Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Earlier this year, when I wrote about Yahoo! SearchMonkey, which enables developers to build search result enhancements based on semantic web data, I was skeptical that it would fulfill Yahoo!’s stated aims of encouraging wider use of semantic web standards. After all, I opined, while I agreed with Yahoo! that site owners need a reason to adopt these standards, I didn’t know that SearchMonkey would be that reason. The enhanced listings weren’t on for searchers by default and searchers are notorious for never customizing their search experience. And if searchers never see the listings, where’s the motivation?
Tonight, site owners may have found some of that motivation. Yahoo! has turned several SearchMonkey enhanced listings on in their search results by default. This shows their willingness to experiment with the searcher experience. It also encourages SearchMonkey developers by showing that Yahoo! supports and is continuing to evolve the program. And it also indicates that Yahoo! may continue making more enhancements the default, which should motivate site owners to look a bit closer at the semantic web.
Below, more details about what searchers are now seeing by default in Yahoo! results.
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
So, you want to start your own companybut should you follow a product- or a service-based business model? In this article, the first of two on web start-up companies, Daniel demonstrates why a product-based business is the hands-down winner!
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Google to Extend Reach With Venture-Capital Arm from the Wall Street Journal reports Google is in the early stages of putting together a corporate venture-capital unit, within Google.
Google’s senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, is reported to be leading up the new unit. Google has hired William Maris, a 33-year-old entrepreneur, to help set up the venture-capital arm.
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Watchdog clears Google’s street cameras from The Guardian reports Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office has officially given their approval over the privacy risks with the Street Views option in Google Maps. Meanwhile in the US, Google is arguing in a court case against StreetView that there is no “complete privacy.”
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Online advertising continues to grow in both good times and bad. That’s good news for search marketers. In today’s SEM.edu column, “The Future of SEM Education,” Ron Jones shows how it also highlights the ongoing importance of search education.
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
What is the difference between an unremarkable no value add thin ecommerce site, and a top ranked site? In some industries the difference is simply site age. Sites that were around a few years ago had fewer competitors, so it was easier for them to rank. As they aged they got trusted more, and some of those top rankings lead to many self-reinforcing links.
If your site is brand new and you want to compete against established sites directly on their most important keywords then you need to be good at public relations, have a better brand strategy, or have some remarkable feature that makes people want to talk about you. Without conversation and links it is hard to pass up sites that have been accumulating links for years.
But what if you could roll back the clock, and quickly grab market leading positions? You can.
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Microsoft has launched a new concept for Live Search. Now, when you visit the search engine, you’ll see a background image with “hotspots.”
Hotspots are small boxes that highlight a portion of the image. You can rollover them with your mouse to find out what is being highlighted, and click on the hotspot for more information.
Look quickly though, the hotspots appear quickly upon loading and then disappear. While you can still rollover the hotspots, you’ll have to remember where those boxes appeared.
Below are some screenshots. Take a look, visit Live.com to check it out for yourself, then come on back to leave a comment about your impressions.
Related Reading:
Live Search Cashback Now Available for ebay “But It Now” Products
Live Search Displays Paragraph Under Wikipedia Results
Microsoft to Work on Live Search Reputation
Microsoft Live Search Toolbar to be Shipped with 2009 HP PC’s
Windows Live Search Offers Google News Alternative
Microsoft Goes Deep with Search Results, Competes with Google’s Sitelinks
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
In link building, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up someplace else. In today’s link building column, “Link Building: Understand Where You Are To Know Where You’re Going,” Sage Lewis looks at some tools to help you discover and monitor inbound links.
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Below is what happened in search today, as reported onSearch Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- Del.licio.us Now Delicious.com, With Improvements
Delicious has now relaunched under Delicious.com with some new functionality. The old Delicious was at del.icio.us and should soon redirect to the new dot com address. Along with the domain change, the Delicious site has been redesigned to aid newcomers on using the site. Here are before and after screen…
- Google Tests Related Search Phrases Inline With Search Results
Aaron Wall noticed Google is testing a new location for “related” search results. This time, the location appears to be directly under each individual search result’s URL. Here is a screen shot of it in action, from Aaron’s blog:…
- Britain Clears The Way For Google Street Views; Google Argues No “Complete Privacy” In US StreetView Court Case
Watchdog clears Google’s street cameras from The Guardian reports Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office has officially given their approval over the privacy risks with the Street Views option in Google Maps. Meanwhile in the US, Google is arguing in a court case against StreetView that there is no “complete privacy.”…
- Do The Google Webmaster Support Reps Really Work?
