SEL: 05.2005

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 | permalink | +marktd |

The Demise of Traditional Publishers?

Can Google and Yahoo really cause the demise of Reuters, Tribune, McGraw-Hill and seven other traditional print publishers?

Read MarketerToday.com and see this interesting marketing trend.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Maps Stealth Bomber; Googleplex in Crosshairs

Google Earth uncovers stealth bomber satellite photo.

Via Battelle.

On the flipside, Googleplex in the crosshairs.

Via David Krane.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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.

Hat-tip to SEW.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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.

Worth reading for the recap.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

Jux2 Goes Offline

Gary Price reports that meta search engine, Jux2 is no more.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

Google Enhances Book Search

MarketingVOX has the details.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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).

It's packed with lots of useful information including:

* 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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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%.

You can test the new Web Answers feature yourself by trying searches such as “Deadliest snake” or “largest lake in the world”.

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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.

According to Mercury News..

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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.

Read the full story at MarketerToday.com.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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...

San Fran Chronicle - thanks Verne

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.

San Jose Mercury News - thanks Mike

"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.

LA Times - thanks Chris

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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.

click to enlarge

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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...

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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:

1. Better search ranking.
2. Better “onebox” results.
3. Improve search index quality despite rapid growth.

“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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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 | permalink | +marktd |

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.

A good time to be involved in the UK search marketing industry then. ;-)

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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.

* Consumers searching online for deposit and loan products use a balanced set of terms in their search process. These searchers used a combination of general, specific and brand terms when researching new products.

"In financial services, marketers are already embracing search as a key way to attract in-market consumers. Quantifying the value of search, including whether searchers make desirable targets for financial services companies, is a critical next step in helping marketers refine their search marketing strategies," said Mike Bailey, managing director of Compete’s Financial Services practice.

The complete details of the study will be presented in a free web seminar on May 17th at 2pm EST.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Shareholder Meeting Takes Place

The San Francisco Chronicle has a summary of the recent first-annual shareholder meeting at Google.

A run-of-the-mill affair, but a couple of new details did come up.

Executives said that they have no intention of splitting Google stock for now, despite its high price compared with other companies'.

They are also hoping to expand a high-profile project to digitize books in libraries. Adding more overseas libraries may put to rest the concerns of some Europeans -- particularly the French -- that Google's database might bypass literature that is not in English.

The Washington Post adds these tidbits...

One employee asked when the company was going to remove the "beta" label from the widely used Google News Web site, indicating it was no longer in a test phase. Google co-founder Sergey Brin said there are "several little things" about Google News that need to be improved before the technology-driven company can unconditionally release it.

"Beta is a matter of pride," said Brin, an engineer.

Another shareholder asked how long Google could be expected to continue growing rapidly, which it has done for the past several years. The company's stock price has escalated steadily since it went public in August at $85 a share. Yesterday, Google stock closed at $228.72, down $2.57.

Schmidt said the company's growth would slow eventually, though he does not think it will be any time soon.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Using Google Maps to find Brothels?

An amusing story to start off your Friday. According to TechWeb, someone at Google Maps may be having fun with users who search for brothels.

American users who enter their Zip codes in the search field at Google Maps, then type in "brothel" (without the quotation marks) are shown a map with various business and organizations identified as, yes, bordellos.

I'm sure there is an explanation for these entries, but if Google is not involved (likely) then someone has figured out a way to manipulate the results, with some concerning/funny results.

Leslee Unruh, the president of Abstinence Clearinghouse, an organization that connects advocates of abstinence before marriage, was more than taken aback by the labeling of her office as a bawdyhouse.

Unruh also said that while the "brothel" label was news to her, it explained some odd behavior she and others in her office have seen.

"We've been seeing some strange men stopping by the office," she said. "They're clearly looking for something. If they're traveling and using Google, maybe they think we're." she said, but didn't finish. "We're right off the Interstate."

"I'd love to know what's going on," she said. "Although we do have a red lamp near the window. I told my staff, 'we have to get that out of there.'"

