The Search Engine Report - Number 82
This issue recaps top search engine stories and interesting resources from August 2003.
This issue recaps top search engine stories and interesting resources from August 2003.
| A longer, more detailed version of this newsletter is available to Search Engine Watch members. This is just one of the many benefits members receive. Click here to learn more about becoming a member |
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+ Search Engine Watch News
+ SES Dates For 2004 Set
+ Search Engine Size Wars IV & Google’s Supplemental Index
+ SEMPO, Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, Opens To Members
+ Search Engine Resources
+ SearchDay Articles
+ Search Engine Articles
+ About The Search Engine Report
Hello Everyone–
I’ve updated the Search Engine Sizes page within the web site — though I need to go back already and bring Teoma up to 1.5 billion documents. If you’re looking for an at-a-glance guide to how large various search engine indexes are, now and over time, this page has it and more. Just remember that the old quip about size not being everything remains true.
Search Engine Sizes
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156481
I wasn’t able to finish a story that accompanies that page, about the latest moves on the search engine size front. It will be ready by tomorrow and will go out via SearchDay. More about that story is below in the newsletter.
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Next up for Search Engine Strategies is a trip to Germany — Munich, to be exact, from November 10-11. The show also returns to the US when it arrives in Chicago from December 9-11.
In addition, dates for 2004 have now been set. Boston will be March 2-5, Toronto will be May 11-12 and San Jose from August 2-5. London is also on the schedule, but the posted dates of June 4-6 are incorrect. It will likely be the week of June 7. 2004.
Links to general information about each of the shows can be found below. You can leave your email address to be notified when agendas are posted.
Search Engine Strategies
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/
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As mentioned earlier, I wasn’t able to finish a story about the latest search engine size moves before sending the newsletter out. It will be ready by tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 3). If you’re a SearchDay reader, you’ll receive it via email. Otherwise, just follow the link below to read it online on Wednesday.
Part of the story deals with the new Google “supplemental index.” I can at least give you some more details about that now.
What are supplemental results? These come from a new, separate index of pages that Google now queries if it fails to find good matches within its main web index. For obscure or unusual queries, you may see some results appear from this index. They’ll be flagged as “Supplemental Results” next to the URL and date info that Google shows for the listing.
Want to see some examples? Try any of these, which were provided by Google, to show when supplemental results might kick in:
Again, more about the supplemental index and size developments will be available tomorrow, at the URL below:
Search Engine Size Wars IV & Google’s Supplemental Index
SearchDay, Sept. 3, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3071371
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I’ve mentioned SEMPO before briefly in some past newsletters, but now the organization has an actual site up and is open to members, so it warrants a revisit. SEMPO stands for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. The registered, non-profit group aims to raise the profile of search engine marketing, so that potential clients will understand what SEM is and budget money for it. More about the group and why you might or might not want to join can be found in the short story below.
Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization Opens To Members
The Search Engine Report, Sept. 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/3071421
HitWise
http://www.hitwise.com/
What are the top search engines? HitWise is a service that can tell you. The company has deals with major ISPs that lets it see which sites receive the most traffic. That same data also lets HitWise compile its own database of the search terms people are using. So, if you’ve been looking for an alternative to WordTracker or the Overture Search Term Suggestion tool, HitWise may be for you. You’ll need a big budget, though. Pricing for the search term service is between $2,000 and $5,000 per year, as an add-on to an existing HitWise subscription. A key feature that will make the eyes of search engine marketers bug out is HitWise’s ability to show you reports about traffic to sites you don’t own or deal with. For examples, see HitWise’s search terms page: http://www.hitwise.com/ss/searchterms_launch.html. (permalink to this item)
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Nutch
http://www.nutch.org/
The idea behind Nutch is to create an open-source web search engine where everything is exposed. In contrast, other search engines may be secretive about how they rank pages (implication: Google) or take payment to include sites (implication: all the other major search engines that do paid inclusion). I’m all for more search engines, so Nutch is certainly welcomed.
The big issue, of course, is that if you expose exactly how the search engine works, then some people will do extreme things to rank better in it. Nutch acknowledges this in its FAQ but suggests that by being open source, it will develop better methods to make its algorithm overcome manipulation. OK, we’ll see.
