Over the past couple of years Microsoft and Google have become increasingly intense (maybe even bitter) rivals. Most recently the two companies used Yahoo as something of a pawn their game. It may be somewhat unfair to all involved to characterize Yahoo as a "pawn." But Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo primarily as a way to better compete against Google in search and online advertising. And Google offered Yahoo a paid search deal in part to help Yahoo develop a credible alternative to Microsoft's offer and keep the property away from Redmond. When the Microsoft offer/acquisition failed, it succ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Business Issues | Google: Chrome | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: General | Microsoft: Outside US

Hundreds of Microsoft researchers from around the world gathered at company headquarters in Redmond this week for TechFest 2009, a chance to share ideas and show off their latest creations. Although Microsoft emphasizes that there are no plans to bring any of this technology into Live Search, some of the interesting ideas were featured this week on the Live Search blog. Here are two that caught my eye: Opinion Search Microsoft's existing Opinion Index in Live Search was built from this technology, but the version demoed at TechFest takes the collection, storage, and organization [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Microsoft: Other Search

Penn State's Jim Jansen announced a recent study they just finished that looked at the click through rate of search ads. They studied hundreds of thousands of users, as they interacted with Dogpile, the popular meta search engine. The findings were somewhat surprising to  Jansen. The clickthrough rate on an ad when it was supported by an organic listing was only 15 percent. He thought having an organic and paid listing would increase the click through rate to a number higher than 15 percent. His study also found that "35 percent of queries" did not result in any ad clicks ad all. The [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Stats: Search Behavior

AllThingsD is one of several sources reporting that the EVP of Connected Life at Yahoo, Marco Boerries, will be leaving the company ahead of the anticipated management reorganization. AllThingsD's Kara Swisher speculates that this may result in a "cut back" in mobile efforts at Yahoo: It’s unclear what the impact of Boerries’ departure on Yahoo’s Connected Life unit will be. But it seems more likely than not that Bartz will cut back, given it is a harder to monetize now and also because Yahoo does not have its own device, as both Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) do, which might help it [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Mobile & Go

Google announced the release of the Google Toolbar 6 for Internet Explorer. This toolbar, when installed, adds the Google Quick Search Box (QSB) to the task bar of Windows computers. This is by far the most visible difference with this version of the toolbar. Other changes include enhancing the search suggestions and a new tab page feature that gives you quick access to your most viewed sites, recently closed tabs and bookmarked pages. Let me take a closer look at the Quick Search Box. When I installed it on my PC, it added the Google icon to my task bar: Either clicking on this [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Top News

If you're a B2B search marketer, chances are that measuring return on investment is key for you.  Considering that, why would you ever want to go down the social marketing path where success is just as unclear as how to measure it? Moreover, social marketing is something predominately used by B2C companies for engagement purposes, right? Why would a B2B marketer even want to bother with it? Well, there's a good reason to do so, as social marketing offers the B2B set something else entirely. The hidden value Beyond its use to gain more influence with current customers and reach new ones [...]

Related Topics: B2B Search Marketing | Channel: Search Marketing

More than half of all search queries are at least three words long, and more than a third are four words or longer. That's according to Hitwise data (PDF) released today: As the chart shows, 1- and 2-word queries are becoming less common, while 4-, 5-, and all the way up to 8+ word queries are becoming more common. The numbers are very similar to what Hitwise shared at SMX West a couple weeks ago. The takeaway point here is that the so-called long tail of search continues to get longer. As searchers get more sophisticated in how they use Google, Yahoo, Live Search, etc., it opens up [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: Search Behavior | Stats: Size | Top News

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: comScore: Search Behavior Is A Sign Of The TimesYou can watch the TV news, read a newspaper, or maybe drive down your street to see signs of the current financial struggles that many Americans are facing. You can also take a look at what Americans are searching for online. That’s what comScore has done, and today’s announcement confirms that we are what we [...] Google.org Changes Leadership, Aligns Goals More Closely with Big G ItselfG [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

You can watch the TV news, read a newspaper, or maybe drive down your street to see signs of the current financial struggles that many Americans are facing. You can also take a look at what Americans are searching for online. That's what comScore has done, and today's announcement confirms that we are what we search for. Searches for terms related to the economic struggles rose dramatically during 2008, according to the comScore report. As the chart shows, searches for job-related terms like "unemployment benefits" and "unemployment" were both up more than 200% in 2008. Housing-relat [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: comScore | Stats: Search Behavior

Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org is changing its operational leader and trying to more tightly integrate with the larger objectives of Google the company. According to the Google Blog: Long-time Googler Megan Smith will take over day-to-day management of Google.org, joining as General Manager to lead us through this transition, in addition to her existing role as Vice President of New Business Development. One of the first things that Megan will focus on is how Google.org can best achieve its mission. During our review it became clear that while we have been able to support some rema [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: General | Google: Other

