MSN Forms Search Focus Group
eWeek reports that Microsoft is holding a 2-day event called "Search Champs". Thirty plus bloggers, researchers and others will get a sneak peak at the MSN Search and give their feedback.
I guess my invite got lost in the mail. :-( Andy Beal
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Fun Google hack with Sony Digital Cameras
It's amazing what you can find on Google. Here engadget shows you how to search for the very first photo taken by thousands of digital camera owners. "DSC00001.JPG" is the default name for the first photo taken by Sony camera owners and Google helps you find those who lost their "photo-virginity".
Google Should Be in the Browser Biz
Business Week looks at the reasons for Google's anticipated entry to the browser market.
A browser is the logical solution. Beyond the standard buttons such as "back" and "reload," browsers typically display a toolbar for quick access to everything from bookmarked sites to often-used desktop software. A Google-flavored browser could highlight its range of services and bring them together without forcing the search giant to junk up its site with logos and text. Andy Beal
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FindWhat.com Launches Contextual Ad Distribution to Challenge AdSense
FindWhat today announced their own version of Google's AdSense network, AdRevenue Xpress.
"AdRevenue Xpress is developed specifically for small to mid-sized businesses who want to add valuable advertising content to their websites quickly and simply, without impacting their website design or operation. Through a step-by-step, wizard-driven set up, AdRevenue Xpress partners add search box and/or directory functionality to show ads from the FindWhat.com."
I would link you to the relevant page on FindWhat's site, but I couldn't find any mention of it.
UPDATE: We're told that the service is "not contextual" and that they are working on getting more information up on the site. Andy Beal
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Ask Jeeves UK Shuffles Staff Count
According to New Media Age, Ask Jeeves has cut a number of jobs from its UK sales department as part of a restructuring drive as it prepares to expand into Europe.
But the company said that the loss of seven jobs would not see overall headcount reduced, as it's actively recruiting in other areas. Andy Beal
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Microsoft Researcher Questions Search Engine Business Model
Some interesting views, but obviously Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer think the search engine industry is going to do just fine, thank you! Andy Beal
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What Growth Will Search Engine Advertising See?
The Wall Street Journal reports on whether the search engine advertising industry can continue to grow at the same pace.
In her Tuesday report, Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Christa Quarles said search advertising should grow 63% this year. "Google has developed into the 'must-advertise' search location on the Web" and has taken share, she wrote.
But Jupiter Research analyst Nate Elliott sees a more modest pace. After growth of 65% last year, expansion should be 34% in 2004 and 27% next year, he says. "The market is not growing as fast as it used to."
I based my views on Jupiter's growth predictions. We'll see continued growth but when you get to a $5+ billion industry, it's hard to grow at 50% a year.
Andy Beal, vice president of search marketing at ad adviser WebSourced Inc., agrees that the growth spurt of the past 18 months can't continue much beyond the end of the year. Companies are allocating more of their ad budgets online, and prices are up. But growth will slow, he says. Andy Beal
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Clusty the Clustering Search Engine - Will it Challenge Google and Yahoo?
Vivisimo is taking another shot at de-throning Google with the debut of Clusty "the clustering engine".
According to AP news, Clusty uses clustering technology that Vivisimo has refined to sort search results into different categories related to the initial search request.
The clustering technology is meant to simplify online search by breaking down results into related categories instead of bunching them in a single listing that can span tens of thousands of links scattered across hundreds of Web pages.
"There is almost too much information on the Internet now," said Vivisimo CEO Raul Valdes-Perez. "We think we have a better way to differentiate the results."
What about that name...."Clusty"?
Naming the new search engine Clusty probably wasn't the best choice, said industry observer Chris Sherman, predicting many people will confuse the site with Krusty the Clown from the TV show, "The Simpsons."
I would imagine that they're going for just that word association. Help it stay in a searchers mind. It's got to be easier to remember than Vivisimo.
Fake SEO Forums Promoting Traffic Power and 1P
I don't normally get involved with the "which SEO just got banned" debates, but when a fake forum pops-up with negative comments about us, it deserves some attention.