Nutch is being primarily driven by former Excite search engineer Doug Cutting — and the friends of Nutch page lists more Excite alumni, including former Excite cofounder and CTO Graham Spencer, former cofounder and CEO Joe Kraus and former executive vice president Brett Bullington. Nutch’s board of directors includes Lotus and EFF cofounder Mitch Kapor and O’Reilly & Associates Tim O’Reilly (who ironically is also a small investor in Google).
For some recent press stories on Nutch, check out “Let’s go Nutch” from the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1022651,00.html), “Project searches for open-source niche” from News.com (http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5064913.html) and “Watch Out, Google” from Business 2.0 (http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,51462,00.html). (permalink to this item)
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WhittleBit
http://whittlebit.com/
The idea behind WhittleBit is that you get a list of results, then you check those you like and dislike to get it to “whittle” the results more into a list you prefer.
For example, let’s say you search for “flowers” and want results oriented around gardening, rather than sending flowers. Do your search, and top four results are for online florists. Click on the red “thumbs-down” icon for each of these (if things work, the thumbs will be highlighted in yellow). Now thumbs-up the Wildflowers listing. Now choose the Whittle button. Words associated with the florist listings, such as “ftd” and “gift” will be invisibly removed from your search request while new terms such as “wildflowers” will be added.
WhittleBit draws upon Google’s basic results to demonstrate the concept, which creator Ian Clarke admits remains very much experimental. So expect some bugs — and don’t forget that major search engines have some tools somewhat like this already built in, such as AltaVista’s Prisma (http://www.altavista.com/help/search/pp) and Teoma’s Refine (https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2159601). (permalink to this item)
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Overture Research
http://research.overture.com/
New site that lets you see published research projects that Overture is working on, papers authored by Overture staff and so on. Top thing to check out? I’d say the preview of Overture’s plans in the local paid listing advertising space: http://localdemo.overture.com/
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Informed Librarian Online
http://www.informedlibrarian.com/
Get a monthly recap of journals, magazines, newsletters and other electronic publications that may be of interest to librarians and research professionals. Registration is required, but it’s also free and easy to do.
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NeedleSearch
http://needlesearch.mozdev.org/
For Mozilla users, NeedleSearch lets you bookmark search engines and then directly search against them after that using the toolbar.
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Marketing Forum Watch
http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/marketing-forum/
Want to keep up with what people are saying on search engine marketing and other promotion forums across the web? Marketing Forum Watch scans a variety of forums every five minutes, allowing you to keyword search across them for information. Don’t forget, you can also get a roundup of interesting forum threads in the Friday edition of SearchDay, https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/
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Search Engine Relationship Matrix
http://www.did-it.com/sem_poster.php
Free PDF-graphic showing relationships between various search engines.
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metaEureka A-Toolbar
http://www.metaeureka.com/download.shtml
Not another toolbar! Yes, and one that’s worth your time. This one lets you get results from metaEureka, a meta search engine that hits several major web-wide search engines. Alternatively, you can also choose to search against specific search engines, as well. Beyond searching, you can use the toolbar to prescreen your email for spam, translate words into different languages, do dictionary lookups, check the time in various countries, convert currencies and much more. You can also get information about a particular URL, count links to that URL from various search engines, do a basic position check (I didn’t find this worked well) and get a keyword density report for a particular page (single words only, not phrases). Among network tools is the ability to telnet, ping, traceroute, do DNS and WHOIS lookups.
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Google Calculator
http://www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator
Now Google can add, subtract and do a lot of other things, as well. For example, you can say “12 pounds = ? kilos” and get the metric result. Unfortunately, the many amazing units it can handle with common words are poorly documented. For example, “speed of light = ? kilometers per hour” will work — but did you realize you could just enter “speed of light?” If not, you wouldn’t have tried it. Google says currency conversion is coming. WebmasterWorld has a good thread that exposes some more of the power commands, http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/16053.htm. Don’t forget to try searching for “the answer to life, the universe, and everything,” sure to please Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy fans.
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Yahoo Search Users Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/y-search-users/
Want to talk about searching on Yahoo? The company has started a new mailing list for discussions.
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The Music Finder
http://www.music-finder.net/
Enter some bands or music artists, and the Music Finder will suggest others you may wish to consider. The search engine has a database of over 13,000 bands and artists.
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BrainBoost
http://www.brainboost.com
BrainBoost is designed to let you enter search terms in natural language. It then examines your sentence, rewrites it in a way that it thinks best and submits it to various different search engines (I’m told by BrainBoost that these are Google, Google News, Teoma, WiseNut, AltaVista, Yahoo and Yahoo News). When results come in, it actually downloads all the pages listed, then extracts sections that it thinks provides the answer.
