SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 23, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Jul. 23, 2008 at 5:06pm ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: SearchCap
Google's Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation
After six months of testing, Google has formally rolled out Knol, a service designed to let people create pages of knowledge on any topic they choose. While Google says Knol is not designed to compete with Wikipedia -- and there are good arguments to back this up -- I still think the easiest way to describe the service is Wikipedia with moderation. Below, more about this, the service in general and some of the issues it may raise for Google.
Jul. 23, 2008 at 1:36pm ET
By Danny Sullivan
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See Related Stories In: Google: Knol
Now Google Searches For "Educating" Not Safe For Family Viewing
I feel bad for always seeming to pick on Google about showing inappropriate images in normal web search. But it's happened again. This morning at the Search Engine Roundtable, I explained that a search for [educating] returns a "teacher standing over a student holding a small rod, with the student's pants down leaning over a desk." For the term education! What is even worse is that I privately reported this image three days ago to Google for removal, using the new report images feature in Google web search. Today, it's still sitting there (though now, not likely for long). Here what's showing:
Jul. 23, 2008 at 11:17am ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Google: Universal Search
Live QnA Adds Features & Firefox 3 Support
The Live QnA blog announced that the Live QnA question and answer site has been updated with several feature and design releases. Here is a brief overview of those changes:
Jul. 23, 2008 at 8:24am ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Microsoft: Live Search
The Better Business Bureaus Rates Google As "Unsatisfactory"
Google, the superbrand and top global brand is also listed on the Better Business Bureaus (BBB) list of businesses as having an "unsatisfactory record."
The reason Google has this unsatisfactory rating from the BBB is because Google has failed "to respond to one or more complaints and or two or more otherwise unresolved." The BBB does note that Google "has resolved most complaints presented to the bureau." You can find some of the complaints over here. Valleywag has their swing to the story as well.
Jul. 23, 2008 at 8:17am ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Google: Business Issues, Google: General
Rumor: Google To Buy Digg For $200 Million?
There are ways in which Digg is like YouTube: it's the "brand" in a competitive "social news" segment that also features Yahoo Buzz, AOL's Propeller, MySpace News, Reddit, Ask Big News and, by some counts, more than 80 others. Similarly YouTube was the "brand" in a crowded video segment when Google acquired the company.
Digg has more or less been for sale for months and rumors have been circulating that either Google or Microsoft would buy the company.
Jul. 23, 2008 at 7:36am ET
By Greg Sterling
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See Related Stories In: Google: Acquisitions, Search Engines: Digg
Yahoo Q2 Revenues Flat, No Help For Shareholder Meeting
Analysts expectations were low and, depending on the analyst, Yahoo barely met or missed them. According to the press release, "Revenues were $1,798 million for the second quarter of 2008, a 6 percent increase compared to $1,698 million for the same period of 2007." Net income fell 18 percent. The company suffered from the general sluggishness of the advertising economy but may also have taken a hit from all the distractions of MicroHoo and Carl Icahn's proxy battle. Icahn is now becoming a Yahoo board member after a publicly announced compromise.
Jul. 22, 2008 at 5:28pm ET
By Greg Sterling
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See Related Stories In: Yahoo: Business Issues
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 22, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Jul. 22, 2008 at 5:14pm ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: SearchCap
Click Fraud Rate Mostly Unchanged, Says Click Forensics
Click Forensics has released the second quarter results for 2008, showing a slight drop in the estimated click fraud. Last quarter, Click Forensics reported a 16.3 percent rate, they are now reporting a 16.2 percent rate for Q2 of 2008. However, the rate is up from a year ago, which was a 15.8 percent rate in Q2 of 2007.
The main number that stood out was that "traffic from botnets was responsible for more than 25 percent of all click fraud traffic in Q2 2008," said Click Forensics. Click Forensics believes the botnets increase was the reason why the click fraud rate did not drop more then it should have.
Jul. 22, 2008 at 4:33pm ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Legal: Clickfraud
The Google Logos Video
I thought I share with you a video from Appappeal.com, named "Just Google." The song was created by Lex Friedman and Seth Brown.
Here is the video/song:
Jul. 22, 2008 at 4:28pm ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Google: Logos, Google: Parodies
The Link Building Kiss of Death
If you are an experienced link builder, you might be tempted to read something other than today's column, which on first glance may appear a bit to rudimentary for your skills. If you do stick around, and I hope you do, I'll share with you what I consider to be one of the tragic mistakes that even sophisticated link builders often make when contacting a site to request a review/link: Using the wrong contact method.
