The push layer returns: Why ‘publish and wait’ is half a strategy
See how AI systems process content through five entry modes — and why relying on crawling alone limits visibility, speed, and revenue
Topic: Inktomi Corporation
This day in search marketing history: March 9
Google's Fred update, plus: people also ask, personalization, Google puts bad merchants on notice and more.
This day in search marketing history: February 18
Yahoo stops using Google search, plus: Core Web Vitals, RSAs become default, Google Shopping Campaigns For PLAs and more.
On Google’s 21st birthday, a look back in time
Revisit a 1999 interview with Google co-founder Larry Page by Search Engine Land's Chris Sherman.
Google’s Assistant-everywhere strategy reminiscent of old site search playbook
Google Assistant "syndication" is a way to battle Amazon Alexa and expand its reach for later monetization.
Bing turns 10: Why it’s been more disruptive than you think
A look back, and ahead, at Microsoft's search business.
The Yahoo Directory — Once The Internet’s Most Important Search Engine — Is To Close
For some, it may seem like there has always been Google, and it’s always been the main way people have found things on the web. But before Google, there was the Yahoo Directory and its hand-compiled list of websites, organized into topics. Now, the venerable Yahoo Directory is closing. Yahoo shared the news today, a […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 4, 2012
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Street View Shows ‘Secret Base’ In Israel, But Military Says It’s Not Secret At All Some in Israel are calling foul after images of what’s described as a “secret base” […]
Former Lead Inktomi Engineer On Why Google Beat Them
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Inktomi was the search engine that many SEOs focused on when optimizing their sites – they powered Yahoo, HotBot and many other portals and search engines. But soon later, Google began to dominate and Inktomi was bought out by Yahoo for just $250 million. Diego Basch, a […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 11, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Game On: Google+ Now Offers Games You knew it was coming: Google+ now includes games. According to a screenshot posted on Google’s announcement, there are currently 16 games available at launch, […]
Yahoo’s AllTheWeb To Redirect To Yahoo Search April 4th
AllTheWeb one of the search engines Yahoo acquired in 2003 to help build Yahoo Search, will be sunsetting on April 4, 2011. After April 4th, when you try to access AllTheWeb, you will be redirected to Yahoo Search’s home page. A message posted on the AllTheWeb.com reads: Yahoo! will be closing AlltheWeb on April 4, […]
Tim Mayer: Search Vet & Ex-Yahoo Lands At Trada
Tim Mayer, a former Yahoo and longtime search industry veteran, has landed a new role at Trada, the crowdsourced SEM marketplace based in Colorado. Mayer joins the company as its Chief Strategy Officer, and will oversee sales, marketing, product development and operations. Ben Wright, another ex-Yahoo, is also joining Trada as its VP of Service […]
How Google Could Have Bought Baidu And Other Fascinating Details About China’s Largest Search Engine
BusinessWeek has published a terrific and lengthy article on Chinese search engine Baidu, how it “won” China and its global aspirations. The following is the CliffsNotes version. Baidu holds a 73 percent market share in China, the world’s largest internet market. The company is worth $38 billion and is 57 percent larger than Yahoo. Its […]
Tim Mayer, Who Worked For Practically Every Search Engine, Leaves Yahoo
Earlier I wrote about the depature of Yahoo’s Srinija Srinivasan. Yahoo’s lost another person, and another big figure in search, that of Tim Mayer. Tim just tweeted, as shown above, that he’s enjoying his first “post-Yahoo” day. Tweeted using the Twitter account I personally set up for him ages ago, I might add! Who Didn’t […]
2002 In Review: Google Powers AOL; AdWords Go Cost-Per-Click
This article is part of a series, a review of the 2000 decade and search developments. Below, major events from the year 2002 in consumer search. For the complete series, see the introduction, The Google Decade: Search In Review, 2000 To 2009. Google Powers AOL Search The deal for Google to provide search results for […]
2000 In Review: AdWords Launches; Yahoo Partners With Google; GoTo Syndicates
This article is part of a series, a review of the 2000 decade and search developments. Below, major events from the year 2000 in consumer search. For the complete series, see the introduction, The Google Decade: Search In Review, 2000 To 2009. Google Launches AdWords To me, the big story of 2000 was Google’s launch […]
10 Year Retrospective: Search Engine Strategies To SMX: Search Marketing Expo
Ten years ago today, I had the privilege of organizing the first ever search marketing conference. On this anniversary, a look back at how things were then and have they’ve changed in a decade. In 1999, search marketing itself was about five years old. People had been doing search engine optimization to generate traffic from […]
Google Experiments With Paid Inclusion & Does “Promoted” Meet FTC Guidelines?
