MarketingSherpa's Buyer's Guides to SEO Firms and Paid Search Advertising Agencies: 2005-2006 The new edition of MarketingSherpa's popular Buyer's Guide to SEO Firms is now published. In addition, they've included a guide to Paid Search Advertising Agencies.
We'll publish a more detailed review, over the next few days. In the meantime, you can order your copy from the SherpaStore.
Oh, and if you're buying just to find out who tops the list as the largest SEO company (in SEO experts and clients), I can save you the greenbacks. ;-) Andy Beal
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The Demise of Traditional Publishers?
Can Google and Yahoo really cause the demise of Reuters, Tribune, McGraw-Hill and seven other traditional print publishers?
Become.com Gets $7.2m In Second Round Funding
Matt Marshall reports that newly-launched comparison shopping engine, Become.com, has raised $7.2 million in second round funding.
The investment is led by the Transcosmos corporate venture capital group, with participation from Silicon Valley angel investors Ron Conway and Bob Bozeman. Become.com will use the money to work on a price comparison shopping service, to be unveiled this summer, the company said.
Is Google Stealing Porn Photos?
An article at Forbes.com highlights a law suit alleging that Google is infringing the copyright of the porn site, Perfect 10.
..if you click on a nude thumbnail image of a Perfect 10 model on Google, it will most likely take you to a Web site, usually a porn site, that has stolen [Perfect 10s] image. Google's robotic spiders don't crawl inside [Perfect 10].
The owner claims that Google is infringing his copyright and making millions of dollars in increased advertising revenue. Google says they're only a channel for content that is already out there. Andy Beal
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Amazon Smarter than Google?
Yeald.com doesn't think much of Google's new personalization offering.
Only a handful of companies have managed to create a successful personalization of their engagement with customers. Amazon personal recommendations and individual composition of the ecommerce site remain the classic example...Take a look at Google web search personalization effort, and you‘ll likely be disappointed. Even though Google is full of mathematical brains and technical resources, the current status of its personalized search function is way below my expectations.
Whoah there fella! Amazon has been working on their personalization service for years, Google just launched the beta of theirs and even they admitted that it was rushed to market. Amazon may have a head-start when it comes to personalized search, but they still use Google for their A9.com engine.
What do you think? Can Google better Amazon's personalization technology? Andy Beal
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The Latest Specialized Search Offerings
PC World has a round-up of the latest new search technology offerings.
Among the new faces here, Become.com wants to be your favorite for shopping searches, and Answers.com aims to be your first stop for word definitions, technology explanations, biographies, and other reference information. Veteran search sites MSN Search and Yahoo have countered by debuting their own specialized tools, such as MSN's Near Me for local information and Yahoo's FareChase for travel deals. Even Google is getting into the act with products such as Google Maps that let you search smaller universes of data more efficiently.
Kayak Will Provide Travel Search Engine to About.com
MediaPost reports that About.com has signed a two-year agreement with travel search engine Kayak.
Kayak will serve as About.com's "premier booking partner," powering a travel search engine for the consumer information site, which was acquired by the New York Times Co. in March. Andy Beal
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Jux2 Goes Offline
Gary Price reports that meta search engine, Jux2 is no more. Andy Beal
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May 29, 2005
A Look at Google Maximizers
The LA Times takes a look(sub) at Google's Maximizers.
At their desks at the Googleplex, as the company's headquarters are known, the Maximizers help advertisers select keywords, write ad copy and choose the correct "landing page." For example, shoppers who click on an ad for "Dora the Explorer" books should be whisked to the page where they can buy it, not the e-commerce site's home page.
The story goes on to reveal that not all find the job as a Maximizer, fulfilling.
Rated Rookie, an independent magazine, published "Haiku Hell," a lament by someone using the pen name "Abby Reynolds" who claimed to be a Maximizer.
Google is one of the world's great companies, she wrote; she loves the pay, the free Odwalla bars and Snapple and the lava lamp on her desk. But she didn't expect to make it through 11 rounds of interviews only to spend most of her time staring at spreadsheets.
"With the character limits and strict editorial guidelines, I find myself swimming in a sea of 'Buy Now!,' 'Learn More' and 'Get Info Here,' " she wrote. "Creative it is not." Andy Beal
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May 27, 2005
WebSourced Goes to London
If you are one of our many, very-smart, British readers, watch-out! WebSourced is coming to London.
Mike Grehan and Heather Lloyd-Martin will be speaking at SES London on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. You can also stop by the booth of our UK division, Smart Interactive (yes, we did give Mike more than just "beer-money").
When you are done with SES London, head to the Digital Marketing Summit on Friday. You'll catch Mike (again) and Greg Ives discussing SEO and PPC. Garrett has more on that event. Andy Beal
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Google's Marissa Mayer Demonstrates Her Wicked Sense of Humor
I always like to have at least one light post on a Friday.
If you didn't know it, Google's Marissa Mayer has her own blog...kind of. It's a parody blog that is perpetually in beta and has a blogger called "Marrisa" that works for "Company X". Here's some of the hilirious stuff she posts...
...I never even said CompanyX is a search engine, it could be portal for all you know!
...naughty spammers must take their punishment like a good boy, and don't waste your time telling me that you didn't spam because clearly if the algo has caught you then you were being naughty. Weren't you? Just a little bit?
