Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

Web spam can be identified by looking at the tactics used by the owners of such Web sites to trick search engines. Microsoft is tracking how many domain names point to the same Web site, the length of domain names and the number of links to the same site on a Web page, among other things, Fetterly says.

This article doesn't go into much depth about what exactly Microsoft is talking about related to "catching Web spam", but it sounds to me like they're just talking about trying to catch as much search engine spam as possible with their new search engine. Nothing different than what Google or Yahoo are currently doing, I suppose.

Read the entire article

Thumbshots Ranking from Smartdevil is a cool tool that lets you see how search results compare in different search engines. The way they connect each web page with a line give a good visual of if/when overlap occurs. I remember seeing this tool earlier this year after Yahoo quit using Google's search results, but I only remember it being a comparison between Google and Yahoo at the time. You can now select from about any search engine you want to compare. It's surprising to see just how different search results can be. Here are a few examples:

• Google 'car' vs. Google 'cars'


• Google 'hosting' vs. Yahoo 'hosting'


• Google 'hosting' vs. Google 'web hosting'


• Alltheweb 'cat' vs. Yahoo 'cat'

Espotting Media, Europe's leading paid listings provider, today announced that the stockholders of both Espotting and FindWhat.com (NASDAQ:FWHT), approved the merger between the two companies in their respective shareholders meetings last week. The merger is scheduled to close on July 1, 2004.

Read the press release

Every news source in the country is trying to find something to write about the hottest search engine/IPO company on the Web. S&P came out with some new survey results that outline some challenges that Google faces.

The quote I found most interesting is the part where it says:

The survey showed that users favor Google for the relevance and accuracy of its results. Nevertheless, more than 6 of 10 Google users said they would switch search engines if a better service was introduced.

Two thoughts about that - (1) Saying you would switch is a lot different than actually switching. Case in point: why does AOL continue to have so many users even though they charge a premium for a sub-par Internet service? (hint: they're not all staying for the content and chat rooms). It's because there is a very real emotional and psychological cost involved with that kind of switch. Granted a search engine is easier to switch than an ISP, but many of these people are addicted to Google and in their mind there is no other place to search. I just don't see everyone jumping ship all at once. I see the opposite happening, I see them acquiring more new customers faster than they lose any of their existing customers. And (2) is this is really any different than any other business? Wouldn't 6 out of 10 customers say they would switch to a different company if a better one came along? That's the beatuy of surveys, you can make it look like a serious problem by the way you phrase the question.

Here's the article on MSNBC

Danny Sullivan and company officially launched their new Search Engine Watch Forums. Danny said the primary pupose of the forums is to discuss stories from Search Engine Watch. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't start a forum several years ago. They could have been THE place to go to discuss SEO, instead, they'll just be another one of many.

Searchguild.com Announced the winnner of the first phase of the nigritude ultramarine SEO challenge. Congratulations to Merkey! Merkey has won the "player" award, but we'll have to wait another month to see who ends up as the "stayer". Stay tuned.

So what's the search buzz this week? According to the Yahoo! Buzz Index Harry Potter is back on top of searchers' minds with the release of the new movie. Another timely search included Miss Universe, who broke into the charts this week at #2. Britney Spears is still hanging around - and actually moved up a slot to #3.

Other new topics in the top 20 this week included the new movie, The Day After Tomorrow and French Open.

Check out this week's Yahoo! buzz index top 20

A surprise from a recent "Focus Group" by About.com was the that meta search engine Vivisimo came out tied for second place among users. Keep in mind that most of these users hadn't heard of Vivisimo before the focus group, but after experimenting with it, people fell in love with the features offered by this up-and-coming search engine. Meta search engine Dogpile.com also got good ratings, coming in at 6th place.

I remember trying Vivisimo out a couple years ago. I thought the clustering was very cool. They've got a bunch more cool features now, including an enhanced Ebay Search - very cool. If you've never tried Vivisimo, you should give it a shot. If it's been a while, you should go back and try it again for the first time.

I think it's good to get some "new blood" in the search engine race. The sad truth, however, is that even though these meta search engine provide relevant results and useful functionality, nobody's using them (relatively speaking, of course). There seems to be this perception that Google is the end all be all for search. Don't get me wrong, I use Google all the time, I just think it's healthy for the industry to have several strong players (more than 3, I mean). Hopefully Vivisimo and some of these other search engines can catch on and build up a loyal following because of the quality of their technology. Sounds a lot like what Google did, what do you think?