I want to know why they have a red lamp at all, let alone near the window! ;-)

Thanks to Dan.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

NexTag Named to Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies

Online comparison shopping site, NexTag, is celebrating being named one of the Red Herring 100 Private Companies of North America for the second year in a row.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Take the RustySearch Search Engine Relevancy Challenge

If you're the kind of person who enjoys taking the Pepsi/Coke challenge, you'll enjoy this experiment, that Barry Schwartz (aka RustyBrick) has put together.

Barry decided to build a white-labeled search engine that pulled results randomly from one of the major four search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves) and placed within RustySearch, a white-labeled search engine.

The purpose is for you to test the results, and judge on a subjective level, what the relevancy of the result are, on a one to five scale. We understand that there are other factors outside of what we can test that count for relevancy, but we cannot possibly test each one. We are using the provided API's and RSS feeds to pull the results from the search engines.

You can get detailed instructions on how to take part in the challenge and when you can see the results, at the official challenge page.

Update: Barry has posted results collected from 5,000 "blind" search results. It looks like Yahoo is beating Google, with Ask Jeeves pushing MSN into fourth position.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Using SEO to Keep Customers Returning

WebSourced's own Tansy OBryant and Mark Schurtman have published the second part of a four-part series looking at using SEO to keep your customers returning.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Toolbar with AutoLink Feature Leaves Beta

According to Chris Sherman, Google's new toolbar (the one with the controversial Autolink feature) has left beta. The company has made some changes to the way Autolink works.

"Our links look different than links put on the page that are placed by the author," said Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products. The Google-inserted links now have a pale blue background, which distinguishes them from ordinary hyperlinks.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Yahoo Dispute with FindWhat Ends in Hung Jury

FindWhat.com's patent infringement dispute with Overture Services, Inc. ended in a hung jury, according to CNN Money.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Dogpile Launches New Look

From MarketingVOX...Metasearch engine Dogpile.com has redesigned its site to allow users to compare search results across search engines as it seeks to emphasize the benefits of metasearch to web users.

DM News has more.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Gets License to Do Business in China

The LA Times reports that Google has won a license to operate in China.

The Web giant, which makes its money from searches, advertising and other services, is hiring staff with the aim of opening an office in the country this year, the sources said Wednesday.

One person familiar with the matter said that the office would most likely be in Shanghai and that Google was forming a team to target corporate customers for advertising sales.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Buys Mobile Text Message Service, Dodgeball.com

An interesting move by Google. CNN Money reports that the company has acquired a two-person company, Dodgeball.

Dodgeball.com, the brainchild of recent New York University graduates Crowley and Alex Rainert, is a free text message service that lets users tell their friend list their location at any moment.

A user "checks in" at a given location and sends a message to friends who are Dodge ball users, and then to friends of friends, within a 10-block radius.

The potential here is enormous. Can you imagine being able to tell your friends that you are at a local bar, provide them with a map (or even a satellite view of the premises), take a photo of your group and then add to your mobile blog? All from your cell phone!

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Not Forgotten You

I thought I'd post a brief note to explain the lack of posts today (and tomorrow). I'm in NYC for a 2-day seminar, so blogging will be light. I took a quick look at the news today and didn't see anything that needed urgent attention, so normal service will likely resume on Thursday. :-)

Thanks for stopping-by!

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

FindWhat Hit With Class Action Suit

FindWhat has not been having the best of times, recently. They've now been hit with a class action suit.

The Complaint alleges that Defendants issued, or caused to be issued, false and misleading statements during the Class Period to artificially inflate the value of FindWhat.com stock.

Thanks to Battelle.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Confirms Bugs in Web Accelerator

Matt Hicks confirms that Google Accelerator does indeed have a bug that can cause users to see web pages under other users' logins.

Google officials Friday confirmed that the company was aware of as many as five sites where Web Accelerator was returning users cached pages under other people's user names.

"It is an unfortunate problem, but it looks worse than it is," Mayer said. "We are caching those pages on the server side with the user name on them…You see it, but it's important to point out that you are not logged in as user and you do not have the session cookies needed to perform operations as [that] user."