...Obviously this could be a cunningly perceived PR job by myself to make it look like people are taking the mickey out of me, thus raising my profile, and I could then be making this post as a kind of double bluff. I have, after all, been hanging around with CompanyX Guy far too much.
...of course I can lie ably - I work in PR. It's a prerequisite, although we'd prefer to give it its proper name of 'corporate spin'.
And lastly...
...CompanyXguy's position in the company is basically to say cryptic things that scare us into conforming to the company X's view of the world. So, for example, earlier he said to me "Careful Marissa Beta or you might fall into the sandbox. I'll look into it for you. I'll pass your message on to the appropriate department". Just as I was about to say "what message" the very next thing that happened was I tripped over Larry's foot, squashing Eric's sand castle. But at least it was a soft landing. Eric was a bit narked to be honest but he calmed down when I pointed out that it was only a beta sand castle and he should expect a few hiccups and minor issues. Luckily for me the CompanyX webmaster was passing by so I managed to blame him: "Eric, it wouldn't have happened if somebody had put information about the new CompanyX sand box on the intranet".
Whoever this Marissa is, CompanyX should make sure that they let her talk to the public more often. ;-) Andy Beal
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Choose Commercial or Non-Comercial Results with Yahoo Mindset
Did you think that some search engines are more biased towards academic or non-commercial sites? Perhaps you are sick of all the ecommerce sites being displayed, while trying to conduct research. Yahoo thinks it might have the answer, with the launch of Yahoo! Mindset.
What is Mindset? A new twist on search that uses machine learning technology to give you a choice: View Yahoo! Search results sorted according to whether they are more commercial or more informational (i.e., from academic, non-commercial, or research-oriented sources). Andy Beal
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Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing Handbook Boris Mordkovich has written a practical guide to getting the most out of your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. He manages to compact a lot of information into an easy-to-read book that is less than 200-pages long (perfect for your next flight).
* Why use PPC * Tips for getting the most out of a PPC campaign * How to track click-fraud * Local PPC solutions * Reviews of PPC engines * Tools you can use * Tips from the experts
He also includes links to some free PPC credits from the search engines.
If you are new to PPC advertising and want to get up to speed quickly, it's worth the read!
Written a new book on search? Send us a copy and we'll review it. If we like, we'll give it a plug. If we don't, we promise not to tell anyone. ;-) Andy Beal
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Microsoft's Bill Gates on Google
Looks like there is a war-of-words waging between Google and Microsoft.
Speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference, Bill Gates offered his thoughts on Google.
"Google is still perfect; the bubble is floating, and they can do everything," Gates told the moderator sarcastically...[he] also said he was skeptical of Google's ability to maintain its dominance in the search marketplace indefinitely. Increasingly, he asserted, that competition would revolve around new technologies and take place in new arenas, like searching local information, where Google is less dominant than it is in Web searching. Andy Beal
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A Look at Google Fusion
I got the chance to meet Pamela Parker, while at the Google Factory Tour; very pleasant, very pregnant!
In a ClickZ article she reviews the launch of Google's personalized homepage and explains how this is one part of a larger strategy called "Fusion".
What does Fusion mean to marketers? Well, marketing could be classified as information and/or entertainment. Historically, Google hasn't been shy about incorporating advertising, so long as it's relevant....Personalization efforts like Fusion can yield an incredible amount of information, non-personally-identifiable and aggregated, which could be very powerful for ad targeting. Andy Beal
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Google Loses First Round Against Digital Envoy, Battle Continues
According to CNet, a district court has ruled that Digital Envoy can continue its law suit filed against Google, for misappropriating trade secrets.
...the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., denied Mountain View, Calif.-based Google's motion for summary judgment on claims that the search giant breached its contract with Digital Envoy, based in Georgia. However, the court dismissed several of Digital Envoy's charges, including claims of unfair competition, on the grounds that the two parties were not direct rivals, according to the court document.
I wonder if the suit will make Court TV. ;-) Andy Beal
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Google Doesn't See Microsoft as a Competitor, Yet
According to SeattlePI, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, does not yet see Microsoft as a true competitor in the search space.
"It looks to me like this space is so large that there will be multiple winners," Schmidt told the audience at the Technology Alliance annual luncheon in downtown Seattle. "There's plenty of room for all the players."
Asked to identify Google's primary competition, Schmidt pointed first to Yahoo! -- saying it has "emerged as the major, major competitor in this space." He then noted that Microsoft has also launched its own Internet search engine but observed that the Redmond company is "just getting going" in the business.
That is very true. But then again, when a steam train starts out, it starts out slow. It won't take Microsoft long before they build up momentum. Whether they can catch Google, that's another matter. ;-) Andy Beal
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May 26, 2005
Slashdot Not Happy with Google
According to InsideGoogle, Slashdot is not happy with how often the new Google personalized homepage is pinging their servers.
Several users are saying that they see the message “Your headline reader has been temporarily banned” in place of Slashdot headlines, the standard message anyone sees when their RSS reader is querying Slashdot too often. Andy Beal
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Please Sir, Can We Have Your Vote?
We're honored, nay humbled, to be nominated for the MarketingSherpa 2005 Readers' Choice Blog Awards. This is our second year of being nominated, so you must all be drinking the Kool-aid, either that or you've gone completely crazy.
