WebProNews - Search

Google Search Results About to Get a Dose of Caffeine

Chris Crum — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:28:32 +0000

It appears that the effects of Google's Caffeine update may be felt sooner rather than later. That is if you really do feel the effects at all.

What are your thoughts on Google's Caffeine update? Discuss here.

If you are unfamiliar with Caffeine, it is an algorithm update that Google announced in the summer. Upon the announcement, Google's Matt Cutts said, "The Caffeine update isn't about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won't notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we're rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure." Cutts told WebProNews about Caffeine in the following interview:

When Caffeine was introduced, so was a sandbox, where people could play around with Caffeine based search results, and get a look at how rankings were altered (if at all), and try to get a feel for how it was going to go. Now that sandbox has closed up shop, it looks like the Caffeine update will be live in Google search at any time. It will most likely begin a gradual roll out if it hasn't already. The announcement at what used to be the Caffeine sandbox reads:

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.

Based on the success we've seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

Of course as people tested Caffeine via the sandbox, many of them blogged about their results and findings. The general consensus seemed to be that Caffeine is fast and utilizes real-time search a great deal. Given Google's frequent announcements related to speed, and a recently announced deal with Twitter, speed and real-time search seem like logical updates to Google search results.

When SEOBook's Aaron Wall tested Caffeine, he said he thought there was:

- an increased weighting on domain authority & some authoritative tag type pages ranking (like Technorati tag pages + Facebook tag pages), as well as pages on sites like Scribd ranking for some long tail queries based mostly on domain authority and sorta spammy on page text

- perhaps slightly more weight on exact match domain names

- perhaps a bit better understanding of related words / synonyms

- tuning down some of the exposure for video & some universal search results

This stuff should not necessarily be taken as gospel. These are just the results and speculations of individuals from tests of a product that was only introduced (for testing purposes), let alone finalized. It is what it is.

As the Caffeine update rolls out, there will no doubt be more and more mystery unraveled as search industry professionals scramble to stay ahead of the game, and Google drops subtle hints from time to time. It's going to be interesting to see where Caffeine takes the world's most popular search engine.

Have you tested Caffeine? What do you think about the update? Share your findings here.

Related Articles:

> Matt Cutts Talks Google Caffeine Update

> Where's Bing's Real-Time Search?

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

Doug Caverly — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:47:26 +0000

There's a chance that the content produced by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and a number of other important organizations will soon become impossible to find using Google. Rupert Murdoch indicated in a recent interview that News Corp. may block search engines.

News Corp. is the world's second largest media group. It owns enough stuff that even hitting the highlights would take far too much time. (Wikipedia has an 861-word entry titled "List of assets owned by News Corporation" if you're feeling adventurous.)

Murdoch's interview with Sky News editor David Speers could be of huge significance, then. In it (the relevant part of the conversation starts around the 3:10 mark), Murdoch said, "We'd rather have fewer people coming to our website, but paying." In reference to "search people," he next added, "They don't suddenly become loyal readers of our content."

Finally, in response to a question regarding why News Corp. doesn't just block search engines, Murdoch said, "Well, I think we will . . ."

But here's the tricky part: Murdoch cited the Wall Street Journal's current approach to pay walls and subscriptions as an example of what he'd like to implement on a larger scale, and it's actually possible to access WSJ stories using Google. It's only when clicking around within the WSJ that you run into truncated articles.

So we - and a lot of industry decision-makers - will see what happens. Whichever way Murdoch leans, he definitely has the power to start a trend.

Related Articles:

> MySpace To Miss $100 Million From Google Search Deal

> Murdoch Says Newspapers Must Charge For Online Content

> News Corp. Posts Disappointing Financial Results

Google Seeking Not To Cross The Creepy Line

Rich Ord — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:26:05 +0000

Google CEO Eric Schmidt while appearing on Fox Business made some interesting comments about Google's emergence as a huge Microsoft-like business power. I thought most interesting was Schmidt's statement about Google becoming like Microsoft, "Hopefully, we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsot made ten years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened with them".

Schmidt elaborated:

"In our case we see ourselves as a disruptor, and a disruptor because we are using new technology to solve real consumer problems, that in some cases people didn't even realize could be solved. We are also a company that operates at scale using computers globally. And of course, we are in the information business and people have a lot of opinions on how information should be organized."

Fox Business' Neil Cavuto asked Schmidt in reference to Google's new Dashboard product how we really knew if Google deleted our personal data when we pressed delete via Dashboard. Schmidt's response:

"Because we say so and we would be sued (if we didn't)."

Cavuto joked: "It's like ... come in peace to serve man."

Watch the whole interview below:

Bing Partners With JiWire To Offer Users Free WiFi

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:12:13 +0000

Microsoft has plans to announce an advertising campaign with JiWire that will focus on enticing users to try out its search engine Bing in exchange for free WiFi where available.

The campaign is being supported by JiWire's mobile advertising network, which reaches about 20 million unique users monthly. The Bing campaign will run across WiFi hotpsots in airports and hotels nationwide.

"We're all creatures of habit, so giving away free Internet access in exchange for one search on Bing is a great way to change user behavior," David Blumenfeld, senior vice president of strategy and business development at JiWire told MediaPost.

The campaign launched in September at thousands of locations, has attracted between 30 percent and 40 percent of users to Bing, according to Blumenfeld.

So far the campaign has been a success for Microsoft. "The typical online engagement rates for ads range between .1% and .2%, so when you think of what we're seeing, it's off the charts," he says.

"Let's just say the campaign has performed well above average and Microsoft plans to continue the promotion."

JiWire runs an opt-in program called Ads for Access, which allows advertisers to offer users something in exchange for their time, such as watching a video or taking a survey.

Related Articles:

>"Time Spent Online" Report Puts Microsoft Way Ahead

>New Bing Commercial Inspired By The Shining

>Bing Gains Ground In August

Google Highlights Searches For Black Friday Deals

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:10:22 +0000

With Thanksgiving just a few weeks' away consumers are already starting to search for deals online.

Over the last seven days fifty percent of the top "Black Friday" related search terms include ads, sales and deals, according to Google Insights for Search.

The Google Retail Advertising Blog provides more details. "Interestingly, when we look at Black Friday rising searches over the last 7 days, we see that 'Early Black Friday' is the second rising search term, meaning it has grown over 2,000% during this time period with respect to the previous time period."

"It also may indicate that consumers are not only leveraging 'Black Friday' and searches to locate promotions on these days, but may be seeking out similar types of promotions and offerings even before Thanksgiving weekend."