Web-Advertising-Info.com claims to be a forum with real feedback on SEO firms. The site is bogus and you can read Aaron's scathing criticisim of the forum that is obviously promoting banned SEO provider Traffic Power (aka 1P).
Update: It seems Traffic Power has now invented a whole network of fake forums. Who ever thought that the creation of a bunch of new forums all attacking credible SEOs, while promoting Traffic Power (aka 1P), wouldn't go unnoticed is a dumb ass!
Google Exec Spills the Beans!
Was that headline enticing enough? Ok, so Google exec David Scacco didn't exactly tell us the next big development at Google, but he did share some interesting info at the ChannelAdvisor summit.
* 28% of Google searches are for a "product name", 9% are for a "brand name" and 5% are searches for a "company name". "Brand" keywords also have a 8x higher ROI than generic keywords. Not sure if that is for all searches or just consumer-product related searches, but either way it demonstrates the importance of making sure your site shows up on the SERPs for your brand.
* Why are we seeing AdSense in our email and perhaps our browser? Google admits that it can only reach 5% of web page traffic via Google.com and its search partners. With their contextual ad partners, that jumps to 80%. Kind of important if they are to meet that 50% annual revenue growth predicted by CSFB.
* I asked David if we would see Google allowing AdWords users the option of picking and choosing which contextual-ad partners would show their ads. Got to give the Google PR team kudos for their staff training. David stuck firm to the "at Google we are always looking at ways to improve our product offering" company line. So, read into that what you will.
* Asked if Froogle will always be free to list your products, David said they "don't plan to change the Froogle free inclusion". Ah, there's that word..."plan". For the time being, Google is happy to monetize Froogle from displaying AdWords ads.
Smarter.com Challenges Shopping Engine Status Quo One of the panels I moderated today included a new start-up called Smarter.com. Smarter.com is an online shopping search engine co-foundered by Talmadge O’Neill who tells me he was the "twelfth employee at Goto.com" (now Overture).
Smarter.com is just a couple of months old but already has more than 200 companies signed-up. The company plans to target tech products. Andy Beal
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ChannelAdvisor Strategy Summit 2004
Posting on Wednesday could be a little light as I'll be moderating a couple of sessions at ChannelAdvisors Strategy Summit 2004. ChannelAdvisor helps businesses to sell their products on eBay and the Summit includes speakers from Best Buy, IBM, Motorola, Google and Overture.
SEM Live - Early Registration Discount Ends September 30th
If you plan on attending SEM Live, you have only got a few days left before the discount ends. Andy Beal
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AdSense in Your Internet Browser?
Michael Schuermann is convinced that any new Gbrowser from Google will include some type of AdSense format.
"...it wouldn't surprise me to see a small Adsense bar somewhere in the browser window that displays a couple text based contextual adds with every page view."
Maybe they'll include some kind of Navbar (similar to that used on Blogger) or maybe they'll just be content to have a better saturation of their toolbar. We'll see. Andy Beal
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The Future of Contextual Ads
John Battelle chats with the execs at Fathom Online and gets their thoughts on the future of AdSense and contextual ads. Andy Beal
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Can Google Grow Revenue by Fifty Percent?
I love the search engine industry and I believe it will continue to grow. Most analysts have the industry growing by no more than 35%. How Credit Suisse First Boston comes up with 50% annual growth for Google over the next five years, is beyond me. Andy Beal
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Is the Search Engine Industry Slowing?
Kevin Ryan looks at the recent IAB data to determine whether the search marketing industry is slowing down. It is, but that's not bad news, when "slowing down" equates to 34% growth!
Has search growth plateaued? Not according to Nate Elliot, associate analyst at Jupiter Research. “The growth is slowing, but it had no choice, you simply can't keep a two billion dollar industry growing by 100 percent every year,” Elliot says. The search format "will still grow by 34 percent this year, which is amazing expansion. TV and radio execs are ecstatic if they see 10 percent growth in any given year, so search is still doing just fine.” Andy Beal
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Fifty Percent of PPC Clicks Fraudulent?