Anyway, if you like reading Search Engine Lowdown and you want to show us that you love us :-) please consider giving us your vote for best "blog on search marketing".
You can vote here for us and other great blogs, until June 8th.
Did we mention how pretty your hair looked today? ;-) Andy Beal
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Ask Jeeves Launches Next Generation Search Refining Technology Hot off the press: Ask Jeeves will today launch two new search technology updates that will see it taking a step ahead of its peers. The developments come in an area that Ask's senior vice president of search properties, Jim Lanzone, refers to as "important innovations on some of our core search technologies, which will help our users find what they need faster than with other search engines."
While many search engines have been using “look over here” product launches to hide the fact that little has been done to advance core search technology, Ask has been quietly taking its Teoma search solution to the next level.
Ask will roll-out two new features today, “Zoom” and “Web Answers”. Zoom is a next generation navigation tool that offers suggestions to narrow and refine an entered search query (which Ask calls “zooming in”), or expand a search (“zooming out” according to the search engine) to explore new ideas. Zoom also allows you to identify specific names related to your original search. Zoom is visually represented on the Ask results page with suggestions that are categorized on the right side of the page into Narrow Your Search, Expand Your Search and Related Names.
You may think that Zoom is similar to Google Suggest or other technology, offered by smaller niche search engines such as Vivisimo, but it is clearly beyond current offerings. Zoom takes advantage of, and builds on, the unique clustering ability of Ask’s Teoma search engine technology, which breaks the web into topic communities. Zoom examines the relationships between these communities to identify and present conceptually-related topics to the searcher.
For example, with the query “Beatles,” zooming in with Narrow Your Search returns “Beatles Lyrics,” “Beatles History,” “Beatles and Biographies” and “Beatles Wallpaper.” Alternatively, by zooming out with Expand Your Search, suggestions include “Rolling Stones,” “Led Zeppelin,” “Beach Boys,” “Woodstock,” and even “1960’s” to help users clarify what they are looking for. Meanwhile, Related Names is able to isolate “John Lennon,” “Ringo Starr,” “Paul McCartney” and “George Harrison” as relevant suggestions. All of this is done without any human intervention and the suggestions all appear to be ordered based on the most likely to be clicked-on.
“Searchers don’t want to spend time to formulate and enter involved search terms. As a result, queries are frequently short or ambiguous,” said Daniel Read, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves. “Zoom brings recommended queries to the user—suggestions that allow searches to be refined, or associated topics explored, with a click of a button. Zoom guides users to exactly what they are looking for fast.”
The second roll-out from Ask is called Web Answers and greatly expands on Ask’s proven Smart Search technology. Web Answers extends Ask’s direct-answering abilities by mining unstructured data in real time. The new capability increases relevance by revealing direct answers hidden within regular web pages. Unlike similar offerings from Google, which are compiled by human editors, Web Answers is compiled using Teoma technology.
“Web Answers allows Ask Jeeves to answer far more queries than would be possible using editors or structured databases,” continued Read. “By mining unstructured web data, we can tap the billions of pages in our index for answers.”
In displaying Web Answers, Ask took the unusual step of presenting the searcher with the answer as the top organic search result on the Ask Jeeves results page. Ask labels the result as a “Web Answer” and the “answer” is highlighted in context within the snippet of the web page. A user can then click-thru to the site to view the source of the answer. When multiple answers are found, Ask offers users an expanded list of answers, as defined by the web at-large.
According to Ask Jeeves they found that Web Answers improved the click-through rate on the top search result by more than 200%.
Zoom and Web Answers are truly powerful tools. When Ask first demonstrated the pre-launch technology, I could not but help leaving their office feeling they had opened the door for search engines to turn their attention back to the features that users truly want; better core search results. With Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp finishing-up their due diligence on their proposed acquisition of Ask Jeeves, this new technology should be everything they need to put pen to paper and close the deal.
Note: While Ask Jeeves is a sponsor of Search Engine Lowdown, this post is not a paid placement. If the new technology sucked, we would tell you. It just so happens it's that good! :-) Andy Beal
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May 25, 2005
IAC Will Likely Rename Ask Jeeves According to MarketWatch, InterActive, CEO Barry Diller doesn't like the Ask Jeeves name and will likely rename it, once acquired.
"We're thinking about renaming it," Diller said during a question and answer session at the D3 -- All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif. "It probably won't be called Ask Jeeves."
"What will it be called?" asked conference host and Wall Street Journal columnist Kara Swisher.
"Might be one of those words without the other," Diller answered, adding that the final decision on Ask Jeeves' new name isn't "finalized."
"One of those words without the other", hmm. Not likely that "word" will be Jeeves, especially as Ask Jeeves themselves have been moving toward Ask for sometime now. Andy Beal
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Search Spend Doubles with Online Retailers
Danny has details of a new Forrester/Shop.org study that shows online retailers more than doubling their search spend from 2003 to 2004.
Of 136 retailers surveyed, they spent $877,630 on search ads in 2004, over double the $399,923 spent in 2003 Andy Beal
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Secrets of Successful SEM Copywriting from the Annual Catalog Conference
Garrett French is still in Orlando, wrapping up his extensive coverage of the Annual Catalog Conference.
