I chuckled a bit over the buzz Yahoo got when they launched Yahoo Search Suggest earlier this month because I knew something even better was coming: Yahoo Search Assist. Finally, it's going live and in the wild for lucky people who are selected at random for testing. If all goes well, eventually everyone will get to use this new search refinement feature that I find very compelling. Yahoo Search Assist is smart, in the sense that it shows up when you need it. Yahoo Search Suggest, as well as Google Suggest (and other tools like them), are cool in how they start to suggest things as you type. B [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Query Refinement | Yahoo: Search

Paul Levine, GM of Yahoo Local, is leaving (his decision) after almost five years and being replaced by Jennifer Dulski, who is now going to be Group Vice President & General Manager, Marketplace. Her title reflects a strategy shift and will combine Local with Shopping, Travel, Autos and Real Estate and represents a more integrated local-vertical approach. Dulski has a long history at Yahoo! in various roles. Prior to her current role, Dulski was the VP/GM of the Autos business. According to Yahoo, Dulski "was a key member of the tiger team that re-launched Yahoo! Search and she led the cons [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: Maps & Local

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Digg Buries Google AdSense For Microsoft Ads Digg has dropped Google as its ad provider in exchange for for a three-year exclusive ad deal with Microsoft. Microsoft will be providing the display and contextual advertising on Digg's popular social news site, with traffic estimated at over 17 million unique monthly visitors. The switch over will take place... Networking: The In-House Search Marketer's Most Powerful Tool You are a pillar. You are on an islan [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

You are a pillar. You are on an island. You are alone - a stranger in your own land. Such is the life of an in-house SEM. Or is it? True, you may be the only one in your company talking your talk and walking your walk, but you are hardly alone. As more companies bring search marketing efforts in-house, more and more internal experts just like you are facing the same questions, the same barriers and the same attitudes. Being the sole flag bearer internally usually means you're time is limited and it's hard to find enough data on your own to support your thoughts and ideas. The Internet [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | In House Search Marketing | SEM Industry: Community

Digg has dropped Google as its ad provider in exchange for for a three-year exclusive ad deal with Microsoft. Microsoft will be providing the display and contextual advertising on Digg's popular social news site, with traffic estimated at over 17 million unique monthly visitors. The switch over will take place in early August and will impact only US traffic. Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft, said: Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Engines: Digg

CA and Yahoo have teamed up to offer a co-branded version of the Yahoo Toolbar. This Yahoo Toolbar will be bundled in all CA Home/Home Office products. CA Anti-Spyware will continue to power Yahoo's anti-spyware feature in the toolbar. From the press release: "Online security remains a prevalent issue because of online threats, yet many Internet users are still unsure what products they need to protect themselves from spyware and malware," said Joff Redfern, senior director of Product Management, Yahoo! Search Distribution. "It's important to provide our users with the best, most accessi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Toolbars & Add-Ons | Yahoo: Partnerships

Suit filed against state Google incentives from Triangle Business Journal reports that the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law has filed a lawsuit to challenge the incentives given to Google to build a server farm in North Carolina. The advocacy group claims the incentives violate various laws and provisions in the state's constitution. Joining the group in the lawsuit are Barbara Howe, the Libertarian Party's gubernatorial candidate in 2000 and 2004, and Michael Munger, the 2008 candidate. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Google: Offices

Real estate website and publisher Inman.com has put out a new report called The State of Real Estate Marketing. It's based on results from an online survey of US real estate professionals, which had a total of 770 respondents. The survey found that search engine marketing was the most popular category of online advertising. Fifty-two percent of survey respondents said they planned to by search keywords "next year." SEO was popular too, with 42 percent responding that they planned to invest. Amounts budgeted for keyword advertising were from $0 to $5,000+ (on an annual basis). According to t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads | Search Engines: Classifieds Search Engines | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | Stats: General

Microsoft, EA sign sports game ad deal from Reuters reports Microsoft signed a video game ad deal with Electronic Arts. Microsoft will feed EA's games, such as Madden, NASCAR, Tiger Woods, NHL and Skate, with advertisements. Cory Van Arsdale, chief executive of Massive, a game ad company Microsoft bought last year, said, "The real issue here is that we're making a network play. If I just had 'Madden,' while great, it would be of limited value to advertisers." EA is the number one independent video game maker. The video game ad market in 2005 was only $50 million but is expected to grow to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Ads: Contextual

Google's Matt Cutts explained in a blog post why Google has banned Alex Chiu's web page selling an immortality device. It's not that Google wants to help hide the secret of immortality, as Chiu claims. Rather, it's because of massive and irrelevant keyword stuffing. Meanwhile, Erik Dafforn showed how the University of Kentucky's high quality page on how to sell Cialis gets to have third page rankings in Google. OK, so it's someone spamming Google by taking advantage of the university's site. But it leads to a funny choice: Which would I rather be banned on Google? (1) An immortality device [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEO: Spamming