Google also offers advice on what types of ads will appeal the most to bargain shoppers. "Text ads should highlight specific price points, discounts, coupon codes, and special promotions. Also, remember to keep an eye on search trends in your own category by leveraging Google Insights for Search."

Related Articles:

>Cyber Monday Tips From The Google AdWords Crew

>Consumer Online Spending To Grow 24%

>Black Friday Online Sales Better Than Anticipated

Duplicate Content on Google, Bing & Yahoo

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:21:13 +0000

Duplicate content is a common occurrence on the web and in many cases can hurt search engine rankings. While the search engines may not always technically penalize webmasters for duplicate content, there are still a lot of ways it can hurt.

WebProNews is covering the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East in New York, where representatives from the three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) discussed how their respective web properties handle duplicate content issues. Following are some takeaways from each.

Duplicate Content in Google

The way Google handles duplicate content has been discussed a lot in recent memory. This is largely due to a video Google's Greg Grothaus uploaded, in which he discusses at length, the way Google handles a variety of different elements of the duplicate content conversation.

Joachim Kupke, Sr. Software Engineer of Google's Indexing Team reiterated much of what Grothaus said. He also said that Google has a ton of infrastructure for content duplication elimination:

- redirects
- detection of recurrent URL patterns (the ability to 'learn' recurrent url patterns to find duplicated content)
- actual contents
- most recently crawled version
- earlier content
- contents minus things that don’t change on a site

Kupke said to avoid dynamic URLs when possible (although Google is "rather good" at eliminating dupes). If all else fails, use the canonical link element. Kupke calls this a "Swiss Army Knife" for duplicate content issues.

Google says the canonical link element has been tremendously successful. It didn't even exist a year ago, and is has grown exponentially. It has had a huge impact on Google's canonicalization decisions, and 2 out of 3 times, the canonical tag actually alters the organic decision in Google.

Google says a common mistake is designating a 404 as canonical, and this is typically caused by unnecessary relative links. So, avoid changing rel="canonical" designations, and avoid designating permanent redirects as canonical.

Also, do not disallow directives in robots.txt to annotate duplicate content. It makes it harder to detect dupes, and disallowed 404s are a nuisance. There is an exception however, and that is that interstitial login pages may be a good candidate to "robot out," according to Kupke.

Kupke says that canonical works, but indexing takes time. "Be patient and we WILL use your designated canonicals." Cleaning up an existing part of the index takes even longer, and this may leave dupes serving for a while despite rel=canonical, Kupke adds.

At SMX, Google announced that cross domain rel=canonical is coming within this year. So for example, if the Chicago Tribune has an article on the New York Times, and the rel=canonical points to the Chicago Tribune then Google will only credit the Chicago Tribune with the content.

Duplicate Content in Bing

As far as how Bing views duplicate content, intention is key. If your intent is to manipulate the search engine, you will be penalized.

Sasi Parthasarathy, Program Manager of Bing says to consolidate all versions of a page under one URL. "Less is more, in terms of duplicate content." If possible, use only one URL per piece of content.

Bing isn't supporting the canonical link element (as a ranking factor) yet, but it is coming. They do say to use it, but it's just not really a ranking factor in Bing yet. Bing says that there has been an increase in the usage of canonical tags in the past 6 months, but adoption issues still exist. According to Parthasarathy, 30% of canonical tags point to the same domain (which is fine), and 9% use it to point to other domains. This could be a mistake or it could be manipulative. Bing says they will look for other factors to try and determine which it is.

Bing says canonical tags are hints and not directives. "Use it with caution," and not as an alternative to good web design.

With regards to www vs non-www, just pick one and stick with it consistently. Remove default filenames at the end of your URLs. Bing also says 301 redirects are your best friend for redirecting, use rel="nofollow" on useless pages, and use robots.txt to keep content you don't want crawled out.

Duplicate Content in Yahoo

If everything goes according to plan, you're going to need to worry about how Bing handles duplicate content if you're worried about how Yahoo handles it, but Yahoo's Cris Pierry, Sr. Director of Search, offered a few additional tips.

Pierry says descriptive URLs should be easily readable, and it's not a good idea to change URLs every year. In addition, use canonical, avoid case sensitivity, and avoid session IDs and parameters.

Pierry also says to use sitemaps, and submit them to Yahoo Site Explorer. Improve indexing by proper robots.txt usage, and use Site Explorer to delete URLs that you dont' want Yahoo to index. Finally, provide feeds to Yahoo Site Explorer, and report spam sites linking to you in Site Explorer.

Yahoo says metadata and SearchMonkey are enhancing presentation.

WebProNews reporter Mike McDonald contributed to this article from SMX East.

More People Relying On The Internet To Buy Vehicles

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:32:52 +0000

Searching online for used vehicles has become the primary way for consumers to locate used automobiles, according to new a report by J.D. Power and Associates.

The report found the percentage of used-vehicle buyers who rely on the Internet as a way for locating vehicles for sale has increased from 40 percent in 2008 to 46 percent in 2009, equal to the percentage of buyers who visit dealer lots as their main shopping method. In addition, 31 percent of buyers found the vehicle they eventually purchased on the Internet, compared with 28 percent of buyers who found their vehicle by visiting dealerships.

"Internet shopping provides prospective buyers with the opportunity to search through enormous amounts of specific vehicle information without ever leaving home, allowing for a more efficient medium of matching buyers with unique used vehicles in the market," said Arianne Walker, director of marketing and media research at J.D. Power and Associates.

"In light of this, dealers should expect the Internet to continue to increase in importance among used-vehicle shoppers and adjust their online presence accordingly."

The report also found that awareness of certified pre-owned (CPO vehicle programs is strong, with more than 60 percent of used-vehicle buyers indicating they intend to purchase certified pre-owned vehicles at the start of their shopping process.

One-half of all buyers of CPO vehicles say they used the Internet to locate used vehicles, while a slightly lower percentage (45%) shopped primarily by driving to dealer lots. The percentage of buyers who visited dealer Web sites specifically for CPO vehicle information has increased considerably to 29 percent in 2009, compared with 19 percent in 2008.

Among used vehicle buyers who use the Internet in their shopping process, third party sites are visited during the shopping process more frequently than other types of sites, including dealer websites. The majority (91%) of buyers say they visited at least one third-party websites during the shopping process.