This post covers some of the choicest morsels from our own Heather Lloyd-Martin. Andy Beal
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BitTorrent Launches Search Engine
Ok, so not exactly fresh, but we felt oblidged to point out that BitTorrent announced the launch of a new search engine.
The ad-supported search engine is designed to function like Google, Yahoo and other sites used to find Web sites by topic and could be up and running as early as today, Bram Cohen said.
Other popular online file-sharing software programs feature search engines that sift through the computers of its users to find a specific file or title, but BitTorrent is different.
The program, developed by Cohen in 2001, looks for torrent files -- digital markers that it needs to assemble complete files from multiple bits of data obtained from other computer users.
Oh yeah, I'm also back in the office. If you are one of the 11 people who left me a voicemail, I'll get to you sometime, erm, before Memorial Day...I just can't promise it will be this Memorial Day. ;-) Andy Beal
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May 24, 2005
Google Needs Help with Booth Targeting
If the Annual Catalog Conference gave awards for the best and worst trade booth, then surely Google would have one the award for "worst", yesterday.
Worst? I hear you say. It seems the world's largest search engine had a little trouble with the coordination and transportation of their booth. At the exhibit hall open yesterday, Google's booth still had not shown up, as it was stuck in Atlanta.
While Google may have had just a black curtain back-drop and a 12" sign with "Google" in black letters, they still probably had more floor traffic than anyone else. ;-) Andy Beal
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May 23, 2005
MSN Reveals Details of New Paid Search Algorithm
Did MSN let slip how they plan to calculate rankings for their new adCenter paid search results? I've posted coverage of a Q&A session, held at today's Annual Catalog Conference, over at MarketerToday.com.
...This last comment is particularly important. I have been briefed about this new ranking component for AdCenter, but I don’t recall MSN announcing this to the outside world.
Google More than a One-Hit Wonder
The Motley Fool explains why Google is more than the "one-hit wonder" claimed by Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer.
...rather than argue about Ballmer's gutsy move in biting the hand that feeds his audience, let's get into how hypocritically preposterous that accusation seems. Microsoft was once erroneously tagged as a one-hit wonder when it was simply providing personal computers with its operating-system software...If Google is a one hit wonder, Steve... man, oh, man, just wait until you check out the B-side. Andy Beal
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Google May Join S&P 500 Index
Bambi Francisco has details of how rumors of Google's imminent entry to the S&P 500 are driving up the stock price. Andy Beal
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Take the Y!Q Challenge and Win Five Grand
Yahoo wants you to take the Y!Q challenge and enter to win $5,000. The site that comes up with the most innovative use of Y!Q contextual search, will win the prize. Andy Beal
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The Annual Catalog Conference, Florida
Still on the road, and so posts are still erratic. :-)
At least the destinations are not too bad, with the Annual Catalog Conference bringing me to sunny Florida. I’ve passed up the chance to speak at the event, simply because Heather is moderating just about every search marketing session – and doing a fabulous job too – but I am not sitting by the pool, sipping a martini either. ;-)
Garrett is here, representing MarketerToday, and he’ll have comprehensive coverage of a number of sessions, with themes such as search, affiliate, email and cross-channel marketing. You’ll also find at least one post from me. Andy Beal
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May 20, 2005
The Ask Jeeves European Expansion
Andy's en route right now so I figured I'd put up the latest news from his butler buddy to keep you in the know:
From the press release:
Ask Jeeves Acquires Excite Europe Acquisition Unifies Excite Brands in U.S. and Europe, and Accelerates the Company's International Growth Strategy
OAKLAND, Calif., May 20, 2005 -- Ask Jeeves, Inc., a leading provider of information retrieval technologies, brands and Internet advertising services, today announced the acquisition of Excite Italia B.V., the operator of Excite Europe, a network of pan-European portal properties, from Tiscali, S.p.A. Ask Jeeves acquired the U.S.-operated Excite.com portal in March 2004. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Views on New Google Personalized Homepage
You may have noticed that I didn't have too much to say about the new Google Personalized Homepage yesterday. There was a reason.
I spoke to a number of real journalists at the Factory Tour and didn't want to make my comments known, until they had a chance to get their story out. Here's a round-up of my thoughts...
Andy Beal, vice president of search marketing for WebSourced, which helps companies with online advertising, called Google's personalized home page feature a logical step for the company. Some analysts have criticized the firm for burying some of its features where they are less visible to potential new users and difficult to get to for existing ones.
"Google offers a lot of products," Beal said. "It makes sense to allow people to put them all on one page."
At the same time, Beal commented that Google's move puts it even closer to becoming a Web portal like its rival Yahoo. It is a comparison that the company's executives wholeheartedly deny, instead casting their mission as helping to connect users with the world's information.
"I don't see how you can avoid the [portal] label,'' said Andy Beal, a vice president for WebSourced, a search-engine marketing firm. "When you touch the lives of people and everything that they do online, and then you put it all in one place, you're essentially a portal.''
It may have taken Google awhile to follow Yahoo's lead but the move was inevitable, according to Beal.
"Regardless of the criticism that they are years late, they had to have this,'' he said.
Andy Beal, a vice president at Internet marketing firm WebSourced Inc., said Google's new service was crucial and long overdue.
