Confirming earlier reports, The New York Times Company on Wednesday said it is ready to sell About.com, and is already engaged in discussions with potential buyers. “No definitive agreement has been reached,” a New York Times Co. representative said. “The negotiations are ongoing, and there can be no assurances that an agreement will be reached or that a transaction will be completed.” Earlier on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD blog reported that the Times Co. was nearing a deal to sell About.com to Answers.com for around $270 million. A Times Co. representative would not comment on the report, or address specific sale discussions. Times Co. bought About for $410 million in 2005. The site is powered by freelancers who produce stories and how-to videos on a range of topics. It is widely recognized as the forefather of “content farms” like Demand Media. Recently, however, the site has struggled. Last month, Times Co. took a $195 million writedown of About.com, while in its latest earnings release, the company said that About Group’s revenue declined 8.7% to $25 million. About.com’s falling fortunes are largely attributed to a drop in display and cost-per-click advertising.A sale of About.com would also be consistent with Times Co.’s broader efforts to streamline business operations. The company recently sold its stakes in the Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Boston Red Sox, and took a major writedown last year on its Regional Media Group before -- selling the newspaper group to Halifax Media Holdings in January of this year for $143 million. Founded in 1998, Answers.com emerged as a plug-in for Internet Explorer. The business morphed into a reference answers site, combining more than 250 data sources to help users find information on reference topics, including non-digitized sources. More recently, Answers has sought to build out social, personalized and ad services on desktop and mobile, based partly on a minority investment made by TA Associates, the global growth private-equity firm.TA Associates and Summit Partners -- which also backs Answers.com -- are currently trying to secure the financing necessary to acquire About.com, AllThingsD reported.
Retail marketers running affiliate programs on their brand's Web site want to ensure they deliver to customers -- but a series of emerging fraudulent techniques has put managers like Wade Tonkin at Fanatics, which sells sports merchandise, on high alert. Unscrupulous affiliate marketers scamming the system have become sophisticated, similar to click fraud on display ads or viruses and malware in mobile devices and desktop computers. A group of marketers have stepped up efforts to identify the latest practices and heighten awareness to help other retailers. "The bad guys have taken things to another level with cookie-stuffing scams that don't even require ads to be displayed or software to be downloaded," Tonkin said. An unscrupulous affiliate marketer might post a comment and image in a forum on a merchant's site providing support for customers. A piece of code in the image would verify cookies in the site visitor's browser. If it found none, the code would send the consumer back to an invisible image and force a click to the affiliate. If the consumer came back to the site to make a purchase, the affiliate would be compensated for the sale, attributing the credit wrongly. Tonkin calls that "fraud." Those taking advantage of affiliate programs also impersonate merchants in paid-search ads and landing pages, use software tools to either stuff cookies in browsers or use tools triggering "shopping helpers" for traffic the merchant may have already paid to acquire from other sources like paid-search campaign, search engine marketing or social marketing. More affiliates have begun to outbid companies for keyword and brand terms, according to David Naffziger, CEO at BrandVerity. Determining lost revenue requires estimating the volume of hijacked terms, cost per click and conversion rate, and average sales price. He says companies such as Microsoft and Jenson USA experience this all the time. Losses can make up between 10% and 15% of affiliate commission fees, and can cost retailers between $10,000 and $20,000 per month. "About 60% of the Fortune 500 companies have affiliate programs, and of those, 96% have placed certain restrictions on their program, and about 85% deal with this problem in one way or another," he said. Larry Fisher, VP of client services at Rise Interactive, points to an affiliate marketer who bid on a client's best-performing brand term, and copied the text of a paid-search ad and the landing page. The term quickly decreased in efficiency and value for the retailer. The keyword, which had once driven more than $50,000 in revenue daily for the site, fell to $10,000 for a series of days, he said. During the past six months, Fisher has seen a lot of redirect strategies using URL shortners to "mask their trail" and try to get around the retailer's rules for their own gain. He also reports a lot of deduplication -- paying for the same campaign twice.