According to Clicklab (via MarketingVOX) as much as 50% of PPC advertising in some very competitive categories may be attributable to click fraud.
Now, do we believe that this is truly the case or do we get cynical and ask ourselves if perhaps this data is designed to help Clicklabs sell their service?
Among other enhancements, Clicklab’s recent web analytics release, Version 2.0, beefs up an existing functionality to identify click fraud.
Next week, we'll be releasing a report that claims only SEO companies that begin with the letter "K" and end with "eywordRanking.com" are truly able to get the best search engine results! ;-) Andy Beal
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Eighty-Twenty Rule Applies to Search Engine Users
Ahead of Battelles Web 2.0 conference next week, he shares with us one of the slides being presented by ComScore. As you'll see from the graph on his site, 20% of search engine users account for 68% of total search queries.
I'll be attending Web 2.0 next week and hopefully blogging anything that relates to search (which I expect will be a fair amount). Andy Beal
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IBM Gets Ready to Launch Corporate Search According to CRN, IBM will this week launch its own corporate search engine, code-named Masala (a tribute to all the late-night curries consumed to develop it, maybe?)
IBM Software is expected to announce general availability of its DB2 Information Integrator, which it has said will search not only HTML data prevalent on the Web but all the structured and unstructured data that is the lifeblood of corporate IT.
That would include the whole gamut of Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDF files and calendar entries that fuel business activity, observers said. Andy Beal
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Market Central Unveils SourceWare Search Engine Market Central has today unveiled its new SourceWare Search technology for the enterprise market. The deductive search engine capable of providing true relevance and personalization to users at multi-terabyte scale, as well as enable organizations or web search operators to reduce capital and maintenance expenses by up to 50 percent and more.
I had a chance to work with Doyle Bryant on SourceWare (or at least take it for a test drive back in the beta stages). The positive is that the technology certainly appears capable of "tagging" data and using patented filters to get the exact results you are looking for. On the negative side, I wasn't able to see the technology demonstrate any scalability. Andy Beal
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Google Tops Search Engine Use
Whenever I want to find out the latest search engine useage statistics, I always turn to...the Kansas City Star?!? Well, I do in this instance as they have the latest search engine use info from J.D. Power. Andy Beal
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September 27, 2004
Google Secrets to be Revealed
Not about its PageRank but its financial secrets. CNN reports that Google is still playing its cards close to its chest. Some interesting points from the article include:
* On Tuesday Google's underwriters will be able to initiate coverage on the the company's stock.
* Regarding a new Google browser...a Google spokesman did weigh in, saying that Google was not planning to "reinvent the wheel" when it comes to browsing technology. * The spokesman also said Monday afternoon that the company will report its third quarter earnings on Oct. 21 -- the quarter ends on Thursday. But none of the analysts CNN/Money spoke to Monday morning were aware of this date.
* According to figures released by the Nasdaq on Monday, 4.1 million of Google's shares were being held short as of mid-September. That amounts to more than 21 percent of the stock's available float. Andy Beal
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Has Google News Killed the "Exclusive"?
Exclusive news!
Actually no, via Techdirt, the Independent claims that the format Google uses for its Google News is killing the art of "the scoop".
An interesting read, but I think blogs are also a little to blame. For example, we may well get an exclusive on a search engine story, and we may well get the credit from the first to link to us, but the longer the "blogging chain" the less chance there is that SEL will be credited for the story. Kind of like chinese whispers for blogs.
I'm sure a lot of bloggers share my frustration. How many times have you seen your story pop-up on another blog without giving you the credit? The more blogs the story passes thru, the less chance of getting the credit (and yes, I am sure there are stories that we have blogged where we have missed the right person to credit) Andy Beal
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Amazon's A9 Toolbar Nothing but a Trojan Horse?
Kirk McElhearn is clearly not too thrilled with the type of information A9's toolbar might be capturing.
