SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 2, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: 400,000 Google Video Searches Are Polluted: Report400,000 search queries on Google Video lead to poisoned results and may lead users to download malicious software. That’s according to a Trend Micro blog […]

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

  • 400,000 Google Video Searches Are Polluted: Report
    400,000 search queries on Google Video lead to poisoned results and may lead users to download malicious software. That’s according to a Trend Micro blog post this weekend reported today by The Register. Trend Micro believes this “blackhat SEO poisoning” comes from a group that maintains multiple domains with “keyword-riddled pages” that often appear on top of the search results. When users click through to one of these domains, the problems begin: “… instead of legitimate videos researchers found some 400,000 queries returning video results that have a single redirection point, and one that eventually leads to malware download and …
  • PPC Marketing in a Down Economy
    The economy’s downturn has finally reached the online advertising world. Spends are dropping, advertisers and clients are reducing budgets, and many are confused as to the correct course of action. What do chief marketing officers think of marketing during a down economy. Marketing is more important than ever. 94 percent of CMOs believe that “a tough economic period is precisely the time when marketing plays a key role.” Source: Epsilon, “Epsilon CMO Survey,” September, 2008. When you stop marketing, you lose touch with your clients. You stop understanding what is important to your consumer base. Many believe that customer service and marketing is more …
  • Yahoo Shuts Down Publisher Network RSS Ads
    The next Yahoo program to be discontinued are the Yahoo Publisher Network RSS ads. Here is an email I just received from Yahoo: We wanted to let you know that we are closing our Ads in RSS program effective February 2, 2009. We have ended this beta program to focus on other more broadly used ad products for our publishing partners, such as Sponsored Search and Content Match. We recommend that you remove current Content Match tags from your RSS pages. Please be assured that we continue to invest in both our Sponsored Search and Content Match products and are …
  • Live Blogging The Google Earth 5.0 / Google Ocean Event
    Google is having a special event today featuring former US vice president Al Gore to announce its new Google Earth 5.0 software that features new underwater views of the world’s ocean (Google Ocean) and 3D views, as well as “historic imagery” that allows people to see the earth back in time through archived satellite views and aerial imagery, along with a new Google Mars 3D feature, which has additional hi-resolution photography and images of the planet. Google also blogs about it here and …
  • Making Your Search Campaigns Work Harder During The Economic Downturn, Part Two
    As economic uncertainty continues, smart search marketers are on the lookout for ways to wring better results out of existing campaigns. In this post, I’ll look at how to make even your worst-performing creatives work better. Don’t scrap your worst-performing creatives altogether; update them with ideas from best-performing creatives. To find your top creatives, you can rely on traditional tools such as AdWords Editor, as well as the search engine ad centers. Focus on the creatives with enough clicks to ensure the data set is statistically significant. As a rule of thumb, if your conversion rate is 5%, you should consider …
  • SearchBiz: MicroHoo Redux, MySpace ‘Dissed’ By Yahoo, Microsoft Hiring In Search
    I was reminded by CNET that it was exactly a year ago when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made his bold, unsolicited bid for Yahoo. It seems like a lifetime ago, certainly for the economy it is. CNET’s Stephen Shankland speculates about what might have been if the offer had been accepted by Yahoo rather than resisted. It’s a “on the one hand, on the other hand” sort of analysis, but interesting to consider how deeply the ranks of Yahoo would have been cut and how many of its initiatives subsumed had the deal happened. It’s also interesting to …
  • Google AdWords Tests Campaign Level Keyword Diagnose Tool
    Google seems to be testing a new AdWords feature that allows you to batch your keyword analysis into a larger overview report, as opposed to running the report for each and every keyword manually. The new tool is named “Diagnose Keyword” and seems to be on only some AdWords accounts. The feature is on the campaign level and will run a keyword analysis (those quality score reports) for all your keywords under that campaign. I have several screen shots at the Search Engine Roundtable provided by Kasia. It is really nice how they group …
  • How Open Redirects Can Hurt Your Site’s Trust
    Google has a detailed blog post named Open redirect URLs: Is your site being abused? The post goes through the issues with having “open” redirects on your site. Open redirects can lead to spammers abusing your site and ultimately hurting your rankings in Google or other search engines. The post goes through the various methods spammers can abuse your redirects, ways you can check if your site is vulnerable and ways to patch your redirects so they cannot be abused by spammers. This is a must read topic for webmasters who run any heavy dynamic site.
  • Seeking The Holy Grail Of The Long Tail
    Finding methods to chase the long tail of search—those less common, non-popular keywords that can nonetheless be worth their weight in gold—is kind of like seeking a holy grail. They are not easy to find, but it has a big payoff (presumably) when you find them. If you have been involved in SEO for any length of time it is quite likely that you have heard a lot of talk about the long tail. This is that well-known phenemenon where the high volume search terms for a given market space (the ones that everyone chases) represent only 30% of …
  • Scoring The Superbowl Ads & Search: Do Broadcast Marketers Get Online Acquisition?
    Way back in 2007, an iProspect/Jupiter Research study found that two-thirds of those online are motivated to search online due to an offline channel such as a TV ad. Since 2007 was an eternity ago in internet time and search continues to grow, that number has surely only gone up. That TV ads cause viewers to search is clear from search data as well. And people don’t just search for brands. They’re just as likely to search for taglines or products. Remember the “It’s Bacon!” Beggin’ Strips commercial from 2006?…
  • Can Searchers Find The Superbowl?
    Google Hot Trends can be a fascinating look at what has suddenly peaked the interest of Americans, and today everyone wants to know about the Superbowl. 35 of the 100 spiking searches have the word [superbowl] in them, and another 27 are Superbowl-related (including game-food recipes and team details). So how do searchers fare in finding out what they’re looking for? Superbowl start time Google Searchers are most interested in knowing what time the game starts and what channel to watch it on. The number one …
  • Just 1 Week Until SMX West, Register Today!
    It’s time. Search Marketing Expo – SMX West begins next Tuesday at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Register now to reserve your place. Your investment in coming to SMX West will pay off many times. We guarantee it. Whether you’re a beginner or experienced search engine marketer, SMX West has sessions just for you. Check out the agenda. Conference chairs Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman, and the all-star SMX programming team, have developed a comprehensive agenda that is tactical, strategic and forward-looking. Listen to Danny’s SMX West preview podcast here. In addition, we’ve taken care of …
  • Google Gets Fearful, Flags Entire Internet As Malware Briefly
    Earlier today, Google started placing malware warnings next to every site listed. TechCrunch has an excellent screenshot, and there’s much discussion on Techmeme. As part of its malware blocking system, this also meant anyone trying to reach a site by clicking on a link from Google were instead routed to a “do you really want to go to this site” page. The problem has since ended. Google hasn’t posted an official statement yet, but the head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has twittered that one is coming, along with apologies. Postscript: The Google blog …
  • Marin Software’s Multi-Conversion Tracking Helps Fine Tune Keyword Bidding
    Marin Software has introduced a new tool that the company says is unique in the industry. It’s called “Multi-Conversion Tracker.” It enables search marketers to define various kinds of actions or “conversions” (e.g., newsletter sign up, e-commerce transactions, e-mail capture, etc.). That process then enables SEMs to determine the relative performance of keywords and ad copy in terms of those defined conversions. They can then refine and fine tune their keyword bids accordingly. Here’s how the company explains various use cases: The new feature, now available to all Marin Software users, lets marketers define and measure their own conversion metrics. …

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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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