May 2007: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

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

Below are Search Engine Land's 10 most popular stories from May 2007: 1) Google 2.0: Google Universal Search - Google is undertaking the most radical change to its search results ever, introducing a "Universal Search" system that will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages. =================== 2) Google's New Navigational Links: An Illustrated Guide - After months of testing, Google is rolling out new ways to navigate within its search results and between different Google properties. Here's an illus [...]

Filed in: Most Popular Stories

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 31, 2007

May 31, 2007 at 3:55pm 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: Revealing The Sources Of Google NewsAmerican journalists and news reporters never reveal their sources. Google News follows suit, nowhere providing a list of the more than 4,500 English language news sources it claims to track. However, Henk van Ess, an investigative journalist from the Netherlands, offers a service that reveals the names of 1,256 news... Google's YouTube Signs Major Deal With EMI GroupYouTube signs broad licensing pact with EMI from R [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

Revealing The Sources Of Google News

May 31, 2007 at 1:36pm ET by Greg Jarboe

American journalists and news reporters never reveal their sources. Google News follows suit, nowhere providing a list of the more than 4,500 English language news sources it claims to track. However, Henk van Ess, an investigative journalist from the Netherlands, offers a service that reveals the names of 1,256 news sources used by Google News in the US. This service is called Google News Report. It fetches the headlines from Google News on a schedule, but only headlines on the home page are fetched. These results are then ranked by a score that is determined by a combination of facto [...]

Filed in: Google: News, Search Engines: News Search Engines

Google’s YouTube Signs Major Deal With EMI Group

May 31, 2007 at 1:25pm ET by Barry Schwartz

YouTube signs broad licensing pact with EMI from Reuters reports that Google has struck a major deal with EMI Group. EMI Group, one of the world’s leading global music companies, will allow YouTube users to not only watch EMI's videos and music but also create user generated content around the videos. “With this deal, all four of the world’s major music companies are now official YouTube partners,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-founder of YouTube. “EMI is a proven leader in the emerging digital music landscape and one of the world’s largest and most respected music companies. We [...]

Filed in: Google: Partnerships, Google: YouTube & Video

100,000,000 Ways To Invest In SEO

May 31, 2007 at 12:45pm ET by Stoney deGeyter

There are over 200 signals analyzed by search engines, creating an endless combination of tactics and strategies that can be employed to achieve exposure, rankings, and—by far the most important—conversions. To successfully deploy these tactics and strategies, however, requires a tremendous investment of time. To say that SEO is a full time job is a vast understatement. One can spend weeks or months dedicated to learning and employing just the more common aspects of SEO. Add to that quality copywriting, link building, usability testing, data analysis, and the myriad of social [...]

Filed in: SEO - Search Engine Optimization, Small Is Beautiful

Searcher Behavior In China

May 31, 2007 at 12:27pm ET by Chris Sherman

Attendees of Search Engine Strategies conferences in North America and Europe know that the searcher behavior panel has grown into one of the most popular sessions of the show. No surprise why: sophisticated search marketers have mostly mastered the tactical aspects of their craft, and in looking for a competitive edge turn to one of the least-understood variables of the overall search marketing equation—the needs of searchers and how best to satisfy them. The Searcher Behavior panel at SES China offered some of the first research ever done looking at the needs of Chinese searchers. The [...]

Filed in: Google: Outside US, SEM Industry: Conferences, Search Engines: Baidu, Search Engines: China Search Engines, Stats: Search Behavior

You Can’t Fake Real Content

May 31, 2007 at 11:53am ET by Jill Whalen

If you read SEO articles and forums, you've surely read over and over again how important "good content" is for your SEO efforts. You've heard how you need to write lots of informative articles about whatever it is you offer. Some SEO types even say to write an article a month or a week or even a day—all for the sake of the search engines. They'll often tell you to start a blog, and encourage you to post in it often. "Become an expert!" they'll advise with glee. "Or at least make it look like you're one." The problem with all of this is that not everyone is an expert, nor should the [...]

Filed in: 100% Organic, SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Google Street View Raises Privacy Questions: Amusing To Some, Upsetting To Others

May 31, 2007 at 10:12am ET by Greg Sterling

Privacy is back – or at least the issue is back. A range of events, announcements and investigations over the past several months have put privacy back in the headlines. And today, the links are coming in showing funny, revealing or potentially embarrassing photos of people on Google's new Street View photography. (To a large degree this is a replay of discussion and issues that arose when A9 introduced "Block View" two years ago.) First the photographs: Robots.txt for a new era? Car in the driveway (with license plate visible). Entering the adult bookstore. Taking out the trash. Tryi [...]

Filed in: Google: Critics, Google: Maps & Local, Legal: Privacy

Google Checkout Now Supports Mobile Devices

May 31, 2007 at 9:35am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Google Checkout Blog announced that they now support Google Checkout over mobile devices and mobile enabled sites. The only difference, for a buyer, is when checking out over Google Checkout mobile is that they verify themselves with a PIN as opposed to their Google account login (i.e. email and password). Merchants who sign up today will automatically have the mobile functionality, however old merchants need to sign up for the mobile functionality - it is free. More details at http://checkout.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=11659. [...]