Say I do a few searches for single-malt whiskeys, or for information on specific medical conditions I suffer from. And say a hacker gets a hold of this information by breaking into Amazon's servers, or say Amazon sells this information. And say — again, we're just in the realm of hypotheticals here — my employer, or a potential employer, discovers this, and considers me a risk. Or my health insurance company, or any other party that might have prejudices against certain types of behavior, gets wind of it. My cover is blown, all because I used a search engine that is, in essence, bugging my Internet usage.
Paranoia? Does it worry you or do you think it's something we're going to have to get used to? Andy Beal
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Moreover's Free RSS News Feeds to Contain Kanoodle Ads
Moreover is bringing back its free RSS news feeds, now that it nows a way to make money with them. The new feeds will include ads from PPC search engine Kanoodle, according to CNet.
But there is potential for controversy. Publishers and bloggers that offer their news via RSS feeds could view any third-party commercialization of their content as unfair.
"When you're just slicing and dicing information, does that give you the right to sell it?," said Mary Hodder, a Web product manager for Technorati, a search engine for blogs and RSS feeds.
An interesting point, but I can see both sides of the argument. Yes, Moreover will now make money off of us bloggers. However, I submitted my site for inclusion to Moreover, more than a year ago, because of the syndication benefits. I get a lot of traffic from Moreover news feeds, and I don't have to pay for any of it. In my mind, them adding some ads to their news feeds is a fair trade for the traffic they send me. Andy Beal
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Why Google Needs Gmail
The NY Post takes another look at Google email service, Gmail. Why did Google launch an email service? It could be their most important distribution channel for AdWords.
In fact, analysts predict Google will have greater earnings from Gmail ads than from its search engine ads since they are more direct and concentrated. Andy Beal
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September 25, 2004
News Site Speaks-up on Google News Censorship in China The Epoch Times is one of the many news sites that is often filtered out of Google News in China. They decide to speak-up in their defense and ask if this censorship is a slippery path for Google.
...the Chinese version of Google news filters out some sites, The Epoch Times included. Though my Chinese doesn't go a lot beyond "Ni hao" (hello), I could see the difference in results when searching Chinese Google News in the US or through a proxy with China: some vs. none.
I used to tell people that the Chinese government even tried to block Google. Now, I have to tell people that Google filters out my newspaper. Andy Beal
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September 24, 2004
Why SPAM Email Hurts Your Reputation
Ok you'd think that a certain SES exhibitor would have learned a lesson about the downsides of sending spam emails. I guess not...
Hello Andy,
I am working on creating a media library here at [offending company] and would like to include information on Triangle Tech Journal. If you could provide me with the following information I would be grateful:
Triangle Tech Journal URL:
How many unique visitors does your website have?
Do you provide a printed magazine or an e-newsletter?
What is the frequency?
What is the circulation?
Do you offer an email or snail mail list rental?
What is the CPM?
How many different lists are offered?
What is the field served?
Do you offer sort criteria within the list?
Also, if available, could you also please send me a copy of your Media Kit, Media calendar and any other information on Triangle Tech Journal publications and services to the address below?
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have!
Thank you in advance,
[Name removed]
Looks innocent enough doesn't it? It does, until you learn that I have never been a staff member of the Triangle Tech Journal. However, my email is listed on some articles that I wrote for them a while back. That means my email address was harvested from their web site's content and shoved into a spam email. I don't like to "out" companies, but I don't like getting crap in my inbox either. If you must send email solicitations, at least put in a little effort! Andy Beal
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SEMPO Organization Faces Fresh Challenger
For all of you who have been waiting for a SEMPO alternative, your time has come. Aaron Wall sent us details of a new SEMPO that truly appears to be in touch with the industry and able to offer a whole lot more than the original SEMPO.
I'd encourage all bloggers to link to this new SEMPO and show your support! Andy Beal
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Are Google Hackers Watching your Photocopier?
Disturbing report from ZDNet suggests that some people are using known Google-hacks to watch the information you send out over a network photocopier.
"You don't have to be a genius to do this," said Jason Hart, security director at Whitehat UK. "You can see what people are photocopying on your monitor. You just have to search for online devices on Google."
