How the Search Marketing Industry Shot Itself in the Foot

From the earliest time of the industry, search marketers have rallied behind the idea that companies needed to hire them in order to increase a web site’s rankings in the search engines. The idea was that higher rankings equaled more traffic and more traffic equaled more sales. Online businesses large and small, disappointed to discover that traffic wasn’t exactly lining up at the doors of their newly opened web sites, slowly began to see value in the “voodoo” that search marketers promised to work on their sites. As such, an industry was born.
The problem was that as more businesses became skilled about the need for search engine marketing, the idea that search engine marketing was all about rankings sustained to spread. This set the entire industry up for a level of expectation that simply cannot be sustained. While top five or even top ten rankings could be achieved by skilled SEMs for almost any keyword phrase, the day is coming when the industry will grow to levels that make phrases so competitive that even the most skilled search marketers will have difficulty attaining top rankings.

Imagine, for a moment, that other marketing industries had set themselves up with similar expectations. That email marketers were measured unsuccessful if you didn’t make the top ten list in terms of visitors to your site, that public relations professionals were a failure if you weren’t one of the top ten stories of the year, that television commercials were a failure unless they resulted in more store visits than all but ten other companies in their industry. Starting to sound a little silly?

Of course it does! Marketing is about finding new and innovative ways to present a product so that it drives purchases. Commercial marketers work to capture an audience’s attention in a way that keeps a company top of mind when the need arises for their product. Direct mail advertisers seek to capture a potential customer’s interest with a compelling enough offer to create a sale or at least an inquiry. This is where the search marketing industry finds itself facing a challenge. They need to educate businesses to help them toss out the old “top ten rankings” philosophy in exchange for the more realistic and sustainable “positive return on investment” philosophy. Otherwise, the entire industry runs the risk of imploding sometime in the next several years. The industry did shoot itself in the collective foot by setting up expectations based on rankings, but a positive ROI can act as a powerful remedy to help get things moving again.

Microsoft vs. Google in the Search Colosseum

There’s a great article by Jason Miller, staff writer for WebProNews on the upcoming increase in Microsoft’s push for the search market.Microsoft’s counter assault to Ad Sense will be launching in full force in June, up from the 20% of paid listings it currently provides in the MSN search results. Microsoft unveiled its ad Lab yesterday.While it’s not up yet the ad Center will be available shortly at http://advertising.msn.com/searchadv/. This story will shed some light on this important move by Microsoft at this relatively early point in what’s sure to be a major battle for the eyeballs of the world by these two giants.

Marketer Launches New MSN Ad Site

Clix Marketing, an Internet marketing agency, Louisville, KY, launched a site this week devoted to education and discussion of MSN’s test paid search program, MSN ad Center.
The MSN Genius site, www.msn-genius.com, includes news about ad Center, a discussion board for advertisers testing the service, and software and template downloads.
“MSN Genius aims to shorten the learning curve for new users of ad Center, while supplying advanced users with professional marketing advice and techniques,” according to a statement from Clix Marketing. In related news, MSN Ad Center users in Europe now have access to more demographic profiling tools.

Datacenter Update

Just as a head’s up, we’ve been seeing some significant fluctuations in the current rankings on Google and there appears to be some fluctuation of Page Rank going on.This is likely the beginning of the update that Matt Cutts (software engineer for Google) was referring to in his blog about an update early in January.As the first update after Jagger we can be certain that it will be big and include some very interesting changes to the way rankings and perhaps even Page Rank are calculated.

Dell Pre-Sets Browsers To Google Home Page – google’s deal with dell

SEARCH GIANT GOOGLE HAS APPARENTLY entered into a deal with Dell Computers to provide a Dell-Google co-branded personalized home page, which will be the default home page set for new Dell PCs and laptops.

the recent dell computer we bought for our SEO company holds the google homepage, it has other modules attached to it,

Google draws critics over their own digital rights management scheme for their video section,

Google has its own DRM ( digital rights management ) for their videos,

but a popular news site says,

Google is drawing criticism for its decision to use its own digital-rights management (DRM) system to control the distribution of copyright-protected videos in its new Google Video Store.
Google announced the Google Video Store last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Google’s own proprietary DRM technology represents a challenge to existing DRM systems from Microsoft and Apple, also used to control video distribution over the Internet.
By creating yet another DRM system, Google is restricting rather than enabling the distribution of content over the Internet, critics say.

www.cio-today.com/news/Google-Draws-Criticism-for-DRM-Scheme/story.xhtml?story_id=022000QKPE5O

AOL Acquires Internet video search pioneer Truveo, Inc.

AOL Acquires Internet video search pioneer Truveo, Inc.

