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You are browsing the search results.

If you need some lift, start dropping pages into Google Knol and Google pages. They show up in the organic results faster than you can get them through Webmaster Central. In today’s SEM Crossfire column, “Google SERP Bias? Google Knols Best,” Frank Watson and Chris Boggs discuss the limitations of Google’s algorithms, and its hypocritical stances on some web spam topics.

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This morning the Guardian UK published a scathing analysis of Google, SEO and the launch of Cuil. In his article, Chris Williams claimed that the greatest threat to Google is spam. No argument there.

But Williams takes the argument one step further and states:

Plenty of digital ink has been needlessly spilt this week over the launch of the suicidally-monikered new search engine Cuil.com. But the only threat to Google is itself and, in a roundabout way, the legion of spammers and “search engine optimisation” (SEO) consultants that buttress its dominance.

It’s clear that Williams is crying over “spilt ink.” He’s right in saying that Web sites have adapted their design and structure to accommodate Google.

But Williams would like to think that all companies - including competing search engines - are in the business of “reverse engineering” Google.

The people at the vanguard of reverse-engineering Google are not its jealous search rivals. They’re the spammers and SEO consultants. They have driven an ever-closer relationship between the quirks and whims of Google’s algorithms and policies, and the structure and content of the web. It’s a feedback loop that was unavoidable once Google’s early rivals proved unable to respond to its better search results and presentation.

He feels that techniques such as “adding needless internal links, creating PageRank-friendly URLs and distorting normal grammar” are all widely deployed with varying degrees of dastardliness.

While grammar may be distorted, the fault doesn’t lie with SEOs but with writers lacking sufficient command of the English language.

Somehow Williams connects Google’s share of searches with SEO efforts, rather than user preference. If that’s the case, then SEO must be producing superior SERPs.

Williams writes, “Thanks to the mutualistic process driven by spammers and SEO consultants, that dominance is only going to increase, and it’s the only ‘Google Killer’ on the horizon.”

Williams envisions a future “when the favours spammers and SEO consultants have been doing for Larry and Sergey will become dangerous, anti-trust style.” He believes regulatory intervention now seems the only bar to a complete Google autocracy over the Web economy.

Today TechCrunch reported on the birth of a new search engine: Yuil. Now Yuil is dead.

Yuil (pronounced yule) was a short-lived Yahoo-powered mashup designed to look like Cuil.

Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup — something of a search engine Frankenstein monster — was destroyed by its inventor.

Yuil was designed by Yahoo VP of Platforms, Sam Pullara. Yuil was a brilliant marketing move designed to show off the new Yahoo BOSS API. BOSS gives developers a high level of control over SERPs generated by Yahoo’s search engine.

The primary difference between the Yahoo Boss API, and the standard API-based engines is the ability to manipulate and reorder the results.

When it comes to SEO, there is one thing that we can never overlook. That is, content writing. I am a strong believe in SEO techniques and other strategies that help you get on the top of SERPs. However, I also believe that the bottom line is having great content. You [...]

This morning investment bank Collins Stewart hosted a confrerence call for clients who wanted to learn more about Microsoft Live Search Cashback.

The buzz and excitement surrounding the Cashback launch has been palpable.

CNET has coverage of the Microsoft Live Search Cashback call this morning.

What’s truly brilliant about Microsoft’s move: share of searches is the most watched index of search engine success. What matters most, though, is the quality of those searches.

The most valuable searches are commercial searches. Helping satisfy the collective curiosity of a nation is, at times, a noble mission. Most searches, though, tend to be news and gossip-related.

While it’s great for the online tabloid industry, there’s not much value in being the go-to search engine for the Gossip Girl and lad mag crowd. Does a search engine really care if it delivers the best results for “elke the stallion,” gyrotonics, and “la rag mag?”

Microsoft wants all Americans who receive a $600 rebate check to think of Live.com search first. If you’re going to spend money online, what’s the most relevant result?

The SERP that delivers value, savings and bargains.

When it comes to SEO techniques and their implementation, many people tend to focus on the goal of having their URL come out at the top of the SERPs. And why not? We all want our sites to come up when someone types in a keyword or key phrase that is relevant to [...]

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Has there been a change in the SERPs? You might find out about it first - from Twitter.

Twitter has been breaking all sorts of news lately, from weather events to earthquakes. Now, it’s becoming a great source for finding out about possible search engine updates.

This morning, I read the following:

@alscillitani: anyone else noticing their rankings change several times over the last 24 hours in google. Up, down, back to up, ??? weird!!

@danlondon: @alscillitani I am seeing a few rankings bounce around. what is up?

This is a great way for Search Engine Marketers to put social media to use. It’s easy to think that social media must be used for marketing and sales, but remember that tools like Twitter are great for networking and keeping up with the industry.

What are your thoughts on Twitter and search engine marketing? Let us know by leaving a comment!

Related Reading:
Is Twitter the New Google Alternative?
Twitter and Search

On Thursday, Google Research engineers presented a paper at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing on PageRank for Google Images (pdf) to improve search results for photos, art and graphics. The system promises better image results than are currently available when searching in Google Images and may eventually improve Google Universal Search SERPs.

Key takeaways: Google’s breakthrough uses the “wisdom of the crowd” and contextual signals to rank the relevancy of images. VisualRank does not improve on a search engine’s ability to identify people or determine activities in a photo. The biggest benefits will be reduction of duplicate image content in search results and reduction of “image spam” or inappropriately tagged photos.

This morning The NY Times reported on the new ranking algorithm that identifies and analyzes “authority” nodes and “visual link structure” between a group of images. As with PageRank, images are assigned numbers to define their relevance and relative importance.

Google conducted a series of experiments by retrieving images for 2,000 of the most popular products queries in Google. Users in the experiments were more satisfied by the results and felt they were more relevant.

The Google SERP image shown here displays top ranking results for a group of queries. You can judge for yourself how intuitive and relevant the results are. Google notes an interesting result for the query “Picasso Paintings”; not only are all the images by Picasso, one of his most famous, “Guernica”, was selected first.

We’re assuming the search queries related to the product, “Febreze” were spelled correctly, unlike the typo in the paper misspelled as: “Fabreze.” The current Google image results for keyword “fabreze” are quite different.

Winners: Trademark owners of big brands and commercial products

Losers: All those people who spent innumerable hours tagging photos in Google Image Labeler:

All-time Top Google Image Labeler Contributors
1. SunChaser has 22,961,020 points
2. Zip has second with 22,353,450 points
3. FrD AUTO no car has 15,460,240 points
4. MC DUDE no man has a close 15,350,830 points
5. Mighty is hot on the heels of MC DUDE: 15,339,300 points

Google believes a Web page author will likely choose relevant images for a topic. People, though, don’t typically link to content based on the relevance of images. People link to text.

Google gives an example of an ambiguous query (McDonalds) with a logo that can be identified in photos that link commercial searches. That’s a “visual theme” or ‘visual signal” among all the photos. There may be lots of other themes that can define the relative “strength” of common and commercial images.

In terms of overall performance on queries, the proposed VisualRank displayed fewer irrelevant images than Google for 762 queries. Google’s standard image search producee better results in only 70 search results. In the remaining 202 queries, both approaches tied. Google notes in the majority of these queries, there were no irrelevant images).