"To get to all the Google properties, you've had to go to your Internet Explorer bookmarks and click on each one," said Beal, who also runs the website Search Engine Lowdown. "Every time you ask someone to go from one website to another, you risk losing them to a competitor. With the personalized home page, Google has got some control over where they go." Andy Beal
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May 19, 2005
The Google Factory Tour, Wrap-up, We Will Time to put coverage of today's Google Factory Tour to bed. But before I do, some housekeeping...
- Thanks to Google for inviting me out to the event, its nice to see blogs getting recognition as a legitimate new source.
- Congrats to all involved in putting this event together. The day was a great success and one that can have the "beta" tag safely removed. Although, Eric Schmidt told me (with tongue firmly in cheek), "we may just keep the 'beta' tag for 5 years, just to make a point."
- To all my journalist homies (although, I'm probably the red-headed step-child of the press contigent), it was great to catch up and even better to finally meet a lot of you for the first time.
- To the many Google employees who told me they enjoy reading my blog...I'm not worthy. ;-)
- A special shout out to "Anonymous 1" and "Anonymous 2". Two Google employees who told me they had been tracking my live blogging throughout the day. Why no real names? Something about not wanting their friends to know that they sleep in their "Google Dance" t-shirts. Your secret is safe with me. ;-)
- Did you miss the webcast? Never fear, you can watch the entire thing by clicking this link. Some great, stuff, but it goes down hill at around the 3 hour 27 minute mark (you'll see what I mean). ;-)
- Now, I'm off to catch the late-night screening of Star Wars with a bunch of Googlers. Yep, they've reserved an entire movie theater so they can catch the latest episode. Strong with the force, they are.
Hopefully, you'll forgive me for not posting much tomorrow. I'll be travelling across country and will be in the air pretty much all day. Saturday I head to Orlando, ahead of the Annual Catalog Conference being held next week.
Andy, out. (whoops, too much American Idol). Andy Beal
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Google's Schmidt and Brin Answer Questions
Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin hosted a Q&A session. Larry Page was out of town and could not make the event. Below is a selection of some of the questions and answers.
Question: How many more pages are out there, that are crawlable? Brin - Substantially more than 8 billion. Schmidt - added that Froogle has allowed them to get structured feeds. This has helped to get to more content from the web.
Question: Is there a point in which Google cannot continue to scale? Schmidt – We are always resourced constrained. If anyone is in a position to take advantage of the reducing cost of technology and infrastructure, its Google.
Question: Is Google language biased when it comes to Google Print? Schmidt - We work very, very hard to represent non-English languages accurately and fully. Brin – a little ironic as half the Google Print team is actually French.
Question: Will you be supporting RSS enclosures or podcasts. Mayer – if it becomes a common request from users, they will look to introduce it.
Question: Will you support an API that allows users to access their own info. Schmidt – the principle is that we will not hold your information hostage. Brin – That makes sense to me, but I cannot comment on the priority of it. In principle it makes sense to allow the information to flow back to the user. Andy Beal
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Personalized Google Homepage Launches
The link is now up at the Google Labs page. Enjoy!
Click to enlarge
So why has it taken Google so long to launch a product that Yahoo has had for years? According to Marissa Mayer, "We have hit a critical mass on “push” content like mail or news. Now we have that critical mass it makes sense to give users ways to harness it."
The personalized homepage was not supposed to be release until June 30th, but they brought up the release date in order to announce at today's event. Over the next few weeks, they plan to provide full RSS support so you can add your favorite feeds. Andy Beal
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Google Re-Launches Keyhole as Google Earth
Google has re-branded Keyhole satellite mapping service as Google Earth and has added greater resolution and the ability to view the landscape of areas, not just an overhead view.
Sergey Brin demonstrated the enhanced technology by actually flying thru the Grand Canyon. Very cool! They also demonstrated how it works with driving directions - you can actually follow the planned route and see what it looks like from the air.
The re-branded version will be out in a few weeks.
Google Learns Lesson from Web Accelerator Launch
A question from the audience got my attention...
Web Accelerator had a lot of problems at launch. Did this problematic launch allow you to learn anything about the launch of beta products?
"Certainly the lesson there is about testing these products aggressively internally before making available to the public," said Jonathan Rosenberg. Jerff Huber appeared to agree, but did suggest that with some products, issues cannot be discovered until they are presented to a wider audience. "Some of the issues that came up were with sites that that did not use standard caching rules and only until they opened the site up to the public, could they discover this," he said. Andy Beal
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Google Explains Click Fraud Policy
After asking Jonathan Rosenberg and Jeff Huber to respond to claims that Google is not pro-active in identifying click-fraud, as it would reduce revenues, they went through the procedures they have in place.
They appeared to want to spread the responsibility for tracking click fraud with their advertisers - they want you to monitor your campaigns for anything adverse - but they did confirm that if they spot an instance of click fraud with one advertiser, they check across the network for other instances and make refunds.
Leave me your thoughts, are you seeing this? I guess they are now on record that they are pro-actively looking to refund fraudulant clicks across the network, not just for a single advertiser. Andy Beal
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Google Lunch is Good, But Maybe Not for Much Longer
Lunch, Google-style, is as good as you would expect with fresh salmon, steak, salad, rice, vegetables, sweet-potato casserole and of course, chocolate cake. Mmmmm.
That being said, I heard that the infamous Google chef, Charlie Ayers, is leaving the company, cashing in his stock and starting his own restaurant chain.
