Today’s search podcast covers Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying that Google
isn’t a media company; Google Earth revolves new features; Will Google’s rumored
GBuy take on eBay’s PayPal?; if so, eBay’s got an AdSense challenger that’s been
unleashed. In Times Square, Yahoo Answers is getting big promotion and more!
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Below are links to items discussed:
- Schmidt:
Google Still A Tech Company Despite The Billboards
Figuring everyone’s had enough Google exec interviews at the moment that cover
the same old ground, I put the Los Angeles Times interview today with Google
CEO Eric Schmidt on our budget to be a headlines-only reference, like this: At
Google, Innovation Is Not Just Fun, Games, LA Times (Q&A with CEO Eric Schmidt
– and Google, he says, it still a tech company despite making 99 percent of
its income off of ads) Said Schmidt: Q: Is Google a media company or a
technology company? A: It’s better to think of Google as a technology company.
Google is run…
- Google
Earth: An Emerging ‘Geobrowser’
I often hear people say about Google, “Other than search it’s just a bunch of
‘me-too’ products.” Whether or not you agree, you have to admit that in the
case of Earth and Maps that’s clearly not true. Although maps have become an
important “battleground” in the so-called “search wars,” it’s an area where
Google has clearly innovated with its developer tools and user experience.
There were a number of technical things about the new Google Earth rollout
yesterday that went over my head; I’m not a developer and I was in a room of
developers and engineers who were…
- Google
Earth Won’t Have Distribution Blocked
Google Earth is out in a new version with new features, as Greg Sterling will
be detailing more on the blog later today. But meanwhile, Google escapes
having an injunction against the software. Judge won’t block distribution of
Google Earth from News.com covers how Google is being sued by Skyline Software
Systems over a patent dispute on terrain mapping. The judge in the case has
denied a preliminary injunction request to block downloads of Google Earth….
- Google
GBuy Launch Later This Month To Challenge PayPal?
Google’s GBuy Could Be ‘Revolutionary’ from Forbes covers news from RBC
analyst Jordan Rohan that Google’s existing payment system — Google Payments
— may be expanded for any merchant to use outside of Google Base….
- Rumor:
Google Caller ID Via Google Talk Coming Soon?
Garett Rogers discovered that Google added the directory /call to the Google
robots.txt file. So when he checked out http://www.google.com/call he noticed
that it is an XML file that contains and error and also a “caller id” field.
What can we guess that this means? Do you think they may be adding VOIP
services to Google Talk? Can this be related to AdWords Click to Call
features? Or do you think Google is opening a Vonage like service named
GoogleCall? Again, this is just a rumor, no one really has any idea what the
/call directory is, as of yet….
- How
Google Is Killing The Internet
Seth Jayson has written an interesting piece “How Google is killing the
internet” over at The Motley Fool. It’s a lengthy analysis which takes in part
its premise that web authors are so desperate to get visitors to click on
their Adsense links that they’re creating pages of junk without any useful
content. As a result the content that is returned as the result of a search
(not just on Google but on its competitors websites as well) is valueless. I’m
rather ambivalent about this but the implications for search are interesting
to say the least….
- eBay
AdContext To Promote Auctions Via Contextual Based Ads
I covered this morning the news that eBay is launching a contextual
advertising program named eBay AdContext. The program uses contextual based
technology to match eBay auctions with the content from the publisher’s Web
pages. Publishers will not get paid on a PPC or CPM basis, but rather it seems
like they will be paid a commission of the sale generated from the click. The
commission percentage seems to be as low as 35%, according to CNN Money and as
high as 70%, according to USA Today….
- The
Downside Of Google?
I’m all for keeping a close and critical eye on search engines, but the
Observer article “The readers editor on … the downside of Google” does
perhaps go too far. An Observer commissioning editor ran a search on Google
for an MRSA expert and the ‘expert’ was approached to write an article. It
turns out he wasn’t really an expert at all. This doesn’t seem to me to be a
downside of Google (particularly since other results pointed out that the self
proclaimed expert was anything but); but more a downside of journalists being
too quick off the mark and…
- New
Flavor Of Expand & Collapse Results
Back in April, Google was testing expand and collapse results that contained
more detailed information about a site when expanded. Then, Google used an
arrow to expand and collapse the results. New details, I reported at the
Search Engine Roundtable this morning, shows screen captures of Google now
testing a similar expand and collapse feature, but this time with using plus
and minus signs. You can see an image at the Search Engine Roundtable. Want to
discuss? Join our forum thread named Plus button for more info on results….
- #&@$%@
Gmail!
It’s been six hours now without POP access to my Gmail account. I’ve been
through this irritating problem before with Google, as covered here and here,
as have others. Annoyingly, Google still hasn’t provided any better help
information about it, much less some type of status report page to tell you if
it is localized to a particular area or not. My solution is easy — I just
redirected everything back to my own POP server, and eventually I’ll get the
60 or so messages from Gmail into Outlook when the problem inevitably goes
away. Others probably aren’t so happy….
- Getting Gmail To Resume
POP Access With Captcha Unlock
- Yamanner
Worm Targets Yahoo Mail Users
Silicon.com reports on a Yahoo Mail worm named Yamanner that comes in the form
of an email named “New Graphic Site.” When you open the email, it infects your
computer and spreads the worm to your Yahoo Mail address book….