Just when you thought paid inclusion was finally dead with holdout Yahoo getting out of the space, it’s come back from the most unlikeliest of sources: Google. Below, a look at the experiment plus reexamining the FTC’s guidelines about disclosing paid ads. Does saying “Promoted Videos” on YouTube rather than “Sponsored Videos” meet these? For […]
Twitter Gets More Serious About Search
We recently saw Twitter change the look of its public homepage to make it look more like a search engine. And last week we found out that Twitter’s new search guru is Doug Cook, who was formerly of Yahoo and inktomi. Cook also built a wine search engine called Able Grape as a kind of […]
Revisionist History: Bartz Claims Yahoo Was Never A Search Engine
The New York Times has an interview out with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz where she declares that Yahoo has “never been a search company.” Astounding, in that that this is not true. Part of me thinks, “Why bother arguing?” As my A Search Eulogy For Yahoo post from last week explains, whatever Yahoo was, if […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 30, 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: SMX East Agenda Posted: All the Search Marketing Topics for All Skill Levels Come to Search Marketing Expo – SMX East for content so compelling, you may be implementing what you’ve […]
What Site Owners, Web Developers & SEOs Should Know About The Yahoo Microsoft Deal
By now, everyone has read all about the news that Yahoo is replacing its search index with Microsoft’s Bing. In a way, it’s a great story of complete reversal, as in 2002, Microsoft didn’t have its own index and instead used Inktomi. Late that year, Yahoo! acquired Inktomi, which spurred Microsoft to start building its […]
A Search Eulogy For Yahoo
And then there were two. Make no mistake, Yahoo’s out of the search game. I know the spin. Better user interface, new ways to innovate, a winning play. Let’s not kid ourselves. They’re done. Not today, not necessarily in a year, but down the line at some point. Done. And it’s sad, because they were […]
Happy Birthday: Yahoo Search Turns 5 Today
The Yahoo Search Blog is celebrating the 5th birthday of Yahoo’s search engine today. It was February 18, 2004, when Yahoo stopped using Google search results and rolled out its own index and ranking of web pages. (It should be noted that Yahoo continued to use Google for image search results at first, even after […]
Tough Love For Microsoft Search
Back in June, I spoke at Microsoft as part of a regular series for those involved with its webmaster tools group and anyone generally interested in search. My talk was called “Tough Love For Microsoft Search,” and I covered various reasons why I felt the company has generally failed to make headway in the space. […]
Yahoo’s Sean Suchter Switches Sides, To Head Microsoft Search Efforts In Silicon Valley
News came out yesterday on Valleywag about Yahoo vice president Sean Suchter leaving the company and heading to Microsoft. To do what? Sean had told me privately on Tuesday, and I’d been waiting to get an official heads-up to say more. But AllThingsD now has the formal news: to be general manager of Microsoft’s Silicon […]
Cuil Launches — Can This Search Start-Up Really Best Google?
Can any start-up search engine “be the next Google?” Many have wondered this, and today’s launch of Cuil (pronounced “cool”) may provide the best test case since Google itself overtook more established search engines. Cuil provides what appears to be a comprehensive index of the web, offers a unique display presentation, and emerges at a […]
Google Takes Top Prize At SMX Search Bowl
Last night was the first ever SMX Search Bowl. Basically, the Search Engine Land team created fifty questions that were asked to the various teams. The teams consisted of two players from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Live Search, and the SEM All Star team. Danny displayed the questions on the screen and the first team to […]
Google Maps Categories: Will The Pain End Soon?