He will no longer be the "chef that worked for The Greatful Dead", he'll now live in infamy as the "Google chef". Andy Beal
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Google Launches "My Google" Portal
Danny Sullivan reveals news that will likely be announced later today at the Google Factory Tour. Google is launching iGoogle a service very similar to My Yahoo or My Jeeves.
Available through Google Labs later today, you can sign-up for the page if you have a Google Account. Once created, you'll see something that looks almost the same as the regular Google home page. But below the search box, you've got new options:
News Gmail Weather Stocks Driving Directions Movies
We'll let you know if they reveal any more details at the Googleplex. In the meantime, Pandemia has a copy of the slide that will be used later today...
Google Explains Lengthy Beta Process
One of the questions asked at today's Google Factory Tour, was:
"Lots of products stay in Beta, does that indicate that you have trouble getting them to a finished state?"
Marissa Mayer took the lead on answering that question. She explained that when a product is launched in beta, it often has a long list of features that need to be added, before Google considers it finished. Once all of the features have been added to a product in "beta", they remove the beta-tag. "We’re getting close to taking some of these products out of beta, and you’ll see some announcements soon," says Mayer. Andy Beal
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Google's Marissa Mayer Highlights Google's Heroes Marissa Mayer is up next and she explains that she wants to reveal the heroes behind the scenes. She has some interesting stats to explain how they fuel the work carried out by their search engineers.
According to their Chef:
2300 lbs of chicken a month 1600 lbs of coffee beans a month 500 lbs of pasta 112 lbs of wheatgrass
Their Search Quality Czar, “Ben”, has been working on a number of things:
“Bwolen” is their Crawl Tech Lead and he has two interests:
1. Grow the Index beyond 8 billion pages. 2. Looks for fresher content and provide daily updates. This allows searchers to find information soon after it is published, thanks to the freshness factor.
“Matt” is the Spam Cowboy and Porn Cookie Guy (his picture looks curiously like Matt Cutts) and he makes sure that various surprises don’t happen to searchers. He is responsible for:
1. Safesearch. 2. Reduced spurious porn. 3. Reduced spam results. 4. Reaches out to webmasters to educate about best practices.
Mayer then highlights the user interface team and explains how difficult it has been for them to keep Google.com looking the same, despite more than 50 new product developments in the past few years.
She also gives kudos to Google search users. Yes, your behavior helps them to develop their search algorithm (surprise, surprise). Andy Beal
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Google Has 294 Years Left to Organize the Web
Eric Schmidt is on stage to welcome everyone. He admits that this Factory Tour is in fact a beta test. :-) They're testing the layout to see if it is an effective means of communicating.
He tells us that it is estimated that it will take 300 years to organize the world's information. He then smiles and confirms that Google has 294 years to go.
Explains Google's focus. 70% is focused on the "core" of search. 20% is focused on secondary search products (such as Google News), with the remaining 10% being "other" stuff that comes from employees "20% time". Andy Beal
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Google Launches Enterprise Desktop Search
According to InformationWeek, Google has launched and enterprise version of their desktop search tool. This one has a few more security precautions.
Google, which has come under fire from privacy advocates for some of its consumer products, said the corporate application, available for download at no charge, gives IT administrators control over the product's communication with Google servers. Andy Beal
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Google Factory Tour Agenda
So what's going on today...
10:00 - 10:15 am - Eric Schmidt, CEO will have opening remarks
10:15 - 12:00 pm - Marissa Mayer and Peter Norvig will be reporting on Progress in Research and Ads. After a quick break, Susan Wojcicki, Salar Kamangar, Tim Armstrong and Adam Freed will pick up the slack and continue the theme.
12:00 - 12:45 pm - We're on a tight schedule folks, so just 45 minutes for lunch.
12:45 - 2:00 pm - Jonathan Rosenberg, Jeff Huber and Dave Girouard will tell us about the Opportunities Today.
2:00 - 2:45 pm - Alan Eustace, Marissa Mayer and the His Royal Searchness, Sergey Brin will be back to discuss Future Directions.
2:45 - 3:45 pm - Q&A with Schmidt and Brin (post your burning questions below).
3:45 - 4:40 pm - Product demos (cool, maybe they'll explain how those lava-lamp pens work) ;-) Andy Beal
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Live from the Googleplex! Coming live from the Googleplex, or at least the cafe at the Googleplex (those of you who have attended the Google Dances will know the room where they host the bands etc).
Checked in at a parking lot across from the 'plex (I guess they don't want you door-dinging their sports cars) and picked up my name badge. Looks like more than a hundred people confirmed their attendance for today and judging by some of the name tags, this is pretty much a who's who of technology writing.
I'll be back with more details throughout the day. In the meantime, I'm going back to my bagel and coffee! Andy Beal
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Will Ads in Your RSS Feed Reduce Your Credibility?
Over at MarketerToday, Garrett French is discussing the positives and negatives of including ads in your RSS feeds.
I'm leaning towards not having RSS ads, simply because we already have site advertisers that help this blog generate revenue, so I have no need to go with additional ads that clog my feed.
That being said, anyone out there having success with RSS ads? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Andy Beal
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Blogging the Google Factory Tour
As Garrett mentioned, I'm spending the day at Google as an invitee of their Factory Tour. We have neen encouraged to bring out wi-fi enable laptops and audio recorders, so look for blog posts from the event.
