NewSunNetworks

David Pann talks about customer migration and continuing search innovation How will the search agreement with Microsoft affect Yahoo! advertisers and products? David Pann, VP and general manager of search advertising, told WebProNews Video that the deal is “a win for advertisers with a single buy getting access to more inventory, it’s a win for consumers for a greater relevance, and it’s a win for consumers and publishers since they have greater access to a new set of participation and inventory.” For more from David, watch the video below. More WebProNews Videos —The Team

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Video: What’s Next for Yahoo! Search?

Right now, Ask, Bing, Yahoo and Google control 99% of the search market. In Europe, Google controls close to 90% of that. That sounds like about the same market penetration that lead to the EU decision to force MS to offer browser choice this month on new machines . But right now, most (all?) of those browsers default to Google search. Europeans need more choice. Just like they needed choice on the browsers. On new machines, after they download whichever browser, they need a screen with the top 6 search engines and to ask people who will be their default search provider. Even if the browser is Chrome. It’s only “fair.” What’s good for the Goose is good for the Google.

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Why 6th Place in Search Might Soon Be a Player

This morning Citysearch is unveiling a new local online ad program called “CityGrid Complete,” managed and fulfilled partly by OrangeSoda. The IAC-owned company has also invested in OrangeSoda as part of the new relationship.  I spoke last week with Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti who said that the company chose OrangeSoda because Citysearch believes it has the best SEO solution in the market. OrangeSoda has been offering SEO, paid-search and what it calls “ loccal search maps optimization .” The latter is now the chief focus of “local SEO.”  According to the press release:  The first of its kind, CityGrid Complete is the only online advertising solution that gives local businesses the ability to reach millions of consumers monthly by building customizable content ads that are distributed across the web. In addition to content ads, CityGrid Complete includes SEO services designed to drive consumers from all the major search engines directly to their own websites

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Citysearch Revamps SEM, Buys into OrangeSoda

Posted by RobOusbey Search Engine Optimization covers a huge range of tactics - all of which can bring direct benefit to a website. In this post, I’ve shared examples of different tactics used at different websites, and the effects that have been seen. If you’re considering an SEO campaign for your site, or are trying to persuade someone else to invest in internet marketing, I hope this post will help demonstrate the potential of internet marketing. The post includes real screen shots from Google Analytics (click any of them to enlarge) but the sites and data have been anonymized. Target Your Target Terms Remember that post about building a page with perfect keyword targeting ? SEOmoz wasn’t kidding around. A website that sells homewares had issues with site structure and on-page targeting. Their category level pages were at subdomains such as http://kitchenequipment.sitename.com or http://livingrooms.sitename.com whilst each sub-category was back on the main subdomain at: www.sitename.com/find_product2.asp?url1=living+room&url2=rugs+and+carpets Category and sub-category pages had a distinct lack of semantic HTML or term targeting. Getting appropriate H1 tags onto each page was a quick job, improving title tag structure took a bit longer, clean & friendly URLs and internal links with appropriate anchor text were also added. The site saw ranking improvements across the board, which brought new traffic through head, mid and long tail terms. Can you guess when the changes were made? Getting sorted in Google Local Before getting into the nitty-gritty of ranking factors for Local Search , dead simple tactics , etc, it’s important to get the basics right. A large chain of restaurants created a ‘bulk upload’ file with the correct data for each one of their locations. After uploading the file, they applied for it to be reviewed and ‘whitelisted’. Local data that’s been uploaded by the business owner and whitelisted is treated as authoritatively as locations that have been manually verified by postcard. Despite various issues (Google’s best practice guidelines still aren’t quite the best solution in some cases) the traffic generated by visibility in Local Search has been significant and valuable. (The uploads were verified in late November when the traffic begins its steady rise.) Architecture of Change A current affairs magazine wanted to get more from their website. Because of falling advertising revenue, the publication was at risk of being closed down. They’d seen some growth from SEO already, but wanted to prove that the website had greater value. Although the site had a good brand and some great content, it suffered from similar problems to many news-type websites, including badly archived content, duplicate issues and a CMS that hampered keyword targeting or promoting individual articles.

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Search Marketing Success Stories

A misconception about web pages that lingered for a long time on the Web was that most people who visit your web site will enter your site on your home page. Another one is that the meta description you choose for a page will usually be what a search engines shows as the snippet,

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Why a Search Engine Might Choose Something Other Than Meta Descriptions for Page Summaries in Search Results

It’s getting closer to the moment of truth for me and this kind of “news” gets me a little closer to making the move on going with an Android device. I know the days are numbered for my BlackBerry. That’s a foregone conclusion. I guess I am the customer that is being most fought over between Apple and any Android device (hence Google for all intents and purposes). I want out of my Blackberry Storm sooner than later but I am still debating whether to wait out the contract to go with an iPhone (it’s a year away) or commit to an Android device ….. now. Google today introduced the ability to search on an Android device using 2.0 or higher using written gestures. Pretty slick. The Google Mobile Blog tells some more. As mobile phones become increasingly powerful and can store more data, we’ve introduced new methods of search to get you to your content faster, such as search suggestions or search by voice. But sometimes, typing to get to the right search suggestion takes too long, and you may be in a quiet environment where speaking a query is inappropriate. Today we’re pleased to announce Gesture Search, a new Google Labs application for Android-powered devices running Android 2.0 or above in the US. Gesture Search lets you quickly find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by simply drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen.

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Now Use Written Gestures to Search Android Phone

Below is live coverage of the Ask The Search Engines from the SMX West conference. This coverage is provided by Brian Ussery of Beu Blog. We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage, please excuse…

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SMX West: Ask The Search Engines

This is a winner: Milo in addition to providing inventory data for local stores is now offering  real-time pricing and sales alerts information: Milo.com – the Web site that enables shoppers to research online and buy local – is helping its users shop even smarter through the addition of real-time sale prices on more than 2 million products at national and regional stores throughout the country. Shoppers are now able to search over 100,000 local sale prices each day and filter by category and merchant across 48,000 retailers, ranging from Best Buy to Blain’s Farm & Fleet. Milo isn’t the first or only shopping site to provide price alerts, but it’s a nice addition to the company’s other data and features.

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Milo Adds Real-Time Sales/Pricing Data

John Herrman / Gizmodo : Confirmed: Microsoft’s Project Pink Lives, and It’s Coming to Verizon

OK I’ve made this list for a client that wants to have some clear information about on-page SEO services…below is the information I will be sending her with respect to on-page SEO but I’d like to see if anyone can add anything else to the list that I am missing. Of course she will not fully understand some of the tactics listed and will have to speak with me in person regarding many of them. She simply wants to list for now. If you can add anything else to the following on-page SEO services list please do! On-page SEO services involve the following: * Interlinking pages. * Determining which keywords are most important to your online success. * Funneling search engine crawlers and users to important pages. * Optimizing all Page Title and Meta Tags (HTML). * Editing current copy for SEO enhancement. * Optimizing all new internal link labels (anchor text). * Creating proper Heading Tags on each page. * Adding the proper paragraph tags to your content. * Re-writing your current menu systems for SEO . (currently written in javascript) * Creating and submitting a Google/Yahoo/MSN sitemap of all your pages. * Creating proper footer links on each of your pages. * Registering your site with Google/Yahoo/MSN webmaster tools. * Registering your site with Google Analytics

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On-Page SEO Best Practices