Over the past several weeks I have explored some of the issues involved with categorization of businesses in Google Maps on my blog, Understanding Google Maps. In Part 1, I detailed the more than year-long history of small business frustration. In Part 2, I provided some background on the early research and the difficulty with […]
Microsoft Live Search Core Relevance Program Management Director Eytan Seidman Moves On
Eytan Seidman, Program Management Director over core relevance for Microsoft Live Search, is leaving Microsoft (and Seattle) after six and a half years and heading to New York to work on a start up with his brother. I talked to him about life at Microsoft, the birth of Live Search, and singing karaoke in New […]
A Search Product CEO – Necessary To Win The Search Engine Game?
With Jim Lanzone being replaced as Ask.com’s CEO, I thought it time to do a piece that’s been banging about in my head. Do successful search companies have to have CEOs or top execs who "grew up" from the search product side? The jury is probably still out, but it’s interesting to look back at […]
Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To “Legally” Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines
If there’s anything I particularly hate when it comes to SEO, it’s the meta keywords tag. I so wish it had never been invented. It’s practically useless, yet people still obsess over it. In this article, I’ll explain more about why you shouldn’t worry about it except perhaps for misspellings, as well as which search […]
Yahoo Monday: Today’s Google Free Alternative
As part of our Google Free Mondays series this month, today is the day to try Yahoo. What are Google Free Mondays all about? My past post explains the intent of the series more. The short scoop is NOT to be anti-Google but rather stress that trying alternatives is good, because there might be something […]
History Of AOL Search
In preparation for those trying AOL tomorrow as part of our first Google-Free Friday, I thought it would be helpful to give some background on AOL in search. AOL has long offered search — and even owned several web crawling technologies — over the years. Don’t forget to read AOL: Tomorrow’s Google Free Friday Alternative […]
Yahoo Search VP Andrew Braccia Resigns
Yahoo loses VP of consumer search, to Accel Partners from VentureBeat reports that a major Yahoo asset has left to join a venture capital firm named Accel Partners. Andrew Braccia was Yahoo’s vice president of consumer web search. He worked under Jeff Weiner for six years and was responsible for Yahoo Answers, the integration of […]
SEO Is Easy? Let’s Look At The Hard 5 Percent
The SEO world has always had its supporters and its detractors, and it’s never made a great deal of difference. The bigger battles often waged within the community between the whitehats and blackhats. The whitehats would rant and rave about how the blackhats could get clients in trouble and how blackhat tactics generally junked up […]
NBC & News Corp’s “OverTube” Not A YouTube-Killer — It Might Just Power Those
I’ve been traveling the past three days so am catching up on news — including that of the new supposed YouTube-killer being launched by NBC Universal & News Corp. But while the official release calls this a new "site" coming later this year, more reading makes it clear we’re talking about a video distribution network […]
Former Microsoft Search Chief Bill Bliss On Early Search Missteps
Yesterday I wrote a long piece looking at Microsoft’s moves in search since 1997. Bill Bliss, who I described as overseeing Microsoft’s "first era" of human-powered search, has added some great comments on missteps within the company ranging from not buying search technology earlier and ignoring the Google threat for so long in part because […]
Microsoft’s “Third Era” Of Search Begins With Departure Of Search Chief Christopher Payne
Microsoft’s top search executive leaving company from the Seattle PI covers Microsoft’s Christopher Payne reportedly leaving the company. The AP also reports similar news from its sources. Payne took over search efforts at Microsoft back in 2003. He oversaw what I’d call Microsoft’s "second era" of search, that of developing a crawler-based search engine to […]
Finding Search Engine Freshness & Crawl Dates
A reader emailed me today noticing that Google was showing a date next to his listing, which made me think this was a good time to revisit how, when and where search engines show crawl dates for pages. These dates are a useful way for site owners to understand how often they are being revisited […]