If the webcast camera pans around, I'll be the one trying to walk out the door with the inflatable Google sofa. ;-) Andy Beal
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Andy and the Google Factory
If you'd like to watch Andy work the Google crowd check out the Google Factory Tour Webcast at 10am PT/ 1pm ET.
Watch for the Oompa-Loompas...
Requires RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive
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Ask Jeeves Ready to Step Out From Shadow of Google and Yahoo The last time I was at Ask Jeeves, they were still in their building in Emeryville, an office that had an open, “loft” feel to it. Since then, they’ve moved down the road to swank new offices in Oakland. The new digs are certainly impressive and seem almost a little too corporate for the fun and energetic search engine.
While the new home for Ask Jeeves may appear to be a maze of corporate cubes and offices, it doesn’t take long to notice the cardboard cut outs of the Jeeves butler, dotted around the place, his head rising above the cubicle walls with a grin that suggests a new office is not going to put a dampener on fun and innovation.
In fact, walking around the new offices of Ask Jeeves, you quickly get the sense that the company, management and employees know they are close to breaking out of the “…and Ask Jeeves” moniker that has been their unofficial title for years. You know what I mean. You’ve likely seen a story on the search engines that includes a line which reads something like, “…the worlds top search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves”. It seems almost as if Ask has never really been able to capture the publicity and kudos, that has been so lavishly bestowed on the “big 3”. Instead, it is often mentioned merely as a bookend for the other three search engines.
That could very well be about to change, with the news earlier this year that Barry Diller’s mammoth InterActiveCorp (IAC). had agreed to acquire Ask for almost $2 billion. Whether IAC decided that search had become too tempting of a proposition to not get involved, or that it saw a potential in Ask Jeeves to bring proven search technology to a network of sites that include Match.com, Expedia, CitySearch and LendingTree, it is clear that the huge interactive media company’s interest and investment in Ask Jeeves could finally be the shot in the arm that the search engine dearly needed.
“It’s invigorated a lot of people” according to Ask’s SVP, Jim Lanzone, who admits that the company has been on its “comeback” for the past 3 years while remaining relatively “under resourced” compared to Google and Yahoo. “We’re invigorated that when this deal closes, [InterActiveCorp] will invest in the Ask Jeeves team and brand and allow us to truly compete against Google, Yahoo and Microsoft”.
In fact, Ask Jeeves is not waiting until the summer, when the IAC deal is expected to close, before investing in new products and services. Ask Jeeves has big plans and those plans include not just launching new products, but also ensuring that its “core” search technology is improved. “We have a lot of great ideas of how to improve the core,” explains Lanzone who believes that a “feature war” has led some search engines to be too focused on launching new products, without fully paying attention to the main technology that brought search into users’ everyday lives. “We track everything that our users want out of us and everything that they are doing on our site and you know ‘core search’ is still the primary thing that they need.”
It is Ask Jeeves search technology and its in-depth knowledge of search engine user behavior, that is so obviously an attraction to Barry Diller. According to Lanzone, “search is the hub to the rest of the internet and we believe that we can provide that to IAC”. In fact, Lanzone believes that search is the “doorway to the internet” and that without solid search technology, a company like IAC has “no natural glue” to hold together its various different web properties such as Expedia, Match and LendingTree. Lanzone also believes that with the financial investment, IAC can offer, Ask Jeeves can further leverage it’s employee talent and search technology prowess. “They [IAC] look at us as brand with a product with a huge upside. If you give [resources] to us, we can do a heck of a lot more. They share that belief with us.”
The timing of IAC’s acquisition of Ask Jeeves could not have been better, for either company. According to Lanzone, the search industry has certainly moved “beyond the first inning” and he sees people becoming more reliant on search, not less as some have predicted. “Information overload is getting worse; you’re going to need search even more,” predicts Lanzone and as that need continues to grow, the web portals managed by IAC will look for search to bring together a seamless information retrieval experience. “Seamless is the big word for the future,” believes Lanzone.
With Ask Jeeves getting ready to enter a new and exciting chapter, in the company’s nearly 10 years of operation, it’s clear that the search engine has strong aspirations of finally stepping out from the shadow of Google and Yahoo. While the company has been able to innovate with a fraction of the employees and resources that its California neighbors have, the partnership with IAC will likely see a financial injection that will enable Ask to start taking serious market share away from it’s peers.
Lanzone provided a sneak-peek at new feature developments they are working on, which they hope to announce soon. While I have been sworn to secrecy on the details, I can say that the new features they have planned could well be the most innovative offered by any search engine, in the past 12 months. While its competitors use their extensive financial and human capital to dominate the market, Ask Jeeves has been quietly working on new features that, when launched, will take Google, Yahoo and MSN by surprise and serve as their wake-up call that Ask is ready to remove that “and Ask Jeeves” moniker. If they can innovate this much, with so little, it will be exciting to see what they can do once they join the Barry Diller juggernaut. Andy Beal
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May 17, 2005
Google Launches AdSense for RSS Feeds
Just received from Google HQ...
