Microsoft's MSNBot is doing more crawling these days and is alerting webmasters accordingly to revisit robots.txt files. More detail can be found on the Live Search Webmaster blog. In other news, Live Search blogs officially talked about its version of sitelinks that first appeared back in September (and see here). Here's an example of the links, which judging from how the post is tagged on the Live Search blog, might be called "deep links" by the team internally: Finally, LiveSide posts about the arrival of Live Search products (which I thought already existed). This is a dedicated compa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Microsoft: Bing News Search

Google is being sued by a man represented by a law firm that has successfully sued Google several times in the past. The firm is Kabateck Brown Kellner and the man is David Almeida, a local businessman from Massachusetts who claims that Google's sign up process for AdWords wrongly conceals that advertiser text ads will run on AdSense content partner sites unless they affirmatively opt out. Here's a relevant factual passage from the complaint: This action arises from the fact that Google does not inform its advertisers that if they leave the content bid CPC input blank, Google will use the a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdSense | Google: Legal | Legal: Clickfraud | Legal: General

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Q1: 9 Percent Growth Overall, 19 Percent In US Segment, International Down 11 PercentYahoo just released Q1 earnings. Here's the top-line: Revenues were $1,818 million for the first quarter of 2008, a 9 percent increase compared to $1,672 million for the same period of 2007. US segment revenues were $1.3 billion, a 19 percent increase compared to $1.1 billion for the same period... Former Googlers Ready Mechanical Zoo Social Recommendations Engin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Yahoo just released Q1 earnings. Here's the top-line: Revenues were $1,818 million for the first quarter of 2008, a 9 percent increase compared to $1,672 million for the same period of 2007. US segment revenues were $1.3 billion, a 19 percent increase compared to $1.1 billion for the same period of 2007. International revenues were $510 million, down 11 percent vs. 2007. These results beat consensus estimates but are mixed in other respects. Here are some overview slides from the presentation: The full earnings release can be found here. More after the earnings call. Postscript: Ya [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Business Issues

CNET writes about a new "stealth startup" from former Google News product manager Nathan Stoll. The new site "Mechanical Zoo" is reportedly in alpha right now. Here's how CNET's Stefanie Olson describes its intended function: At a high level, Mechanical Zoo is building an application--rather than a destination site--that will help people tap into the knowledge of their social circle to find information, such as what movie to see or where to go out on a Friday night. The company is not ready to publicly preview or talk about its technology, but it currently has at least 100 "alpha" users test [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Employees | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

Search engine optimization can extend far past domestic versions of the major search engines. Some globally-focused companies want increased visibility in country-specific search engines outside of the U.S. market. This week's infographic illustrates some tips and best practices associated with successful international optimization. Graphic by Elliance, an eMarketing firm specializing in results-driven search engine marketing, web site design, and outbound eMarketing campaigns. The firm is the creator of the ennect online marketing toolkit. The Search Illustrated column appears Tuesday [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Infographics | Search Illustrated | SEO: General

You've seen the Earth Day logos, now comes several Earth Day related announcements from Google. The most significant of those involves the expansion of Google Transit to nine new US locations, including San Francisco, Denver, Millwaukee, Ann Arbor and Holland, MI, Kansas City, MO, Framingham and Cape Cod, MA. Here's more from the Google LatLong blog. Other green related initiatives and announcements launching in celebration of Earth Day can be found on the Official Google blog. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Transit

As I posted earlier this morning, here is a quick compilation of logos for Earth Day from the search industry. Google: Yahoo (Flash version): AOL: Ask.com: Cre8asite Forums: Search Engine Roundtable (our theme, it actually glows): Past Earth Day themes and logos from the search industry: Google, Ask.com & Yahoo! Earth Day Logos, 2007 Search Engine Commemorate Earth Day 2006, 2006 Ask Jeeves & Google Earth Day, 2005 Google Commemorates Earth Day, 2004 [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: Other | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | SEM Industry: Community | Yahoo: Other

Today after the stock market closes, Yahoo will report earnings. Silicon Alley Insider offers a preview based on sources cited in the NY Post: "Several sources close to Yahoo! said the company will not blow the lid off earnings, but will likely beat analysts' expectations of 9 cents a share and revenue estimates, excluding traffic acquisition costs, of $1.32 billion." Jerry Yang essentially said that Yahoo would have a solid quarter in his reply to Microsoft's "ultimatum" letter. Microsoft Steve Ballmer has already said , however, that Yahoo's results won't affect Microsoft's offer or positi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Yahoo: Business Issues