Filed in: Google: Checkout

News Corp. & NBC Universal Sign Video Content Deal With Sundance Channel & TV Guide

May 31, 2007 at 9:09am ET by Barry Schwartz

News Corp, NBC sign more deals for online venture from Reuters reports that News Corp. and NBC Universal signed video content deals with Sundance Channel and TV Guide for their online video site. Those two providers as well as FUEL TV, Oxygen and SPEED will provide non-exclusive rights to News Corp. and NBC Universal to post their content on their new site. The new video site is expected to be launched this summer. Some expect it to rival Google's YouTube. [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Video Search Engines

Mark Stockford, Ask.com New Senior VP Of Operations

May 31, 2007 at 9:02am ET by Barry Schwartz

Ask.com has appointed Mark Stockford as the new senior vice president of operations today. Stockford will be responsible for the planning and operations of technology and engineering departments at Ask.com as well as all of Ask.com's data center operations. Stockford previously held employment at eBay, PayPal and Excite@Home. Chuck Geiger, executive cp of technology and engineering of Ask.com said, "Mark's diverse background and extensive experience in both the operational and technological aspects of networking engineering is a welcome addition to Ask.com." Here is the full release: OAK [...]

Filed in: Ask: Business Issues

Google Buys Panoramio, Photo Mapping Software

May 31, 2007 at 8:53am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google announced last night the acquisition of Panoramio to help continue to complete the Google Earth application. Eduardo Manchón of Panoramio said he "couldn’t imagine a better scenario than selling Panoramio to Google." He adds that the acquisition will enable them to work on "a better infrastructure to improve the reliability of Panoramio, more frequent updates of Panoramio’s Google Earth layer, and more resources for some invisible tasks that take time out from working on new features." More details at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/annc_panoramio.html. [...]

Filed in: Google: Acquisitions, Google: Earth

eBay Buys StumbleUpon

May 31, 2007 at 8:44am ET by Barry Schwartz

As expected, eBay has purchased StumbleUpon for about $75 million. “StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust,” said Michael Buhr, senior director, eBay. “StumbleUpon’s downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches to the concept of community that make it such a compelling addition to eBay.” eBay reportedly bought StumbleUpon for their 2.3 million users community, who shares the discovery content based on personal preferences. More co [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: StumbleUpon

Google Gears Brings Offline Web Applications To Life

May 30, 2007 at 7:00pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Today at Google Developer Day 2007, Google released Google Gears. Google Gears is a browser extension that will help developers create offline web applications in the open source framework. Gears is powered by JavaScript APIs enabling data storage, application caching, and multi-threading technologies for offline browsing and application use. Google Reader is the first online application to offer "Gears-enabled offline capabilities," Google told me. So you would load up Google Reader while you are online, it will download your feeds. Then you can go to the beach, away from all Internet co [...]

Filed in: Google: General

Mahalo Launches With Human-Crafted Search Results

May 30, 2007 at 6:00pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Mahalo, the expected people-powered search engine backed by Jason Calacanis, has now gone live in an early "Alpha" test release. In Mahalo, human editors have crafted the top search results for popular queries. For example, search for [paris hotels], and human editors at Mahalo have assembled a page that lists actual hotels in Paris rather than hotel aggregation/booking sites that you see at Google. I ran a few queries when talking with Jason about the service last week. Often, the results were impressive. In some other cases, the humans had gone into overkill, listing so many rela [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Hakia, Search Engines: Mahalo

Google Mapping Announcements Revisited

May 30, 2007 at 5:23pm ET by Greg Sterling

Yesterday I discovered Google's new "Street View" by chance, looking for directions, and blogged it, before it was officially announced and before I'd had a chance to talk to anyone at Google. At Where 2.0 yesterday I spoke to John Hanke, Google Maps GM, after the official announcement about Street View and some of the new functionality, which includes "Mapplets" and transit information. As most people know at this point, Street View offers 360 degree views of storefronts and outdoor areas that are being developed and cataloged by Google itself and a partner, Immersive Media. Right now there [...]

Filed in: Google: Maps & Local

Yahoo’s CTO, Farzad Nazem, Resigns

May 30, 2007 at 5:02pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Yahoo! Tech Chief Checks Out from The Street reports that Yahoo's Chief Technical Officer, Farzad Nazem is leaving Yahoo by June 8th. In a SEC filing posted today, a separation agreement declared Mr. Nazem will be receive a "lump-sum payment as of the Separation Date equal to" Nazem's base salary. In addition, his outstanding stock options will continue to vest and shall remain exercisable as per the previous terms. Namez cannot work for Google and Microsoft (those were named specifically) for a three year period. Postscript: Nazem explains his retirement with, Eleven years, 12,000 Yahoos, [...]

Filed in: Yahoo: Employees

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 30, 2007

May 30, 2007 at 4:12pm 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 To Leverage The New Facebook Platform The big news in social media last week was when Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Platform, which opens their API to allow third parties to build applications within Facebook. This means that companies now have instant access to Facebook's twenty-four million members. And, even better, applications developed for... Report From SES China: SEM Strategies For The Enterprise Life CycleSEM Strategies for the [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

How To Leverage The New Facebook Platform

May 30, 2007 at 3:25pm ET by Cameron Olthuis

The big news in social media last week was when Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Platform, which opens their API to allow third parties to build applications within Facebook. This means that companies now have instant access to Facebook's twenty-four million members. And, even better, applications developed for the Facebook Platform can serve their own ads or conduct transactions with consumers as long as they don't interfere with the ads currently being served on Facebook. This is great news for marketers that are trying to make their products useful in the social media space. T [...]

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

Report From SES China: SEM Strategies For The Enterprise Life Cycle

May 30, 2007 at 1:55pm ET by Chris Sherman

SEM Strategies for the Enterprise Life Cycle was a new panel for China. I've moderated Bill Hunt, CEO of Global Strategies on numerous panels at conferences throughout the world, but this time Bill was even more "on" than usual, offering up some great insights on what he called the "search maturity lifecycle." Bill and his team typically work with huge companies that operate on a global scale, maintaining dozens or even hundreds of web sites that must simultaneously put forward a unified corporate presence, yet also cater to the unique needs of different countries, regions or constituencies. [...]

Filed in: SEM Industry: Conferences

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