Google stores billions of Web URLs and information sent from Web servers. Some Web servers, if configured incorrectly or left to default, can accidentally broadcast network information, such as IP addresses, login details and device information. Google, like many other search engines, stores this information, which can be recalled at any time.
But don't despair, I've figured out a way to prevent this from happening again. I'm off to the photocopier to take a Xerox of my butt. Trust me, they'll never want to snoop again! ;-) Andy Beal
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Danny Sullivan Celebrates Birthday
Nothing like a little photoshop on a Friday. The SEW forum mods go crazy celebrating Danny Sullivan's birthday. Happy Birthday Danny!
Google Guys Make Forbes 400 Richest List
We could tell you where Page and Brin are on the list but then we'd take away all of your Friday fun. Andy Beal
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Interview with Copernic's Martin Bouchard
Sid Yadav must hang around the water-coolers of top tech companies, just waiting for the CEO to come by. While his interviews may not be long, he does get the answers! This time Copernic co-founder Martin Bouchard spills the beans. Andy Beal
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Yahoo Search Hiring
According to the Yahoo Search Blog, the company is looking to hire engineers and scientists for its search engine unit. Andy Beal
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Yahoo News versus Google News
Who will win the smackdown? Automated Google news or human compiled Yahoo news? Let's get it on! Andy Beal
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Hitwise Launches New Search Term Comparison Report
Ever wondered what search terms to target in the UK or Australia? Hitwise today launched a new search term tool that allows users to check for regional variances. You'll never again think the British search for "cell phone"! ;-) Andy Beal
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More Google Browser Theories
eWeek gives their views on a potential Google browser, rumored to be called Gbrowser.
I know one sure way to make it a success. Follow the Gmail route and make it one big beta test "by invite" only. Oh boy, would you see a demand for that puppy! Andy Beal
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September 23, 2004
Google's Page and Brin Win Marconi Engineering Award
According to ZDNet, Sergey Brin and Larry Page have won the 2004 'Fellows of the Marconi Foundation' at Columbia University. They plan to donate the $100k award to the Fellows Fund at the Marconi Foundation. Yeah, I probably would too if I was worth $4 billion, they probably lose more than that down the back of the sofa!
Fagoogle Bites the Dust
We said yesterday that we didn't believe Fagoogle when they said...
Google, Inc. itself, has announced that Fagoogle.com is fully in compliance with Google regulations, and as such is neither endorsed, nor shunned by Google.
Australia's Sensis Patents Search Engine
According to The Mercury, Sensis is filing patents for its search engine technology.
Sensis search chief Greg Ellis said the patents related to the company's online system Bidsmart, which let advertisers choose their level of payments based on auction process. Andy Beal
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LookSmart Acquires Furl It looks like LookSmart is not giving up on the search engine race. They today announced that they have acquired Furl.net, which allows users to save a full-text copy of any page on the Web, then search and share that data.
"Furl's technology and desktop toolbar are a perfect fit with LookSmart's search strategy," said Kevin Krim, vice president of Web properties for LookSmart.
According to Mike Giles of Furl.net, "This is exciting news for several reasons. First, because LookSmart acquired Furl for the same reasons you probably use it - it is a great service that works well - and LookSmart has no intention of changing the things that make it great. On the contrary, LookSmart is committed to making existing features even more powerful. "
Details of the financial terms were not released. Andy Beal
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Google Celebrates Ray Charles' Birthday
Google has changed its logo to honor R&B legend Ray Charles. You can see more details at West Coast Music.
Andy Beal
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September 22, 2004
Google as Art?
Engadget reports that a Japanese artist who makes giant pop art prints of web pages just cashed in by selling a bunch of them to Google. Andy Beal
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FyberSearch Challenges Ask Jeeves and Google with its own Upgrades.
Remember Nathan Enns and his great search engine FyberSearch? Sure you do, he's built a quality search engine at the age of 19 and was featured on CNBC. Anyway, he's been busy upgrading the technology behind FyberSearch and gave us a sneak peak at the updates.
1. The FyberSearch URL Value has been updated to hopefully provide more informative and useful results to users. It is marked with a purple colored bar on each result.