As part of a wave of new features, MapQuest late last year introduced My MapQuest, a personalization tool for the PC side of the business. It subsequently renamed that offering "My Places" and has now launched it in mobile. My Places for MapQuest4Mobile offers a rich user experience and the ability to save maps and directions. It also provides a bridge between the mobile-PC divide by offering consistency across platforms. MapQuest4Mobile, the application, is currently available to BlackBerry devices (and free), although the company plans to roll it out rapidly to other platforms includin [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local

Yahoo to Offer Tools To Match Users, Ads from the Wall Street Journal reports Yahoo is set to launch new ad features and tools today. What is expected to launch today is the ability for advertisers to show graphic ads to users based on their previous search history. Plus, Yahoo will allow those graphic ads to also be targeted based on what other web sites that user visited and their actions on those web sites. In addition, Yahoo plans to launch day parting and demographic targeting for their search ads in the next month. Many search engines already offer dayparting and demographic target [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

What if you have a client who wants SEO but simply does not want you to do any link building even though, over and over and over, you've told this sweet client that link building is a key component of doing well online? I'm not talking about the outright purchasing of links here either. I'm talking about any effort at building links. Yes, these clients exist, and I know because I've dealt with them. There are many reasons why some clients feel that link building is a scary proposition. Most notable is the belief that any sort of link building will get you banned by Google, but there are als [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Week

I've written about how hard it is for people to break the Google Habit (and see here) and consider other search engines. But breaking the habit can be done, and Microsoft's Live Search shows an easy win for this type of thing in response to a search for oscar winners. Check it out -- the actual winners are shown right at the top of the page: Microsoft talks more about this special feature in a blog post from Friday. And similar to Microsoft, Ask.com also provides direct answers: Now compare those to what you get on the same search over at Google: No actual answers, n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Search Features: Shortcuts | Top News

The Google Webmaster Central team has officially announced the launch of a new YouTube channel at youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp. This channel will contain, you guessed it, videos from Googlers on how to help your web site success in Google. The first video is the presentation Matt Cutts gave at PubCon last year named "State of the Index 2008." Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team, said you can expect more videos up on the channel "soon." To keep up to date on these videos, you can subscribe to the channel via RSS or with the YouTube subscribe feature. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Has Google Ocean Uncovered Atlantis?Is that the lost city of Atlantis? Whatever it is, this grid-like pattern of lines on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is getting a lot of buzz these days — and it’s all made possible by the recently launched Google Ocean. According to the Telegraph, a 38-year-old aeronautical engineer recently spotted the pattern off [...] Has The iPhone Made Mobile SEO Obsolete?Recently there’s been a lot o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Is that the lost city of Atlantis? Whatever it is, this grid-like pattern of lines on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is getting a lot of buzz these days -- and it's all made possible by the recently launched Google Ocean. According to the Telegraph, a 38-year-old aeronautical engineer recently spotted the pattern off the coast of northwest Africa near the Canary Islands. The newspaper quotes archaeology experts who say it's "one of the most prominent places for the proposed location of Atlantis." We've already covered Cool Sights In Google Street View, so if anyone is planning [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Earth

Recently there's been a lot of 'mobile web is dead' talk due to several 'full HTML web' announcements at Mobile World Congress (MWC), and response to a pragmatic Sitepoint article aimed at casual webmasters with limited budgets, so I thought it would be a good time to address this question that people have been asking at least as long as I've been doing mobile SEO. My answering the question in the negative will not stop it from being asked by those who don't understand what makes the mobile user experience or mobile search different, but hopefully it will help people understand the issue befor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | SEO: Mobile Search | Top News

Search marketers are pretty good at claiming credit for online sales, and they’re getting better at measuring phone sales as well. However, there's a huge amount of activity in brick-and-mortar stores, in terms of walk-in sales in the offline world, which is not properly attributed to online search. How can we get some of the well-deserved credit when our online campaigns contribute directly to offline sales? Keeping tabs on conversions in a strictly online environment is pretty straightforward. The waters get muddy when companies want to understand how online search affects offline conve [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Paid Search

Is Google going to face a monopoly investigation? from The Guardian asks if President Obama's appointment of Christine Varney to be Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the United States Department of Justice will ultimately lead to more antitrust problems for Google. Varney has been quoted as saying and believing that Google "has acquired a monopoly in internet online advertising." Google already ended the Yahoo search deal in order to avoid monopolistic acquisitions and legal issues. So, will we see the Department of Justice go after Google for other monopolistic activities? Tha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal