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Google co-founder Larry Page was in the nation’s capital making the case for white spaces when the conversation inevitably turned to Microsoft-Yahoo. According to several news outlets, Page said, “Now, if you put 90% of communications all in one company … that’s really a big risk, especially one (Microsoft) that has a history of doing bad stuff. So if you want to have good products you need to have some degree of openness.”

There are obvious problems with Page’s statement. One is, why is Page acting threatened? Google more than dominates search engine queries and advertising.

Another is, if a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would produced closed products, and if good products require openness, then what in the world is Page worried about?

Besides rethinking his logic, Page may also want to do some number crunching. USA Today pointed out that comScore predicts that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal would combine to have 70% of email and instant messaging market share in the U.S.

During the same speech, Page said that a Google-Yahoo ad deal would pass the antitrust test. Together, Google and Yahoo dominate 80% of the search ad market.

Taking on a large search engine optimization client can be a daunting proposition. In today’s SEM Agency Issues column, How to Take on a Major SEO Client“,” William Flaiz shows that it’s simple, when you break it down: first, give them what they need; then give them what they want. Finally, give them what they don’t yet know they need.

Google was the only one of the “big” search engines to experience month-over-month growth in April 2008, according to U.S. search engine rankings released by comScore. Overall, searches by Americans declined by 2%. Core search engines received 10.6 billion of the total searches, with Google seeing over 6.5 billion, Yahoo 2.2 billion and Microsoft 961 million. Here’s the stats:

Related Reading:
Nielsen Online Releases April 2008 U.S. Search Rankings
ComScore Places Google Sites Ahead of Yahoo Sites for First Time

There has been much discussion about the future of SEO lately. A-list bloggers galore are writing SEO’s obituary, much to the dismay of site owners and search engine marketers. Earlier this week, Mike Grehan delivered his thoughts on the matter over at ClickZ. He also started a thread in the Search Engine Watch forums to discuss his post.

Here are some main takeaway points from Mike’s post:

• SEO will give way to a new form of digital asset management and optimization. This new SEO will place a much larger emphasis on optimizing a range of file types, from PDFs to images to audio/visual.
• More effort will be placed on feeds to search engines. Not just XML feeds into paid inclusion and shopping comparison, but also feeds with other types of information, such as local, financial, news, and other verticals.
• Mobile will become much more popular, search will gradually become more of a personalized experience.
• Personalization and digital asset optimization will end 1999-style ranking reports, as search engine results will be based on blended results from end-user specifics, such as geographic location, time of day, previous searching history, and peer group preference.
• Online, monitoring the customer voice will become more important than pushing a brand message. Reputation management will become more important as marketing continues its reversal from a broadcast medium to a listening medium.
• Marketing into networks will see huge growth, and social search will grow with it.

Over at the forums, Grehan is looking for feedback on the following:

• Should search engine ranking algorithms continue to be based only on the data they have about people who happen to have web sites and therefore have text pages and can link to others. Or is the voice and opinion of the end user now being heard much more clearly?
• Do I really think that a number one result at Google for the term – blue widgets – is a fair result if only people who have web sites can vote for its top ranking position? Or should the millions of people who use blue widgets and don’t have a web site also be able to have some influence on that ranking?

Get in on the conversation about the future of SEO. Head over to the forums and share your thoughts.

The major Microsoft Live Search announcement scheduled for tomorrow will be the official launch of a new product: Microsoft Live Search Cash Back.

The program in partnership with eBay and its PayPal unit will offer cash back to consumers who search on Microsoft Live and make a purchase. The announcement will be made in conjunction with a taped message from eBay CEO John Donahoe. The technology is based on the acquisition of Jellyfish by Microsoft in September, 2007.

The announcement is expected to be made by Satya Nadella, SVP Search, portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft, prior to Bill Gates’ presentation on “Connecting the Future.” The goal is to differentiate Microsoft’s vertical search experience for users while leveraging improvements in the core search algorithm.

Microsoft believes the Live Search Cash Back program will align the interests of consumers and the search engine, putting Microsoft “on the same side as the consumer.”

The job of Live Search will be to match the most relevant products with the most relevant consumers.

Microsoft will likely offer advertisers a CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) model rather than a traditional search engine Cost-Per-Click (CPC) auction.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, said in a taped interview that the program would help overcome the barriers of first-time buyers of shoes online.

A Barnes & Noble executive stated that clickthrough rates and purchases had increased through the use of the Jellyfish pilot program.

The following message is posted on the Jellyfish.com Web site:

“As part of our pledge to save you money on the products you buy, our Cash Back rewards service is currently offline to perform necessary service upgrades and enhancements. Jellyfish Account holders will receive an e-mail notification when our Cash Back service is up and running again. Thanks for your patience.

Using Jellyfish, consumers could compare prices of products from a number of online stores. Retailers paid Jellyfish fees to feature products. A portion of that fee was refunded to consumers who bought through the Jellyfish site.

Jellyfish also offered “Smack Auctions.” During each Smack show, Jellyfish would auction off new products in a unique price dropping format. Every second that ticks off the clock, Jellyfish would drop the price of the product, until the deal sold out.

Jellyfish founder Brian Wiegand is agroup manager at Microsoft. Last year, ye stated, Microsoft is “investing heavily in shopping and e-commerce.”

Microsoft closed the deal on Sept. 27, 2007 but didn’t announce it until Oct. 2, 2007.

This isn’t the first foray of Microsoft into the world of search engine incentives.

Microsoft Live Club is an ongoing experiment with incentivizing searchers but never on the Live Search Cash Back scale. For example, Microsoft Live Search Club lets users play games. A completed gives earns tickets toward prizes, such as Zune accessories, song downloads and ringtones.

Microsoft’s official statement on the announcement:

On Wednesday, we will be announcing a major new initiative that our search teams have been driving. We are getting better and better with our core algorithmic search, and at the same time, we are investing to differentiate in vertical experiences and to disrupt the current model. You’ll hear more about our plans Wednesday.

WhiteFence.com is the first vertical search engine that enables people to search for the best values in 40 home service categories, including home phone, Internet, TV services and utilities. The target audience is people who are moving but it’s a one-stop shop for anyone searching for the best bargains in communications technologies.

The search engine is built around solving basic problems. For example, users can decide whether they want to:

* lower my bills
* bundle my services
* find a better deal on my services
* shop for service on my new home
* find the best price in my area on residential service
* get reliable service from trusted national companies
* order home essential services today

Search by Category:

Bundle your services and save.

Home Phone
Get local phone and long distance.

High-Speed Internet
Find fast Internet service.

Television Service
Compare satellite and cable TV.

Electricity Service
Find your local electricity provider.

Natural Gas
Warm up with your local natural gas company.

Change of Address
Let everyone know you’re moving.

Green Energy Offset
Buy RECs to offset your energy usage.

Moving Services
Mover quotes, tips, checklists & more!

Financial Services

If you’re not moving, it’s still an excellent search engine to compare your current deals with what’s available. For home energy conservation tips, check out the WhiteFence blog.

If SEOs are bakers, then Web site designers are the butchers of the search engine world. In today’s Organic Search Engine Optimization column, “Don’t Hire a Butcher to do a Baker’s Job - Part 2,” Mark Jackson offers 13 questions customers need to ask their butchers.

CEOs need to invest in search engine optimization. Perhaps no company knows that better than WebMD. In today’s Search Engine WarGames column, “WebMD CEO Fights Off Google Health Virus with SEO,” Kevin Heisler looks at ways WebMD is using SEO to drive traffic to their site, and to lessen the additional pressure from the launch of Google Health.

Google leads in UK search engine spending for the first quarter of 2008, according to data released by Efficient Frontier. The search engine enjoyed 85% of the market. Click-Through Rates (CTR) actually saw a slight decline for Google over Q4 2007, but the ROI increased by 14%.

The same couldn’t be said for Yahoo. Yahoo’s search advertising market share was 11.9%, down 0.5% from Q4 2007. CTR declined 38% quarter-over-quarter and ROI declined 6%.

MSN increased their market share by 0.4% in Q1 to reach a 3.5% market share in the UK. While MSN’s ROI dropped 10%, it was still 17% higher than Google’s ROI.

Related Reading:
Paid Search Click Data: Syndicated Versus Pure Search Referrals
Social Networking on Mobile Phones is Hot in the UK
Google Sees 79% European Market Share in March 2008

Yesterday I published a post on the Search Engine People site titled 50+ Sites to Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!.

While the tactics mentioned may be enough to push some negative online mentions of you or your business to the second page of the search results or lower, in other cases they will not. The question then becomes; what else can you do when the initial tactics themselves aren’t enough, and you’ve got a negative piece about you ranking in the search results for an important phrase. Burying your head in the sand and hoping it goes away isn’t really a viable option. The answer … LOTS can be done!

Lets start with our goals … they’re progressive.

Progressive Goals:
Goal #1: First … bump the listing below the fold asap
then
Goal #2: Bump the listing off the first page of the search results for the given term(s)

With goals in hand, we can now consider tactics.

Tactics:
To Achieve Goal #1:

a. select the strongest 3-5 of those 50+ sites, where strong is a subjective assessment based on many factors. My personal assessment would be:

1. Digg
2. Twitter
3. Stumbleupon
4. MyBlogLog
5. Linkedin

b. establish a profile on each, where the profile name is the term/phrase the negative piece ranks for
c. get lots of friends on each of those sites … the more the better. It works best if you take an active role and participate. Each friend will result in an internal link back to your profile on that site, making it stronger.
d. within each site, you can see which profiles are the strongest in the offending engines’ eyes … the search engines themselves with rank them in order of importance given a simple search query (eg. site:twitter.com). Try to secure links from the strongest profiles first … they pass the most value.
e. join groups where possible too … often these will pass link power to your profile as well.
f. possibly create a social profiles menu on your site(s), and link to each of these profiles.

To Achieve Goal #2:

a. determine how far down you actually wish to push the piece. Beyond the first page will take a great deal of time and energy.
b. assuming you’ve already bumped the offending post below the fold, you need to select the number of sites you will need to use from the 50 + listed in the 50+ Sites to Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company! article.
c. follow the steps outlined above for each
d. within each (where possible) include links to all your other profiles on the other sites

Following these steps should be enough to push most negative mentions to the second page. If not, or if you don’t have the time and energy, do engage the services of a professional with experience in the space. Aside from the obvious value … its not a bad idea to take out profiles under your name anyway, just as a pre-emptive measure.

Please note … these tactics are by no means comprehensive or advanced. They’re just a relatively quick and efficient means for burying negative online mentions. Much more advanced tactics exist, which I will not delve into here.

Other great reference posts about reputation management include:
Glen Allsopp - What Is Online Reputation Management
Andy Beal - Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide
Todd Malicoat - Reputation Management Emancipation PRoclamation - 10 Ways to Own Yourself Online
Lee Odden - Basics of Online Reputation Management
Marty Weintraub - 9 Essential Tactics for Reputation Management in Social Media
Andy Beal - Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Buzz Tracking Tools
David Wallace - Using Social Media to Help Manage Online Reputation