So Google launched a product with a bug in it. Happens to the best of companies, but if you break it, you should fix it. Not so, says Google...

Google plans to notify the Webmasters of the affected sites about the need to fix their cache-control headers...

Personally, I'm removing Accelerator for the time being. I've not noticed any measurable increase in speed (despite the little graphic suggesting I have saved 7 minutes since install) and some pages actually freeze a little before loading.

I guess this serves as a reminder that Google launches these products in "beta" for a reason. They know they may contain bugs and as a "beta" you need to understand that you are not using a finished, polished product.

Unfortunately, Google still makes "beta" products available to too many users, most of which don't fully understand the concept of a beta product. They might be best served if they start being more restrictive on the download of "beta" tools (a la Gmail) otherwise they run the risk of harming their reputation by having lots of un-finished products in wide-spread use.

Update: It appears that Google is on the ball. They've stopped allowing downloads of Accelerator, while they fix the bugs. From the download site:

Thank you for your interest in Google Web Accelerator. We have currently reached our maximum capacity of users and are actively working to increase the number of users we can support.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

DNS Attack Cripples Google?

Updated: Please read the addendum below, before adding your own comments.

It's certainly enough to make you think twice before handing over sensitive information to Google. For about 15 minutes on Saturday, Google suffered what looks like a DNS attack, according to vnunet.

Services were suspended between 11.45pm and midnight. Some users trying to access the page were redirected to a search engine called SoGoSearch, suggesting that the problem may have been at the Domain Name System (DNS) server level.

Just about every Google service was shut down, although this was not a case of hacking and there was no breach of security.

"It was not a hacking or a security issue," Google spokesman David Krane told Associated Press.

"Google's global properties were unavailable for a short period of time. We have remedied the problem and access to Google has been restored worldwide."

So, it was DNS a attack and not a security breach. That being said, as Google becomes more dominant, it will likely gain the attention of more and more hackers. How long before they figure out how to get access to your Gmail, your Accelerator cache and the files on your Google desktop search?

This DNS attack serves as a reminder that Google is subject to the same attacks, that other companies face. If they can be hit by a DNS attack, they could also have their security breached. Something to consider, the next time you offer your personal information. ;-)

UPDATE: It appears we have a lot of people wanting to share their love of Google. Read thru some of the comments on this post and you'll see that I'm accused of being everything from a Microsoft employee to a seventh-grader (not sure which is worse). I'm not sure that all of the commenters are reading the entire post above.

My point is that this alleged DNS attack serves as a reminder that as Google becomes more like Microsoft in its pervasiveness, more hackers will attempt to compromise it in some way. This alleged DNS attack (which I know is not a security breach) is a reminder that Google is just as vunerable as other sites. All of the commenters may be seasoned web users, but others may not understand that Google is not invincible.

Let's see how many comments will be added before the day is out. ;-)

UPDATE 2: We're going to put this one to bed now. I emailed David Krane of Google, the following question:

"I've been looking for clarification that the DNS issue over the weekend was not caused by an outside source. I couldn't find anything concrete.

Would you mind dropping me a brief quote confirming that this was not caused by anything malicious or external and was indeed an internal error?"

David replied:

Happy to confirm this, Andy...you're exactly right, and thanks for doing your part to help clear up any lingering confusion.

Best,

David

So we have confirmation that this WAS NOT a DNS attack, but an internal DNS issue. That should please half the commenters below. That being said, I still stand by my original thought that this demonstrates that Google is not invincible and that you should be aware of the risks associated with providing them all of your personal info.

Maybe I should get a DNA test to see if I am in anyway related to Bill O'Reilly. He'd be proud of the ruckus this post caused. ;-)

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

The Evolution of UK Search Marketing

Revolution magazine has an in-depth look at the evolving UK search marketing industry.

Some interesting themes include:

Many UK SEM's are rebranding as their old names no longer reflect the services they offer.

