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Here is the continuation of the previous post on some of the best – and easiest – SEO tips. There are actually ten of them in the whole article at About.com but I am only choosing the ones that I myself have done and can attest to. Here goes.
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A month ago, LinkedIn unveiled its new search platform. Now they’re rolling it out to their 31 million users.

Here’s what you can look forward to in the new search platform:

Suggestive Search - When you type into the search box, a list of suggested names from your contacts pops up. You can select one of the names without having to type in the whole thing. I think this might come in handy when you’re having a hard time remembering a name. Maybe you remember the first letter or the first name, but the rest of it just isn’t coming to you - this can help.

Streamlined Search Results - LinkedIn changed the design to make it easier to scan the results. They also added photos. Results can be sorted by relevance, which includes the social graph, or by relationship, relationship + recommendations, and keyword.

Customizable Views Users can determine what info they want returned in their search results. Just click the “Views” drop down menu (next to the “Sort” drop down menu at the top of the results). You can decide whether you want to view headlines, photos, locations and more of the people returned in a search.

Take Action Straight from the Search Results When you mouse over a result, you’ll notice links that let you take action. You can send InMail, get introduced (through a common contact), or add that person to your network.

Modify Your Search On the right hand side of the results, you’ll notice a form where you can type in additional information to narrow your search down and pinpoint it to more exact specifications. You can search by name, job title, company location, and school.

Save Your Search If you want to return to the results, you can save your search. This is a good idea if you’ve modified your search or customized your view.

Check out this video to get a good visual for all of the above:

Of course, you’ll need to be signed in to LinkedIn to take advantage of all the features in the new platform. Not LinkedIn yet? Our own Carrie Hill explained why you need to be in her article, Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn.

Head over to LinkedIn and give the new search a test drive. Then come back and let us know what you think in the comments.

Seems Microsoft is moving to finalize the renaming of Live Search to Kumo, according to LiveSide.net. The possibility has been discussed at various times this year.

Renaming and branding moves by search engines have not had much luck. Ask.coms removal of Jeeves seemed to hurt them, FindWhat and eSpotting merger and rename to Miva definitely impacted the companies, so there is data for not making the changes.

True GoClick to Overture went okay - but then they had a great product in a growing market - just like BackRub and Google…. but that was really prepublic launch.

If the move goes through will be well worth tracking.

Microsoft is attempting to pull the rug out from under Google’s talks with Verizon to be the default search engine on its mobile phones. And they’re doing so by dishing out the dough.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has a bunch of cash on hand. They’ve been using some of it to create incentive programs like Cashback and SearchPerks to essentially pay people to search.

Now, it looks like they’re willing to shell out some green by offering Verizon a larger piece of the revenue-sharing pie than Google has thus far offered.

Could this be why Google was unwilling to spend moolah on a costly court battle defending its now-defunct search advertising deal with Yahoo? Both Google and Yahoo said they could have won the suit, but Google declined to pursue it.

Could this be why Steve Ballmer is saying he’s not interested in acquiring Yahoo anymore (depsite the blue light special)?

Mobile is hot and it’s only going to get hotter. Becoming the default search engine on the largest mobile carrier in the U.S. (Verizon recently won approval for their acquisition of Alltel) is prime real estate indeed.

Jerry Yang told attendees at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday that a deal with Microsoft is still the best option for Yahoo.

To which I say: Then why didn’t you accept the $31 per share acquisition offer made earlier this year?

And then I read this: “People who know me know I don’t have an ego about remaining independent versus not remaining independent.”

Wow. I have to admit that asking for $35-37 per share earlier this year seemed a bit egotistical on the “Let’s stay independent front.”

To be fair, with both sides having slung a fair amount of mud, it is difficult to know what really went down. And really, any CEO who isn’t at least somewhat egotistical about his own company isn’t worth his weight in gold.

Matters of ego aside, it seems that a white flag might be flying over the Sunnyvale campus. Now, we’ll wait to see just how low that Yahoo stock goes before the white knight of Microsoft comes by to do the rescuing.

Major hat tip to TechCrunch for sharing with the world a way to link to a certain time point within a video on YouTube.

Take for example this video of a clip from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ

If you wanted to share the link but have the video start 56 seconds in where the film cuts away from Ginger Rogers in the Senate Gallery to Jimmy Stewart’s character speaking and barely standing as part of a filibuster, then you would simply add:

#t=0m56s

Those aren’t random letters and numbers. Put the minute number before the letter ‘m’ and the seconds number before the letter ’s’ to direct people to the portion of the video you desire.

Now the link is

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ#t=0m56s

Related Reading:
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YouTube to Launch New ‘HotSpots’ Feature

Yahoo had its third quarter earnings call yesterday and the news wasn’t pretty. I’m not really sure how much the economy can really be blamed for how dismal the news was. Search advertising should be one of the last sectors within advertising as a whole to be affected by the economy.

Here’s something else to consider: While companies are looking to streamline their operations in order to save costs, they often look to technology. Companies like Google who are investing in cloud computing or other technologies that create efficiencies are making the most of this unique opportunity and coming out ahead. They beat the street with their Q3 earnings. Apple had a good earnings call yesterday with their sales of laptops and iPhones.