2. When you use the "view a URL like FyberSpider" service found at http://www.fybersearch.com/add-url.php#view it will now show more information about the URL entered including the following.
-- The FyberSearch URL Value
-- The category
-- The total number of words on the page
-- The total number of characters on the page
-- The domain and file extension
-- The HTML header tags
-- The HTML bold tags
-- The HTML list tags
3. You can now search for web pages with a specific file extension AND a specific domain extension. For example, you can search for domain names ending with .edu and a file extension of .html. For more information visit http://www.fybersearch.com/help-and-features.php#domain_extension
More Speculation on Google Browser
Lots of stories flying around guessing at how a Google internet browser may look. This is a good one from UK.Builder. Andy Beal
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Google Filters News Stories in China
According to the New Scientist, Google has been accused of supporting Chinese internet controls by omitting contentious news stories from search results in China.
State-sponsored internet providers in China routinely block access to internet sites deemed inappropriate by the government. Google claims that there are other reasons behind their filtering.
Google admits to omitting some news sources within China but says this is meant to improve the quality of the service.
"In order to create the best possible news search experience for our users, we sometimes decide not to include some sites, for a variety of reasons," says a statement issued by the company. "These sources were not included because their sites are inaccessible." Andy Beal
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Fagoogle Offers Gay Search Engine A new search engine tool has been released this week which is based on the Google search engine - but with a twist. Fagoogle.com supports homosexuality and actively sponsors programs aimed at educating people about the gay lifestyle.
According to the press release, Google's lawyers have approved this one...
Google, Inc. itself, has announced that Fagoogle.com is fully in compliance with Google regulations, and as such is neither endorsed, nor shunned by Google.
LookSmart Adds Porn-Free Search to Its Net Nanny
LookSmart announces that it has updgraded its Net Nanny filtering product to include a porn filter feature for search (that means it filters out the porn, before you rush off to buy it!)
A timely release by LookSmart considering Amazon's A9 appears to be having a hard time filtering porn from its results. Andy Beal
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Shopping.com to Offer B2B Comparison Shopping
After seeing the success of B2C shopping comparison sites, some are moving into the B2B space, according to ClickZ. Andy Beal
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Google Tests Ad Placement on Gmail
According to DMNews Google has changed the location of ads on its Gmail email service. Andy Beal
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September 21, 2004
Ask Jeeves Shares His Adventures
SEW points to a cute video depicting Jeeves' tour around the world in search of the best search engine technology. You can also see ourexclusivephotos. Andy Beal
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CitySearch Adds Toolbar and Other Features
The new SEW blog points to CitySearch's new toolbar.
Citysearch's Toolbar search's your city, your neighborhood, or your travel destination. The toolbar also provides you access to Evite and to a huge database of targeted offers.
Google Toolbar Security Flaws
Google's toolbar has always worried privacy advocates that perhaps they were collecting too much information. They're going to freak when the see this security lapse.
Search Engine Optimized Email Newsletters – Part 1 By Garrett French.
This is part one of a three-part series on optimizing newsletters for your search engine campaign.
An email newsletter from your company is a powerful marketing tool. Not only does it position your company as a source of expert advice, but it can double as a means of building both links to your site and onsite content—both key factors in high search engine rankings.
In this article I will investigate the cross over marketing potential between search engine optimization and email newsletters.
Search Engine Marketing Benefits of an Email Newsletter
>>Link Building
Links remain, for now, a principle means by which Google determines both value and relevance of a site for given search terms. If you regularly publish articles that benefit your audience then the helpful, web-participatory members of your audience will link to them from forums, their blogs, their websites and possibly other newsletters.
You won't necessarily have control over the link text they use (Google keeps track of the terms – link text – people use when linking as a means of determining what's actually on a page), though if you keep your article titles keyword rich you may have some luck in influencing the link text choices your audience makes when they link to you.
Remember to encourage people to link to your article (it's also wise to include a "send this article to a friend" function). To further encourage linking consider providing some code for readers to copy and paste.
