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Google’s official spin on the Yahoo-Google search deal portrays the pact as a technology play. Yahoo will have access to Google ad technology under the terms of the agreement.

Yahoo stated to Microsoft yesterday that an independent search business is critical to its future. We’re puzzled how a partial outsourcing of search ads to Google would somehow ensure its independence.

If anything, the Google deal will weaken Yahoo’s position in the search marketplace and likely lead to a defection among software engineers.

Our agreement to provide ad technology to Yahoo!
6/12/2008 03:28:00 PM
Posted by Omid Kordestani, Senior VP, Global Sales and Business Development

Today, we announced a non-exclusive advertising agreement that will provide Yahoo! with access to our AdSense for search and AdSense for content advertising programs on their U.S. and Canadian web properties. In addition, we will work to enable interoperability between our respective instant messaging services allowing users better, broader communication online.

We are proud of the advertising technologies we have built, which show users a relevant ad whether they are searching for a specific item or browsing the internet. This arrangement extends those benefits to Yahoo! and its many users, advertisers and publisher partners. We currently provide similar services to sites like AOL and Ask.com as well as many other partners, and we work closely with all of our partners to ensure that our partnership drives their long term success.

Why did we make this agreement? Quite simply, we think it is good for users, advertisers and publishers. By offering Google’s industry-leading technology to Yahoo!, the whole system becomes more efficient, and everyone benefits:

Click to read the rest of this post…

MicroHoo is dead. RIP Microsoft-Yahoo. Today Yahoo made the official announcement that they’ve concluded discussions with Microsoft. The possibility of a full acquisition or a partical acquisition are nil.

What’s more, Yahoo indicated that an independent search business will be critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders. That casts doubt on the veracity of the TechCrunch rumor.

Full Text:

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) today announced that discussions with Microsoft regarding a potential transaction — whether for an acquisition of all of Yahoo! or a partial acquisition — have concluded. The conclusion of discussions follows numerous meetings and conversations with Microsoft regarding a number of transaction alternatives, including a meeting between Yahoo! and Microsoft on June 8th in which Chairman Roy Bostock and other independent Board members from Yahoo! participated. At that meeting, Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo!, even at the price range it had previously suggested.

With respect to an acquisition of Yahoo!’s search business alone that Microsoft had proposed, Yahoo!’s Board of Directors has determined, after careful evaluation, that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company’s view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders.

Yahoo! remains focused on maximizing value for stockholders by continuing to execute on its strategy of being the “starting point” for the most consumers on the Internet and a “must buy” for advertisers. The online advertising industry is projected to grow from $40 billion in 2007 to approximately $75 billion in 2010 and the company believes it has the right assets, strategic plan, Board of Directors and management team to capitalize on this growth opportunity.

UPDATE: Microsoft has issued a response:

“In the weeks since Microsoft withdrew its offer to acquire Yahoo!, the two companies have continued to discuss an alternative transaction that Microsoft believes would have delivered in excess of $33 per share to the Yahoo! shareholders. This partnership would ensure healthy competition in the marketplace, providing greater choice and innovation for advertisers, publishers and consumers.

“As stated on May 3rd and reiterated on May 18th Microsoft was not interested in rebidding for all of Yahoo!. Our alternative transaction remains available for discussion.”

With SES Toronto coming up June 16-18, 2008, we interviewed June Li, the founder and managing director of ClickInsight. June will be one of the speakers at the “Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Which Campaign Sold What?” session, which will be held on Wednesday, June 18, from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m.

June has over 20 years of e-business, marketing, manufacturing, logistics and sales experience. She is also an associate instructor for the web analytics program at the University of British Columbia, as well as an instructor for a web analytics course at the University of Toronto Professional Learning Centre, Faculty of Information Studies.

June has spoken and moderated at the Emetrics Summit and is a contributing writer to OneDegree.ca and the AIMS blog.

Q. You founded ClickInsight, a business that creates successful strategies for clients to multiply their online leads and sales. Can you provide SEW readers with a sample of some of your latest Web analytics projects? What is the latest “buzz” in the field of Web analytics?

A. We use web analytics to help businesses accelerate their results from marketing initiatives. Almost all of our business breakthrough projects involve an analysis of search marketing, either organic or paid. And since Canada is a net exporter of goods and services, with the Canadian dollar as strong as it is, there’s been increasing interest in using search to get more qualified leads. Cold calling is such a probability game, why not attract the buyers who are need your goods and services and are looking for what you have to offer?