“
Online consumers seeking the best video search engine will now find it on the leading free portal on the web – AOL.com ( http://aol.com/video ). Internet video search pioneer Truveo, Inc. has been acquired by America Online, Inc., solidifying AOL’s leadership position as the premier destination for a full suite of video and search services.
AOL’s acquisition agreement with Truveo was signed and closed on December 21, 2005. Financial terms were not disclosed. Truveo was previously privately held, and financed by strategic venture and angel investors.
Truveo, based in Burlingame, California, was co-founded by CEO Dr. Tim Tuttle and CTO Dr. Adam Beguelin in January 2004. Truveo subsequently launched its premier video search engine technology in September 2005. “

This looks like a good deal for AOL and its customers, Video search is an other great development and due to the increase in high spead broadband connections more and more videos come online, AOL is sure to benefit on this,

http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06011012.htm

Says AOL betrays google,

“Remember that Google basically had to shell out $1 billion in order to keep its share of AOL’s search biz. As part of the deal, it had to compromise its increasingly farcical “don’t be evil” motto by pledging to help AOL tweak its web pages so that they’ll appear more prominently in Google’s unpaid search results. (“We won’t cheat, but we’ll show you how!”)
After strongarming the billion bucks out of Google, what was Time Warner and AOL’s response to Google’s much-hyped video rollout this week?
AOL said, “Thanks for the money, and by the way, we’re upgrading our own video search.” Webheads can find it at aol.com/video. AOL souped up its own video search platform by purchasing the small video search company Truveo. “

Google 2006 Anita Borg Scholarship – google to sponsor 10,000$ for eligible candidates,

Google is offering scholarship in the name of the great anita borg,

Who is anita borg??

Dr. Anita Borg (1949 – 2003) devoted her adult life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Her combination of technical expertise and fearless vision continues to inspire and motivate countless women to become active participants and leaders in creating technology.

Eligibility Requirements

Candidates must be entering their senior year of undergraduate study or be enrolled in a graduate program in 2006 – 2007 at a university in the United States.
be Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field majors.
be enrolled in full-time study in 2006 – 2007.
maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale or equivalent in their current program.

How to Apply

Complete the online application form and submit the requested documentation via mail. All applications must be postmarked by Friday, January 20, 2006. Finalists will be notified in March 2006 and recipients will be announced in April 2006. As the final step in the scholarship selection process, all finalists will have phone interviews with representatives from the Selection Committee. Interviews for internships or full time opportunities are separate from scholarship phone interviews.

More information here,

http://www.google.com/anitaborg/

Google blog posting here,

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/2006-anita-borg-scholarships.html

their blog entry

“The wonderfully-named Dr. Anita Borg (1949 – 2003) was a rebel with a cause: ensuring that technology itself has positive outcomes, and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Today the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology carries on her vision. And because Google shares that passion, we are pleased to sponsor the 2006 Anita Borg Scholarship program. We are inspired by the past scholarship recipients — and in hopes of finding more, the program is expanded this year to accept applications from students entering their senior year of undergraduate study as well as those enrolled in a graduate program.”

Web search temporarily suspended on Yahoo! Japan portal

TOKYO — Web search service was suspended for five and a half hours Sunday on the Yahoo! Japan portal due to a computer server glitch, Yahoo Japan Corp said.
The company said it has already taken measures to prevent a recurrence and that the problem was not caused by a cyber attack. The search function was out of service from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

A user comments saying

From what i can find, yahoo jp is tended by Akamai Technologies Japan KK. begining in 2001this however is a joint venture between softbank and Akamai Technologies Inc. (headquarters – cambridge, MA)info on softbank: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/sep/1180417.htmand”A notable loser was Softbank Corp, Japan’s largest provider of broadband Web access and Wednesday’s most active issue by value, losing 5.49 percent to 3,960 yen.Softbank took a beating on news of the arrest of four men in two separate cases on suspicion of stealing confidential data of customers to Yahoo BB, Softbank’s high-speed Internet service joint venture with affiliate Yahoo Japan Corp, and trying to extort money from the company…”http://www.brlfinance.net/financial-news.html

yahoo to offer voip service at cheaper price than skype.com

Summary:
Yahoo is expanding its reach in the fast-growing Internet calling market, offering a service that will allow people to make and receive low-cost computer calls to and from regular phones.The long-expected move could make the Sunnyvale company one of the biggest players in the Internet phone-calling market, along with eBay-owned Skype Technologies, Vonage and others.With the new service, the estimated 82 million people worldwide who use Yahoo instant messenger will be able to call any traditional fixed or wireless phone number in 180 countries.The service comes with a free voicemail box.Although the calls will not be free, they will be extraordinarily inexpensive — a penny a minute to anywhere in the United States and less than 2 cents a minute to more than 30 countries, including China, Japan and Sweden.“These prices, in most cases, offer dramatic reductions over other competitors out there,” said Jeff Bonforte, senior director of voice product management for Yahoo.The company briefed media outlets on the news earlier this week under agreements that they would not publish it until the service launched.The number of companies offering Internet calling — also known as Voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP — has soared in recent years as high-speed Internet use becomes more common.Most companies charge a monthly rate and their services are designed to be used as regular phones, except that the phone plugs into an Internet connection instead of a traditional phone network.AT&T, Vonage, Comcast, AOL and Packet8 are among the myriad companies with VoIP calling plans.Yahoo will charge $30 a year to purchase a phone number for incoming calls; Skype charges $35.