"Not only has visitation increased for third-party sites, but they also continue to be viewed as the most useful sites during the shopping process," said Walker. "Overall, users rate sites such as AutoTrader, Cars.com, and Edmunds highly for overall usefulness. In addition, certain third-party sites are also well regarded for usefulness in specific areas.

"For example, sites like AutoTrader and eBay Motors are perceived as particularly useful for inventory information, while buyers report that ConsumerReports.org and Edmunds are useful for vehicle appraisals and reviews. Sites such as Kelley Blue Book are perceived as being particularly useful for pricing information."

Related Articles:

> Amazon and Wal-Mart Engage In Price War Over Holiday Book Shoppers

> Consumer Online Spending To Grow 24%

> PayPal Intros New Student Accounts

Watch: Bing Goes the Bloodsucker Route

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:24:54 +0000

Microsoft is either taking the holiday marketing approach or the Twilight/Vampire trend approach with its latest commercial. The title is Bing: Vampire Decision Engine.

The company uploaded the new commercial to its (Google-owned) YouTube channel. Accompanying the video is a short description:

"When you're looking for a restaurant that is family friendly, romantic, or maybe something with an otherworldly atmosphere, use Bing's reviews to stop searching and start deciding."

You also may be seeing this ad on a television near you.

What do you think of the latest Bing commercial? Is it good or does it "suck"? Ah Ah. (That was supposed to be the Count). Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

> Have You Seen Bing's Commercials Yet?

> Bing Commercials Infringe on Patent?

> Microsoft Seinfeld Ad Not Exactly a Hit

How Does Bing Rank Tweets?

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:40:29 +0000

As previously reported, Microsoft has made deals with both Facebook and Twitter, which will see Bing feature updates from both networks in real-time search efforts. To me, this says that social media just became an even bigger part of search engine marketing, particularly with Google also on board with Twitter and rumored to be talking to Facebook.

Bing has already made a beta version of its Twitter search available to users at bing.com/twitter. The most interesting aspect of Bing's Twitter search is that it offers something plain old Twitter Search (formerly Summize) doesn't. That is a relevancy factor (or at least an attempted relevancy factor).

Twitter Search only shows you results displayed chronologically, which has really always seemed to be the essence of real-time search to me anyway. But Bing has a "Best Match" option, which attempts to give certain tweets more weight than others.

How do you put relevancy on "real-time" results though? "Real-time" is based on time (obviously). The phrase even has the word "time" in it. A search for "WebProNews" on Bing's Twitter Search gives me different results for "most recent" and for "best match". I can't see that the "best match" results are any better than the "most recent" results, however.

The answer is: Bing weighs tweets by follower counts. "If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher," says Bing. "If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower."

Sidenote: A commenter on this article made a point worth mentioning. What if a new Twitter user tweets about something highly relevant or important, but has not gotten many followers yet? That's something to think about.

This is of course the earliest stage for any kind of algorithm Bing may have in place for its Twitter search feature. The feature is still in beta after all. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft makes more details available for how it ranks tweets moving forward. This could be a whole new nut to crack for SEOs. Consider that Bing results will be taking over for Yahoo if the Microsoft-Yahoo deal goes through (plus there is still Google's Twitter results to worry about).

I'll go out on a limb here either way, and suggest that providing good content will be the way to go moving forward. That will bring in followers, and probably do better for your relevancy rankings in the future. That said, defining good content may be considered a little harder at 140 characters or less.

Related Articles:

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Social Media Will Not Replace Search

> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

> Don't Lose Yahoo Traffic By Not Optimizing for Bing

Is ranking in search engines for Twitter results going to be a priority for you? Discuss here.

Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:23:03 +0000

Google has quietly gotten rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a thread featuring an explanation from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa.

"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," says Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it."

Search marketers are wondering why Google tells people not to focus on PageRank and removes it from Webmaster Tools, but still keeps it in the Google Toolbar. "Back in 2007, Google wanted feedback on removing PageRank from the Toolbar," says Schwartz. "I felt it was a good idea but the idea died out. Google cannot remove PageRank from the Toolbar, it is too much of their branding. No matter how much Matt Cutts and the Google search quality and webmaster trends team want it removed, I cannot see Google's executives allowing it."

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim says the role of PageRank has been reduced to nothing more than a "comfort blanket for SEO Noobs." He adds, "I say this, with a high degree of confidence that most experienced SEOs pour over the data in Google Webmaster Tools, whereas those new to the industry likely let the toolbar be their only guiding light."

He also notes, however, that PageRank data can still be useful. For example, it can be a good indicator of a site's behavior in Google's index. "Any green means 'go.' No green, means there's something to investigate," says Beal.

Despite this usefulness though, Moskwa pretty much closes the case on Google's position on it. In fact, she even points to a FAQ page about crawling, indexing, and ranking, which says that webmasters shouldn't even bother thinking about it. It also says that PageRank is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.

What are your thoughts on PageRank? Discuss below.

Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:17:52 +0000

Disclaimer: This article was originally written before Google made its announcement, and has been updated to reflect that.

Google and Microsoft have both inked deals with Twitter and Microsoft has also inked one with Facebook to integrate Twitter and Facebook updates into Bing search results. Google will be adding tweets to search results.

Google's Marissa Mayer says, " We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information."

Google's Announcement:

There is a good chance that Google will be making a similar deal with Facebook, but even if they don't, their deal with Twitter and Bing's deals with both make it all the more important for marketers to be found in real-time searches and Facebook/Twitter in general.

Do you spend anytime trying to be found in real-time searches? Discuss here.

A while back WebProNews compiled a list of five tips for getting found in real-time searches, which basically boils down to staying in the conversation for relevant topics that people are searching for. The tips were:

1. Use keywords
2. Talk about timely events
3. Have a lot of followers
4. Promote conversation
5. Include calls to engagement

I elaborated on each of these in the previous article. Social media is viral by nature, and real-time search is nothing more than putting things in chronological order. You have to keep people talking to stay relevant "right now."

That said, we don't know all the details about how Google and Bing will be integrating its Twitter and Facebook results into the rest of their results yet. Bing has made available a beta tool for people to mess around with for searching tweets with the search engine. "You can now search for what people are saying all over the web about breaking news topics, your favorite celebrity, hometown sports team, and anything else you use Twitter to stay on top of today," says Paul Yiu of Bing's Social Search team.

A spokesperson for Microsoft tells WebProNews, more specifically, the new Twitter developments in Bing include:

A real-time index of the Tweets that match your search queries in results. This feature makes it easier to follow what’s going on by reducing the amount of duplicates, spam, and adult content.