Analytics is a necessity for defining baselines for improvement. Businesses that have not optimized their site for search or are not using paid search should look at their organic search keywords using their web analytics system. What searches are driving traffic to their site? More often than not, the search keywords include just the company name in some way. This means only the people who already know about your organization are coming to your site, and you’re not reaching new prospects. And if you are getting generic, non-branded searches, don’t stop there? You may not be visible to your target market, and unless you drill down to see who your visitors are, you won’t know what you’re missing.

What’s the latest buzz? Social media measurement and mobile analytics. Both have great linkages to search and positioning on the search results page.

Q. How does your company make use or not make use of Google analytics?

A. We and many of our clients make use of Google Analytics (and other tools) to assess the impact of marketing and site changes. We want to see whether our changes have the intended impact on where our visitors are coming from, what’s driving them to our sites, and what’s not. Google Analytic’s new benchmarking availability is interesting and has definitely triggered some very interesting discussions. We also use Google Analytics to mine and analyze onsite search to see what people think you should have on your website. Perhaps what they’re looking for isn’t present or is difficult to find.

But Google Analytics can’t tell you what might work better. So we also use and recommend Google Website Optimizer for testing alternate options and 4Q (4Q.iperceptions.com) to “listen” to the voice of the customer. Without listening, you won’t have the insight on what might be improved or the reason why people behave as they do on your site. And if this still doesn’t provide what you need, surveys and usability testing might be next.

Q. What got you fascinated about Web analytics to begin with? Did you ever suffer any of the experiences that so many of your clients come to your company for to help solve?

A. Since I started with web analytics on the client side, I’m quite familiar with the issues companies have managing web analytics data, reports and analysis.

Without analytics, you’re guessing as to what’s happening on your website and with your online marketing initiatives. And who can afford to guess, particularly now that we’re seeing the economy slowing down and in Canada, coping with a stronger dollar. Web analytics won’t solve everything (it’s not magic and it’s not perfect) but you’re much better off with the insights analytics can provide than none at all. Web analytics practices continue to evolve, integrating with data mining and expanding to include social media and mobile analytics.

Q. What excites you about Search Engine Strategies Toronto? What do you look forward to most?

A. This will be the 4th Search Engine Strategies I’ll have attended in Toronto, and they get better every time. Last year, I was happy to see there was much more discussion “beyond the click” and about landing page conversion, the money-making “value event”. I’m sure this year will bring yet another advance in the community.

SES is a great place to gauge the pulse of the search community, where businesses are at with search, learn what leading organizations are doing, and have fun discussions about the current myths of search and what the crawlers are up to now, where they’re going next.

Q. You teach a Web Analytics Training course at the University of Toronto. Do you plan to draw upon any of it for your presentation at SES Toronto?

A. Absolutely. The Web Analytics training course at the University of Toronto is an introductory course intended to help those who need to show value from website content understand not only the technical basics but also the management and organization pre-requisites for success. Key to using web analytics is a clear understanding your goals. Only then can you set up your analytics plan to properly (and sanely) assess performance and progress towards attaining your goal. I’m really looking forward to the panel I’m on. We’re tackling the topic of Multi-Channel Measurement. Goal setting is critical to ensuring you don’t drown in multi-channel data and can actually make sense of what you’re measuring.

Q. Put on your prognosticator helmet: What is the future of Web analytics? Say over the next 10 to 20 years?

A. 10-20 years? We’re having problems with 2-3 years! Web analytics will become “analytics”. With new online and integrated technologies proliferating, the tools to measure will evolve, perhaps not fast enough but they’ll evolve. For sure things will get more complicated, and that’s what keeps it interesting and fun!

Last week, Google launched Google Merchant Search. This week, Edward Cowell, Director of digital marketing agency Guava; says, ““Google Merchant Search will truly put the cat amongst pigeons for some of Google’s biggest search advertisers, the financial services comparison websites.”

Price comparison websites are big business in the UK and all the major industry players
advertise heavily on Google. Research by Resolution Foundation shows that 45% of UK adults used a comparison site to help them make a financial decision in the last year and that the price-comparison market is estimated to be growing at 30% a year.

That’s why the launch of the new service comes at a critical time for Google and its financial services advertisers. Says Cowell, “Most big financial services websites are just coming to terms with a marked increase in their paid search advertising budgets due to the recent changes in Google’s trademark bidding policies, so Merchant Search could be rubbing salt into the wound.”

Sites such as Ebay have boycotted Google Adwords by withdrawing its adverting when Google attempted to encroach on PayPal’s territory. So, uprisings are not unheard of in the search arena.

That’s why Cowell and the rest of the industry is waiting to see how the price comparisons companies react to the launch of Merchant Search.