- Tips On
Across The Engines Ranking From SEO Book
People are beginning to remember again that there are search engines beyond
Google. This reawakening is one reason why I added the Can You Please Them
All? session to our upcoming Search Engine Strategies San Jose show next
August. Aaron Wall over at SEO Book has also clearly seen the renewed interest
in pleasure more than Google. Out today is his excellent Google vs Yahoo! vs
MSN Search: Defining Search Engine Relevancy piece today….
- Is
Duplicate Content Killing Your Rankings?
A paper presented at the 10th International Conference on Extending Database
Technology conference in Munich near the end of March, Indexing Shared Content
in Information Retrieval Systems (pdf), jointly authored by employees of
Yahoo, Google, and IBM, discusses how to limit index sizes of search engines
by reducing the amount of duplicate content contained in their indexes. After
reading it, I started considering and listing some of the problems that sites
may have that could cause search engines to not index the pages of those
sites, or display them in search results. My list is in a post at SEO…
Duplicate Content Solutions
Yesterday, Bill Slawski wrote about some of the issues with duplicate content
and how it can hurt your rankings. Todd Malicoat (aka Stuntdubl) followed up
Bill’s analysis with some solutions for duplicate content issues. The
combination of Bill’s and Todd’s posts make for the most recent and
comprehensive duplicate content guide I have possibly ever seen. Both are
worth a read: + Duplicate Content Issues and Search Engines by Bill Slawski +
How to Remedy Duplicate Content and Magical % Thinking by Todd Malicoat…
Submitting Your News Site To Google News
Google News can drive a nice amount of traffic to a site. A few months ago, I
had the privilege of having my site included in Google News. Since then others
have been asking the question, how can I get my news site included in Google
News? This morning, I did my best to answer the question with a post named
Getting Into Google News Revisited. I outlined the technical requirements, the
editorial requirements and what you can do to encourage Google to accept you
into Google News. If you are interested in Google News inclusion, check it
out….- High
Rankings In Google Image Search
Amit Agarwal has a nice write-up on how to increase your chances of listing
your images high in Google Image Search. The tips include;…
SimplyHired Powers MySpace Jobs
A number of people have talked about the potential power of MySpace getting
into search. Well, the company put its toes in the water this morning with the
launch of MySpace Jobs, powered by SimplyHired. Back in April, SimplyHired
raised $13.5m from Fox Interactive Media (FIM), MySpace’s parent company. At
that time, Ross Levinsohn, FIM?s president joined the SimplyHired Board….- MySpace, The 27.4
Billion Pound Gorilla
- A Ring
Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears
Reflecting On Direct Hit, The Google Rival
Perspective: The man who would be Sergey from News.com talks with Gary Culliss,
formerly of Direct Hit, on cashing out of search early on. Google and Direct
Hit came along at the same time (see Counting Clicks and Looking at Links from
me in 1998). Ask Jeeves bought Direct Hit, making the original group involved
with it a good chunk of money. But Direct Hit effectively died as a brand and
a technology while Google…. I disagree with News.com that in 1998, Google
was somehow lumped in with “non-household name” sites while Direct Hit was the
shining hope. They both…
Trovetopia – Yahoo Shopping Test Bed Site
Gary Price at ResourceShelf noticed that Yahoo registered two trademarks: “Trovetopia”
and “THE N9NE,” with Trovetopia also being the name of an active Yahoo
shopping site. I’m not sure about THE N9NE, but according to Chris Saito
[thanks for the quick response!] Trovetopia turns out to be a “test bed for
[Yahoo!] APIs ? it?s built entirely using the web services available on the
Yahoo! Developer Network. It’s cool to see Yahoo playing around with its own
APIs. Yahoo Tech is another place to see the power of the APIs. Considering
that I get an email each week about people…- Robert
Scoble Departs Microsoft To Startup Podtech
Blogvangelist Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft to work for start-up
Podtech.net. Robert’s not been tied into the Microsoft search efforts, but he
has commented publicly on them on many occasions, providing an unofficial
voice in the way he’s done on many things Microsoft. His departure certainly
is a PR blow to Microsoft. Robert Scoble leaving Microsoft for a Silicon
Valley startup from Niall Kennedy is a nice, short rundown on the news. Niall
was a recent PR win for Microsoft in terms of bloggers, so perhaps he’ll
benefit from Robert’s departure. Microsoft’s top blogger Robert Scoble is
leaving from Silicon…
Throwing chairs?- Search
Companies Energetically Seeking Electricity
The Wall Street Journal reports that the search companies, including
Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask and possibly Google are looking to find cheap
electricity to power all the computers and hardware that power the companies.
The article says that one large data center can use as much energy as a city
of 40,000 people! The search companies are looking for locations next to cheap
energy sources such as former defense bunkers, near hydroelectric plants, and
other locations where electricity is cheaper. Microsoft’s data center
consumption of power doubled over the past four years, so this is a serious
concern for Microsoft and…
- Yahoo
Answers Launches “Ask the Planet 2006” Campaign
Yahoo Answers has launched a new promotional campaign named Ask the Planet
2006. The Yahoo Answers blog describes how this feature will work; Each
weekday a new category will be featured, and each one will be accompanied by a
question asked by a notable celebrity, expert, or even a featured user. For
each best answer you receive in the category of the day you will get one entry
for a chance to win the prize for the day. The full press release can be found
here and if you want to see the big brain in times square check out…