Suddenly, the old names of companies no longer seemed appropriate. Cue a spate of recent rebrandings: Corporem Global is now Latitude; Web Site Positioning Services (WSPS) has become The Search Works, and AdvancePositions.com is mSearch. All these rebrands set out to show clients that the industry is growing up, is on the cusp of going global and is more service-orientated.

More UK companies are seeing increases PPC costs and are looking to search optimisation (yes, UK spelling for this post) as an alternative.

Mike Grehan, chief executive officer of Smart Interactive, goes as far as to say that paid-for listings should only be used for tactical campaigns - such as product launches - and that brands should focus on natural-search listings. In other words, forward-thinking brands should focus on a natural 'search-engine optimisation' (SEO) strategy.

Grehan believes the current obsession with paid-for listings is only because brands are "failing miserably" to understand how organic listings work. "Organic is a lot harder, so many brands find it easier to buy advertising in paid listings. But it's just like traditional ads - editorial is far more powerful," he says.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Advertise on Search Engine Lowdown

Seems like I am getting more requests for how to advertise on Search Engine Lowdown. Here's a summary of what we have to offer:

Site Sponsorship - SOLD! (Ask Jeeves)

Partners

Slot 1 - SOLD! (AJ Interactive)
Slot 2 - SOLD! (Copernic)
Slot 3 - SOLD! (ePilot)
Slot 4 - available ($2,000 per month; 3 month min)
Slot 5 - available ($2,000 per month; 3 month min)
Slot 6 - available ($2,000 per month; 3 month min)

So what do you get for your money?

* 150x30 animated ad displayed on homepage and every archived posting page (about 2100 of them).
* Your choice of link (redirect it or benefit from a direct link).
* Exposure to an average of 10,000 unique visitors each day (7,500 average at weekends; 12,000 weekdays approx).
* 400,000+ page views each month.
* Audience consists of marketers, search engine executives, tech journalists, tech bloggers and just about anyone looking for a concise snapshot and opinion of search news.
* Great for branding your company's product.
* Some exclusions; sorry we don't accept ads for any services that compete with KeywordRanking.com - cos, they still pay the bills ;-).

So there you go. This is not so much an offer, but gives me some info to refer interested parties to. So feel free to ignore.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Blog Moves

Google has moved the official blog to a blogspot URL and added a blogroll.

It appears they're reading Search Engine Lowdown. Maybe I should start my quasi-evil brain-washing campaign now. Moohoowahaaa!!! :-)

Thanks for reading guys!

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Search Engines Rate Highly Among Consumers

New data from Harris Interactive suggest that search engines are doing a good job in the eyes of consumers.

"Online search engines" came in seventh, not bad really, but being lower than "airlines" in the eyes of consumers, is not really a vote of confidence, considering the demise of the airline industry.

Nod to MarketingVOX.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Web Accelerator a Privacy Concern?

Nathan Weinberg has posted a review of the new Google Web Accelerator and he thinks he has uncovered some disturbing bugs.

...Google isn't serving web pages faster, its serving other people's versions of the web page faster. What does that mean? Try using Web Accelerator on a forum site, one with lots of geeks who love Google and probably already have Web Accelerator installed. Why, if you're lucky, you'll be logged in as someone else, as the folks at SomethingAwful.com discovered. The posters in that forum discovered that most of the times they refreshed the page, they were logged in as a different person, seeing their friend's control panel for the forums.

I've not been able to re-create the problem and I am sceptical that it even exists. Google has been caching the web for years, I find it highly unlikely that they would release a tool that would let you see the cache of another user. If in fact, the bug does exist, it doesn't bode well for Google. They're barely getting over the uproar, from privacy advocates, about security issues with Gmail and Desktop search. If they continue releasing products that have security issues, they'll quickly get a reputation that they don't want.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Yahoo Working on Music Search Engine

CNet has "learned" that Yahoo is just months away from launching an audio search engine.

[Yahoo] plans to introduce the music search engine within the next couple of months, according to a source familiar with the service. The specialty engine will let people search on an artist's name, for example, and retrieve all the available songs from other music services, as well as album reviews and band information from Yahoo Music.