Maile posted a Google blog post named A day in the life of webmaster support. The blog post basically takes you through a typical day at Google for a Google Webmaster Trends Analysts. Here is the video, it is about 7 minutes long and is fun to watch:…
- Report: Google To Develop A Venture-Capital Unit
Google to Extend Reach With Venture-Capital Arm from the Wall Street Journal reports Google is in the early stages of putting together a corporate venture-capital unit, within Google. Google’s senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, is reported to be leading up the new unit….
- How To Get New Web Sites To Rank Quickly
What is the difference between an unremarkable no value add thin ecommerce site, and a top ranked site? In some industries the difference is simply site age. Sites that were around a few years ago had fewer competitors, so it was easier for them to rank. As they aged…
- Is Google Universal Search A Walled Garden?
Although Google Universal Search (GUS) is still very much in flux, it’s been a part of the SEO landscape for a while now. In that time, there have been some good studies about how often GUS presents video results, and some research into how it ranks videos versus text…
- Report: Newspapers, Yellow Pages Battle For Local Online Advertising Revenues
A new report from analyst firm Borrell Associates contains fairly dire revenue projections for both local newspapers and print yellow pages ($5 billion in projected print revenue losses in five years). The newspaper angle is picked up today by the Wall Street Journal and PaidContent, which both lay out some…
- A Small Business Marketing Success Story: K9cuisine.com
Being small is hard enough. But being small and in retail? That’s like having two strikes against you before the game even begins. From setting up relationships with banks, to finding trustworthy suppliers, to building a loyal customer base, being a small retailer is a challenge many businesses can’t…
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
Business Issues
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Brand New Beijing Olympics Satellite Imagery in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
- Eye on Earth Water Watch (and Virtual Earth), Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
- Google LBC Communications Options Explained, Mike Blumenthal
- Google Maps and the wrong URL, Mike Blumenthal
- Google Maps Reincludes "Fix Incorrect Marker Location" Feature, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google: "Complete Privacy Does Not Exist", The Smoking Gun
- Microsoft Virtual Earth Deprecation Reminder, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
- Avoiding tolls, Google LatLong
- Google Street View car pulled over by police for driving in bus lane, Telegraph
Link Building
Paid Search & Contextual
Searching
SEM Industry
SEO & SEM
- Content and Marketing Lessons Learned from The Dark Knight, SEOmoz
- Getting Paid to Edit the Search Results, SEO Book
- Google Webmaster Tools Incorrectly Reporting Some 404 Errors, Search Engine Roundtable
- How Do You Tell Your Client about the SEO Work You’re Doing?, Search Engine Roundtable
- It’s an SEO and PPC Party, but are They Missing an Important Friend?, Serengeti Communications
- SheerSEO : Another Way To Track Your Google Rankings, Search Engine Journal
- The Future of SEM Education, Search Engine Watch
- What are the Most Important Search Engine Optimization Practices?, Search Engine Roundtable
- I Have A Question: The Best Of Q&A, SEOmoz
- Introducing the New Froogle Performance Dashboard, The Matchbox
- Submit Your Google Sites Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
- The Importance of Context in Content, SiteLogic
Social Media
Video, Music & Image Search
Web Analytics
Other Items
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
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Posted July 31st, 2008
by admin
Google is helping its users understand what’s behind customized, or personalized, results (as opposed to Google Custom Search). They’re rolling out a new feature that explains why results may be tailored to a particular user.
The feature will be rolled out over the next few days. When it does, you’ll notice a new link for “More Details” in the top right corner. Clicking on the link will take you to an explanation of customized results. The explanation says that location (IP address), recent searches and web history to serve up the personalization.
Google noted that this feature does not change how they compile results.
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