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In August, Americans went online at work to get sports info 26% more year-over-year, thanks largely in part to the Olympics and Fantasy Football. Yahoo! Sports enjoyed a whopping 112% growth, putting them in the top spot for the month, according to Nielsen Online

Also of note, visits from women jumped 37% while traffic growth from men increased by 21%.

Here’s the chart:

Related Reading:
Yahoo Wins Gold Medal for Online Olympic Traffic
NBC’s Olympic Fool’s Gold; Google Comes Home Empty-Handed
Online Olympic Traffic Soars; Mobile Viewing Habits Form
ConnectU Co-Founders Place 6th in Olympics Rowing

comScore has released UK search engine share data for June 2008. Here’s how it breaks down:

Other notable findings from June 2008:

• There were 3.9 billion total searches conducted in the U.K. during the month.
• 31 million U.K. Internet users conducted at least one search.
• U.K. searchers conducted an average of 124 searches per searcher during the month, or 4.1 searches per day.
• U.K. searchers made a combined total of 937 billion visits to a search engine in May, with an average of 4.1 searches per visit.

AOL has announced that its online advertising solution, Platform-A, will offer a guaranteed CPM to third party developers creating Bebo and Facebook applications. But the guarantee comes with a catch: it’s only good for the first three impressions for each unique U.S. visitor who visits an approved developer’s application.

Boasting one of the highest CPMs in the industry, AOL says the offer is part of WIDGNET™ publisher network launched earlier this year by Platform-A’s Advertising.com. WIDGNET brings advertisers and third party developers of widgets and social networking applications together.

“This announcement reinforces Platform-A’s commitment to helping developers generate revenue and monetize their Bebo and Facebook applications in the rapidly evolving social networking space. Advertiser interest in social networks is rising at a steady rate, and Platform-A is making an unprecedented flat-fee commitment to help application developers generate revenue and guarantee monetization of their applications,” said Dave Jacobs, Senior Vice President of Publisher Services, Platform-A Advertising.com Networks. “Platform-A views social networking applications as an area where we can add significant value by letting developers focus on expanding their install base, without worrying about monetization of applications.”

Earlier this year, AOL acquired Bebo for $850 million.

Search engine marketers in the US tend to look West when trying to spot new SEM trends. As Frederick Jackson Turner first observed back in 1893, the frontier has always had a significant influence on American perceptions.

But, if you stare into the sunset too long, you might not see the other “new frontier” North of the Canada-United States border that’s also shaping search engine marketing trends. While Search Engine Strategies Toronto ended last week, I’m still sorting through some of the new SEM trends that I spotted by looking in a different direction.

One of the more intriguing trends that I noticed was this one: More than 80 employees of the Yellow Pages Group (YPG), Canada’s largest directory publisher, attended SES Toronto. YPG also owns and manages Canada’s most visited online directories, YellowPages.ca and Canada411.ca, so the company is no stranger to local search or Search Engine Strategies Toronto.

Now, I’ve often encouraged SES alumni as well as first time attendees of Search Engine Strategies to “bring a couple of colleagues along with you” to an upcoming SEM conference. And I’ve seen companies send teams of more than a dozen people to other SES conferences. But, I’ve never seen a group quite as large as the one I saw at SES Toronto last week.

So, I tracked down one of the key players behind this new trend. His name is Darby Sieben and he’s the Director of Online Services at the Yellow Pages Group. You can watch my interview with Darby on the SES Conference Expo channel on YouTube.

Yellow Pages’ Darby Sieben at SES Toronto 2008

Or you can read my interview with Darby Sieben of the Yellow Pages Group below. He has some very interesting insights into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Q: The Yellow Pages directory story started 100 years ago by connecting Canadian buyers with sellers. YellowPages.ca went online in 1995. Has the Internet dramatically changed the way people approach the shopping experience?

A: Yes and No. By this I mean, the need of connecting buyers and sellers has not changed and never will. The way in which they go about doing it has changed and will continue to evolve and the Internet is only one way. Consumers are more complex today and depending on the need and particular circumstances will connect using a combination of ways including print, internet, voice, mobile, etc. The key piece of advice to a SME in this evolving world is to understand that this is about syndication of their information across multiple media platforms.