Today, Google continued its efforts to support the creation and distribution of quality content, by announcing a beta test of AdSense for feeds via the Google Blog. AdSense for feeds enables publishers distributing content through Really Simple Syndication (RSS) or Atom feeds to include relevant text ads in their feeds and receive a share of the revenue generated by ad clicks.
Benefits of the program include:
*Providing an additional revenue opportunity for publishers
*Helping make content creation and distribution financially viable for
publishers
*Offering users relevant information about products and services
*Extending the reach for AdWords advertisers
Publishers simply apply for AdSense for feeds and, once approved for the new program and, they simply insert a few lines of code into their feeds and relevant text-based AdWords ads start appearing. More information about
AdSense for feeds can be found at www.google.com/adsenseforfeeds or on the Google Blog. Andy Beal
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May 16, 2005
Why SEM Agencies Should Prepare for Client Churn Gary Stein helps search agencies come to terms with the fact that they will be susceptible to client churn.
Churn should be expected. With the exception of the occasional brand that's worked with one agency since the dawn of time, clients change agencies all the time. Often, this is the result of a client-side staff change: a new brand manager has different ideas about either how to market the product or, more frequently, wants an agency she's worked with before. With creative shops, agency churn is often a key problem. Agencies are highly susceptible to trends: one shop is hot, another clearly is not, and good brands want to work with hot shops.
Gary explains how traditional agencies have dealt with client churn. Andy Beal
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On the road again...
Basketball may have March Madness, but I'm thinking that "May Madness" might be all my own, as I head out on yet another trip.
I head to Houston, TX a little later today before moving on to Oakland on Wednesday, where I'll be getting together with the world's favorite butler. Thursday will see me down the road at Mountain View, spending the day with a hot young search engine, who's name escapes me....begins with a "G"...it'll come to me. ;-)
Anyway, blogging will be erratic for the next few days, but I do hope to have some reports from my galavanting. Andy Beal
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Text Link Ads the Newest Sponsor of Search Engine Lowdown We'd like you to put your hands together and give a warm welcome to our newest advertiser, Text Link Ads.
What do they do?
We specialize in placing text link ads on high quality, high traffic web properties. Our clients have seen a dramatic increase in traffic and natural search engine rankings with our service. Text Link Ads Inc. currently works with a wide range of clients from Fortune 500 firms to individual website owners.
So there you go. If you're looking for quality links that bring traffic - and maybe help your search ranking too - check out Text Link Ads! Andy Beal
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Expanding the Reach of Search Engines
DM News has an interesting story that helps explain why the search engines are moving away from just "blue text links".
Search is all about connecting you with what you are interested in. That used to mean going to Google.com and entering your query, but as our use of the internet expands, so will the different mediums being offered by the search engines.
As DM News puts it...
Search is the area of services that knows the specific thing you want to do, learn or see, with a great amount of precision. It brings you the best possible resource or resources you need to accomplish that goal, out of an otherwise unmanageable bevy of choices. And it does it very, very quickly. Andy Beal
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MSN Launches Final Version of Desktop Search Application
Chris Sherman reports that Microsoft has released the final version of its MSN desktop search application.
Lots of new features have been added...
Among the improvements is the ability to specify which items should be indexed. You can use a simple dialog box to select email and all hard disks, email and the contents of the My Documents folder, or select specific files and locations to be indexed using an explorer-like panel. Andy Beal
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May 13, 2005
UK Search Marketing Industry Valued at Almost £600m
New research by E-consultancy suggests the UK search engine marketing services industry will reach £598m this year, representing about 70% aggregate growth on 2004.
E-consultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein commented: “We expect that demand for specialist search marketing services will continue to increase for some time. The launch of MSN’s proprietary search engine and paid-listings is going to make bid management more complicated.
“There’s also the increase in spending on organic search, which could spark sector-specific search wars, as companies up the ante and jostle for position. Then there’s the impact of Google Local on the SME fraternity. There really is a lot going on - it is a good time to be in search marketing,” added Friedlein.
Consumers Use Search Engines When Shopping Financial Services
Compete, Inc. and Yahoo Search Marketing have completed a new study that indicates the importance of a search marketing campaign, if you offer financial products.
Key findings from the study include:
* Consumers who search online for financial services are attractive targets. They are affluent, in the peak consumption stage of their financial services lifetime and more than half have ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ credit quality.
* Search drives offline account acquisition. Consumers may research their checking, savings and loan options online, but about half of those who open accounts end up doing so at ‘in-person’ channels such as local branch offices or call centers. <
The new edition of MarketingSherpa's popular Buyer's Guide to SEO Firms is now 
Boris Mordkovich has written a practical 
Hot off the press: Ask Jeeves will today launch two new search technology updates that will see it taking a step ahead of its peers. The developments come in an area that Ask's senior vice president of search properties, Jim Lanzone, refers to as "important innovations on some of our core search technologies, which will help our users find what they need faster than with other search engines." 
According to 
Time to put coverage of today's Google Factory Tour to bed. But before I do, some housekeeping...
Marissa Mayer is up next and she explains that she wants to reveal the heroes behind the scenes. She has some interesting stats to explain how they fuel the work carried out by their search engineers. 
Coming live from the Googleplex, or at least the cafe at the Googleplex (those of you who have attended the Google Dances will know the room where they host the bands etc).
The last time I was at 
We'd like you to put your hands together and give a warm welcome to our newest advertiser,