The Digital Inspiration blog is reporting that Facebook profile images are now appearing as thumbnails in general Yahoo search results (as opposed to image search results). I tried several times to find the images, using different people's names along with related phrases including "Facebook profile," and was unable to duplicate the results. (Google has been including Facebook Profile data in search results for some time.) [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Search Engines: People Search | Search Engines: Photo & Image Search | Yahoo: Search

Google and the other major search engines have all been criticized in both the US and Europe over privacy issues and consumer data retention. More generally, there's an intensifying debate about behavioral ad targeting and privacy occurring on both sides of the Atlantic. The European authorities have been considerably more aggressive, however, in demanding action from search engines. Now, the Financial Times is reporting that despite a pledge from Google to change policies associated with cookies, during the privacy controversy surrounding the DoubleClick acquisition, the company has yet to ta [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Critics

CNet speculates about expanded Google StreetView coverage in Europe and the coming automation of 3D mapping for Google Earth and, perhaps, the desktop. Google's StreetView project is definitely global and there have been sightings of the camera-equipped vehicles throughout Europe. It's thus only a matter of time before the major European capitals are added (which is great for US-based travel to Europe; too bad the exchange rates are so unfavorable). Microsoft automated its 3D rendering a couple of years ago with the acquisition of Vexcel and more recently acquired 3D modeling software compan [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Earth | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Outside US

I've now compiled the latest search popularity stats from Hitwise, Compete, comScore, and Nielsen Online. That means it's time to put them all together once again, to see what a "panel" of ratings services agree on -- and don't agree on -- in terms of search engine popularity. Why not show a full year's worth of data? Ratings methodology changes mean I can only go back to June 2007 for comScore and October 2007 for Nielsen. Also, in terms of raw number of searches, Hitwise doesn't report these, so they aren't on the number of searches charts below. Services shown in the charts blow [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Compete | Stats: comScore | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: NetRatings | Stats: Popularity

Continuing from previous search stats from Hitwise, Compete, and comScore, Nielsen Online is now out (PDF file) with search engine share figures in the United States for March 2008. Similar to Hitwise and comScore, Google remains at a high but unlike some of the others, Microsoft and Yahoo come off lows. Searches that happened on the five top search engines in the pie chart above: Google: 58.7% Yahoo: 18.1% Microsoft: 12.0% AOL: 4.1% Ask: 2.4% Note that in the chart above, traffic from Ask.com-owned My Web Search is not combined by Nielsen with the Ask figure. If it were, the Ask figure [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: NetRatings | Stats: Popularity

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New Yahoo! Search Weather Report Yahoo! Search says it's rolling out a new search update. The note we received in advance offers the standard language: the company will be "rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. While we expect the update will be completed soon, as you know, throughout this process... Microsoft - Three Weeks or Else! Since Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion, interesting times have b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Yahoo Search says it's rolling out a new search update. Yahoo's post says the company will be "rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. While we expect the update will be completed soon, as you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index." This update also fixes issues with the Yahoo! Site Explorer delete URL functionality. There had been reports of a Yahoo index update last week, and this update looks to be confirmation of those observed changes. Yahoo recently introduced a new crawler as well. Yahoo has be [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: SEO

Since Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion, interesting times have been ours to enjoy here in the land of the search engines. On April 5 2008, Steve Ballmer stepped up the game by giving Yahoo! 3 weeks to make a decision on the 44.6 billion dollar offer or they’ll bypass the board and go directly to shareholders. height="100" hspace="5" vspace="3" width="100"> In response to this, Yahoo! made a couple of announcements: They’ll run a two week test of Google Adsense on Yahoo.com in the US. The test is limited to approximately 3% of Yahoo! search queries. With this, Yahoo!� [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Paid Search

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! [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SMX & DMD Alerts

iGoogle is one of the most interesting products at the search engine. Reportedly the fastest growing of Google's offerings, it's a personal start page or dashboard, but with potential to evolve into something more. Today Google announced "a sandbox for developers that helps them build richer gadgets for iGoogle, which will offer users more powerful and interactive features..." The announcement also says, "iGoogle's new features will include left navigation, a maximized or "canvas view" option for gadgets, and social features for gadgets using the OpenSocial APIs. These social features for g [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: iGoogle

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. Here was the ranking of the top ten: Source: Millward Brown Google was previously ranked the top brand in the UK. And Interbrand's BrandChannel named Google the top global brand in 2007. For more related discussion, see Techmeme. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: General | Google: Marketing | Stats: Popularity