Q: According to comScore Media Metrix, the Yellow Pages Group reaches 41% of all online Canadians — and ranks #8 out of the top properties in Canada. In the United States, the SuperPages.com Network reaches about 16% of all online Americans and ranks about #21 out of the top properties in the United States. What’s going on in the Great White North?

A: The main difference between Canada and the US is the fact that the Yellow Pages brand in Canada is trademarked; we are the sole owners and users of the brand. In the US, the value and strength of the brand has been diluted as there is confusion. Second, I believe we are a very progressive directory player. We were the first to sign a deal to license data to Google, we work with all the major search players and we continue to push the envelope on technologies such as our 411 voice services, SMS, IM and our mobile platforms. Syndication of our advertiser’s information is very important. We believe in the anywhere, anytime and on any platform to get information.

Q: The content and keywords found in a print advertisement in the Yellow Pages Group and contained in a business profile on YellowPages.ca are fully searchable on the web and made available to your online partner network including Google, MSN and Yahoo! Isn’t that that a strange brew?

A: We don’t think so. If we examine a key barrier to search, that would be content. YP.ca and the search players are only as good as content that is digitized. The issue is that half of Canadian SME’s don’t have a website. We view print as the start of a very incredible journey for a SME because it contains very important pieces of content that consumers look for in the buying process. Those ads get digitized; keywords extracted, bucketized and distributed on YP.ca for our users as well as being pushed to search engines who index. It creates some incredible synergies and creates an ROI for our advertisers. To add one point here – a few years back we launched an initiative called the WebNumber. This is where we have mapped every phone number in our directory to a URL. For example – http://7804517857.yp.ca (this is the phone number for a Harley Davidson Dealership in Edmonton, Alberta). If you type that URL in – you land on their merchant page and can see their video and a host of rich content about that business. Many of our clients will register a domain name and simply point it to their page instead of investing in expensive design services.

Q: More than 80 people from the Yellow Pages Group attended Search Engine Strategies Toronto last week. Why did you bring everyone except the McKenzie brothers to the conference?

A: Well Bob and Doug are launching a cartoon version of their hit from SCTV to be aired this fall, so they were unavailable. On a serious note it is all about further learning’s and understanding. In 2007 we signed Canada’s first reseller agreement with Google and have bundled AdWords with our print and YellowPages.ca advertising. We also launched last year full customized search marketing solutions based on a budget spend and have been testing and continue to sell a guaranteed clicks product. To really become the CMO for small businesses you need to understand all sources of generating results for your customer.

Q: You mentioned that you are bundling Google with your print and YellowPages.ca advertising – isn’t Google considered a competitor?

A: We are definitely in a world of cooperative competition. You referenced ComScore earlier; here is a key fact that best explains the strategy. If we examine the unduplicated audience between Google Maps and our properties – what you realize is that there is a significant boost in audience reach. Both of us have around 31-32% reach and combined we reach over 50% - that is incredible for any SME who is looking to be placed in the path of consumers when they are making buying decisions. One thing I would like to add is that in terms of the purchase funnel – YellowPages.ca generates a very high ROI because by the time users come to us they tend to already know what they want to buy or are very close to a buying decision and need to do some comparisons. We tend to be further down the purchase funnel than search engines and the measurement for SME’s has to go beyond clicks to include phone calls and store visits. As we often say, nobody comes to YellowPages.ca to surf they come to buy and this remains a key focus for us.

Earlier today, we brought you news of Google’s new media measurement tool. The official announcement has been published on the Inside Adwords blog. The new tool will be called Ad Planner (yes, there is a space between the two words), and is in a private, invitation-only beta. You can request an invitation, if you’re interested.

Ad Planner was developed for media planners in the hopes of creating a better connection between advertisers and publishers. Here’s how it works: Media planners enter their target audience demographics as well as sites that their audience already visits. Ad Planner will use the data to determine what other sites the target audience is visiting. The list of sites will include those on and off the Google Content Network.

The data can then be used to create plans, which can be exported via CSV. You can also export data to DoubleClick’s MediaVisor, another media planning platform. Google completed its acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this year.