Figured the title would get Matt’s attention. Okay Matt I need some help. I have been hired by an adult entertainment site to build their presence online - get better rankings etc.

I need to build their inbound links and want to make sure I am not wasting my time and their money. So before I started I did a search for your comments on directory submissions, paid links (well everyone knows that opinion), reciprocal links, bad neighborhoods (of the IP kind - not the seedy parts of towns where my client’s businesses are located) and your example site review post.

So I began to think that I may not be able to do much for them. In general adult content has a bad rap in our industry - the job no one wants to take on for fear of the association - but it is also the industry that has been ‘gaming’ the system for the longest and thus most neighborhoods have been marked bad.

What’s a guy to do Matt?

Directory listings seem to be one way. But how do we really know which ones are still considered any good and are the adult areas of some of the bigger directories taken with a TON of salt?

Could Google set up a Monitored By Google program? Why not give a Good Search Keeping Seal of Approval? Since directories should be an important part of deeper search results, if there was a system or established list maybe the work on one end could help in other areas of the fight against spam.

I know I am going to hear: “Google does not want to classify good and bad” or some variation of that, but we are being told to use no follow - so maybe other rules and system checks could help this.

Given the basis of the Google algorithm is link based and your job is to fight back the constant spamming, some sort of system could help people.

Interestingly, as I did my searches I did find a lot of people using your name to promote themselves, the one by submit edge is particularly good. They are 2 and 3 for Matt Cutts Directory Submissions and offer to get you in to hundreds of directories for a fee. Despite their SEO efforts I am thinking they may not be a good investment.

There are millions of directories, hell I started dozens back in the day. But if you are going to push your way up the rankings you need links.

I want to do it the right way, so am reaching out to you Matt for some advice. I could do a hoax press release about some gossipy fake story - hey include a porn star and a search industry leader (Danny smart move introducing me to your wife now I can’t use you) and I will get a lot of links.

I have read your advice to use common sense when looking at directories but unless I am building the ultimate “good directory list” it is an endless job and one that is still subjective.

Hell, I am sure the people below still do not share the views they once stated:

Rand may not still think:

What does suck, imo, is that Google doesn’t want to recognize more legitimate sources of paid links - I’m not talking about link brokers, but about sponsored links on particular sites or in directories, etc.

The belief that a link should not be counted as a vote if someone paid for it is a very dangerous idea. Imagine the link structure of the web without the influence of paid or monetarily influenced links. It would be a very, very different environment and I wonder if Google really believes it would be a better one. It’s particularly egregious since their business model is serving links to paid sponsors, but they don’t want folks doing it on their blogs or sites unless they add “nofollow” and remove some of the value of that link… Seems highly hypocritical to me.

Jill Whallen:

Come to think of it, it’s just not fair that Google doesn’t want to count my link farm links as links. Google sucks and so does Matt Cutts.

Okay that one was a joke - don’t shoot me Jill.

Time has changed what w do. Would love some insight into where directories stand now as a link building tool.

The theme of Microsoft Advance ‘08 is “Connected Entertainment:” mobile, music, TV/video, gaming. The big Live Search announcement will be covered live tomorrow.

Today, filmmaker James Cameron’s producing partner at Lightstorm Entertainment, Jon Landau said the abundance of digital information and the ability to use technologies opened up a whole new window for Jim didn’t know e3xisted.

James Cameron started making films when they were photochemical emulsions. Now, films are digital.

“The essence of storytelling stays the same,” said Cameron. “Intense CG (computer-generated) scenes with multiple shots doesn’t change that. My greatest horror was the best thing we create would end up like Ark of Covenant and put in a warehouse somewhere. I will make all my films in 3-D. I’ve been banging on the door at Microsoft since I introduced Windows Media 9 with LL Cool J and Bill Gates in 2002. Now I tell them, this is what you guys need to be doing. I’m going to continue to
surf that wave.”

His new film, Avatar, features a man who tries to become a miner by combining his being with an alien during an interplanetary war in which aliens can manifest themselves through human bodies — avatars.

“‘Avatar’ will make people truly experience something,” said Cameron.”One more layer of the suspension of disbelief will be removed. All the syn-thespians are photo-realistic. Now that we’ve achieved it, we discovered CG characters in 3D look more real than in 2D. Your brain is cued it’s a real thing not a picture and discounting part of image that makes it look fake.”

Part of the movie is subtitled because it takes place on alien planet.

Avatar will have a human heart beating at its narrative center. It’s an emotional journey of redemption and revolution; the story of a wounded ex-marine, who’s thrust into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity. He eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival.

