Could Yahoo have saved Hollywood millions of dollars? While last night's Academy Awards ceremony presented accolades for last year's movie performances, Yahoo's poll of consumer predictions on who would win nailed some squarely on the head, according to Loren Baker. For example, the poll accurately predicted the indie film "Slumdog Millionaire" would take Best Picture, after receiving 48% of the vote. And with 50% of the vote, Kate Winslet in "The Reader" won the Best Actress poll, a prediction that likewise came true. Consumers flubbed with their Best Actor pick -- Brad Pitt rather than Sean Penn.

Attempting to provide more relevant results in search engine queries, Google has made the decision to change its AdWords policy, disallowing multiple display URL domains within a single ad group, according to Emel Mutlu. The change takes effect Feb. 24. Providing examples of what this means for you, Mutlu encourages AdWords users to make necessary adjustments to ads in advance of the change as a result of the update. The change applies to all AdWords advertisers.

You're thinking about launching a business and Web site, but your competition has years of conversion data, an older trusted site, tons of content, and thousands of organic inbound links. Sound overwhelming? Aaron Walls tells us how to pick mid-tier longtail keywords that will help you rank on the first page of search results, rather than page 2 or page 3. Building a revenue stream from the high-ranking keywords can help you purchase more. Wall illustrates how longtail keywords have less competition, comparing the benefits with core keywords. "If I target the most competitive keywords first (without …

Kevin Gibbons gives us six golden rule on choosing keywords to improve pay-per-click campaigns. For starters, consider specific and relevant keywords, rather than broad ones, he writes. The risk of not choosing relevant keywords could cost you tons of money because whatever traffic the words push to your site could leave quickly and never return. All traffic isn't necessarily good. The keywords need to not only attract traffic to the site, but keep people there longer and coming back for more information, writes Gibbons. The post also links to rules that might come in handy when designing …

Nofollow is dying, according to Will Critchlow. He makes the statement to discuss the impact on SEO and the evolving use of the Web. Similar to the way blogging, commenting and trackbacks forced search engines strategies to change, Critchlow believes we have begun to see similar shifts prompted by Twitter and the ability to send short, quick messages to many people simultaneously. "Many people have a greater reach on Twitter than they do via their blog and they certainly have more tools to make it easy to post thoughts, discoveries and questions," Critchlow writes. In the post he explores …

Aside from working paid and organic search words into your ad copy, make sure to convey the benefits of your products and services. With each query, searchers look to solve a need. Finding a way to express those benefits by emphasizing emotional needs can work best, according to Kevin Lee. Lee explains it's not always a good idea to lean toward pricing as an incentive to gain clicks, though it may seem like an obvious choice, especially for retailers. He details a list of other possible benefits such as free trials and shipping, you might want to consider emphasizing.

When it comes to pay-per-click advertising campaigns, keywords are an important tool, but symbols can also draw the eye to the ad. A few months ago, PPC Hero ran a blog post explaining how to put registered or trademarked company names in PPC ads to help increase click-through rates and set you apart from competitors in the SERPs. The PPC Hero post got David Szetela thinking: Could other symbols in ads get advertisers noticed? Szetela tells us about a few experiments such as inserting bullet points, and greater and lesser signs. Google's policy does prohibit …

Providing food for thought, R. Falconer raises a hypothetical question: Would, or could, Twitter monetize the site through search? "Search alone won't bring in the money needed to prevent the fail whale from falling but having a popular search engine definitely opens the door to selling targeted advertising and makes the company infinitely more valuable in the eyes of the big players on the Web," Falconer writes. If you haven't figured out why Twitter has become so popular, Falconer touches on the average person's addition to feeding and receiving real-time information in 140 character or less bites on …

David Needle tells us that Google isn't the only fish in the analytic sea and it might benefit marketers to check out free services from a player less well known for analytics: Yahoo. While he provides a list of features offered by Yahoo but not Google, Needle also notes a series of "drawbacks" for Yahoo analytics mentioned in a 470-page report released this week by CMS Watch. CMS Watch evaluated 20 Web analytics platforms, including Coremetrics, Omniture, Visible Measures, and WebTrends, against 12 potential use cases. Quoting CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne, Needle writes that "smaller firms are …

Google has posted four new how-to video on using AdWords, on topics ranging from accessing features to creating ads across all groups. There are now six total. Two were posted four months ago. YouTube, of course, hosts them. On the first video, Austin Rachlin provides instructions on how to get started. He suggests logging into your AdWords account. Go into the Campaign Management page and click on Campaign Summery to choose the campaign you want to create a display builder ad.