>>Email Newsletter Archive: Content Semantically Related To Your Business
Your email newsletter archive, as it grows, creates a pool of information that's semantically related to your products or services. The words and phrases in your articles relate directly to what you sell, and as you add more pages to the archive, you increase the chances that one of the pages from your website appear when someone searches for your keywords in the search engines.
It's vital that you maintain search engine marketing best practices while creating your archive. This includes, but is not limited to, creating keyword rich urls (use the article title, which should be keyword rich in its own right), making all archive pages static rather than dynamic, using your keyword rich article title in archive page title tags, and using keywords in all the link text.
Remember to include at least one link to your home page or related site page from every page in your email newsletter archive.
Google wants a larger and more useful index than Yahoo, AskJeeves and Microsoft. Help them populate this index with your useful articles and you will end up making more money.
>>Regularly Post Article Blurbs On Your Home Page To Lure Google's Freshbot
Google's Freshbot returns more frequently to regularly updated pages. This means that if you update your homepage with a blurb or two from your most recent article Freshbot will notice and begin to crawl your front page regularly.
These regular visits mean that Google will become aware of other site changes too, and means that your presence in the Google index will be fresh. As you roll out any search engine optimization tweaks on your site you'll see faster changes in your rankings due to the Freshbot's visits.
Once you've established the Freshbot's regular visits you'll have a major advantage over your competitors when Google updates occur and there are any changes to onpage optimization best practices.
Your readers will reward a consistent publication schedule by increasing their open rates (assuming you're providing solid content).
Next week’s article will look at suggested styles and content for your newsletter.
Garrett French is a search engine engineer for KeywordRanking.com. After making WebProNews and the WebProWorld forum leading search engine marketing resources for over 400,000 web professionals, Garrett French brought his expertise to KeywordRanking. Since joining the team he's covered the 2004 San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference in SearchEngineLowdown, worked on link building strategies, keyword research, and search optimized copy. Garrett will be speaking at the upcoming www.SEMLive.com conference on October 26th in Raleigh, NC. Andy Beal
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Paid Search Leads Growth in Online Ad Spending
According to eMarketer and a report by the IAB, online advertising spend has grown by 42.% since last year. Paid search leads that growth, growing from $481 million in Q2 of last year to $947 million for Q2 in 2004.
Ask Jeeves Taps Topix.net to Deliver Local News
While Ask Jeeves seems to have enough to discuss today, one of its new partners wants to make sure it gets a share of the limelight. News site Topix.net today announced that it has been selected by Ask Jeeves to provide news to its Local News Channel.
Topix.net provides visitors to Ask Jeeves access to local news gathered from over 7,000 sources. Unlike any other news aggregator, Topix.net provides localized news for over 32,500 U.S. and international localities. Ask Jeeves' utilization of Topix.net includes the use of NewsRank(TM), Topix.net's algorithmic story editing technology, which improves the user experience by leveraging a set of semantic category filters to improve the relevancy of the news selection in favor of major and interesting stories.
"We're excited to provide Ask Jeeves' users with neighborhood-level local news," said Topix.net Chief Executive Officer Rich Skrenta. "By featuring the news we aggregate from every newspaper, radio and TV station, and thousands of other sources, Ask Jeeves users will be able to quickly find the news that matters to them." Andy Beal
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Google Faces Another Trademark Lawsuit
According to Out-Law, Google is facing another lawsuit for trademark infringement. Andy Beal
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Ask Jeeves Launches Personalized Search and Announces Desktop Solution
So we’re finally allowed to tell you all about Ask Jeeves new features and upgrades. After yesterday’s false start, Ask Jeeves officially launches a whole host of new goodies.
The new products include the MyJeeves personal search system, a more robust local search, and the next generation of Ask’s Teoma search technology. Ask also ends its butler’s vacation, bringing back a sleeker Jeeves after his full makeover.