Giving you the option to rank tweets either by most recent or by “best match,” where we consider a Tweeter’s popularity, interestingness of the tweet, and other indicators of quality and trustworthiness.

Providing the top links shared on Twitter around your specific search query by showcasing a few of the most relevant tweets. Additionally, Bing automatically expands those small URLs (like bit.ly) to enable you to understand what people are tweeting about. Instead of showing standard search result captions, we select 2 top tweets to give users a glimpse of the sentiment around the shared link.

Bing already displays some Tweets for certain people results at the very top of the regular web search results page. That's a good place to appear. Here is a little info about how they rank tweets in their Twitter search.

Google announced a new Google labs project that injects social media into its own search results. This was also announced at the Web 2.0 Summit. Ben Parr with Mashable has the details from Mayer:

    - The bottom of search results will soon have social networking information from your friends, like their Flickr (Flickr) photos or their status updates. It’s a blended search integration, similar to seeing news or image results.

    - These are pulled from social networks connected to your Google Profile. The more that are connected, the more social information that will appear in search results.

    - They have also improved searching for images using social networks. Images become more relevant using social networking data.

    - It will launch in Google Labs in the next few weeks.

The deals with Microsoft and Google make social media marketing all the more important to marketing in general, and specifically search engine marketing. Where social media has generally fit into the SEO equation thus far, has been the promotion of content, which inspires links and conversation, which can in turn help search engine rankings.

Now, if status updates and tweets become directly integrated into search results in Universal Search-type fashion, it will be not only be about promotion and outside links, it will be about direct exposure right in the results, not unlike the importance of online video right now (as you're probably aware, videos are often displayed prominently on the first page of Google results).

Now, forgetting about Google for a moment, pretend that the deals with Microsoft are the only ones that happened. You may also recall that Microsoft has a certain deal in the works with Yahoo. This (if everything goes according to plan) will see Bing results taking over Yahoo's own. Yahoo may still be controlling the front-end of its search, but Bing will be controlling the back-end. Ranking for Bing will mean ranking for Yahoo.

So with Yahoo, Twitter, and Facebook deals all in place for Bing, getting found in real-time searches may not only mean getting found in Twitter searches, Facebook searches, and such. It may also mean getting found in Bing searches and in Yahoo searches. That's pretty much the meat of the non-Google U.S. search market.

Now let's bring Google back into the equation. It has a deal with Twitter and may very well have one with Facebook before long. Kara Swisher who broke the news about Microsoft's deals says Google's been talking with both social networks. Still think real-time search and social media are not worth your time?

Do you think deals with Bing and Google will have a big impact on traffic from Twitter and Facebook? Share your thoughts.

35 Ways to Improve Your Online Video Performance

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:07 +0000

There was an interesting session on online video at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East, which WebProNews attended. The session was called "Video Search Marketing Beyond YouTube". The following tips come from a combination of presentations from that session from speakers: William Leake of Apogee Search, John McWeeny of TurnHere, and Eric Papczun of Performics.

Do you have trouble getting the performance you want out of your video efforts? Discuss here.

The tips are all aimed at making your online video efforts more successful by optimizing them for search engine performance and ultimately driving more views and traffic back to your site. So, here they are in no particular order:

1. Encode video files with good metadata like titles, dates, authors, descriptions and keywords.

2. Offer multiple formats (e.g. mov, mpeg, mp4, flv).

3. Include keywords (and the word "video") in the filename.

4. On the page, follow general SEO principles for optimizing (title, meta, H1, etc. tags and URLs).

5. Include contextually related links to articles and other videos on the page.

6. Post captions and/or abstracts as additional relevant on-page content.

7. Use Unique URLs.

8. Use one video per URL.

9. Use embedded players rather than pop-ups or links to files.

10. Create nav links to the video content.

11. Place video files in one central directory called "videos" off the root of your folder structure.

12. Enable comments.

13. Include social bookmarking tools.

14. Allow visitors to subscribe to your videos.

15. Let viewers grab your embed code - easily (with a link).

16. Remember internal linking (consider site-wide links in your page footer).

17. Distribute your video to the top video search sharing sites.

18. Include titles, descriptions & keywords on YouTube, etc.

19. Create a video site map with a mRSS feed.

20. Control associated page text to optimize for search engines.

21. Control the player (which may drive future video SEO).

22. Shorter videos are better.

23. Don't spend a fortune.

24. Include end slates with URLs.

25. Drive people back to your site.

26. Thumbnail images matter.

27. Look for new opportunities for video placement (think about things like Google's product search).

28. Figure out what keyword phrase is most relevant (and winnable) for your video.

29. Look into including videos in Google Place Pages.

30. Set up a Google video XML sitemap.

31. Use tools like Tubemogul's to optimize metadata across the major video sharing sites.

32. Track viewership.

33. Advertise with video via rich search ads with Google/Yahoo and YouTube promoted videos.

34. Make sure your videos live on your domain and use 3rd parties for distribution purposes.

35. Stay on top of technology changes and new standards.

Do you have additional tips for increasing your online video success? Share them with WebProNews readers.

Google Top Search Engine In The Asia-Pacific Region

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:22:33 +0000

Internet users in the Asia-Pacific region conducted a record 38.6 billion searches in September, with searchers averaging nearly 88 queries per person, according to a new report from comScore.

Google sites ranked as the top search destination with nearly 17 billion searches on its sites during the month, representing a 44.1 percent share of all searches in the region. Baidu landed in the second spot with 8.2 billion searches (21.3% share), while Yahoo sites ranked third with 5.3 billion searches (13.8% share).

South Korea's NHN Corporation, which owns search engine Naver, saw the most search usage among the top 10 destinations with an average of 81 searches per user. Searchers on Google sites averaged 59 searches per person, while searchers on Lycos sites averaged 51 queries.

An analysis of the top search destinations across 10 individual markets in the Asia Pacific region found various search brand preferences across markets. Google sites were the most popular in six markets including Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore. Yahoo sites grabbed the majority share of searches in Hong Kong (58.9%) and Taiwan (65.4%).

Multinational search brands led many of the markets in the region, but the popularity of local brands was seen in both China and South Korea. Baidu.com Inc. led as China's top search destination with 63 percent share of searches performed, while NHN Corporation captured 49.3 percent of queries in Korea, leading the market as the top destination.

"The competition between local and global brands to capture search market share around the world continues to be an ongoing battle," said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region.

