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Microsoft is today launching a new incentive program for Live Search. The program is called SearchPerks, and it works very much like a credit card reward program.

Every time you search, you earn tickets. You can earn up to 25 tickets a day. Tickets can later be redeemed for all sorts of rewards including music downloads (5 for 525 points) and airline miles (1000 miles for 1800 tickets).

Here’s how it works. Sign up for the program, and download a simple piece of code. That will give you a Perk Counter for your desktop.

You can begin earning tickets today, October 1, all the way through April 15th of next year. You can begin claiming your rewards on April 16. However, you can only sign up for the program through December 31, 2008 and the program is capped at 250,000 people.

Microsoft will be evaluating the program and could possible expand it if all goes well.

Microsoft’s Frederick Savoye, senior director at Live Search, assured me that this is an incentive program that fits into their three overall pillars of search:

• Delivering the best search results
• Simplifying key tasks such as booking airline, travel, shopping, finding user opinions, etc.
• Innovating the business model

So while programs like SearchPerks and Cashback may seem like Microsoft is just trying to pay people off to use Live Search, the team remains strongly devoted to improving technology and the user experience.

What do you think of this program? Will you sign up? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Google had been doing a series of posts about search quality. Today, the latest post in the series discusses how evaluation enters into the the process.

Scott Huffman, Engineering Director, gave four insights into the nuances of difficulty experienced in search evaluation:

• First, understanding what a user really wants when they type a query — the query’s “intent” — can be very difficult. For highly navigational queries like [ebay] or [orbitz], we can guess that most users want to navigate to the respective sites. But how about [olympics]? Does the user want news, medal counts from the recent Beijing games, the IOC’s homepage, historical information about the games, … ? This same exact question, of course, is faced by our ranking and search UI teams. Evaluation is the other side of that coin.
• Second, comparing the quality of search engines (whether Google versus our competitors, Google versus Google a month ago) is never black and white. It’s essentially impossible to make a change that is 100% positive in all situations; with any algorithmic change you make to search, many searches will get better and some will get worse.
• Third, there are several dimensions to “good” results. Traditional search evaluation has focused on the relevance of the results, and of course that is our highest priority as well. But today’s search-engine users expect more than just relevance. Are the results fresh and timely? Are they from authoritative sources? Are they comprehensive? Are they free of spam? Are their titles and snippets descriptive enough? Do they include additional UI elements a user might find helpful for the query (maps, images, query suggestions, etc.)? Our evaluations attempt to cover each of these dimensions where appropriate.
• Fourth, evaluating Google search quality requires covering an enormous breadth. We cover over a hundred locales (country/language pairs) with in-depth evaluation. Beyond locales, we support search quality teams working on many different kinds of queries and features. For example, we explicitly measure the quality of Google’s spelling suggestions, universal search results, image and video searches, related query suggestions, stock oneboxes, and many, many more.

Not sure if I’m buying that Olympics example. Google didn’t do a great job with the Beijing Olympics, and surely their algorithm could handle serving up more relevant search results during the time surrounding the event.

I’m not saying that search query intent evaluation is easy, just that the Olympics query is not quite as problematic as Google is making it out to be.

The rest of the points are things we’ve been hearing from Google for a long time. We know they’re progressing on universal and personalization search efforts, all in their famous intent to create the best user experience.

So, what methods does Google employ to address these evaluations? Huffman offered up the following:

• Human evaluators. Google makes use of evaluators in many countries and languages. These evaluators are carefully trained and are asked to evaluate the quality of search results in several different ways. We sometimes show evaluators whole result sets by themselves or “side by side” with alternatives; in other cases, we show evaluators a single result at a time for a query and ask them to rate its quality along various dimensions.
• Live traffic experiments. We also make use of experiments, in which small fractions of queries are shown results from alternative search approaches. Ben Gomes talked about how we make use of these experiments for testing search UI elements in his previous post. With these experiments, we are able to see real users’ reactions (clicks, etc.) to alternative results.

What do you think of Google’s search evaluation? What evaluations would you like to see them conduct? Discuss in the comments.

Last week, online video search engine blinkx, apparently feeling inspired by Microsoft, made an unsolicited bid to acquire online advertising company, MIVA.

MIVA has responded by saying Thanks but No Thanks. Here’s the official word:

“After careful evaluation, the MIVA Board believes that blinkx’s proposal significantly undervalues MIVA’s assets, including our technology, brand recognition and network,” said Larry Weber, MIVA’s Chairman of the Board. “We don’t believe that the proposal, as currently constituted, is in the best interests of our shareholders. The Board of Directors continues to evaluate all of MIVA’s strategic options in the context of our industry and the broader business environment and remains committed to evaluating and considering offers that maximize shareholder value.”

Yahoo mailed a letter to shareholders outlining the reasons the Board believes Microsoft’s proposal significantly undervalues Yahoo and isn’t in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders.

In the missive Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang emphasizes its strong brand, financial strength, strategic investments, technology, and relationships with marketers, reminding shareholders the company holds a leadership position.

The upside for Yahoo without Microsoft? Not surprisingly, Yang sees “a huge market opportunity” in the $45 billion online advertising market projected to grow to $75 billion in 2010.

A copy of the letter from CEO Jerry Yang follows:

Dear Stockholders,

On February 1, 2008, Microsoft made an unsolicited proposal to acquire your company. As much has been reported in the press recently, I wanted to reach out to you personally to let you know why your Board of Directors, after a careful review by Yahoo!’s management along with our financial and legal advisors, believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! and is not in the best interests of our stockholders.

Most importantly, I want you to know that your Board is continuously evaluating all of Yahoo!’s strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment, and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all our stockholders.