Building artificial intelligence into search engines that can identify intent prior to an action will require more knowledge than engineers can muster today, but a series of improvements has laid the foundation for Google to take one step closer. On Wednesday, the company introduced new tools such as an improved voice search app for Apple products and the ingratiation of Gmail into search query results. The voice search tool for the iPhone and the iPad, expected to roll out later this week, offers similar capabilities to Apple's Siri technology. Speaking the search query into the device rather than typing it will allow users to find information about weather, restaurants, the arts, and other areas. Google also plans to allow signed-in search users and Gmail subscribers to access email from the search engine. The Gmail results will appear on the right rail of the search page or in the main search results by typing the keyword "gmail" in the search box. An icon on the page will allow users to withhold Gmail results for a specific search session. Tests will run with about 1 million of the 425 million Gmail users who request access to the trial. Integrating email into search results might not appeal to everyone. "I prefer a bucketed approach, but there are many in the younger generation who want everything integrated," said Jeffrey Rohrs, head of marketing research at ExactTarget. On Tuesday, Google updated its Maps feature to add live traffic updates to more than 130 smaller cities across the United States, as well as the capitals of Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama. It appears that Google will give users what a student panel at the April MediaPost Search Insider Summit wanted. The Florida students described one dashboard to access social, email, search and more.
In honor of the 2012 games in London, I thought it would be fun to compare the various Olympic sports to relevant search marketing themes. #ykyasgwArchery – for Olympic archers, the slightest gust of wind can be the difference between a bullseye and bullsh*t arrow. In SEM, seasonality can also have a huge impact on your results, and some products will fare better than others. Athletics – this category includes track races like the 100 meters as well as field events like the shot put. The latter reminds me of managing paid search keyword bids manually. All I can think is, why on earth are you trying to throw that boulder when we have machines that can do that?! Badminton – players throwing matches to earn better position in tournament play is the equivalent of purposely getting links from negative sites to improve your SEO position. Basketball – the U.S. team nearly losing to Lithuania is a reminder to never underestimate your competition. That goes for SEM too. Beach Volleyball – searching for ways to help your female colleague “crush everybody” in SEM? I know someone who may train-her. Boxing – the paid search equivalent of the rope-a-dope is pulling back budgets a few hours a day to make competitors think you’ve capped out and then coming back with a fury after they’ve lowered their bids. Canoe Slalom – mashing up kayaking and skiing is like optimizing your website for both humans and spiders. It’s very hard to do both. Canoe Sprint – for rowers and searchers with short attention spans, sometimes you just want to search one and done. Cycling – BMX – watching the motocross version of biking reminds me of perusing Baidu search results pages. You’re never quite sure where to look. Cycling - Mountain Bike – managing a marketing program can feel like climbing a mountain. Don’t mistake plateaus for the end of the trail.Cycling – Road – outside of cycling insiders, who knew there were so many different types of matches? Outside of search insiders, who knew there were so many different match types? Cycling – Track – the advent of the indoor track as a way to charge spectators an entrance fee is reminiscent of Google’s recent move to charge merchants for placement in Google product search. Diving – a diving best practice is to have no splash. An SEM best practice is to have no splash page. Equestrian – having fun yet? Shall we keep horsing around? Fencing – the target in fencing is usually the torso; however, search marketers often go after the long tail. Football – using one’s hands in football is like keyword stuffing on a website: a flagrant foul. Gymnastics – Artistic – vaulting to the top of the search results takes much precision, and even one slip can cost you the top spot. Gymnastics – Rhythmic – gymnasts must keep the apparatus in motion throughout their routines in much the same way paid search marketers must constantly adjust bids to ensure proper position. Handball – the object of handball is to score goals. The object of search marketing is to hit goals. So there. Hockey – the summer version of this sport is played on a pitch, and stamina is key. In SEM, stamina is also key for agencies in an RFP pitch. Judo – in judo,sometimes the best offense is a good defense. In paid search, setting up negative keywords can help ensure your brand does not appear for undesirable queries. Modern Pentathlon – in the pentathlon and SEM, there’s always room for a little freestyle. Rowing – any good row team must rely on its cox -- and