"As multinational brands continue to expand across borders, understanding the online behaviors and preferences of local audiences will be a central component to implementing successful digital marketing strategies that capitalize on this lucrative and growing market."

Related Articles:

> Google Says Search Ads Boost Brand Awareness

> Google Aims To Make Finding Music Easier

> Google And Bing Increase Share Of Enterprise Search Traffic

Social Media Will Not Replace Search

Chris Crum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:10:37 +0000

Nielsen has shared some interesting findings from its research on how Internet users discover content. The research mainly focused on how content is found through search, portals, and through social media.

"In a nutshell, there is a segment of the online population that uses social media as a core navigation and information discovery tool — roughly 18 percent of users see it as core to finding new information. While still a smaller percentage than those who use search engines or portals like Yahoo! or MSN, it is a significant figure," says Nielsen. "And as social media usage continues to increase (unique visitors to Twitter.com increased 959% YOY in August) I can only expect this figure to grow."

If you were still questioning the possibilities of getting traffic from social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc., perhaps this information will help ease your doubts. While the traffic may not always be as significant as what comes from search, additional traffic is additional traffic, and the viral potential offered by social networks shouldn't be ignored.

The following graph from Nielsen shows how big of a role sites besides search engines play in actual searches for new information online.

"At the root of the changing nature of content discovery is the sheer amount of information that is available on the Web," says Nielsen. "If you want to learn more about the latest smartphone released into the market, your favorite search engine is sure to provide you with hundreds, if not thousands, of articles about the device. But with the increasing number of resources available, it’s difficult to know what you should believe or take at face value."

According to the firm's findings, 26% of "socializers" or those who spend over 10% or more of their online time on social media, feel that there is too much information online. Nielsen says, "So are social networks replacing portals or search engines? Perhaps. Regardless, if we don’t understand and address people feeling increasingly alienated by the amount of information on the Internet, and the need for a human guide, yes, your favorite social network (or something like it) will become the next great content gateway."

Of course the search engines are built on a cross between human and mechanical elements. Google's search quality team has been discussing this very process. Personally, I'm all for social media, but I don't usually have too much trouble finding the information I seek using search. If anything, I think the information overload simply stresses the need for the continued improvement in search quality.

Your friends may not have all the answers you seek. Furthermore, if you are asking people you don't know, why would you trust them any more than search results?

Search and social media are not completely separate entities. Social networks have search functionality and search engines search through social networks. It's all intertwined.

Do you think social media could ever replace search? Share your thoughts.

eBay Launches Online Magazine

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:03:39 +0000

eBay said Wednesday it is launching a new digital magazine called "The Inside Source" that will be focused on "insights and stories based on what more than 89 million active users are searching for, buying and selling" on the auction site.

The Inside Source content will be managed by an editorial team, led by Meredith Barnett, previously Director of Digital Media for Lifetime Digital. The content will focus on a variety of lifestyle topics, including fashion, technology, automotive, home and garden, pop culture and sustainability.

The Inside Source will also feature sections that will provide a snapshot of real time eBay Marketplace activity. Including most watched items and the most searched terms.

Visitors to the site will be able to comment on and share content through platforms such as Facebook Connect, as well as submit feedback and story ideas. Readers will be able to sign up for a weekly email subscription that will provide a recap of the week's top stories.

"Imagine that every day, every person in the United States tells eBay what they want," said Alan Marks, Senior Vice President of Global Communications for eBay.

"That's the power of how many searches occur on eBay every day. Now add insights gleaned from almost 200 million live product listings, the stories of more than 25 million sellers and the several million purchases people make each day on eBay, and you get The Inside Source - a perspective on shopping trends, pop culture obsessions and the stuff people love, that only eBay can offer."

Related Articles:

> Skype Founders Reportedly Close To Settlement With eBay

> eBay Petitions EU Over Brand Rules

>Consumers Can Now Get Billed Later For eBay Purchases

Microsoft Unveils Big Redesign of MSN

Chris Crum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:23:03 +0000

MSN.com gets about 85 million unique monthly visitors in the US alone, according to Compete. That's significantly more than AOL.com. So now that Microsoft has unveiled a redesign to it, it stands to reason that a lot of people are going to be affected by it. Microsoft calls the new design MSN's most significant home page redesign in over a decade.

"Now is the time to clean up the mess on the Web — people need less clutter and less hassle to find what matters most to them," said Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president, Microsoft. "Microsoft is uniquely invested in search, media experiences and technical innovation. Combining these assets to deliver our new MSN home page is a tremendous win for customers and advertisers."

What do you think of the new design? Share your opinions here.

The new design pays significant focus to local, Bing, social networks, and news. Coinciding with the announcement of the redesign was the unveiling of MSN Local Edition. This is a section of MSN that gives you local news, weather, sports, movies and events, restaurants, gas, traffic, a directory, lottery numbers, etc.

The Bing integration with the new MSN is deeper. It's now used as the core search technology throughout the home page in areas like shopping, travel, and local. It is also used as a way to highlight hot topics, trends, and people.

There is a clean integration of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as Microsoft's own Windows Live "What's New," which aggregates up to 50 web activities from various places like Yelp, Flickr, Pandora, etc.

"Customers told us they want the latest information from their favorite sources, their friends and the breadth of the Web — and the new MSN home page delivers via a fresh new look and new features," Jorgensen said. "Today is an important transformation for MSN, and it’s just the beginning."

There is also an emphasis on de-cluttering the home page. Microsoft says there are 50% fewer links than on the previous version. Here's what the whole thing looks like:

The design is not live on a wide scale yet. It will be rolling out gradually over the coming weeks. It is, however available as a preview here.

On a related note, Microsoft is finally launching MSN Music this week. The launch has been postponed since July.

Related Articles:

> MySpace, MSN Now Said To Be In Talks

> Microsoft Partners With Advance Internet On Local Ad Deal

> Bing Gets More Mobile Features in The US

Google and Heineken Study Search for Branding

Chris Crum — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:18:47 +0000

This week Google released some findings from a test Google Netherlands conducted with Metrixlab, Heineken, and Heineken's agency Twist. They set out to find what effects paid search ads had on branding, and were quite pleased with the results.

The idea was to compare the effectiveness of search against other media as well as look at the interaction of search with those other media. They measured the impact of Heineken's "Jouw Heineken" campaign, which led consumers to jouwheineken.nl, where they could design custom beer bottles for purchase. In addition to search, they used TV, online display ads, and YouTube.

Here are the key findings that Google highlights from the study:

- A Search impression alone creates 23% more brand preference for Heineken than the whole Heineken campaign without search. A search click creates 69% more brand preference.