Cameron has created an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The film has a December 2009 release date.

“I don’t know whether will be great film from narrative and critical standpoint,” said Cameron. “The experience of Avatar will be an experience unlike any other movies.”

He started with Microsoft Research looking at the way people see. The project soon moved out of the realm of speculation.

“‘Avatar’ is the single most complex piece of filmmaking ever made,” said Cameron. “We have 1,600 shots for a 2.5 hour movie. It’s not with a single CGI character, like King Kong or Gollum. We have hundreds of photo-realistic CG characters. We were Microsoft’s sandbox for filmmaking beyond the cutting edge.”

During the film he would grab chairs, gather his team, and talk about what they were doing wrong, how to do it better. That just isn’t done on a film set.

The heart of the film technology is a digital asset management system created by Microsoft, which was praised by Cameron and Landau for understanding the arts and filmmaking. The system can track every cloud and every blade of CGI grass in the film.

Cameron noted that Titanic was about how technology let us down. He has always tried to be on cutting edge of what’s going on. The Abyss featured the first photo-realistic CG character. Then “The Terminator” combined CG and human actors. “True Lies” pushed the bar even higher with composite technology.

In “Titanic” as a filmmaker, I struck the perfect balance of technology and the human heart,” said Cameron. “I haven’t forgotten that lesson with Avatar. It’s the best lesson for any filmmaker.”

Cameron also noted the radical changes in film distribution and made a prediction for the future:

“I’m on the fourth screen. The giant screen. Then it scatters down to other screens. It gets more interesting as more means of digital distribution become available to us. The interesting thing the actual movie business going strong. If valued up revenues of what’s lost to piracy, movies doing better now than they ever have. You can have HD screen in your home.

He noted, “Windows organized things spatially. That gave it its power. But we’re not displaying things spatially. What could happen is now that digital cinema revolution has taken place is killer app is 3D. Dreamworks has announced all its animated films will be made and projected in 3-D. Gaming will be changed by 3-D. Consumer electronics people will need to make players stereo-enabled monitors. Future version of Windows should be fully stereoscopic. Smaller devices already are 3D enabled without glasses. If you play “Avatar” on a 50 inch monitor, you’re in the game.”

Cameron said, “This is the ultimate immersive media. It’s my fundamental belief that when you’re viewing media in stereo, more neurons are firing, learning rates are higher. Engagement levels are higher. As advertisers, you need to think about how you’re going to use this new dimension. How will you use the deeper levels of engagement?”

Yesterday, Google hosted a “factory tour” of their new search advances. Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience, blogged about the tour on the Official Google Blog. There were three main search areas that she touched on.

1. Image search. Google now offers an “early form of face recognition” in their advanced search. Also, Google is looking at including ads with image search.

2. Geo search. User-generated content (UGC) is critical when it comes to geo search, and Google is working on how to make all of it searchable.

3. User intent. Google hopes to read the minds of searchers by figuring out what they meant to search instead of the actual keywords typed. Wrote Mayer, “You’ll get pictures or maps when that’s what you meant. Understanding user intent also helps us break down language barriers and find the best possible answer regardless of what language it’s in or where it lives on the web.”

Do you think Google is psychic? Let us know if you think Google can pull off “user intent” by leaving a comment!

Related Reading:
Google: Our Brain is Just Fine, Thank You
Google News Clusters: Keep ‘Em Un-Separated
Google Finally Copies Microsoft, Adds ‘Related Searches’ to Google News

Yahoo announced today the general public availability of their SearchMonkey program. This is a program that has been in beta testing with limited partners. It allows the partner to provide Yahoo with structured data that provides advanced information about a web page. This information is then used by Yahoo to influence the presentation of organic search listing results for that page.

This is a very powerful concept in that a modified search listing can surely influence click through rates. Imagine your search listing with an image and several related links built in. Let’s look at a quick example:

You can see additional examples in my interview with Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins. The interview was published this past Monday and focuses on SearchMonkey.

The basic process for creating SearchMonkey applications is straightforward. SearchMonkey supports multiple formats, including microformats, RDFa, eRDF, XML feeds, and APIs such as OpenSearch, so publishers have many options for exposing the data.

In addition, developers can build sophisticated applications into the search results. An example of this is the notion of an InfoBar. With an InfoBar, you can actually put an active control in your search listing result. When users click on the control, you mini application will run and can present additional data that displays inline right on the Yahoo search results page.

Here is what it looks like:

The InfoBar provides a very powerful mechanism for managing complex interactions with users right on the Yahoo search results screen. This should have significant value from a branding and click through perspective.