How well does it work? I tried the three canned examples from the home page and compared the same search to Inktomi, Google, AllTheWeb and Teoma results by using HotBot.
First question was, “How long is the Brooklyn Bridge?” Google and Teoma showed answers right within the descriptions of some of their listings, while Inktomi’s first result had the answer when you visited the page. Only Google came through for the second example, “When was the constitution signed?” As for “Why is mars red?,” AllTheWeb had the answer in one of its listings and Google had a listing that clearly indicated it would have the answer if you clicked on it (and it did).
What about a non-canned answer, like “How can i convert vinyl records to mp3?” Here, the results from the regular search engines looked much more promising than BrainBoost.
Overall, sure — give BrainBoost a try. But be forewarned. It can be slow to process your queries. And don’t forget that you can do “natural language” searching on regular search engines, as well. (permalink to this item)
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Homepageseek
http://homepageseek.com
Afraid search results are dominated by big sites? Get thee over to Homepageseek, where big sites need not apply. Each listing is reviewed to ensure that only little sites get in for free. However, paid listings are also taken — and size seems not to apply here. Big sites are also allowed, though Homepageseek says limits are set to still let smaller advertisers have visibility. Results also don’t distinguish between paid and unpaid results.
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WebCactus
http://www.webcactus.com/
Search here, and you’ll be shown thumbnails of the sites along with their listings. WebCactus has about 1.5 million sites indexed, the company tells me. Average index refresh is every 4 to 6 weeks.
Here’s a recap of recent articles from Search Engine Watch’s daily SearchDay newsletter:
Dogpile Sports a Fetching New Look
SearchDay, Sept. 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3070811
Meta search engine Dogpile received a major upgrade today, offering a slick new interface and some significant performance enhancements.
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Search Engine Forums Spotlight
SearchDay, August 29, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3070151
Links to this week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization – Click-Through Rates With New Google Ad Sizes – Google’s Supplemental Results – Google Driving the Market – State of the Directories – SEO Code of Ethics
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Google to Overture: Mine’s Bigger
SearchDay, Aug. 27, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3069221
Overture and Google have fired new salvos in the search engine size wars, expanding their databases of searchable web pages by millions of pages.
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Searching for U.S. Legal News
SearchDay, Aug. 26, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2236411
Suppose you want to find the latest legal news on what’s happening in the U.S. Supreme Court or in a hot area of law like intellectual property or employee rights. Where should you look?
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Ask Jeeves Serves Up New Answers
SearchDay, Aug. 25, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3067941
Ask Jeeves is expanding its ‘Smart Search’ tools today with direct responses to queries about weather information and numerical conversions.
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Search Engine Forums Spotlight
SearchDay, August 22, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3067001
Links to this week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: Measuring Pay-Per-Click ROI – New Google AdSense Layouts Available for Publishers – Does Keyword In URL Matter? – How to Optimize a Web Page Checklist – Tracking Words or Sets – Google Camouflage – Search Engine Implication Of Using CSS Rather Than Tables
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Lycos Upgrades Tools for Webmasters
SearchDay, Aug. 20, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3064701
Terra Lycos has updated its InSite paid inclusion program to woo non-technical users who are new to search engine marketing, but even veteran search engine marketers may want to take a second look.
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Search Engines Uncover Compromising Documents
SearchDay, Aug. 19, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3064881
Using a search engine and free software tools, it’s possible to dig up hidden — even deleted — information in documents posted to public web sites.
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AltaVista Introduces Search Toolbar
SearchDay, Aug. 18, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3064871
AltaVista has launched a Search Toolbar that lets you search its web, news and multimedia catalogs while visiting any page on the web.
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Search Engine Forums Spotlight
SearchDay, Aug. 15, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3064491
Links to this week’s topics from search engine forums across the web: Private Google Dance … Via AdSense? – Bid War Insanity: What To Do? – Session ID Question – Keyword Research: I Need Some Direction – Spaces and Characters In URLs – Check Number of Pages Indexed by Google – AdSense Ad Quality
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A Hearty Buffet of Look-Up Databases
SearchDay, Aug. 14, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2245831
Need to look up an address, postal code, place name or similar information? Forget search engines — this one-stop source provides free access to lookup databases.