- The fact that search was able to affect a brand metric like brand preference shows the ability for search to move consumers further into the purchase funnel, beyond just awareness.

- The addition of Search to TV increased overall brand effect by 1.5 times, illustrating the synergistic effects of Search and TV.

- Search proved to be 53% more cost efficient than TV in creating Top of Mind Awareness.

- The eye-tracking heat map portion of the study concluded that the 1st search result on the left side captures and retains the most attention.

- Frequency testing showed that three impression contacts were 39% better than one at moving brand preference.

Last week, Google shared some findings from a separate test that it ran with Levi's. The conclusions drawn were similar. The companies found that paid search ads raised consumer awareness of the Levi's brand, regardless of whether or not they were clicked.

Related Articles:

> Google Says Search Ads Boost Brand Awareness

> Google Gives Advertisers More Tracking Options

> More "Ads by Google" Across the Web

Bing Gets More Mobile Features in The US

Chris Crum — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:54:24 +0000

Microsoft has launched some new features for the mobile version of the Bing search engine, which is available at m.bing.com. These include features related to the NFL and to travel.

The NFL feature lets the user type a team or player and see upcoming games, stats, and scores. If you use the feature while a game is being played, you can get real-time updates on the plays. The feature is only available in the U.S.

The second feature is for flight status. You can enter the airline and flight number and get the latest departure and landing times.

In addition to these, there is also a new feature that makes Bing work better with touch devices. "Great news for you touch phone owners in the U.S.: we have a new version of Bing just for high-resolution touch devices," says Justin Jed for Bing Mobile. "We optimized for touch navigation to make the most of your phone, and added a great new Movies feature. Search for Movies in your city, and you’ll see the movies playing nearby, showtimes, overviews, and even trailers and video clips."

To use the touch version, just go to m.bing.com from an iPhone, Zune HD, T-Mobile G-1, Verizon Imagio, or Samsung Omnia. Microsoft says that support for additional devices over the next couple of months.

Related Articles:

> Searching Bing By Voice from Your Phone

> Google Launches Custom Search For Smartphones

> Facebook Cooks Up New Site For Touchscreen Phones

Google Says Search Ads Boost Brand Awareness

Chris Crum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:25:18 +0000

Google conducted a joint test with Levi's and found that paid search ads raised consumer awareness of the Levi's brand, regardless of whether or not they were clicked. In the test, 53% of "in-market" consumers named Levi's when asked which brand of jeans came to mind when a Levi's search ad was in the top sponsored position.

That seems pretty likely anyway, but only 30% named Levi's when there was no Levi's search ad on the page. You can't deny that 23% is a pretty significant increase.

"Better yet, when Levi's 'non-customers' (people who hadn't bought Levi's jeans in the past 6 months) were asked the same question, 45% named Levi's when the ad was in the top sponsored position, versus 23% who named Levi's when there was no ad in the search results," says Sara Kleinberg of Google's Retail team.

"With search being central to the consumer shopping cycle, search should be part of your strategy to not only drives sales, but also build your brand awareness as consumers are considering what gifts to buy for the holidays," says Kleinberg.

An interesting article from Mike Shaw of comScore earlier this week talked about the dwindling importance of the click, and how the view-through impact of online display ads can have the same impact on sales as what has traditionally been ascribed to TV ads.

Perhaps the view-through metric is should not only inspire thoughts of display advertising. Search ads are technically displayed too.

Related Articles:

> Google Gives Advertisers More Tracking Options

> More "Ads by Google" Across the Web

StumbleUpon Goes Search with New Incarnation

Chris Crum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:56:43 +0000

Update: Starting today, all StumbleUpon users can access the new interface, according to the company.

Original Article: StubmleUpon launched a big redesign today. The new version of the site comes with a variety of new features, which the company says are designed to make it simpler, searchable, and more social.

"Our vision for StumbleUpon was simple--create a site where you could click a button and discover interesting, personalized and highly relevant websites," said Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon CEO. "We are now combining the power of discovery with search--and offering another way for people to access over 35 million user-endorsed websites."

With the new version of StumbleUpon, anyone can receive personalized recommendations directly from the StumbleUpon homepage, from any computer, without any registration or installation. The company says the new design makes it easier for new users to discover interesting content.

The company says the personal preferences and collaborative human opinions that go into making "stumbles" personalized applies to search as well.. The result is personalized and relevant search results, according to StumbleUpon. Search is available from every StumbleUpon page, so users can search through their favorites, others' favorites, or just through friends' favorites.

There is also a new and improved friend search feature, making it easier for users to find people they know and meet others with similar interests. In addition, users can see recommendations from people they know highlighted in search results, and easily stumble or search within their favorite sites.

"It's great to see the original founders' vision reflected in this release, StumbleUpon's first major product release since its independence from eBay," said Ram Shriram, StumbleUpon investor and board member.

StumbleUpon can provide a tremendous source of traffic. Read this for information on how to get that.

Related Articles:

> StumbleUpon Makes Big Improvements to Toolbar

> StumbleUpon Can Get You Big Traffic and Lots of Links

> StumbleUpon Jumps on the URL-Shortener Bandwagon

Google Aims to Make Finding Music Easier

Chris Crum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:54:15 +0000

Google began rolling out its new music search feature late yesterday. The feature enables search results with links to audio previews of songs provided by MySpace (which just acquired iLike) or Lala, when a user searches for music-related queries like the name of a song, artist, or album. The results also include links to purchase full songs.

Google says it is always looking for ways to reduce the "time to result," or the length of time it takes a user to actually find what they are looking for. Since Google gets millions of search queries about music each day, they figured this feature would be a good way to reduce that in many cases. "If you're searching for music, 'time to result' is really 'time to music,'" Google says.

Google takes a step further by providing results based on specific lyrics. "Many times, though, you don't know the name of the song or the artist who sings it," the company says. "Maybe you remember only the chorus — or maybe you remember who sang it, but you forgot the exact name of the song. If you've ever heard a catchy song in a car or cafe, but just can't figure out the name of the song, you'll know what I'm talking about. This search feature also helps you find many of those songs by entering a search containing a line or two of lyrics."

Google has also partnered with Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody to include links to their sites where you can discover music related to your queries as well.

Yahoo took Google's announcement as an opportunity to bring up what it has been doing with music search itself. "We have found that nearly 6 percent of all Yahoo! searches are music-related," says Larry Cornett, Vice President, Consumer Products, Yahoo Search. "Given the massive number of things people search for, we think it is pretty significant."

