

Boorah Restaurant Reviews: Zagat On Steroids

Jan 31, 2007 at 4:31am ET by Greg Sterling

Does the Internet really need another local restaurant review site? Yes say the founders of Boorah, a new vertical search destination and aggregator of local restaurant reviews. Boorah collects reviews from existing local search and content sites, summarizes and enhances the data and builds additional features on top. Launched today, Boorah currently covers three U.S. markets: New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. But CEO Eric Moyer says that because Boorah aggregates existing review content it will have national coverage by the end of the summer. Somewhat ironically user-generated conten [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines

More Letters Of The Social Media Alphabet

Jan 30, 2007 at 5:38pm ET by Cameron Olthuis

Last week, Neil Patel wrote an article about the social media alphabet. It gave a brief overview of Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. While Neil did a great job of covering the social news sites, I wanted to chime in and cover some of the other letters of the alphabet that should be considered when planning a social media marketing campaign: Delicious, Flickr, MySpace and YouTube D Is For Delicious Delicious (formally spelled del.icio.us because of its URL, http://del.icio.us) is a social bookmarking site for storing, sharing, and discovering new websites. The main purpose of Delic [...]

Filed in: Let's Get Social, Search Engines: Social Search Engines, Social Media Marketing

SearchCap: The Day In Search, Jan. 30, 2007

Jan 30, 2007 at 4:00pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web: From Search Engine Land: Free Whitepaper: Search Strategies For RetailersMarchex and its TrafficLeader subsidiary have published the 2007 Search Marketing Insights for Retailers, a 19 page whitepaper that offers strategies for online merchants to improve search visibility in the major shopping search engines. There's also some interesting data about traffic to each of these services, and a useful table... Yahoo Site Explorer Adds Features: Delete URL From IndexThe Yahoo Search [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

Free Whitepaper: Search Strategies For Retailers

Jan 30, 2007 at 2:50pm ET by Chris Sherman

Marchex and its TrafficLeader subsidiary have published the 2007 Search Marketing Insights for Retailers, a 19 page whitepaper that offers strategies for online merchants to improve search visibility in the major shopping search engines. There's also some interesting data about traffic to each of these services, and a useful table that compares the data feed requirements for each service. The whitepaper is free, but you'll need to provide your name and email address to get to the download page. [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Shopping Search Engines, Search Marketing: Shopping Search Marketing, Stats: Popularity

Yahoo Site Explorer Adds Features: Delete URL From Index

Jan 30, 2007 at 1:22pm ET by Barry Schwartz

The Yahoo Search Blog just announced that Yahoo Site Explorer has new features. Yes, one of those features is the Yahoo Site Explorer Badge, which we reported this morning. But there are more features. You can now delete URLs from the index with a click of a button. If you authenticated your site with Yahoo Site Explorer, there will be a delete button when you "explore" a URL. Other features include authentication via META tags and more detailed authentication errors. Pretty cool that you can easily remove URLs from Yahoo's Search index, here is a screen capture: [...]

Filed in: SEO: Blocking Spiders

Click Fraud Reaches New High, Says Click Forensics

Jan 30, 2007 at 11:59am ET by Chris Sherman

Click Forensics has updated its Click Fraud Index with data from the fourth quarter of 2006, reporting an overall industry average click fraud rate of 14.2 percent versus 13.8 percent for Q3, 14.1 percent for Q2 and 13.7 percent for Q1. The Click Fraud Network collects data from more than 3,000 online advertisers and their agencies running campaigns for both large and small companies. Other findings include: The average click fraud rate of Pay Per Click advertisements appearing on search engine content networks was 19.2 percent for Q4. The industry average click fraud rate for high-price [...]

Filed in: Legal: Clickfraud

Google Officially Adds Docs & Spreadsheets Integration With Gmail

Jan 30, 2007 at 8:59am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Google Docs & Spreadsheets blog officially announced that when you receive an email in your Gmail account, and it contains a Google Docs or Spreadsheet file, the file should have a link to "Open as a Google Document." I am not sure if it opens all files or just Google files. I tested emailing myself a Microsoft Word document and Google did not show me the "Open as a Google Document." A nice feature to add on top of this would be to easily email a Google Doc or Spreadsheet that you are currently working on to others. Philipp Lenssen first spotted this being tested in early November of la [...]

Filed in: Google: Docs & Spreadsheets, Google: Gmail

Yahoo Adds Link Badge In Site Explorer

Jan 30, 2007 at 8:50am ET by Barry Schwartz

Kevin Gibbons spotted the "badge" link on Site Explorer that takes you to this page enabling anyone to place code on their site to show of the number of links they have to a specific page or to their site. As I commented earlier, badges that show off the number of links to a site from Yahoo, just doesn't sit right with me - I am not exactly sure why. In any event, if webmasters place the badge on their site, it does get the word out to others about Yahoo Site Explorer, which is a good thing. Here is the badge in action for Search Engine Land, plus if it ever stops working, I have a screen c [...]

Filed in: SEM Tools, Stats: Popularity, Yahoo: Site Explorer

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