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Fraud, Scams and Misinformation on the Web
SearchDay, Aug. 13, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2227161
Although the web is rife with bogus pages and deceptive ‘information,’ it’s surprising that even content from typically reliable, authoritative sources can’t always be trusted.
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Gems from the Congressional Research Service
SearchDay, Aug. 12, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2236441
High quality, non-partisan research created for members of the U.S. Congress is freely available on the web — if you know where to search for it.
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Are You Wanted by the Recording Industry?
SearchDay, Aug. 11, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2241591
Concerned that information about your file-sharing user name may have been subpoenaed by the Recording Industry Association of America? Check this database to see if you’re a potential target.
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Google Unveils News Alert Service, Related Searches In AdSense
SearchDay, August 7, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2236451
Google has released a new news alerts feature and made changes to how ads appear on web sites participating in its AdSense program.
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A Search Haven for Engineers
SearchDay, August 6, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2235331
Despite its somewhat ominous name, EEVL is an exceptional guide to engineering, mathematics and computing resources on the web.
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SearchDay
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/
CounterGoogling
TrendWatching.com, Sept. 2003
http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/2003/09/COUNTER-GOOGLING.html
What’s CounterGoogling? A bad name for the idea that businesses might research what individual customers want by using Google. It’s just businesses “Googling” customers, rather than customers I suppose “Googling” businesses. Apparently, one hotel has actually done this to anticipate what their first-time customers may want.
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Overture goes to court in T-Online battle
NetImperative, Sept. 1, 2003
http://www.netimperative.com/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=news&docid=BEP1_News_0000056798
Enter a new chapter of search engines and legal issues. Overture has apparently obtained an injunction forcing major German ISP T-Online to carry its results. T-Online dumped Overture’s results last month, switching over to Google. Yahoo’s impending purchase of Overture caused the switch. T-Online sees Yahoo as a bigger competitor than Google. Overture claims breach of contract; T-Online claims a change-of-control clause lets it break the contract a year earlier than planned. T-Online results remain Google powered, when I last checked. According to this article, it may be because T-Online has yet to actually be served with the injunction.
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Google News Finally Makes the Grade
Online Journalism Review, Aug. 28, 2003
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1062114819.php
Google News is now to be rated among news generation sites such as the LA Times and the Guardian — and will rank pretty well among the others, too. A look at the addition and how news sites get ranked in general.
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The search engine that could
USA Today, Aug. 26, 2003
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-08-25-google_x.htm
Google’s about to turn five. A look at how the company has grown and challenges it faces.
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Search in the Spotlight
ClickZ, Aug. 22, 2003
http://www.clickz.com/feedback/buzz/article.php/3067161
Larger than ever, the latest Search Engine Strategies conference underscored that search is an established industry — and increasingly, an advertising dominated one. A summary of top trends, such as the need to balance paid and free organic listings, the complexity involved in managing paid listings and concern over tracking search listings placed into contextual ads.
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Inside Search Engine Strategies, San Jose Day Four
Search Engine Guide, Aug. 22, 2003
http://www.searchengineguide.com/beal/2003/0822_ab1.html
Summary of tips from the Converting Visitors session and a rundown on various web analytics and measuring tool vendors.
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Study: Paid Listings Still Confuse Web Searchers
PC World, Aug. 22, 2003
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112132,00.asp
A study of 17 web searchers found significant confusion about what’s paid and what’s not in search results. Findings from the study were discussed during a session on legal issues at Search Engine Strategies.
I reported on the initial release of this study back in June: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2216101. Some in the search engine industry, when I’ve mentioned the report to them, have been quick to dismiss it due to the small sample size (and generally hadn’t actually read it). That’s a mistake. The report wasn’t done in order apply statistics to a greater whole. Instead, it was done to intimately understand how individual consumers react to existing paid disclosure information.
The findings are well worth reading — the report is free and available at http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/news/searchengines/. I hope to bring a longer summary of key points in a future newsletter. Until then, understand that this isn’t a report condemning paid listings. For example, the report’s second tip for consumers worried about paid listings, on page 41, makes this clear: “Paid search is not evil.” But the report also highlights a serious challenge to search engines in educating the public about paid listings, as this quote about Google’s paid listings from page 31 illustrates: “I like that it is so clear on Google. It actually highlights [paid links” so I can ignore them completely.” (permalink to this item)
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Yahoo Branching Out its Search Roots
InternetNews.com, Aug. 21, 2003
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/3067171
Recaps where Yahoo plans to head in search, in particular how it hopes to integrate search into the overall portal experience it provider.