"We've made it easier to find music videos, artist information, and play full length songs from within the search results page," he adds. "This is just one of the many ways Yahoo! is enhancing the search experience for music lovers. With Search Assist, Search Monkey, and Yahoo! Shortcuts, you can discover even more relevant information about your favorite artist. Wonder what U2 is up to these days? Search for U2 and you’ll see images and videos, and hear full-length songs all in one place."

Since the overwhelming majority of searchers are using Google, finding music looks like it will be much more convenient now. Not everybody can access Google's feature yet, but they should be able to sometime today. Do you have it yet? What do you think? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> MySpace Introduces New Music Features

> Google Phone and Music Service Both on the Way?

> MySpace Music Goes Down Under

Google "Similar Images" Feature Goes From Labs to Actual Feature

Chris Crum — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:59:39 +0000

Google launched a Google Labs project earlier this year called "Similar Images," as an extension to Google Image Search. It allows users to search for images using pictures instead of words. The project has now graduated from Labs and is now a part of Google Images.

The most popular images in Google's search results will have a link to "find similar images." The feature is pretty self-explanatory, but that doesn't stop Google from explaining it anyway.

"So, let's say you want to find images of Ancient Egypt," says Google. "Google Images will provide you with a rich variety of results, including pyramids, maps, relics, drawings and other types of images. Instead of poring through hundreds of images, now you can simply click 'Find similar images' to narrow down the results to the results to the type you want."

It should be noted that Similar Images is still rolling out gradually, so there is a good chance you are not seeing it yet. Rest assured, however, you will.

In addition to the launch of the Similar Images feature, Google has also announced the availability of Product Ideas for Google Images. This is a place where Google users can post comments that will be seen by Google's Images team. It's a good place to leave feedback and suggestions for the company regarding its Images product.

Similar pages already exist for iGoogle, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Mobile, Custom Search, Google Apps, SketchUp, Google Health, and SideWiki. If you have ideas for how to make Google products better, but are unsure of how to go about letting the company know, these are good places to start.

Related Articles:

> Google Shares 2 New Labs and New Labs Destination

> Rank in Image Searches and Get Valuable, Untapped Traffic

> Google Presents New Image Search Options

> Yahoo Refines Image Search

Google and Bing Increase Share of Enterprise Search Traffic

Chris Crum — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:33:31 +0000

iCrossing has shared the findings from its Enterprise Natural Search Share Index. This is a look at natural search traffic to enterprise level sites, based on a large sample of Fortune 1000 companies across all major verticals.

Google's share of natural search traffic to enterprise-level sites in September increased to 76.68%. That is up from 74.7% last year and 75.89% in August. Bing's share also increased, reaching 8.21%. That is up from 6.46% a year ago (MSN) and 8.06% in August.

Yahoo's share decreased to 11.10%. A year ago it held 14.13% share, and in August it was at 11.83%. Also declining were AOL and Ask, who came in with 1.75% and 0.41% respectively. AOL declined year-over-year from 2.16%.

The results are perhaps not too surprising. The Web search market in general has been following a similar path. Compete data released last week showed that Google increased from 72.3% to 72.6% month-over-month, while Bing's share crawled up from 8.7% to 8.8%. Yahoo's share dropped from 15.8% in August to 14.7% in September.

As our own Doug Caverly noted, "Obviously, Microsoft's incentive to forge a partnership will shrink if Bing can steal searchers away from Yahoo. Yahoo might need to hold its own (or at least lose to Google, but not Bing) in order to make sure Microsoft doesn't think better of the arrangement before the 2010 target date."

Related Articles:

> Compete: Yahoo Stumbled In September

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

Google Does Some New Things with Custom Search

Chris Crum — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:56:04 +0000

Last week Google's Custom Search offering turned 3, and the company launched Custom Search for smartphones. Now Google has launched a couple of additional features for Custom Search, as well as a Custom Search Wikipedia skin.

When a Wikipedia user enables the Custom Search skin, he/she will be able to use Google Custom Search across all Wikipedia articles for a given topic and find relevant pages linked from the Wikipedia page that he/she is currently on. Search results will appear inline at the top of the Wikipedia page.

Results are organized into 3 tabbed groups: All Wikipedia pages, Linked Wikipedia pages, and Linked non-Wikipedia pages.

"Linked Custom Search enables the creation of dynamic search experiences, where the content being searched can be defined on the fly, and can change over time as new information becomes relevant," explains Google. "The Custom Search skin creates a Linked Custom Search engine on demand for every Wikipedia page that you navigate to."

More on that here.

Google has also now introduced "structured" custom search. If you use a Custom Search Element, you can now add publisher-provided links to your search results based on specific metadata markup in your web pages.

"These special structured data objects, such as Thumbnails and Actions, are generated from the PageMaps you provide," Google says. "For example, Scribd, one of our partners, provides both Thumbnails and Actions in PageMaps on their pages, so we display both of these in our sample Custom Search engine, as shown below. The Actions in this case are 'Download' and 'Fullscreen View', but each publisher can provide customized actions, which they can also style via CSS."

More on that here.

Finally, Google has launched Custom Search Themes. Users can choose from a number of different styles. They can also customize them further by changing fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc.

"You can also select from among a set of convenient layouts for full flexibility on the location of the search box and results - contiguous or in 2 columns - you decide!" says Google. "We've even added a compact layout (with only 4 results) that is useful for websites where space is at a premium and search results will not occupy the whole page."

Learn more about Google's Custom Search Themes here.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches Custom Search For Smartphones

> Facebook/Twitter On-Demand XML Sitemaps for Custom Search

> AdSense For Search, Custom Search Come Together

Ask.com Gets New U.S. Leadership

Chris Crum — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:31:45 +0000

On Friday Ask.com announced that it has promoted Doug Leeds to President of Ask.com U.S. In addition, Tony Gentile has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Product Management.

Leeds has been with Ask Networks since early 2006, where he has held several different positions. Most recently, he has been President of the company's Dictionary.com and Chief Operating officer of Ask Networks. Now as President, he will oversee the US business for Ask.com and lead the development, launch, and execution of Ask's strategy in the U.S.

"Doug's elevation to President of the Ask.com U.S. business is very timely and important to our future, and his ongoing leadership has led to a broad array of successes across our businesses - driving Ask Networks to become the 6th largest internet property in the U.S.," said Scott Garell, President, Ask Networks.

Leeds has also held executive roles at Yahoo and Vodafone in the past.