Here is a summary of the development process:

1. Application Type – Decide what type of app you want to build (Enhanced Result or Infobar) and enter basic info such as application name, description, and icon.
2. Trigger URLs – Decide the URL patterns that will trigger your app.
3. Data Services – Data Services are the structured data on which SearchMonkey apps are based. They can be created using data available in the Yahoo! Search index (via data feeds or page mark-up such as microformats or RDF) or by using APIs or page extraction.
4. Appearance - Use PHP to configure how structured data should appear in the application.

Commentary

Note step 2, the one in which your application gets activated. A critical part of the program will be determining when and where you would like your enhanced result to show up.

One key element of the program is that creating an enhanced result, or an InfoBar, does not mean that all users will be exposed to them. Users need to enable the enhanced listings on a publisher by publisher basis. In addition, users can change their minds later and remove your SearchMonkey application from their results.

I spoke to Amit Kumar, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, this past Tuesday, and he indicated that in the future that select SearchMonkey applications may get exposed to all comers. Applications that are adopted by lots of users, and not remove by many at all would be more likely to make this leap to general availability. This however, is not a certainty.

Amit also told me that Yahoo is going to setup a Gallery of such applications for users. This will be a place where the user can go to select an application and enable it. It will be interesting to see how much exposure the Gallery gets. This will play a critical role in the rate of adoption of these types of results. The publisher can, of course, promote their own application, and try to drive people to sign up for it.

Another thing that Amit emphasized during our conversation was that the effort level for developers to engage with SearchMonkey is quite low. The platform makes it really easy for them to engage. This could play a critical role in broadening adoption.

One thing I learned in my interview with Andrew, and also from his presentation at SES New York, is that building SearchMonkey applications will not help you improve your rankings. The program is not intended to be used for that purpose.

Personally, I’d like to see a stronger move towards exposing some of the applications to all users. This maybe a difficult thing to implement at some level, and it makes it far more susceptible to spam. But it would certainly accelerate the exposure of these types of applications to the general public.

The early action (in terms of users) will likely be driven by early adopters. Then we will need to see how widely it penetrates the market, and how aggressively Yahoo pushes it forward.

That said, this is exciting stuff. I have long been a believer that search engines should get more information from the publishers, in a structured format. Yahoo has taken a big step in that direction with this program.

UPDATE May 20th, 2008:  this has been resolved completely.  A new post has been made.  See:
MediaTemple GS update.
We currently have sites hosted on 4 different companies Mosso Shared Cluster, Hostgator Shared Server, GoDaddy Shared Server and MediaTemple Grid Server. We have been looking to put everything together in one place, but just have not [...]

I just got back from speaking on a multivariate testing panel at eMetrics in San Francisco.

A conversation I had with Marshall Sponder triggered this post. Marshall was bemoaning the fact that web analysts can’t even get “a seat at the table” (i.e. serious consideration) within many companies. To me this was a statement of the obvious. There are three main reasons that web analysts are not taken seriously.

Trying to do too many complicated & custom things

Data mining and analysis is pretty open-ended. A smart person can think up many ways to slice and dice the data. The very word “analyst” conjures up images of complexity. This is “rocket science” and no amount of simplified Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on a customized dashboard for your boss will change that. If you dumb down the data too much then others may jump to the wrong conclusions. If you let them peek under the hood, then the complexity comes roaring back.

Looking in the rearview mirror

Analytics pores over data that was collected in the past. No matter how detailed or insightful it is, it can not necessarily be translated directly into actions because the conditions now may have changed significantly since the data was collected (e.g. traffic mix, seasonal factors, actions of competitors).

Not speaking the language of business

Analysts speak the language of numbers - but unfortunately not the right ones. Management only understands numbers in the context of finance. Does it make more money for us? Does it cut down costs?

So what can a web analyst do to get some respect?

1) Focus on mission-critical projects only - unless it can make a big impact on the business you should not waste your time on it. Intellectual curiosity and “what if” open-ended idea exploration should be limited to a small proportion of your time.

2) Get proactive - You should be working on actionable forward-looking activities such as landing page optimization which can actually lead to significant changes, and will not be filed away and never looked at.

3) Learn to speak in the language of finance - The only numbers that matter to your managers are the financial ones. Once you start presenting your projects and priorities in terms of their contribution to business performance you will get a lot more respect and attention.

You must reinvent yourself - instead of being viewed as a passive “analyst” you should become a business process architect who is relentlessly driven to improve the economics of your company.

If you do these things then you will be much more likely to get a seat at the table.