Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search
Engine Watch Blog, along with other items we’ve spotted but not blogged
separately:
From The SEW Blog…
- The
Internet, ‘Family 2.0’ And The 43-Hour Day
Yahoo and OMD issued the findings from the latest round of their ongoing
global research project in 16 contries that involves online surveys and
in-person interviews. What they found is that through technology and
multitasking families are cramming the equivalent of 43 hours of activity into
a 24 hour day. They also found that the Internet (and mobile phones) are a
significant part of the fabric of daily family life. There’s a lot of
interesting material in the findings. The top level data can be found in this
release…. - Google’s
Index Bench: Build Your Own Google Search Engine?
Gary Price reported that Google registered a few new interesting domain names
including bench-index.com, benchindex.com, index-bench.com and indexbench.com.
Since then Garett Rogers speculated that this may mean Google is building a
product to allow users to build their own flavor of the Google search engine,
much like how Rollyo does. Philipp Lenssen guesses that Google may be
releasing some sort of Alexa engine. Some folks at Philipp’s forum suggest
that “IndexBench could be tools that measure the quality of an index.” Loren
Baker leans to siding with Garett Rogers’s guess. Me? I have no better guess
at this time…. - First
Non English University To Join Google Book Search Project
Reuters reports that The Complutense University of Madrid, a Spanish
university, is to join the Google Book Search scan project as the first
library to join in a “non-English-speaking country.” The Complutense
University’s library is the second largest in the country, with 3 million
works…. - Some
Google Belgium Follow-Ups
Just a quick note that Google’s posted on its official blog about the Google
Belgian news issue that I’ve been covering, while William Slawski has a nice
translation in the works on the ruling itself…. - Google
Gets Long Distance Phone Call From Space
The world’s first private woman space tourist Anousheh Ansari made a long
distance call to the Googlplex to talk with Google co-founder Larry Page.
Ansari and Page both are trustees of the X Prize Foundation. Google has
highlights of some of their call here; including space fun, space food, space
broadband and more. Larry Page asks, when can he “come up to join” Ansari? Who
knows, maybe Page will cash out on some Google stock and fly to the
International Space Station…. - Yahoo
Fellowships For Repressed Journalists, While Chinese Journalist Might Sue Them
Earlier this month, I dinged Google over hypocrisy for getting behind Banned
Books Week given its support of censorship in China. Now, a similar ding for
Yahoo. Yahoo funds $1M Stanford journalism fellowship from the San Jose
Business Journal covers how Yahoo — under fire for allegedly harming
journalists in China — is going to fund fellowships for journalists in
countries with press restrictions…. - Google
Aims To Make More Energy Efficient Computers
A NY Times article shows how Google to Push for More Electrical Efficiency in
PC. Why? (1) “It’s like putting a 400-horsepower engine in every car, just
because some cars have to tow large trailers every once in a while,” Mr.
Calwell of Google said. (2) “By deploying the new power supplies in 100
million desktop PC’s running eight hours a day, it will be possible to save 40
billion kilowatt-hours over three years, or more than $5 billion at
California’s energy rates.” (3) Because Search Companies Energetically Seeking
Electricity (4) Google’s Costs To Increase With Data Center Needs Energy… - DMA
Offering Search Marketing Certification Program
The Direct Marketing Association has announced a new certification program in
search marketing, which is to launch at its annual conference next month. From
the press release:… - Class
Action Lawsuit Filed Against AOL Over Search Data Release
TechCrunch reports in Suit filed against AOL; seeks to block search history
storage that a class action lawsuit has been filed against AOL seeking $1,000
in damages for each person whose search records were released last month. The
release involved 658,000 individuals, so that’s potentially a $658 million
bill, if the case succeeds. It’s even more if some of those people are
California-based, since the case seeks $4,000 per California individual,
according to TechCrunch….
Exploiting the Differences in Search Ad Programs
The major search engines pay-per-click programs all have similarities, but
also have their own unique features and nuances. Crafting your campaigns to
take maximum advantage of each program requires understanding the subtle
differences in each program. At a recent SES conference, a panel explored the
different programs and offered suggestions based on experience using them.
Read on for more on these differences in today’s SearchDay article, Compare &
Contrast: Search Ad Program Strategies….