I bet execs at Yahoo a fuming. Now they have lost the element of surprise, Google will probably try to race them to launch.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Yahoo Video Search Emerges from Beta Cocoon

According to the Yahoo! Search Blog, their video search tool has shed its "beta" tag and added new content providers.

So what's changed in 1.0? We've partnered up with some major content publishers to fortify our content offering, including MTV, Buena Vista (including the latest clips and trailers for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy), CBS News, Bloomberg (check out the latest news on the Federal Reserve), Reuters, The Discovery Channel, Scripps Networks (the good people who produce Home & Garden TV and The Food Network), VH1, and more.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Some Not Impressed with Google Web Accelerator

Aqute Research is not impressed with the release of Google's Web Accelerator.

Google is blessed with huge brainpower, vast amounts of computing resources, a decent pile of money, good looks and the wellwishing of a billion Internet users, and in return it gives us a Web Accelerator? Come on, a Web Accelerator? From the company that said it benefits from the growth of broadband? Should Google not fix Blogger and Orkut? Should it not sort out its RSS and API strategy? Should it not deliver some serious mobile services?

They also don't appear to take too kindly to analysts speculating about a Google Browser.

Search Engine Lowdown asks if this a prelude to the Google browser. Please, can we have a moratorium on the Google Browser predictions? First rule of analyst predictions: you can't make an open-ended prediction, repeat it every month and then say you were right because it comes true three years later.

Actually, what I said was "Could this be a prelude to the much rumored, but vigorously denied, Google browser?". So, I asked a question and clarified that the browser is "much rumored". Personally, I have no idea if they are working on a browser or not. I also agree, they're becoming a jack-of-all-trades, when they should be focusing on all those products still in beta.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

New Google Software Speeds Up Web Browsing; A Prelude to a Google Browser?

Danny Sullivan has details of Google Web Accelerator, debuting at Google Labs. The new beta tool is designed to speed up the web.

Google Web Accelerator (GWA) is client software (about 800k) along with a plug-in that's installed on your computer. It's only available for Windows (at least for now) and works with both Internet Explorer and Firefox. According to Google's Marissa Mayer, this is the first product that she knows of that's built and optimized for broadband web users. She added that dial-up users are also welcome to use the software.

Could this be a prelude to the much rumored, but vigorously denied, Google browser?

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Who Needs Google's New Ad Options?

Google now has more than just paid search; the one trick pony steps outside of their core proficiency and adds interactive advertising... and gives their advertisers more control:

1) site targeting, allowing advertisers to pick which sites to display contextual ads.
2) image ads program expansion: ability to test Flash ads and different size ad formats across chosen sites.
3) introduction of a CPM model for their contextual site targeting.

continue reading at MarketerToday.com

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Using SEO to Keep Customers Returning

Over at Search Engine Guide, WebSourced marketing managers, Tansy O’Bryant and Mark Schurtman, publish part one of a four-part series on using SEO as a means to develop a long-term customer relationship.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Needs to Improve Relations with Agencies

A recent study suggests that there is room for improvement at Google, when it comes to the way they treat search marketers and agencies. While the company has pretty good overall scores for customer service, it has some concerning flaws.

...Google's ranking in one of the most important categories: "responsiveness and accessibility." Google was No. 18, down from 11th place the year before.

Dana Todd and I don't always see eye-to-eye, but her comments throughout the story couldn't be more accurate!

Another advertising taboo that Todd says Google has broken: the company has gone around the agencies it deals with and tried to sign deals directly with Fortune 1000 advertisers. That's alienated media buyers and, at the same time, fueled the perception that Google is giving deep-pocketed advertisers special treatment, to the detriment of smaller advertisers.

I think we'll likely see this change, as Yahoo promises to stop doing trying to circumvent agencies and MSN has stated they will not try to steal the larger clients from the hands of its agency partners.

