Search Engine Watch
All Things SEM
You may not participate in (or advocate) black-hat search strategies, but as Marios Alexandrou notes, keeping yourself abreast of the dirty tricks is a must if you're in the search space. After all, if a competitor launches an attack on a client's Web site, how will you know which tactic it is--and more important, how to combat it? Alexandrou gives a brief overview of five black-hat techniques, including link building with XSS and parasite hosting. Link building with XSS is a way to exploit vulnerabilities in a site's underlying code to inject juice and PageRank-passing links …
Search Engine Journal
Aggregating data from multiple sources around the Web can give Webmasters a way to evaluate the strength of their own page, as well as a competitor's or possible link partner's. Start first with the number of in- and outbound links. For the former, use a search parameter like "link:site.com/page" on Yahoo, and a Firefox plugin like SEOQuake for the latter. Check things like Google PageRank, the page's age and the average crawl rate, using widely available free tools, or an advanced search filter. Ann Smarty says not to forget about the social media aspect in determining …
Read Write Web
Quantcast users can now sift through demographic data from sites that are monitored by the Web audience measurement service. "Demographics are extrapolated from user panels and multiplied by traffic numbers gleaned from embed codes and presumably ISP data," says Marshall Kirkpatrick. "Interested in finding websites that get a lot of traffic from young, childless, U.S. 'Hispanics' with an annual income over $100k per year? Quantcast suggests you check out HolaMun2, Reggaetonline.net and Power106.fm." The tool is free once you set up a Quantcast account, though Kirkpatrick says that the search would benefit from being more specific about how …
All Things Digital
Microsoft has moved on from a potential Yahoo buyout, but has Google walked away from the search deal that may have been the Web giant's saving grace? While The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is having second thoughts, Kara Swisher's inside sources at the Googleplex say that the deal still has potential. "While there is a lively debate going on at the Googleplex over the ramifications of such a deal, it is more likely than not that the search giant will cut some kind of limited and carefully crafted deal with Yahoo," Swisher says. …
CNET News
Yahoo has begun testing a new SERP interface called Glue Pages on its India-facing portal. The design, which is reminiscent of Ask-3D, features multiple panes or modules of multimedia information. The far left module features standard text results, and the middle and far right panes offer searchers sponsored links and relevant pods of info about their topic, such as medical studies, recipes, Wikipedia entries, stock charts, or Flickr files. As Stephen Shankland notes, there are a number of different ad opportunities on a Glue Page, including sponsored links and module sponsorship. Shankland also says that the …
Search Engine Land
B2B clients need to run paid search campaigns on the core search engines just like B2C companies do, but as Galen DeYoung notes, B2B companies should also target business-facing engines and sites like Business.com, Jayde and KnowledgeStorm. "Clicks and leads from these vertical search sites may not yield the same traffic as general search engines, but the percentage of qualified traffic and conversions can increase dramatically with leads from these specialized and vertical business-oriented engines," DeYoung says. He offers a thorough review of B2B vertical engines in the general business, finance, IT and global resource markets--and …
SEM Geek
Greg Meyers is perplexed by the apparent lack of giving in the $10+ billion dollar search industry. Meyers isn't talking about annual charitable contributions--he's calling out behemoths like Yahoo, MSN and even Omniture for not offering portions of their services to nonprofits for free (or at a low cost), so that these organizations can operate more effectively online. "Single donations are good," Meyers says. "Helping charities grow their business online by offering free or discounted advertising and/or services is better."
Search Engine People
According to a new Juniper Research report, some 1.3 billion mobile users are slated to use local mobile search services within the next five years. And those local searches will generate $4.8 billion worth of revenue by 2013--roughly 43% of all mobile search ad revenues. Promising numbers, but the Juniper report cautions that the local mobile search boom hinges on high-quality mobile Web experiences for users. "Mobile devices, however, appear to be catching up to user expectations," says Tom Tsinas. For example, the report found that the iPhone users typically searched about 50 times more than other handset …
LiveSide.net
This week Microsoft launched a new, streamlined Live Search interface--one that could be described as: "Simple and Powerful. Human. Fast." But it seems that the software giant has forgotten that searchers also need consistency, as Kip Kniskern posts examples of six different Live Search screens and SERPs he saw within the same short time frame on the day of the launch. Of course, the rollout of a new user interface takes time, but as Kniskern notes--users aren't privy to the planning meetings, they don't get to see the design concept slides, and they have no clue about how …