any good SEM team must think outside the box. Sailing – there’s no such thing as auto-pilot, whether you’re sailing a dinghy in RSX or dinging a sale in SEM. Shooting – in shooting and SEM, you must keep your target in sight at all times. And the best paid-search portfolio algorithms will be calibrated to avoid recoil when extreme seasonality causes spikes. Swimming – whether you’re talking swimming or SEM, it’salways best to let your results speak for themselves. Jeah!Synchronized Swimming – if you’re using a paid search technology platform, it’s critical to make sure the work you do in the tool remains in sync with the search engines. Table Tennis – I don’t know any table tennis pros -- but I bet they, like many of the search marketing pros I know, grew up on pong. Taekwondo – in taekwondo,you must avoid attacking opponents’ faces. In SEO, you must avoid facing opponents’ attacks. Tennis – executing SEM programs after getting buy-in from all internal stakeholders is the equivalent of playing the Olympic Tennis final in front of your home crowd. Trampoline – in SEM, trampoline, and life, you gotta get used to the ups and downs! Triathlon – winning this race requires excellence in swimming, biking, and running. Winning in SEM requires excellence in social, local, and mobile. Volleyball - in volleyball and PPC, it’s all about the fundamentals. Bump. Set. Spike. Keyword. Ad. Landing Page. Water Polo – you’ll want to avoid touching the bottom in water polo and SEO alike. Weightlifting – in the Clean and Jerk, theset-up to lift the weight up to your chest is crucial. In paid search, the set-up of your campaigns and ad groups is crucial. Wrestling – in wrestling,officials award points for various actions before crowning a winner. In SEM, marketers must reward all the various touchpoints that led to a conversion before crowning a certain keyword. OK, that’s a new Olympic Record for list length in one my columns… 36! Shattering the old record of 26. Time to start training for Rio!
Virtuous cycles are anomalies. They fight the universal law of entropy, and for that reason alone, they are worth investigation. Rather than a gradual slide toward dissipation and equilibrium, virtuous cycles build upon themselves, yielding self-sustaining returns cycle after cycle. In marketing, there are not a lot of virtuous cycles. Most marketing efforts need to be constantly fueled by a steady stream of dollars. The minute the budget tap is closed, so is the marketing program. But there are a few, and SEO is one of them, if done correctly. Let’s take a quick look at the elements required to build a truly virtuous cycle. The Power of Positive Feedback Positive feedback is the engine of a virtuous cycle. It’s what drives sustainable growth. Think of it as the compound interest paid on your marketing efforts. In an SEO program, positive feedback comes in the form of the algorithmic love shown to you by the search engines, dragging in an ever-increasing number of eyeballs. These eyeballs also contribute to the feedback loop, creating new links, new user-generated content, new activity, all of which continue to drive rankings, up, which drives new eyeballs, which… well, you get the idea. And the cycle continues. Investment Required Virtuous cycles require an upfront investment, and it’s usually a significant one. You can’t collect compound interest on a zero balance. Cycles don’t start from scratch. In SEO, the investments required come in the form of content and an engaging user experience. You have to give a user a reason to come, to engage and to evangelize to really leverage the benefits of SEO. You can evaluate if you have the makings of a virtuous cycle by asking yourself the following questions: - What are my users coming for? - What will they do? - How can they engage? - Why will they care? - Will their expectations be exceeded? If you have a less than satisfactory answer to any of these questions, you don’t have what it takes to create a virtuous cycle. Appealing to Human Nature If your cycle depends on human behavior, as most do, you have to appeal to one of the basic tenets of human nature. As complicated as we can be, we are generally driven by a surprisingly small number of basic needs. Harvard professors Nitin Nohria and Paul Lawrence, in their book “Driven,” identified four fundamental human drives: We need to acquire, to learn, to bond and to defend. Examine any virtuous cycle, and you’ll always find at least one of these drives at the heart of it. Ask yourself how your online presence contributes to these drives. Remember, for a cycle to begin, positive feedback is required. And positive feedback depends on engagement from your visitors. Universally Beneficial Finally, a virtuous cycle needs to benefit all parties in order for it to be sustainable. It needs to be a win/win/win. If, somewhere along the line, someone gets screwed, the cycle will ultimately fall apart. In SEO, this means you must play along with the algorithm rather than try to beat it. Short-term thinking and virtuous cycles never go well together. One algorithmic update to crack down on a SEO loophole will shut down your cycle in a heartbeat. But if you work with a search engine to make a great user experience discoverable, the cycle will begin.