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Yahoo puts Inktomi to the test
News.com, Aug. 21, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5066842.html
Yahoo is testing Inktomi results in Australia, Brazil and the US and fully expects to roll it out across all of its properties eventually. You’ve got to love the quote from Yahoo Australia, about how they’ll switch to Inktomi if it can do as well as current results that come from Google — and the lack of support for Yahoo-owned Inktomi is even more noticeable in another report: http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/enterprise/story/0,2000048640,20277513,00.htm. Um — perhaps that evaluation should have been done before Yahoo spent $235 million to buy Inktomi earlier this year?
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Contextual Ad Debate Rouses Critics
InternetNews.com, Aug. 21, 2003
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/3066971
The panel on contextual ads at Search Engine Strategies got heated — though as the session moderator, I felt the defensiveness on both sides wasn’t necessary. Panelist Brad Byrd, a marketer, presented two case studies that found Google AdSense contextual placements cost much more in terms of conversion than search-targeted AdWords placement. Another marketer on the panel said his experiences were similar. This put contextual ad providers Google, Overture and Sprinks on the defensive. They shouldn’t have been. Neither marketer said that contextual ads were bad or should be avoided. They simply wanted the ability to purchase and track them separately. Most defensive was probably Sprinks — and no doubt because Sprinks does currently allow for separate purchase and tracking of its contextual ads.
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Consumers Rate Online Search, Portals, and News
MediaPost, Aug. 21, 2003
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=215977
Google gets top ratings for consumer satisfaction in the search engines category, according to a study by the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. Google rated 82 out of a total possible score of 100, followed by Ask Jeeves (69) and AltaVista (63). “All others” rated 78. Stupidly, search portals such as Yahoo weren’t included. Instead, they were segregated into a separate portals category, where Yahoo came in tops at 78, followed by MSN at 74 and 65 for AOL. So — Ask Jeeves could fairly say it’s the second best search engine in terms of satisfaction, but had portals been included in that category, it might be a much different story.
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Google co-founder: No rush for IPO
News.com, Aug. 20, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5066227.html
Covers a variety of questions I put to Google cofounder Sergey Brin during a “conversational keynote” at Search Engine Strategies. No — Google has no plans to purchase Microsoft. For other reports on the interview, see, “Google Wild About Commoditizing Search” from InternetNews.com, http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/3066431, and “Inside Search Engine Strategies, San Jose – Day Three: A Chat With Sergey Brin” from Search Engine Guide, http://www.searchengineguide.com/beal/2003/0821_ab1.html.
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Inside Search Engine Strategies, San Jose – Day Two
Search Engine Guide, Aug. 20, 2003
http://www.searchengineguide.com/beal/2003/0820_ab1.html
Recaps my keynote where I predict what the search engine landscape will be like in 2004, covers issues raised in the Search Engines & Trademarks session as well as the Cleaning Up The Mess session and summarizes how various firms explained in the Search Engines & Ratings session how they rank search engines by popularity and other metrics.
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Trademarks cast shadow on paid search
News.com, Aug. 19, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5065901.html
Trademark issues with search engines are growing, as merchant ponder how to deal with affiliates and others who purchase terms that may also be their trademarks. Ultimately, it’s likely to come down to a court decision over what’s acceptable.
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Gunning for search engines
USA Today, Aug. 19, 2003
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2003-08-19-search_x.htm
Review of the three-way race shaping up in the search space between Google, Yahoo and MSN.
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MSN Search Tests Worrisome for LookSmart
InternetNews.com, Aug. 18, 2003
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3064991
MSN has tested new results in the UK that eliminate LookSmart’s listings — which LookSmart admits in its financial filings could bode ill for the company.
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Google Inconsistencies
Search Engine Showdown, Aug. 17. 2003
http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/google/inconsistent.shtml
Covers why various types of searches at Google may not operate in the way you expect them to, based on how Google’s help pages describe.
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Actions Speak Louder in SEM
ClickZ, Aug. 15, 2003
http://www.clickz.com/search/strat/article.php/2248871
Trying to evaluate the success of your search engine marketing campaign? Here’s a list of tools that provide tracking support.
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Will Yahoo Hold On To AltaVista?
