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Aaron Wall has written a thorough and unflattering overview of Yahoo search traffic following the release of search numbers that show Yahoo gets well over half its search volume from its partners.

Aaron discusses how this impacts arbitrage and motivates poor quality. Though possibly just a little harsh, it is worth reading and keeping in mind.

Recent numbers from Efficient Frontier show that Yahoo has nearly three times more search partners than Google - funny given Google has over three times more search volume. And as Aaron notes direct search converts “nearly twice” more than partner search traffic.

Not good numbers moving forward in a battle for the search industry. But I always managed to convert Yahoo traffic at a better CPA than Google in the financial vertical. So maybe there are niches where Yahoo benefits from its partners…. will have to keep track of this one.

Call them standards, rules, advice, best practices, or whatever you want, but they’re a necessary step in the evolution of the search industry. In today’s SEM Crossfire column, “SEO Standards Signal the Maturing of Our Industry,” Chris Boggs advocates a move toward creating a document outlining the majority of the methods used in SEO, and providing a risk assessment so marketers can make informed decisions.

Join the discussion in the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Search engine marketing technology firm SEMDirector today rebranded as Covario to reflect the depth and breadth of its performance management technologies. Covario’s platform enables global brands to manage not only search advertising but other interactive media, including display advertising. For the search industry, it’s a wakeup call that “SEM” as a specialized service faces increasing [...]

Pitting Apple against Blackberry, AT&T will offer a corporate plan for iPhone users, Engadget reported today.
The iPhone Google AT&T alliance made news at MacWorld with the launch of new Google apps and features for the iPhone.
Today’s announcement, though, may be the biggest search engine industry news to come out of MacWorld. If the iPhone [...]

Universal Search will reach an inflection point when video and audio files are fully searchable. The best and brightest minds in the search industry will one day solve the problem of multimedia meta tag “hit-and-miss.”
Until then, Meta Tag, you’re it.
Singapore is offering a $100,000 grand prize as an incentive to promote the opening of [...]

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is once again gathering feedback from search marketers for its annual State of the Search Marketing Industry Survey.
The survey collects data on respondents’ PPC and SEO spending habits, measurement techniques, and other topics to create a yearly snapshot of the search industry, as it did in the 2006 [...]

If you’ve been following the search industry at all for the past year, you probably heard about Google’s war on paid links. In a nutshell, Google banned paid links; and SEOs split in two camps over the move. What’s a CMO to do? In today’s By the Numbers column, “What’s Your Link Building Marketing Mix? [...]

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:

Thoughts on Don Schultz’s Keynote at SESHis presentation focused on providing some perspective on the maturity of the search industry.
Google [...]

On Monday afternoon at SES Chicago, Don Schultz of Northwestern University was the featured keynote speaker. His presentation focused on providing some perspective on the maturity of the search industry. For a bunch of great quotes from the presentation, check out the write up by Kevin Heisler.
The overriding theme of the presentation can [...]

Searchers represent a valuable commodity to search engines, and the keen-minded technologists behind the algorithms want to make search sites as useful as possible, no matter what the query.SES Chicago returns, and WebProNews is on hand to bring you reports and videos from the Windy City. Enjoy our coverage this week.
Universal search. Blended search. Vertical [...]