"We are also delighted and fortunate to have Tony join us to lead our product management efforts as we continue to innovate for 2010 and beyond," adds Garell. "I look forward to working closely with Doug and Tony to make Ask the most trusted place for answers on the web."

Gentile will report to Leeds. He has worked as Senior Vice President for Product Management at Healthline.com and Founder and President of product consultancy buzzhit!. He has also held senior positions at Knight-Ridder, Ofoto, MyFamily.com, Adobe and PointCast.

According to data from Compete, Ask.com and Dictionary.com combined for over 39 million unique visitors in the U.S. for the month of September.

Google Launches Custom Search For Smartphones

Chris Crum — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:42:59 +0000

Google has launched Custom Search for smartphones. This means that if you own a site and add a Google Custom Search box to it, it will format search results to fit the screens of supported mobile devices.

The following devices are supported:

- Android-powered phones
- iPhone
- iPod Touch
- Palm Pre

When users search on a site with Google's Custom Search box, they are redirected to a Google-hosted Custom Search results page created specifically for the siteowner's custom engine. If webmasters would rather serve the results from their own site, however, Google does give that option. They can host their own version of the mobile Custom Search home page.

"You can test this out on your phone right now. Here are a few samples: search for user-generated content (e.g., search for "zakumi") from sites like Wikipedia or Knol, or look for more information on Custom Search (e.g., search for "promotion")," says Google Search Group Product Manager Rajat Mukherjee. "As you can see, Custom Mobile Search results can match the look and feel of your own website, and we've enabled interactive features, such as label tabs for navigation, as well as promotions."

More information about setting up custom search for mobile can be found here in this post from the Custom Search blog.

The addition of custom search for smartphones should make a lot of people happy. The company says one of its most requested features in a Product Ideas survey was about enabling a mobile version of custom search. Google says that more features will be coming soon.

Microsoft Wants You To Bing Up Your Windows 7

Chris Crum — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:03:21 +0000

Microsoft unleashed Windows 7 onto the public today, and the company's Bing team has released some downloadable wallpaper things for the operating system. The themes are based on the images that the search engine uses on its homepage.

"A lot of people ask us for desktop versions of our images," says Stephanie Horstmanshof of Bing. "And now you (and your friends, and your family, and your casual acquaintances) can get them!"

Whether or not you are a fan of Bing as a search engine, there's no denying that there are some visually pleasing images that appear there. Here are some of the wallpaper options:

The themes are more than just wallpaper images though. The themes are a combination of pictures, colors, and sounds for the computer. They include desktop backgrounds, screen savers, window border colors, and sound schemes. Some include icons and mouse pointers.

Microsoft reminds users that they can also integrate Bing right into the operating system by:

1. Downloading the Bing OpenSearch description document.

2. Double-clicking the downloaded document to add the Bing "Search Connector" on your machine.

3. From Windows explorer use the Search Box, type the terms for which you want to search and get the power of Bing into Windows.

"You can perform Windows actions on the search results, such as Open, Send to, and so on," says the Bing API Team.

Matt Cutts Head Shaving Footage Revealed

Chris Crum — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:17:21 +0000

Google puts out a lot of useful videos through its Webmaster Central YouTube channel. If you are a regular reader of WebProNews, you have probably seen some of them covered here. They generally offer helpful advice for webmasters that have questions about ranking in Google's search results.

Google has announced that the total views for the channel have now exceeded a million. That's not bad, considering that the channel was only released earlier this year.

Before reaching the million mark, the company had uploaded 154 videos to the channel, making up about 11 hours of "webmaster-focused media." In honor of the milestone, Google has shared the video footage of Matt Cutts getting his head shaved.

You may recall when Cutts revealed his freshly shaved head at Search Engine Strategies back in the summer:

Now you can see how it happened. He lost a bet, and he paid in hair. Watch below.

Yahoo Shutting Down Paid Inclusion

Chris Crum — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:00:54 +0000

Yahoo is discontinuing its paid inclusion service, Search Submit. This was revealed at the iProspect/Range Online Media Client Summit on a panel moderated by Danny Sullivan. Sullivan's Search Engine Land received the following statement from Yahoo:

We are committing our resources and efforts to our core areas of focus, including improving the search experience and relevancy of our ads to increase user engagement and ROI for advertisers, and as a result, have decided to exit Search Submit. We have stepped up innovation in Search Marketing, recently rolling out search retargeting, Rich Ads in Search and improved matching technology, and in Consumer Search, with enhancements like the new search results page. These enhancements deliver value, control, innovation and relevance to our advertisers, leading to increased ROI.

Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.

Yahoo told WebProNews at the recent Search Marketing Expo that the company is giving its advertisers more control. In the following interview, Yahoo Director of Product Management David Miller told us that the forthcoming Yahoo/Microsoft deal will open up more innovation for advertisers. He also talks about some things Yahoo currently has going on and will in the near future with regards to giving advertisers greater control.

Miller said that early next year, Yahoo will be launching "network distribution," and advertisers will have the ability to separately bid on campaigns for Yahoo, the partner network, or both. He also discussed a tool (which is currently in beta) that lets advertisers control their accounts while offline.

Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

Chris Crum — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:29:16 +0000

Update: Bing has now made the announcments and Google has announced a deal with Twitter too. Google's Marissa Mayer writes:

...we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.

Original Article: Microsoft is expected to announce two separate deals today - one with Twitter and one with Facebook. From the sound of it, the deals would be similar in nature, both giving Bing access to index status updates from both social networks.

Kara Swisher at Boomtown says that both deals are confirmed and are expected to be announced this afternoon at the Web 2.0 summit. The deals are non-exclusive, however. And you know what that means.

Google has been reported to have been talking with both Twitter and Facebook too, and it would be no surprise to see deals made there as well.

But this is Microsoft's moment. But what will it mean as far as status updates from both Twitter and Facebook?

"Much of what is posted on Twitter is public by design, while Facebook’s users prefer the closed nature of the service to disperse a wide variety of personal information only to their friends and they want to control it," says Swisher. "Thus, sources said, not all Facebook updates will be included in the real-time feed to be searched by Bing, but only those its users choose to make available to the wider public. Facebook will apparently provide users with a numbers of new tools to do so."

According to Swisher, neither of Microsoft's deals will bear fruit for several weeks, and that would leave plenty of time for Google to sneak in with its own deals. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

As for the financial details of Microsoft's deals with Twitter and Facebook, these can only be speculated upon at this point.