IDG News Service, Aug. 14, 2003
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112016,00.asp
Yahoo says that the AltaVista brand and web site may survive once it completes its acquisition of Overture (which owns AltaVista).
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Overture Licenses Contextual Ad Technology
InternetNews.com, Aug. 13, 2003
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/2248561
Overture signs a new deal with Quigo to make use of that company’s technology to power even more contextual ads.
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EBay goes after Google advertisers
News.com, Aug. 13, 2003
http://www.msnbc.com/news/951977.asp
eBay has used Google’s trademark policy for paid listings to prevent advertisers from explicitly using the word “ebay” in their campaigns. So, if you’re selling a book about selling on eBay, you can no longer big a on a term like “selling on ebay” at Google. The move by eBay is ironic given that the company commonly runs ads at Google and elsewhere using terms that are also trademarks of other companies. Try a search for “barbies” at Google, and an ad from eBay is prominent.
In addition, it’s entirely unclear that its illegal or wrong from people to use terms that are also trademarks in their ads. Playboy challenged a case involving banner ads at Netscape and Excite linked to the word “playboy” but did not win in preventing these ads. For more, see some of the articles listed in the Advertising & Listings section of my Search Engines & Legal Issues page: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/resources/article.php/2156541#Advertising
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T-Online drops Overture for Google
News.com, Aug. 12, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5062734.html
Major European ISP T-Online has dropped Overture in favor of Google, since Overture is to be purchased by T-Online competitor Yahoo.
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Google Grabs Enterprise Customers
InternetNews.com, Aug. 12, 2003
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/2247951
Google picks up several new companies for its enterprise search product.
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Searching for the personal touch
News.com, Aug. 12, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5061873.html
I mentioned Kaltix briefly in a previous newsletter, a search start-up out of Stanford University (which gave birth to Yahoo and Google). There still remains little about the company, other than it plans to provide personalized and context-sensitive search.
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Overture plans Australian unit
News.com, Aug. 11, 2003
http://rss.com.com/2100-1032_3-5062033.html
Overture is heading Down Under by the end of the year.
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Yahoo Stalked Overture for Over a Year
AP, Aug. 11, 2003
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1216504,00.asp
Yahoo’s been after Overture since the middle of last year and put in a formal bid for the company last November, only to have that fail when Overture called off negotiations. Overture then went to buy AltaVista and AllTheWeb, moves that hurt its stock and brought it back to talking with Yahoo.
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IBM Takes Search to New Heights
eWeek, Aug. 11, 2003
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1213676,00.asp
IBM’s researching new search technology that it hopes will make a mark in various products. The article is long on optimism and short on specifics.
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Overture: A Conflict of Interest?
ClickZ, Aug. 8, 2003
http://www.clickz.com/search/strat/article.php/2246121
Overture’s soon to roll out new ROI measuring tools that lets people measure across any ad platform, including its own. But Kevin Lee wonders if marketers will trust a tool that’s owned by one of the major ad networks they are buying.
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Google Backtracks on AdSense Changes
InternetNews.com, Aug. 8, 2003
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/2246381
Google quickly drops related searches functionality from AdSense ads after content owners raise concerns.
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eBay Bans Google Keywords
AuctionBytes, Aug. 7, 2003
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m08/i07/s02
To my knowledge, this was the breaking story on the eBay request for Google to ban the use of its name as a term that ads can be linked to. Has a few more good details, such as apparently an attempt to ban bids on “auction web sites” and “bay,” plus the fact that trademark terms can be linked to ads in eBay’s own paid listings program.
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What is coinmobile.shtml?
About.com Web Search Guide, Aug. 2003
http://websearch.about.com/cs/articles/a/coinmobile.htm
Overture and Wordtracker report that coinmobile.shtml is an extremely popular search term — but Jennifer Laycock disbelieves this, and with good reason.
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Updated List of Recent Microsoft Search Related Patents/Patent Apps and Technical Writing
ResourceShelf, July 15. 2003
http://www.resourceshelf.com/archives/2003_07_13_resourceshelfextra_archive.html/#105828687588742031
Rundown on recent Microsoft search patents and research papers.
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24/7 Real Media Wields Patent Cudgel
InternetNews.com, July 1, 2003
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/2230051
Overture has a lawsuit going against Google and FindWhat, saying they violate its patents on paid listings. Now 24/7 says it has a patent that covers paid listings companies and that it intends to gain licensing deals or perhaps take its case to court.
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