Link assimilated from Battelle.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

InfoUSA Agrees License Deal with Google

According to a brief note at DMNews, InfoUSA will be providing its business database of nearly 14 million US companies to Google Local.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

WebSourced Signs Contract with Interstate Batteries

WebSourced has today announced that we have be selected by yet another "big name" company as their search marketing agency of record.

Interstate Batteries is the latest addition to the WebSourced roster of over 1,400 clients, which includes a wide array of market leaders, including Motorola, Lowe's Home Improvement, NBC, Black & Decker, DeWALT and CitiFinancial.

"We're thrilled to have chosen WebSourced, Inc. to provide search engine marketing services for our Web site," said Dennis Brown, vice president of marketing for Interstate Batteries. "In WebSourced we've found an online marketing company that can help us greatly expand our online marketing goals."

I wish more of our clients would be motivated to issue a press release when they sign-on for better positioning on the search engines. Then again, if they all did, we'd have as many as 100 releases each month! ;-)

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google Reduces Cost of Urchin

According to Google, they've reduced the price of Urchin On Demand as the company starts encouraging the use of web analytics among its advertisers.

Starting today, Urchin On Demand from Google, is now reduced to $199 per month, a 60 percent drop from the previous cost of $495 per month. With Urchin, Google is helping more website owners learn how users interact with their site. The knowledge provided by Urchin can benefit anyone with a website by enabling them to enhance the experience users will have on their site. Advertisers using any online ad medium can gain a better understanding of visitor preferences, optimize online marketing campaigns and redesign website content to maximize conversions.

Google has started a trend of buying great applications and then slashing the prices associated with them. After buying Blogger, Picasa and Keyhole they reduced or removed the fees associated with them.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Shopping.com Adds Mortgage Comparison Tool

Shopping.com today announced the beta launch of its mortgages comparison shopping service.

Shopping.com Mortgages allows consumers to shop for mortgages with the same detailed level of associated attributes; customized search; and structured, intuitive presentation previously available only in consumer products and unprecedented in financial services. At the beta launch, consumers have access to, and can compare rates from, multiple credible lenders with representation in all 50 states. Attributes by which consumers can customize the search and presentation of offers include, among others, loan type, points, loan amount, lender's regional profile, monthly payments, closing costs, and down payment requirements.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

More Ad Spending Moves Online

According to a new forecast by Forrester Research, as much as 8 percent of all advertising spending will shift online by the year 2010. Much of this shift will come at the expense of tradional media channels such as magazines, direct mail and newspapers.

So why are marketers switching some of their budget to online channels?

Visit MarketerToday to read the remainder of this post.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Copernic Wins Top Honors for Desktop Search Tool

Our friends over at Copernic tell us they've picked up yet another honor for top desktop search tool.

The UW E-Business Consortium “Benchmark Study of Desktop Search Tools” evaluated 12 desktop search tools. The study evaluated each application along six attributes: usability, versatility, accuracy, efficiency, security, and enterprise readiness. Copernic took first place, beating-out Yahoo.

If you've still not downloaded Copernic's desktop search tool, what are you waiting for?

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Picsearch Provides Image Search to Lycos

We recently reported that Picsearch had been selected to provide the image search results for MSN Search. Well, they've been building additional partnerships and have now added Lycos to the list.

Nils Andersson, CEO of Picsearch, said "We are extremely proud that Lycos, Inc. is harnessing our image search technology. They are a great addition to the list of leading web names that have chosen the Picsearch image search service because we provide images that are continually updated, uniquely filtered and highly relevant to the users' queries. We will continue to provide the highest quality image search on the net."

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Official Find Offers Unique Search Interface

If you like the Google Suggest technology Google has been testing, you'll like the new search engine Official Find. It takes the concept a step further by actually displaying top links from the search box, not just top searches.

Frome the press release...

InstaNav™ instantly searches OfficialFind.com’s proprietary database of official sites with each keystroke and presents the results to users in a drop down menu in the actual search box. Users have the choice of going straight to any of the matching sites with just one click, or continuing on with a traditional Web search.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Yankovic! The Next "Cease and Desist" Candidate?