It appears that Looksmart doesn't want to get left behind in the contextual advertising craze currently sweeping through the paid search industry. I received a survey from Looksmart with a series of questions about contextual advertising, what types of contextual advertising I'm currently using, what features I would like to see "if" Looksmart were to offer contextual advertising, etc.

My guess is that Looksmart has their contextual advertising system ready to launch, and they just wanted to run this Zoomerang survey just to have some "data" to back up what they plan on doing anyway. Even if they're not ready to launch it, I'm sure we can expect to see it rolled out with the next few months.

The big question of the day is: "Does anyone really care about Looksmart's new contextual advertising options?" Does anyone really care about Looksmart at all anymore? Ever since losing their partnership with MSN, Looksmart has taken a serious hit in credibility as a search marketing vehicle. In my opinion, their biggest problem appears to be their willingness to sacrifice legitimate, quality traffic partners for short-term revenue--very short-sighted. I am very hesitant to try contextual advertising with these guys when their "targeted" search traffic isn't yielding conversions. Is anyone getting decent results from their current Looksmart listings?

"Google continues to gobble market share from Yahoo! and other search competitors, as OneStat found that more than half of global Internet users continue to rely on the dominant engine.

The findings are similar in the U.S., with Hitwise placing Google at the top for search in April 2004, with Yahoo! as the number one portal. Google registered more than a 21 percent gain in market share from August 2003 to April 2004, while Yahoo!'s search engine lost nearly 1 full percentage point, and MSN's search function registered a nearly 9 percent decrease in market share during the same period.

The top three search engines combined — Google, Yahoo! and MSN — accounted for 5.5 percent of all U.S. Internet visits for the week ending May 15, 2004. "

Entire Article on Searchenginewatch.com

"The Google Search Appliance (GSA), a large yellow box with Swiss cheese-like holes that looks not unlike the foam cheese-heads worn by Green Bay Packers fans, is a combined hardware and software solution for online enterprises that require either public-facing or corporate intranet search technology. On Wednesday, Google announced an upgrade to the service."

More...

"When it comes to blocking intrusive Internet software, Yahoo Inc.'s new Anti-Spy gives adware the benefit of the doubt.

The beta version of the spyware-fighting toolbar add-on, which Yahoo released last week, doesn't default to detect adware�a category of software in which Yahoo's paid search division has a financial stake.

Instead, users who want to identify adware in their systems via Anti-Spy must check a box each time they conduct a scan."

More...

SearchEngineWatch.com is launching a new forum. I'm surprised they didn't have a forum sooner. I guess they figured it was time to jump on the SEO forum bandwagon.

I read this article on ISEDB last month, and thought it might be of interest to some readers.

Fake clicks have been a major concern ever since I started advertising with the PPC search engines. I'm sure most marketers share the same concern. A huge part of the problem stems from the fact that most of these search engines have implemented affiliate programs that pay affiliates a percentage of the click fees for every click through. It's a great idea in theory, to increase their search traffic by getting everybody and their dog to link to your search results. The problem is that these affiliate systems tempt scammers to devise ways to beat the system, with automated software programs that "click" on their links so they get a fatter affiliate check. Some people are even "outsourcing" their click duties to actual people in other countries so it appears to be legitimate traffic in the log files.

The problem isn't limited to the smaller 2nd tier search engines. Even Google's adsense program is also subject to abuse by scammers. Google seems to be more aggressive in their fight against these types of scams, but I'm sure there are plenty of fraudulent clicks that have slipped under the radar. The guy was an idiot who got arrested after trying to extort money from Google to keep him from distributing his fraudulent click software. I don't even know if that guy's software actually worked, but the point is, there are people out there who have a huge incentive to exploit these affiliate programs. In fact, Google even stated in their recent IPO filing that they are aware that this type of activity is going on:

We are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members.

I don't know if we'll ever be able to eliminate all click fraud, but the most obvious way to reduce it would be to keep a closer reign on who is allowed to be a search engine affiliate. Even better would be to completely shut off the affiliate programs. Search volume would go way down, but the quality of the remaining traffic would be a lot higher. I'm sure that won't ever happen, so we'll need to figure out another solution to at least cut down the amount of fraud taking place with the PPC search engines. The thing to remember is that it is up to the advertiser to be on the alert for fraudulent click activity. The search engines are not very motivated to catch fraud because it means refunding money they have already "earned". They want their customers to be happy, so if they think you are content with the traffic you are getting, they won't worry about "a few" fraudulent clicks. It's your money, so it's your job to keep an eye open for strange activity and bogus traffic from the search engines.