According to Jim Lanzone, senior vice president of search properties, the launch “immediately delivers a better experience for our users in several important areas, and lays the groundwork for us to fulfill our vision for search in new ways,”
MyJeeves brings personalization features
Ask’s new “MyJeeves” service enables people as they search to create their own “Personal Web:” a compilation of search queries and search results that they can easily save, categorize into folders, annotate, and share. The free service is seamlessly integrated into the Ask.com search experience and does not require registration. With the launch of MyJeeves, Ask becomes the first major search engine to roll-out personalization features.
According to the Ask Jeeves press release:
MyJeeves allows users to save search results simply by clicking a Save button located next to each search result on Ask.com. Once saved, MyJeeves users can easily organize or group items into folders, print them, share them via email, and add notes to create their own descriptions of Web pages. The newly resulting list of documents is searchable within MyJeeves (distinct from the overall Web index) thus creating a personal Web index. A user’s notes about a page become searchable metadata for each page, improving relevance, especially important as an individual’s volume of saved information grows.
“MyJeeves allows Web users to save time by saying goodbye to archaic, rudimentary or ad hoc methods for keeping found data found,” said Daniel Read, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves, Inc. “Plus, we’ve eliminated all the barriers to entry: Users do not need to pay a fee, install any software application, select settings and preferences, or register for anything. Every Ask Jeeves user can immediately take advantage of the MyJeeves personalization system to save, organize, retrieve and use Web data they want to find again.”
screenshot of MyJeeves in action
MyJeeves does not require any registration, but those that do register will receive extra benefits and functionality.
Improved local searching via CitySearch partnership
Ask Jeeves is also launching robust local search capabilities through a partnership with CitySearch, which was announced in August. The partnership brings local business listings to Ask.com and over 2 million editorial and user reviews and ratings. The new search capabilities add to Ask Jeeves existing local search options that include maps, weather and people search.
Teoma gets an update
In addition to new features at Ask.com, the company also launches a new version of its Teoma technology with version 3.0 offering a whole host of upgraded features.
* Page Cache — Teoma 3.0 includes cached versions of popular sites. This feature is expected to launch in Q4.
* Related Search – Ask Jeeves will debut multiple types of Related Search on Ask.com, through the Teoma 3.0 technology. This feature will launch in Q4.
* File Types – Teoma 3.0 includes the addition of Flash and PDF files. These file types are already available on Ask.com, and Ask Jeeves will, in future releases, provide the ability to restrict searches to these types of files.
Desktop search is on the way
As you read on Search Engine Lowdown, Ask Jeeves acquired desktop search technology when it picked up Tukaroo back in June of this year. In today’s announcement, Ask Jeeves confirms that its new desktop search solution will be ready in the fourth quarter of 2004. With Google and MSN reportedly working on a desktop solution too, this could be a big coup for Ask, if they can get their product to market first.
So now you can see why there was such a big deal made about the news being released early. This announcement is such a crucial step for Ask Jeeves that it wanted to make sure every aspect was coordinated. With the Google IPO hype now behind us, Wall Street and consumers are going to be looking for a search engine that can deliver the goods. If that is measured by the quality and quantity of new products being brought to market, Ask Jeeves is sitting very pretty!
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Ask Jeeves to Launch Personalization
I'm not a member of the press, but even I understand the concept of an embargo. Unfortunately for Ask Jeeves, DMNews.com doesn't. Hence, today (and not tomorrow, when the official word was supposed to come) news is out about Ask Jeeves new personalization feature.
How it works ... actually, you'll have to come back tomorrow to find out as we have been asked to remove the details, sorry!
Ask Jeeves also reveals it is getting ready ...yep, we've been censored again.
UPDATE: As you can see, we've edited this story. While we are not a member of the press and could have left all of the details up there, we try not to bite the hand that feeds. Ask Jeeves asked us to remove the details of their new product until tomorrow. Tune in tomorrow for the official launch. Andy Beal
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Little Jimmy's research for his science project might have gotten a lot more interesting! ;-)
One of the panels I moderated today included a new start-up called 
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Ask’s new “MyJeeves” service enables people as they search to create their own “Personal Web:” a compilation of search queries and search results that they can easily save, categorize into folders, annotate, and share. The free service is seamlessly integrated into the Ask.com search experience and does not require registration. With the launch of 