While Yankovic! is cute, I'm amazed it has been around long enough to gain nearly 100 backlinks. I would have thought Yahoo would have sent the mandatory cease and desist letter by now.

Thanks to Bob Rollar!

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Snap Adds News; Google Adds Video Channels

John Battelle has two interesting news stories on his blog.

1. Snap has launched a news site.
2. Google has added 12 additional channels to its video search.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Ask Jeeves Denies Spyware Charges

Danny Sullivan has a letter from Ask Jeeves denying any dealings with spyware or adware.

Ask Jeeves' toolbar products, including My Search and Fun Web Products, are not spyware or adware. Our products do not collect personal information, do not monitor the sites a user visits, do not monitor a user’s behavior on the Internet, do not log or track keystrokes and do not serve or facilitate contextual or pop-up ads. We also do not generate log referral spam. Anti-spyware/anti-adware programs do not flag us, including those from Microsoft, AOL, Norton, McAfee, Symantec and a long list of others.

read more...

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Searching the Contents of your Pocket

We see lots of new search technology announcements, but this one from Gaviri caught our eye. They've just launched a portable search engine for use with that 40GB portable drive you've been using to back-up your desktop.

Gaviri PocketSearch(TM) indexes text, HTML, music, video as well as most of the office suites such as Microsoft office, StarOffice, OpenOffice, KOffice, PDFs and a variety of other file formats. Gaviri PocketSearch(TM) categorizes data into easily understandable views. This makes it easy to understand the content of the drive and use categories to get relevant results. Users can easily zero in on what they want with one click.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Search Advertising Spawns Fluffy Sites

The WSJ looks at the issue of web sites being built in order to gain top search positioning, but with the only links being to advertisers.

Lee Gomes explains how these psuedo-sites are nothing but static on the search results pages.

What's behind them isn't anyone with any particular interest or experience in what you're searching for, but instead someone who is trying to make money from the simple fact that you have arrived at the page. Meanwhile, though, the sites are cluttering up the Internet and making it vastly less useful, certainly for what I was trying to use it for.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Google News to Favor Corporate Media Sites?

The New Standard summarizes a recent report from the New Scientist that suggest Google News may modify its news algorithm in order to favor those sites deemed credible.

Why the change?

...articles carrying more authority, say from CNN or the BBC, can be ousted from the first page of results, simply because they are not as recent or as relevant to the keyword entered in the search line.

Now Google..plans to build a database that will compare the track record and credibility of all news sources around the world, and adjust the ranking of any search results accordingly.

You'll hear a lot of bloggers up-in-arms about the development, why? Google News can account for a good percentage of a small news site's traffic. Many small publications know this and churn out news at an alarming rate, in hopes of getting syndicated in Google News. A single story on Google News can help a small news site generate enough page views to keep advertisers happy.

There are many great news sites out there, that are small and cater to a niche audience (I'd like to think we fall into that category). Unfortunately, there are an equal number of sites that simply churn out crap or re-publish stories verbatim.

What Google giveth, Google can taketh away.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

Microsoft's MSN Search Slowly Gains Pace

The Seattle Times has a great summary of Microsoft's entry into the search arena. The report looks at the failures, the successes and the continued developments.

Here are some extracts that I found interesting...

...Microsoft didn't just miss the boat in search technology. It missed the dock, the pier and the turnoff to the marina.

...MSN knew very little about building a search engine. Moss and the developer, Keith Bernie, set an ambitious goal of indexing 5 billion Web sites. They unleashed their primitive crawler on the Internet, hoping to build a vast collection of Web pages that could be searched by an engine. But after a week, they were stuck at 24 documents.

...So far, MSN's new search engine hasn't caused a vast market shift, but it appears to be growing in use faster than Google. From January to March, according to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings, Google's market share went from 47.1 percent to 47.3 percent while MSN's went from 12.8 percent to 13.6 percent.

...Microsoft's search team has grown to 500 engineers and marketers, and the Microsoft Research division is so involved that 25 percent of its high-powered Beijing lab focuses solely on search.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

...the search industry queries new media