So when you read the quote by Jerry Yang blaming the economy, don’t be surprised if your eyes roll.

We already know that Yahoo is cutting 10% of its workforce. But many have been saying for a long time that the workforce was already bloated. I feel for the Yahoo’s because it is maddening to work at a place where layoffs are imminent. Productivity goes down and everyone speculates whose job is safe and who needs a box for their things.

The press release with all the data points for the earnings is below. All the major news organizations are focused squarely on the 64% decline in net income.

Click to read the rest of this post…

Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, will be giving the opening keynote at Search Engine Strategies Chicago on Monday, Dec. 8, 2008. The title of his keynote is “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”

And, if you read the description of Professor Lessig’s keynote in the conference agenda, it says: “The content industry has convinced industry in general that extremism in copyright regulation is good for business and economic growth. That’s false. In this talk, Professor Lessig describes the creative and profitable future that culture and industry could realize, if only we gave up IP extremism.”

What is he getting at?

Well, “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy” also happens to be the title of Professor Lessig’s new book, which just went on sale on Amazon.com.

And, according to the editorial reviews on Amazon.com, “The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children — and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form — with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable ‘hybrid economy’.”

It goes on to say that Professor Lessig, who is the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, “spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war — a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art.” It adds, “America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.”

How does it do that? Well, Professor Lessig argues that “biting” riffs from films, videos, or songs shouldn’t be crimes. Why? It makes felons out of some of today’s most talented artists.

Professor Lessig argues that the way to end this war is to embrace what he calls the “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it. And he can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” evident in such websites as Wikipedia and YouTube.

Wow. That’s strong stuff. And, if we play buzzword bingo at SES Chicago 2008, then there are a couple arcane business concepts that we can use on our bingo cards.

But, this short blurb may not do justice to Professor Lessig. So, I emailed him some questions about the topic of his opening keynote. And he emailed me his answers — quickly, I might add.

Here is our Q&A:

Q: Who benefits and who is harmed by extremism in copyright regulation?

A: Benefits: Lawyers (certainly). The record companies (maybe). Harmed: Artists, businesses, consumers — and a generation of (criminalized) kids.

Q: What are the “read-write culture” and the “hybrid economy”?

A: A RW culture is one where ordinary people are empowered to participate in the creation and recreation of their culture. Every culture in human history has been RW, save for a few dark years in the 20th century.

A hybrid is a commercial entity that tries to leverage value out of a sharing economy, or a sharing economy that tries to use a commercial entity to support it. Either way, two radically different cultures need to learn how to work together with each other.

Q: When will this war on our kids stop, the “read-write culture” be reborn, and the “hybrid economy” start to flourish?

A: When policy makers are woken up to the extraordinary cost this war is imposing.

Q: Where can we already see glimmers of a new “hybrid economy” that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy”?

A: I think everywhere around us. All of the interesting Internet businesses today are hybrid: Flickr, Second Life, Yelp!, even Amazon builds much of its business from the sharing activity of its customers.

Q: Why is IP extremism bad for business and economic growth?

A: Practice moderation. When the lawyers in the room start insisting that the licenses you create must impose perfect control over everything you have, ask them to prove it. Ask them to demonstrate that the business return from that relationship of antagonism is higher than its cost. Don’t give over your business’ future to those who don’t think like a business man or woman. Keep focused on the only undeniable truth: IP is an asset. Like any business asset, it should be deployed to maximize the value of the corporation.

Let me add that I’ve watched the 19-minute-long video of Professor Lessig speaking at last year’s TED Conference as well as the 4-minute 35 second video from OpenSourceCinema which is embedded below. So, I am confident that he will rock the house at Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

Lessig Remix

Professor Lessig was also named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing “against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.” He’s on the board of the Creative Commons project has served on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.

In other words, he’s a speaker worth coming to SES Chicago to hear. And, yes, I do think I’ll put some of his arcane business concepts on a buzzword bingo card.

Google Translate has released a few updates to help you translate, or not, your pages for your site visitors.

First up is a widget that you can place on your site to offer visitors translation via Google Translate. It’s very Google branded, so that may deter some, but here’s what it looks like:

Secondly, there are code snippets available if you do NOT want Google to be able to translate your page or certain parts of a page.

class=notranslate is available for any html element. Here’s an example:

For an entire page, use meta tags like this:

Available languages include:

Arabic
• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Chinese
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Filipino
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
• Serbian
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese

Related Reading:
Google Translate Adds 11 Languages
Google Translate Goes Live with Human Translators
Google Webmaster Central Updates Include API Settings and Crawl Error Sources

Click Forensics has announced a new feature for its solution for advertisers. The feature enables brands to identify and track campaigns that are unlawfully using their trademarked terms. Click Forensics says the trend of trademark infringement in pay-per-click advertising and growing, and marketers need the ability to address the problem more quickly.

“The impact of trademark infringement in search advertising goes beyond consumer annoyance,” said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. “It’s affecting the advertising budgets of major brands as they’re forced to spend more money to get the high-quality search traffic that is rightly theirs. We’re helping to change that by giving brands a tool they can use to fight back.”

What do you think of the new feature? Let us know in the comments.

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