We have a unique combination of strengths

– Yahoo! is one of the most recognizable and admired brands in the world. We have over 500 million users (nearly 1 out of every 2 internet users worldwide). In the U.S., we are # 1 in many of the most used online services including personalized home pages, mail, news, music, shopping and travel. Because we have leadership positions in so many indispensable online services, users spend more time on Yahoo! sites than anywhere else online.

– Yahoo! is an attractive partner for marketers. Yahoo! is #1 in online display advertising, which represents 90% of the advertising inventory on the web, and we are also a leader in search marketing and a pioneer in the growing fields of mobile advertising and online video advertising. Through Yahoo!, advertisers can now connect with consumers on our owned sites as well as those of our growing network of partners including eBay, Comcast, AT&T, a consortium of over 600 newspapers, Forbes.com, Cars.com, WebMD and more.

Click to read the rest of this post…

As expected, the Yahoo board of directors has rejected Microsoft’s unsolicited bid to acquire the company. In a statement, the board said that the proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo or its stockholders:

After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments. The Board of Directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders.

The board did not mention whether any of the “strategic options” it’s exploring include Google or AOL, both of which are rumored to have been in talks with Yahoo to discuss some form of partnership or merger. In a Google-partnership scenario, Yahoo might outsource some or all of its search and search advertising operations to Google. AOL doesn’t have its own search index, but licenses Google’s, so an AOL tie-up would likely see Yahoo keep its search and search ad operations.

AOL has been investing heavily in advertising technology, adding Tacoda (behavioral targeting), AdTech (ad serving, big in Europe), Lightningcast (video ads), Quigo (contextual ads) and Third Screen Media (mobile ads) to its newly formed Platform A business, built on the base of Advertising.com.

In this evolutionary algorithmic age every search marketer charged with boosting rankings on the organic SERPs knows, with fearful certainty, that building inbound links is essential. Utilizing social media communities to do so is a front-and-center tactic for many.

Sure, we’re all aware of mainstream players like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Propeller, etc…

However, there are hundreds of social communities other than the biggies. These niche’ player-communities can be terrific venues to engage readers of similar ilk, make friends, drive focused micro-busts of traffic, and build links. Some communities are junk. This post offers niche’ social site examples and provides links to lists which index and profile dozens of useful ones.

Dofollow and Nofollow
A quick word about Do/No follow. Most blogs (and many communities) these days attempt to discourage spam by removing "link-juice" passed on links dropped in discussion threads. That’s called "Nofollow." (Wikipedia is a classic example of Nofollow.) Nofollow links deliver traffic but there’s no SEO benefit. If you view the source code of this page, you’ll see that some of the social site links are Nofollow and therefore do not pass energy.

When evaluating the potential benefit of social community participation, it’s best practice to understand the objective and potential gain. Whenever a site, with decent Pagerank, "forgets" to turn off Dofollow, it’s an opportunity of sorts to build links of varying strength and value. The most important caveat is that gratuitous link dropping, without offering true value to the community, is spam and will likely be treated as such.

Every search marketing professional knows that garnering good quality, relevant, and "natural" inbound links to your site or blog is critical to drive your SEO ranking efforts. Honest participation in niche’ social communities, relevant to your product & services, is the tactic that many savvy SEMs reach for to build their site’s inbound link-profile. In addition to the community site links themselves, “hot” posts can result in feed subscriptions, increased readership, and links from other relevant and valuable sites.

Fark is a social news site in which moderators approve user link-submissions and post them to the homepage. The links are Nofollow but can drive noticeable traffic.

Slashdot is a community where techno-heads hang out and geek-jam. However, users submit stories about entertainment, politics, and other fun stuff. If editors approve a submission and it’s promoted the homepage, measurable traffic can result. Also, links in the body of each post are Dofollow and pass juice.

Metafilter is a moderated community, both by site administers and users, in which participants share interesting web content. Links are Dofollow.

Mixx is widely regarded as an up-and-comer in the social news world. A potentially mainstream Digg replacement site, many SEM folks had early-adopter Mixx profiles for fun and future marketing bang. Oh yes, they forget to turn off Dofollow so the links pass juice.

Hugg is a smaller community engaged in dialog surrounding environmental issues. There’s social exchanges about technology, politics, and science as well. Links are Dofollow.

Sk*rt is a Dofollow PR 5 fashion, food, and technology community, primarily comprised of females.

Stirr’dup is a smaller NoFollow social news site which categorizes news as technology, entertainment, news and politics.

Linkinn is a PR5 site specializing in offbeat video and pictures. Links are DoFollow and pass juice.

Lists of Useful Social Media Sites:

48 Social News Websites: A List of General and Niche Social Media Communities
Tropical SEO: Top 38 Niche Social Media Sites (That Actually Send Traffic)

Respected blogger Sugarrae has posted a serious interview with industry leading link-building experts and is a must-read. Interviews include:
Eric Ward, the Link Moses behind URL Wire
Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz
Roger Montti, the founder and owner of martinibuster.com
Todd Malicoat of Stuntdubl and Clientside
Justilien Gaspard, Link Columnist for SearchEngineWatch.com, his link building blog and course author SEMPO Institute
Aaron Wall of SEO Book and Clientside SEM
Debra Mastaler of Alliance Link and the The Link Spiel
Michael Gray of the Graywolf SEO Blog
Andy Hagans, the lazy SEO of the Tropical SEO Blog
Jim Boykin of We Build Pages and Internet Marketing Ninjas
Rae Hoffman, CEO of Sugarrae and MFE Interactive

If you want to build up investment interest in your SEO/SEM firm, you have to make your company compelling enough to separate capital from capitalists.

SES Chicago returns, and WebProNews is on hand to bring you reports and videos from the Windy City. Enjoy our coverage this week.
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