Microsoft Consolidates Platform, Portfolio In ‘Digital Advertising Solutions’
Microsoft announced the launch of “Digital Advertising Solutions” and a
related media campaign to promote it. What is “Digital Advertising Solitions?”
It’s an effort to bring together, in one convenient buying environment,
Microsoft’s extensive portfolio of consumer properties in gaming, mobile and
online. According to the press release, “Microsoft Digital Advertising
Solutions offers advertisers the ability to reach more than 465 million
consumers each month across the MSN network and millions more through Windows
Live, Xbox Live and Office Online. Microsoft’s advertising portfolio extends
its reach across some of Microsoft’s latest releases such as Live Search and
Live Local Search,…- Google
Leads In Dead & Old Pages
In Google Has the Largest Number of Dead and Old Pages, the Google Operating
System Blog points to a video and some research from Google’s Ziv Bar-Yossef
that discusses how to grab a random sample of pages from major search engines
and extrapolate from those pages information about the search engines. This
can be used in a number of ways…. - Organic
& Paid Search Conversion Metrics Similar
ClickZ reports on a WebSideStory study that shows that organic search traffic
realized a conversion rate of 3.13 percent while paid search traffic realized
a conversion rate of 3.4 percent. The study covered 57 million search engine
visits from “20 business-to-consumer e-commerce sites during the first eight
months of 2006.” ClickZ notes that organic search traffic does tend to have a
higher click rate (1.5 times higher than paid search volume)…. - Google
Displaying Really Long Site Descriptions?
Philipp Lenssen spotted a screen capture of Google displaying a really long
and extended description within the search results page for a search on [blogspot.com
autoregistration]. I personally do not see the nine or so line description
myself. Matt Cutts of Google commented saying he was also not able to
“recreate those snippets,” so maybe a temporary Google bug, spyware, or a
fake?… - Real
Estate Search Engine Trulia Adds New Depth, Features
As the housing market cools, the real estate vertical is heating up. Today,
real estate search engine Trulia launched several new features, a week after
Zillow introduced new functionality and about three weeks after Yahoo! Real
Estate announced a range of new tools and a site redesign….
Headlines & News From Elsewhere
- Google/
Saturn Video, Google Blogoscoped
How to get StumbledUpon, Pronet Advertising- Podcast: AOL Hit
With $658 Million+ Lawsuit Over Search Privacy; Certifying Search Marketers;
Calling Google From Space, Daily SearchCast - ‘Google’ your tax dollars,
Associated Press
Northeast U.S. complains of Google outages, News.com
Comcast Denying Access to Google Sites in Massachusetts, Google Watch
Incisive Media acquired by Apax Partners for $375MM, Equity Mind
MySpace trumps YouTube in video, MarketWatch
Google Advertising Platform: Winning Battles to Win the War… (or, Why My
Pain is Google’s Gain), Traffick
New Faceted Search and Browsing Technology Debuts on Librarians’ Internet
Index., ResourceShelf- eBay
Bails Out of China, TechCrunch
Google Mobile Search Adds Onebox Results, Google Operating System- Atlas of
Our Changing Environment, Google Blogoscoped - An
SEOs Guide to Proxies – FAQ, SEO BlackHat
Dynamic Phone Numbers & Extensions For Your PPC Campaigns, Search Engine
Roundtable
Growth Slows, But Online Ads Still Outpace Other Media, ClickZ- Google
searches India for takeovers, The Hindu
Top Travel Sites, iMedia Connection
Google Expands Google Transit With New Cities; If Your City or Metro Not
Listed Lots of Other Tools, ResourceShelf
King County bus routes hitch ride on Google mapping site, Seattle Times
Microsoft’s Spin-Off Launching Social Networking Site Wallop; Gets $10 Million
Second Round, PaidContent.org- del.icio.us, now
with six zeros, Yahoo Search Blog - BuzzLogic calculates social
media influence, ZDNet
Webcast: Learning to Label Images (Microsoft Research), ResourceShelf
Celestia – Explore the Universe, Google Operating System- Alex Jones : Google Video
is Censoring Me, Threadwatch
Talking about suspended AdSense accounts on Click This!, JenSense- Google
Cross-site Request Forgery, Google Blogoscoped - Google To PPC
Branding: Drop Dead, Search Insider