Jul. 22, 2008 at 3:41pm ET
By Eric Ward
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See Related Stories In: Link Week
Are You BLVD Status? New Analytics Package Tracks Conversions
Last week, my friend Chris Bennett at 97th Floor and his brother Patrick at Modern Blue launched a new analytics package called BLVD Status that I am particularly excited about. I was one of the original pre-beta testers and was able to see this grow into a really powerful and helpful tool for anyone trying to better track their search & social media marketing efforts.
BLVD Status is an analytics program that has a live dashboard similar to something you would see in
Have a Mint but with really robust information like conversions, search engine rankings, outgoing link information and many more data points. BLVD Status presents a slick and clean user interface, but I am more excited about the actual data it provides you. With many analytics programs I have tested, it seems like you can't get the data you are looking for without custom programming and tweaking.
Below, details about what features it currently includes, and what I would like
to see in future releases.
Jul. 22, 2008 at 10:00am ET
By Chris Winfield
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See Related Stories In: Let's Get Social
Google Maps Walking Directions Now Live
Earlier this month, I reported that Google Maps was testing walking directions on a small subset of users. This morning, I noticed that Google Maps now is offering walking directions for all Google Maps users.
For example, conduct a search for 200 Madison Ave to 200 Lexington Ave and you will see the option to take "Walking" directions, as opposed to driving directions. Here is a picture:
Jul. 22, 2008 at 9:13am ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Google: Maps & Local
Microsoft Virtual Earth Adds New Imagery
The Virtual Earth Blog announced that they have released a bulk of new imagery to Virtual Earth and Live Maps. I am not going to list out all the new locations you can find the new satellite, ortho and bird's eye imagery, but here are a few:
Jul. 22, 2008 at 9:05am ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Microsoft: Live Search Local
Will Software Patents (Including On Search Algorithms ) Go Away?
It's fairly safe to say: 1) patent law is a mess, 2) patent law is in transition and 3) newer court rulings are reducing the rights of patent holders. But in a very provocative argument, based on recent cases, the PatentlyO law blog argues that new rules and tests imposed by courts (though not yet the US Supreme Court) could effectively eliminate software patents.
Jul. 22, 2008 at 8:53am ET
By Greg Sterling
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See Related Stories In: Legal: Patents
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 21, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Jul. 21, 2008 at 4:17pm ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: SearchCap
Last Call For SMX Local & Mobile in San Francisco
There's still time to register for Search Marketing Expo - SMX Local & Mobile in San Francisco this Thursday and Friday, July 24-25. Register today and save $200 off the on-site registration rate.
For the last couple months, we've been telling you why you should come to SMX Local & Mobile. That you'll learn the online marketing tactics influencing $500 billion in offline sales. That local and mobile search are opportunities for agencies and in-house marketers to outflank the competition. About the outstanding keynotes from Yahoo! and Microsoft. Here are the links if you've missed some of those:
Jul. 21, 2008 at 3:15pm ET
By Search Engine Land
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See Related Stories In: SEM Industry: Conferences, SMX & SMN Alerts
Last Chance: Pitch Session Ideas For SMX East!
Later this week, I'm diving into developing the agenda for our SMX East search marketing conference that happens in New York this October 6-8. I'm still looking for ideas, and pitching a great session topic is the very best way to end up speaking at the show. I'm closing submissions as of 5pm Pacific time tomorrow (Tuesday, July 22), so put on your thinking caps and send them in.
You can find more about pitching session ideas in our How To Speak At SMX East 2008 post on the SMX Blog. It also covers how you can pitch to speak once the agenda is formalized.
Jul. 21, 2008 at 3:00pm ET
By Danny Sullivan
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See Related Stories In: SMX & SMN Alerts
Icahn Settles With Yahoo, Joins Board
As Greg noted earlier, Carl Ichan was seeking control of Yahoo's board. Instead, Yahoo and Ichan came up with a compromise, giving Ichan 3 of the 11 seats on Yahoo's board.
Eight members of the board will stand for reelection, including Yang. Robert Kotick will not be up for reelection. The board will expand to 11 members, with the two remaining seats chosen by the board. The possible two seats will go to the list provided by Icahn. You can see all the buzz on this news at Techmeme.
Jul. 21, 2008 at 12:36pm ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Microsoft & Yahoo Merger, Yahoo: Business Issues
No, The Toolbar Does Not Lead Google To Index My Content
Matt Cutts of Google has posted another one of his debunking theories post, this time on the Google Toolbar aiding Google in indexing content.
Matt said, "if Ken Simpson is implying that the Google Toolbar led to these urls being crawled, then he’s mistaken." Ken Simpson was paraphrased in an InformationWeek article saying, the "Google Toolbar may be configured to pass URLs that one visits to Google for indexing."
Jul. 21, 2008 at 9:47am ET
By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Google: SEO, Google: Toolbar
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