FCC shuns Google plans for open mobile network from Computer Business Review reports that US Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin likes Google's wireless spectrum bid proposal but is not a fan of all of Google's requirements. Google said they would bid $4.6 billion on the wireless spectrum, if the FCC would comply with all of their requirements. It looks like the FCC is unlikely to comply fully because Google's proposal is likely to discourage companies from bidding on the airwaves. The FCC is worried that companies like Verizon and AT&T won't bid on the spectrum because G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Internet Access | Google: Mobile

Gary Price noticed and notified us that Google's Sumit Agarwal is speaking at an MVNO conference. MVNO stands for mobile virtual network operator. Bankrupt (and likely soon to close) Amp'd Mobile is one example; Helio ("don't call us a phone company") is another. Yahoo is reportedly also going to be at the conference. Given all the speculation regarding Google's plans to bid for wireless spectrum and rumors swirling around the notion of a "GPhone," one might be tempted to see Google's presence at the show as evidence that the company intends to launch an MVNO of its own. However, according [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile

This morning I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Microsoft Live Search is finally now supporting sitemaps via autodiscovery. Microsoft will only use your sitemaps file if it is listed in your robots.txt file. You cannot currently ping Microsoft or upload your sitemaps file to Microsoft. Microsoft, along with Ask.com, Google and Yahoo, united to support autodiscovery of sitemaps in April. Google, Yahoo and Ask.com quickly supported it on that day or soon after. Microsoft finally began supporting the reading of these sitemaps files as of yesterday. How do you specify the locati [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing SEO | SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps

An online survey of approximately 1,100 people in the UK commissioned by bigmouthmedia found that 61% of respondents believed that Google would still be the leading search engine in five years. When asked "Do you want Google to be the leading search engine in five years time?" the response was somewhat different, with a smaller majority (53%) saying yes. "Do you think Google will be the leading search engine in five years time?" "Do you want Google to be the leading search engine in five years time?" A comparable, earlier survey conducted by bigmouthmedia found that some in the UK beli [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Critics | Google: Outside US | Stats: Popularity

Brand Owners on Web Offensive from Red Herring reports that Yahoo, Dell, Coca Cola, Hilton and others have joined together to fight cybersquatting. The companies formed a collation against cybersquatters named Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. Cybersquatters purchase domain names that are similar to trademark names, such as yahooemail.com and hilt0n.com. Some use that traffic to earn an affiliate commission on sales from the trademark owners, but others may use it for criminal activities, such as phishing for passwords, bank account details and other personal information. CADNA Preside [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Trademarks | Search Ads: Domaining | Yahoo: Legal

What! No webcasts, demos or podcasts available for download on your site? Worried you're getting left in the dust by more savvy digital marketers? Don't despair. Business buyers continue to show a preference for fast and simple online information. The power of text I'm often asked about the latest and greatest B2B online marketing techniques. Most people expect me to recommend some sort of multi-media ad format along with landing pages that offer podcasts, webinars, and video clips. But, the truth is, the most successful B2B campaigns I've been involved with over the years [...]

Related Topics: B2B Search Marketing | Channel: Search

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: AOL To Acquire Behavioral Targeting Ad Network Tacoda AOL this morning announced that it would be acquiring Tacoda, a behavioral targeting (BT) ad network and technology provider (which works with many newspaper publishers). AOL owns the largest online ad network, Advertising.com, and will be integrating BT capabilities into that property as well as others across its network. BT... Google & Other Search Apps For The iPhone It has been almost two weeks [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

It has been almost two weeks since I got my iPhone and I have been playing with it for a while now. I wanted to share with you the various cool search applications I use on my iPhone, including Google's AJAX iPhone search. Google iPhone Search: Google's iPhone search is available over here. Here are screen captures of me using it for a search on [barry schwartz]: Home Page: Entering in a Search: Web Search Results: News Results: Blog Results: Image Results: Digg on iPhone: Digg has a neat iPhone user interface as well. You can access it at digg.com/iphone. Here are some scre [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines

StumbleUpon is a hot social discovery site that continues to rapidly increase in popularity. With the increase in popularity comes an increase in the potential traffic that it can drive to your sites. StumbleUpon has always been great at driving traffic and links, but lately I've started to notice that it is one of the leading social sites, often times sending more traffic than even Digg. Most of the basic social media marketing tactics apply to StumbleUpon. It's important to be an active user in the community who provides value and discovers great sites. It also helps to have a lot of mut [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search & Social | Social Media Marketing | StumbleUpon

Superpages becomes the second major local search destination to add video advertising after Citysearch did so recently (in partnership with TurnHere). Other local search and yellow pages sites with video include DexKnows (published by RH Donnelley), Smalltown, SavoyNewYork and MojoPages. And there are an increasing number of travel sites that have video as well. Given the power and growing visibility of online video, we can expect that it will become a standard feature of most local sites in the next 12 to 18 months. Here are example videos on Superpages for a local florist and a local denti [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines