ArticleSnatch Blog

You are browsing the archives of search engines.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has introduced a bill aimed at regulating the way search engines collect private data of its users. Similarly, in Connecticut, the General Law Committee of the State Assembly has a bill that seeks to tighten data collection rules on companies that serve ads on sites they do not own.

State laws attempting to restrict data collection are nothing new. Both Alaska and Utah have laws on the books preventing adware from serving up targeted ads based on the behavior of searches, specifically on trademarked keywords. And California State Senator Liz Figueroa tried to stop Google from placing targeted ads in Gmail based on email content.

Eric Goldman, Assistant Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law, said that states don’t really have the authority to pass these laws because they involve interstate commerce. Instead, the federal government should have jurisdiction over these matters.

“My experience is that state legislators usually ignore any dormant commerce clause defects in their laws and let the courts strike down the laws; after all, I’m guessing no politician was ever voted out for passing a law that courts later declared unconstitutional.”

Privacy expert Alan Chapell, of Chapell & Associates, said that state bills that are passed still have an effect on consumers nationwide. He cited California SB 1386, which requires companies to inform California citizens when a data security breach has occurred. Chapell points out that if citizens of another state find out about a breach affecting California citizens, they’re naturally going to worry about their own data.

But the kind of data search engines collect is not necessarily personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers. Search engines are primarily interested in what people are searching for, and providing them with ads and search results according to historical searches. Because consumers and even politicians don’t truly understand how search engines work, many of these state bills are “attempts by lawmakers to get their name in the news,” according to Chapell.

Assemblyman Brodsky is up for re-election this year. Meanwhile, companies are lobbying Brodsky to preserve their best interests.

According to the New York Times, Microsoft supports - and seeks to expand - the New York bill, drafted by State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky. The bill would force search engines to get permission from users before displaying ads targeted towards their search behavior.

Microsoft’s intentions seem all too clear, with recent declarations by Steve Ballmer to catch Google in the search game. Yahoo sees things differently, and sent lobbyists to meet with Brodsky, apparently to express their opposition. There are obvious implications for how this will affect any merger of the two.

The software giant’s ambition fails to address the question at the root of internet privacy battles: “Who owns the data?” While there are no clear answers, one thing is certain. Many a politician and businessman will attempt to climb their career ladders waging a battle in these murky waters.

It’s Day 4 at SES New York 2008 and the folks from Pan Communications found more than 20 stories about the Search Engine Strategies conference that had been written before 1:45 p.m. when the press room was closed. So, I may be missing some of the additional coverage of the event that appeared later in the day.

Plus, Kevin Ryan, VP, Global Content Director, SES & Search Engine Watch, added a morning keynote to the schedule along with new sessions like “My Search is Better than Your Search.” So, there were plenty of sessions to cover.

Plus, there are so many search engine marketing news sites and SEO blogs that have been covering SES New York that I’m sure I’ve missed some of stories from the event – because its been called “SES New York,” “SES NY,” “SES NYC,” “Search Engine Strategies New York,” “Search Engine Strategies NY,” “Search Engine Strategies NYC,” the “Search Engine Strategies conference,” and the “Search Engine Strategies expo.”

So, while watching the NCAA Mens Final Four in my hotel room, I’ve looked through the news articles and blog posts that I could find from Thursday, March 20, 2008. Here’s the best list that I could assemble of the top ten stories on Day 4 of the event:

1. Yahoo Wants Sites to Play Ball on Semantic Web
Kenneth Corbin of InternetNews.com says, “In his keynote address here at the final day of the Search Engine Strategies conference, Andrew Tomkins, chief scientist of Yahoo’s (NASDAQ: YHOO) search division, described an industry at a tipping point. The search engines are only now beginning to adapt to the explosion of content and the increasing complexity of the tasks people perform on the Internet, he said.”

2. My Mahalo preview at SES New York
Jason Calacanis of Calacanis.com says, “Had a blast at SES New York this week… at the conference we previewed some new features called My Mahalo that build semantic relationships between our users and object in our database (fancy way of saying you and the thing you own, have seen, want to see, want to read, etc.).” He adds, “We also spent some time doing interviews with the SES team. I’ll post a couple here.”

3. WSJ Digital Network gets aggressive with search: SES NY Keynote
Ellen Keohane of DMNews says, “Gordon McLeod, president of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, spoke at Wednesday morning’s keynote session at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, sharing insights about the network’s efforts to grow its site traffic and search presence.”

4. John Battelle on Google Universal Search at SES NY 2008

John Battelle, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media, is interviewed by Pauline Ores, SES Advisory Board and Senior Marketing Manager, Social Media Engagement, General Business, IBM Corporation.

5. Search Goodness in Bite-sized Chunks
Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews summarizes the highlights from the Search Engine Strategies conference, “Or, SES you can put in your pocket.” He says, “There’s a ton of information pouring out of the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York City, but we’ve done our best to bring you the best of it so far, via text and via video. Below is a representation of all of that knowledge, boiled down until each little bit fits into its own little nutshell.”

6. Live from Search Engine Strategies New York 2008
Andrey Milyan of Search Marketing Standard summarizes the 16 sessions that his The SES conference in New York has begun and our correspondent, Kent Lewis, is on the scene, bringing you the latest from one of the biggest events of the year.

7. My Search is Better than Your Search
Charles Knight of AltSearchEngines says, “The entrepreneurs and those who dare to do things differently have shaped the web and search as we know it. Is innovation dead? We at Search Engine Strategies and AltSearchEngines don’t think so. Though most experts agree there will be no ‘Google Killer,’ there will be several emerging technologies that will shape the way we search, find and retain content.”

8. Blogging Boogeyman:WHAT Is Social Media Good for? PART 2
http://www.aimclearblog.com/2008/03/20/blogging-boogeymanwhat-is-social-media-good-for-part-2/
Charlene Jaszewski of the aimClear Blog says, “Are you afraid of bloggers? Sleep with the light on? You’ll find reasons to sleep above the covers after you read the next installment Social Media: What Is It and What Is It Good For? from Search Engine Strategies New York.”

9. Search Engine Strategies NYC 2008 Recap - my own thoughts
Marshall Sponder of The Analytics Guru says, “Many people are already familiar with Search Marketing and SEO and there needs to be a way to present material satisfying to all levels, but that might not always be possible.” He adds, “The Social Media/Social Search Tract was the most interesting for me this year and was more expanded than in the past.”

10. Totally Plugged In @ SES New York: 13 Undeniable Symptoms
Marty Weintraub of Search Engine Watch says, “Search marketing conference attendees seem to be the most plugged-in-public group of techno-comrades on earth. We rove in packs of iPhone and laptop-totting pied-pipers evangelizing link love, holistic patterns, authentic participation, conversion tracking, and good will.”

Where’s search heading? Ask Yahoo’s chief scientist, Andrew Tomkins. He’ll be giving the morning keynote today at SES New York. While most search engines for the past 10 years have relied heavily on analyzing anchor text, links, and content to determine relevance, researchers at the top search engines have recently begun to look at other signals that might indicate search result relevance. Tomkins reveals a few hints at the future in today’s SearchDay, “Where’s Search Heading? Ask Yahoo’s Chief Scientist.”

comScore qSearch data for February portrays Google as PacMan. Microsoft-Yahoo combined share of searches shows an Incredible Shrinking Search Engine.

In February share of searches, PacMan Google gobbled the ghosts of search engines past. Microsoft Windows Live and Yahoo resemble mere shadows of their former selves.

comScore qSearch stats for February 2008 showed Americans conducted about 10 billion core searches, a 6 percent drop from January.

Don’t panic, Wall Street.

People haven’t stopped searching in droves.

February is the shortest month even when it’s Leap Year. That’s what caused the sequential drop last month.

In February, Google increased its share of core searches. Across all Google Sites, Google grabbed 59.2 percent of all American searches. Yahoo Sites finished second (21.6 percent). Microsoft Sites (9.6 percent) finished third.

AOL (4.9 percent) and Ask Network (4.6 percent) rounded out the top five.

Google Sites saw a .7 percent increase in share of searches. Yahoo Sites dropped by .6 percent. Microsoft Sites fell by .2 percent.

As always, comScore stats on the five major search engines include partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites not on the core domain of the five search engines aren’t included in core search numbers.

It’s Day 2 at SES New York 2008 and the folks from Pan Communications have found nearly 70 stories that have been written about the Search Engine Strategies conference. If you want a comprehensive list, Matt McGowan, the Global Vice President of Marketing for Incisive Media, will be posting one later this evening on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

In the meantime, I’ve looked through the news articles and blog posts from Tuesday, March 18, 2008, to try to identify the top ten stories on Day 2 of the event. With five concurrent sessions, no one individual can see everything. So, even those of us who are at SES New York this week are relying on the news and blog coverage (as well as word-of-mouth) to keep up with all the latest developments from the event. (Trade shows and conferences are an off-line form of social media.)

1. Carr: Google Offers ‘Animal Sacrifices’ in Datacenters
Clint Boulton of eWeek’s Google Watch says, “Nicholas Carr discussed the past, present and future of computing during a keynote at the Search Engine Strategies 2008 show in New York this morning.” He adds, “Carr covered so much ground in the 60 minutes, touching on everything from the first water wheel used to generate electricity, to mainframes, to cloud computing and Google’s datacenters and the future of distributed applications and search engines strategies.”

2. Nick Carr Keynote
You can listen to Nick Carr’s opening keynote at SES New York on WebmasterRadio.FM. Nick discusses how computer systems and software algorithms are at the center of business today, and the implications for privacy.

3. Nick Carr at SES NY 2008 on The Big Switch

Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner of Beyond Ink, interviews Nick Carr, the opening keynote speaker at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City and the author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the Word, from Edison to Google. Nick gives a recap on his New York keynote speech about Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo, net neutrality, and the implications on human thinking.

4. YouTube: Damon Wayans Pay-to-Play, Paid Inclusion or Pay-for-Placement?
Kevin Heisler of Search Engine Watch says, “At SES NY, John Battelle outted Damon Wayans, Google and YouTube. Battelle said Wayans spilled the beans on his YouTube deal as a “platinum partner” for WayOutTV.com. Wayans shared he was guaranteed 6 million impressions by YouTube. Those 6 million impressions — guaranteed — sounds very much like the structure of a MySpace-style minimum revenue deal. Plus, Wayans shared his YouTube rev share number. Wow.”

5. hakia licenses OntoSem technology to third parties
Paul Miller of ZDNet’s The Semantic Web says, “New York-based semantic search company hakia will today use the Search Engine Strategies Conference to announce that their Ontological Semantic technology, OntoSem, is available for licensing. Illinois-based RiverGlass, Inc. is the first licensee, and will work to enhance their existing real-time analytics solutions with OntoSem.”

6. SES New York: Converting Visitors into Buyers
Jolina Pettice of the Online Marketing Blog says, The conversions track at SES New York continues to be packed with those wanting to increase the performance of their search marketing campaigns.”

7. The Long Tail Not Always Good, If Quality Score is Your Thing
Andrew Goodman of Traffick says, “I had the pleasure of moderating the panel on Ads in a Quality Score World at SES New York today. Along with two advertiser-side speakers (Joel Lapp and Jon Kelly), Frederick Vallaeys of Google and David Miller of Yahoo weighed in.”

8. Earning Money from Contextual Ads
Tamar Weinberg of Search Engine Roundtable says, “This session looks at the way publishers can generate revenue by carrying contextual ads offered by major networks. Learn about some programs out there and tips on getting more from the ads you carry.”

9. SES New York: Live Search “Tips And Tricks”
By Doug Caverly of WebProNews says, “Although people sometimes forget this fact, there are search engines outside of Google. At SES New York, two Microsoft managers walked an audience through ways to do well with Live Search.”

10. SES New York Day 2 … Start Your Engines!
Jeff Quipp of the aimClear Blog says, “Day 1 of Search Engine Strategies New York certainly lived up to expectations. The sessions were excellent, the city is spectacular, and I was fortunate enough to meet up with a large number of new and old friends. The day ended for most with a St. Paddy’s day pub crawl, primarily through Irish bars :).” He adds, “Day 2 is shaping up to be equally exciting. I’m personally live blogging some of the Local search sessions, which I’m really looking forward to.”

AOL will buy Facebook competitor Bebo for $850 million cash. Combining social network Bebo’s estimated 40 million users with AIM and ICQ will boost AOL’s social media reach to 80 million users worldwide.

Google had reportedly been in talks to acquire to acquire Bebo to bolster its Orkut social search engine.

The deal comes on the heels of AOL’s launch of Open AIM 2.0, which enables developers to utilize the popular instant messaging client for third party sites and applications. Apple also recently announced a downloadable AIM application for the iPhone.

Like other search engines, AOL has been making several strategic moves in an attempt to position itself as a leader in digital media and marketing. The company spent nearly $1 billion building Platform-A, a top display ad serving network focused on helping marketers build brands that perform online. In the process it has acquired ADTECH, buy.at, Lightningcast, Quigo, TACODA and Third Screen Media.

Platform-A had 167 million unique visitors and a domestic reach of 90%, making it the number one advertising network, according to comScore data from February 2008.

Still, the future of AOL remains uncertain. Rumors of an acquisition by Disney were squelched by Robert Iger yesterday. Parent company Time Warner is open to a sale or spinoff, including a partnership with Yahoo! Last week, it was widely reported that Yahoo! and AOL were in talks, as part of Yahoo!’s delaying/avoidance strategy in the wake of Microsoft’s unsolicited offer for the Sunnyvale search engine.

Two Ex-Googlers are part of the management team that recently launched a vertical search engine aimed at lead generation for the real estate rental industry. Dan Daugherty, President and CEO, and Tim Moynihan, COO, lead rentBits.com and RentMarketer.com. Both execs worked for Google operations in the Mountain states region.

RentBits.com hopes to develop the most comprehensive index of available rental properties, a niche overlooked by Zillow but currently owned by Craigslist.

RentMarketer.com offers property managers a technology platform to publish their listings on more than 60 rental classifieds websites. The distribution network claims to have the potential to reach about 9.3 million people. The software platform includes free phone and email tracking plus a click-to-call feature.

rentBits.com hopes to carve out its niche among the growing number of vertical search engines. As Google fights Web spam to maintain relevant results, Web 2.0 vertical search engines are popping up in the financial services, legal services and travel industries.

Earlier this month, Virgin Charter announced the launch of a high-end corporate travel search engine. Last month saw the launch of the world’s largest legal search engine, the Public Library of Law.

Amanda Watlington answers my questions about optimizing podcasts

Why should we be thinking about using audio and podcasts?

Universal search and the inclusion of audio and video content into the main search pages is an opportunity for marketers to expand and use a powerful highly personal medium. That being said; however, marketers should not just include audio just to have audio, but should look for appropriate opportunities to include audio into their online marketing.

What kind of content could a company produce in audio?

The beauty of audio is that it is highly adaptable. What to include in audio content is a challenge of the imagination. It is very easy to lapse into the trap that the audio content must look like a radio show. This may not the best use of audio for the business. For example, consider all of the options for use of audio that a museum or historical site might have. The offering might include information for planning a visit to museum, specialized audio content promoting a current show or visiting collection or information on new additions to the collection, regular interviews with curators with an educational spin, and any number of downloadable personalized tours. These are not necessarily radio shows, but they are valuable audio content.

For publicly-held businesses, any of the information presented to the public on the business’ performance is of interest to listeners who are time-challenged and may want to listen to the information on their own time, not just when the conference call is held. The site owner may want to make sure that all of this information can be found via search.

Magazines and content sites can make use of audio by having their authors read their articles into podcasts. Here is an example of a podcast that I recorded of an article that I wrote on universal search for the UK publication InCirculation. This audio expands the searchable footprint for the article and offers potential readers the advantage of being able to listen to the article not just have to read it. As you see, the uses are quite varied.

Is it difficult and/or expensive to produce audio content?

Developing audio content requires careful planning and execution, but it does not have to be expensive. The audio file for the InCirculation article required that I sit down with my audio recorder and create the audio file. This meant finding a quiet place, having my introduction pre-scripted and then reading the article into my portable recorder. I personally do not use my computer to record. The fan in the computer adds noise that I do not want. I use a digital recorder. It can hardly get simpler. When I first started working with audio, I used the telephone for audio blogging via HipCast

It is important to focus on the content. Expensive and elaborate production will not dress up weak content. On the other hand, I have listened to poor quality recordings where you could hear microphones being moved and participants shuffling papers and found it very distracting. Professional sounding, clear audio is very important. The focus should be on getting the message across.

Do you have to use text with the audio content so it can be found?

Making audio content sing in search is really a matter of understanding both the users and the search engines. The more information provided to the user and the search engine, the more likely the user is to both find the audio and listen to it. I strongly urge would-be podcasters to make a number of decisions before launching any audio efforts. These include deciding whether they are developing a podshow with the potential of multiple episodes or a single unique podcast. If it is a show, the show should have its own page so that it can be SEO’d and then each episode should have a page of text for it, an episode landing page. This allows the SEO to highlight the unique content of each episode. This gives a broader footprint and one that lets users find the show either by its name of by the content. In my presentation at SES NewYork, I will be highlighting a number of the other decisions that should be made to ensure that listeners can find the podcast.

Are show notes just a ‘nice to have’ or are they essential for SEO?

They are integral part of the SEO. They are not just nice to have. How extensive the show notes are is a matter of personal choice. The show notes let the site owner promote the audio on the page. Show notes can range from a brief abstract to a complete transcription. A transcription of the audio file can also be placed in the audio file itself via the ID3 tags.

Where do the tags go?

The tags are part of the audio file. They are pre-pended to the audio itself and must be added with an audio tag editor. There are number of ID3 tag editors available, some for free. The audio should be tagged during the editing process. I will be going into quite a lot of detail on tagging the audio file during my presentation.

For a total newbie, what is the 123 of audio optimization?

Here is the 123 of audio optimization.
* Create the sound file
* Edit the ID3 tags during the sound editing process (this can either be done by the audio editor or later with a tag editor)
* Create or update the show page to reflect the new audio file
* Create a landing page for the audio file. This means including a player for the audio.
* Promote the audio.

Please elaborate on promoting and distributing audio content?

Assuming that you have content that is interesting and that users find it on a search engine – this is the goal isn’t it? – a listener will want to read your summary, the abstract, then be enticed to listen to the audio directly from their computer or download it for future listening. This is just one scenario, a desirable one, but not the only scenario.

The real goal of most podshows is to have the listener subscribe to the show and download the episodes on a regular basis. RSS is the medium for this distribution. Not only does it let you notify subscribers to your feed that you have a new episode, but the RSS feed is also the medium for notifying podcast directories and search engines about new episodes.

The session at SES New York will cover a lot more on the why and how of audio search optimization, including using RSS to increase reach.

Digg IPO? No. Digg FSBO. For Sale By Owner. Again.

The auction for social search engine Digg begins when Microsoft and Google make their bid. Both search engines are digging through Digg’s financials to see if they can make the numbers work. Microsoft signed a three year advertising deal with Digg last year. Microsoft’s guarantees providing the lion’s share of Digg’s revenue.

Did Steve Ballmer like his Digg advertising deal so much he decided to buy the company? Not at all. So who else might bid? Time Warner. NewsCorp. Round up the usual suspects.

TechCrunch reported this morning that two media titans are in the mix too for the fire sale prices being discussed. Mike Arrington notes this isn’t the first time there’s been due diligence with Digg. Last year the number was $300 million. This year? Only $200-$225 million.

Microsoft, expected to bid lower, may cancel their advertising deal if they lose out (again) in a bidding war with Google.

Blodget says “a knowledgeable SAI reader” values Digg at $100 million. In any case, Kevin Rose, Digg’s co-founder, must know his tech team can’t satisfy his customer base with the new Digg voting algorithm that essentially takes the social out of the social search engine.

Google would be able to design a superior Digg voting algorithm for the community; Digg apparently can’t.

Arrington observes that Google wouldn’t value Digg based on revenues. No surprise there. Google’s acquisition of YouTube as a video search engine wasn’t valued based on revenue either. Nor was Microsoft’s stake in Facebook.

For Google, the acquisition of Digg would have strategic value. Ask Google execs what the near-term future of search looks like and they’ll answer “social search.”

Digg would be an extension of Google’s search engine empire: Digg votes may become one more signal in the Google natural and paid search algorithms. Diggers voting for YouTube. A link is a vote in PageRank. Why wouldn’t a Digg vote be one too?

Google may have reduced PageRank for Digg-juiced sites that rose in natural search rankings due to Digg. No company knows the power of Digg better than Google.

It’s not about the short-term AdSense revenue all those Diggers would provide. It’s about their behavior: what they vote for and why.

Search behavior is the key driver behind Google’s acquisitions. The benefits of amassing a higher share of searches on the Internet accrues to Google. No one on Wall St. values a company based on the activities of its members.

But then no company before Google has ever built an empire as a global R&D lab.

Another health vertical, Mindsite, was quietly reported in the Seattle PI venture blog yesterday. Founder David Eraker explained that “information is often ridiculously watered down, locked up behind expensive subscriptions, editorially corrupted, biased, or not credible.”

Mindsite focuses on mental health, and has licensed American Psychiatric Association information that was previously unavailable on the open web. There’s a social dimension planned here as well, where people share treatments and what’s worked for them. This mental health vertical could become another useful, ad-based destination.

In this case, I think the odds are stacked against making this site a home run because it follows the “license and be found” model. You need traffic, stat. How will anyone find Mindsite among other specialized health sites, portals and search engines?

Click to read the rest of this post…