Here’s what the Ad Planner platform will look like:

What do you think of Ad Planner? Will you request an invitation? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Well, it’s almost 5 months later now, (thanks for all of the supportive comments), and things are going a lot better. We got a wheelchair ramp built, help from several family members (so I don’t have to come over every day any more), and even bi-weekly visits from nurses. So the situation with [...]

Yahoo! Buzz updated with new features last night. Among them are:

• “Top Buzz” widget for any publishers interested in expanding their content offerings by displaying the top articles across Yahoo! Buzz (or within specific categories)
• “First Buzzed By” indicators (showing who was the first to Buzz an item) and personal
• RSS feeds for top Buzz stories overall, as well as within specific categories

Meanwhile, new publishers have been signing up to Yahoo! Buzz including:

• AskMen.com
• ThePanelist.com
• Venture Beat

And it’s no wonder publishers are jumping on the Yahoo! Buzz bandwagon. So far, the service has sent almost 50 million referrals to their subset of publishers from the “Buzzing Now” links that appear on the “Featured” section on the homepage. Some highlights:

• After being featured on Yahoo.com, HowStuffWorks.com received nearly 1 million total visits for its story on “How the Aptera Hybrid Works.”
• In part as a result of being featured on Yahoo.com, RollingStone.com reached its highest page view traffic of Q1 2008 on March 11, 2008. The highlighted “buzzing” story on the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame received over 700,000 visits from Yahoo.com, resulting in over 2.4 million page views.

In a world where more Web transactions require multiple site visits, a measurement of satisfaction can tell you the likelihood of a visitor coming back to your site when they’re ready to buy. In today’s Web Analytics and ROI column, “How to Measure Customer Satisfaction with Web Analytics,” Eric Enge looks at a new survey tool that allows you to measure customer satisfaction.

Like a celebrity sitting down with Barbara Walters, Google News has decided to clear up rumors surrounding how articles are included and ranked. In a post on the official Google News blog, software engineer Andy Golding addressed some assumptions floating around about how articles are indexed.

Here are the Myths:

* Having an image next to your article improves your ranking
* Timing the publication of your article improves your article ranking
* There’s no way to see why my articles weren’t included in Google News
* Publishing a sitemap helps my rankings
* If I put AdSense on my site, my article rankings will improve

And now the Truths:

* Redesigning my site may affect my coverage in Google News
* Articles that are just images or video won’t be included
* Updating an article after posting it will create problems with Google News

Things to keep in mind:

* Google News only visits each URL once. If you make updates, it won’t be reflected in Google News results. This could change in the future, however.
* If you try to game the system with duplicate content or constantly rewriting stories, you might get flagged in the system as spam.
* Use Webmaster Tools to help analyze your coverage
* A sitemap helps Google News find your content, but not rank it

Other Google News, um, News you might be interested in:

Google News Unveils Two Updates to Comments Feature
Newsknife finds dramatic changes in Google News ratings
What Do Users Get on Google News Local Search? Zip.

How does your PPC traffic compare to natural search traffic and direct navigation?

New York Times reporter Alex Mindlin reveals The Best Kind of Traffic for Web Sites.

Mindlin highlights a study by Engine Ready, a San Diego-based search marketing software firm, that analyzed 18.7 million visits over two years to 500 or so Engine Ready client Web sites.

The New York Times article reports that type-in traffic was the highest converting and “most valuable” traffic. Paid search (PPC) listings outperformed organic search (naturally). Paid search ads prequalify traffic with brand and direct response ad copy.

Visitors who clicked on paid search (PPC) ads were 17 percent more likely to buy. Plus, paid search (PPC) average order value was about 18 percent higher.

Type-in traffic and bookmarked traffic performed best with a 3.3 percent conversion rate.

That’s not news to our readers or search marketing industry analysts. But if you want to learn how your PPC ads can perform better than others, Jason Miller, CTO, Engine Ready Software, will be featured on a Search Engine Strategies panel on Monday morning March 17.http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/agenda.html

Chris Boggs, Search Engine Watch Expert and Manager, Search Engine Optimization, eMergent, will moderate the panel and I’m sure he’ll have some great questions about the Engine Ready study as well.