WebProNews - Yahoo

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.

R.I.P. GeoCities: A Community is Killed

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:53:53 +0000

Yahoo has officially shut down Geocities.The company has said that it did not count the property among its priorities, so it is simply getting rid of it. Yahoo has shut down about 20 services in less than a year.

We learned that Yahoo would be closing the door on GeoCities back in April, so users have had plenty of time to migrate to other services. Earlier this year, for example, MSN partnered with WetPaint to allow people to create "fansites". After Yahoo's announcement, Wetpaint took the opportunity to announce a "bailout plan for foreclosed GeoCities properties," which it called the "GeoCities Asset Recovery Plan (GARP)."As it shuts down GeoCities, Yahoo itself is now plugging its own $4.99-a-month Web hosting service.

Ok, so there are other options for GeoCities users, but is just shutting down a community that still attracts so much traffic the right thing to do? Yahoo's way of going about it has been widely questioned. According to Compete data, GeoCities has still been seeing over 10 million unique monthly visitors as recently as last month. Why would Yahoo want to just shut that down?

"Then there's the fact that Google, not Yahoo, appears to be responsible for the lion's share of GeoCities referrals, sending about 31.45 percent of the site's traffic its way," noted Doug Caverly upon Yahoo's original announcement. "Yahoo's only behind of 16.89 percent of all GeoCities visits. So by closing GeoCities, for which it paid $3.6 billion in 1999, Yahoo seems to be turning its back on a large amount of traffic. Moreover, it's turning down free traffic from its biggest competitor."

"Carol Bartz may be trying to get Yahoo's costs under control, but it looks like sticking a 'for sale' sign on GeoCities would be at least one preferable option compared to a closure," he added.

But alas, it looks like the sign reads "closed" rather than "for sale." So say goodbye, and in the words of Richard Marxx, "hold on to the memory."

It seems unwise from a business perspective, but what about the users? Does Yahoo have an obligation to its users who may have spent years using their GeoCities site only to have it pulled from the web? Should Yahoo provide a forwarding web address for GeoCities users? After all, it was the GeoCities users that built their sites, promoted them and put up with sometimes annoying ads. A simple forwarding of their GeoCities url to their new home would be appreciated! Do you agree?

MySpace isn't exactly at the peak of its popularity, but there are still tons of people who use it. What if they just pulled everything? What if Google bought Facebook and decided to kill it? What if your Tweets vanished? Sure these things seem unlikely now because these services are still fresh. Well, GeoCities was once the "it" thing too. Granted, most GeoCities sites I have seen are not much to look at now, but that doesn't mean people aren't getting use out of them. They're obviously getting page views.

Here's what Yahoo is telling GeoCities users to do if they want to keep their sites:

On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files. If you'd like to keep your web site, you'll need to move your site files to another web hosting provider.

We recommend moving to our award-winning Web Hosting service, which works a lot like GeoCities but includes a personalized domain name (such as widgetdesigns.com) and matching email, terrific new site building tools, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, premium customer support, and more.

Perhaps it's not worth it to users to go throgh the hassle of migration, but it has been nice to have their GeoCities site at least remain in tact. Well, tough luck. I hope you've gotten what you wanted away from it before Yahoo obliterates it. There are some sites out there that have not yet been shut down, but it appears that is only a matter of time.

What do you think of Yahoo's decision to simply shut down GeoCities? Discuss here.

Remembering GeoCities

GeoCities held a lot of web memories for a lot of people. There was a time where you could barely surf the web without running into one GeoCities site or another. Wikipedia provides a little history:

GeoCities began in mid-1995 as BHI, which stood for Beverly Hills Internet, a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California.

The company created its own Web directory, organized thematically in six "neighborhoods". The neighborhood included "Colosseum," "Hollywood," "RodeoDrive," "SunsetStrip," "WallStreet," and "WestHollywood". In mid-1995, the company decided to offer users (thereafter known as "Homesteaders") the ability to develop free home pages within those neighborhoods. Chat, bulletin boards, and other elements of "community" were added soon after, helping foster rapid growth. On July 5, 1995 Geocities added additional cities, including "CapitolHill," "Paris," "SiliconValley," and "Tokyo." By December 1995, the company, which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods, was signing up thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting over six million monthly page views. The company decided to focus on building membership and community, and on December 15, 1995, BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been called Geopages.

"It was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet," writes Mark Milian with the LA Times.

In early 1999, Yahoo purchased Geocities for about $3.57 billion in stock. Now a decade later, Geocities is no more.

Do you have fond memories of the Geocities days? Should Yahoo be obligated to forward GeoCities pages to your new site? What if Facebook, MySpace or Twitter suddenly shut down? Should there be a web or social homesteading bill of rights?

>>> Share your thoughts below ...

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Yahoo Settles Mary Kay Trademark Infringement Suit

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:42:38 +0000

It looks like some lawyers representing cosmetics giant Mary Kay have removed their figurative war paint. In early July, Mary Kay sued Yahoo, alleging trademark infringement, but not long ago, Yahoo was able to settle the case.

Mary Kay originally objected to Yahoo's practice of adding links of its own choosing to certain emails. The links appeared in popups when people would position their cursors over the text, potentially creating confusion about the extra ads' origin.

"Emails that advertise Mary Kay products are hijacked and manipulated by Yahoo and provide an unfair advantage for the unauthorized re-sellers and other competitors," claimed Mary Kay's suit, which was filed in the Northern District of Dallas.

Now - although the terms of the settlement haven't been disclosed - Yahoo's presumably apologized, promised to never repeat the offending behavior, and provided at least a little in the way of cash compensation. Such is the way these things go.

Anyway, a big hat tip also goes to Erik Larson, who noted that this settlement may have some interesting ramifications. He wrote, "The dispute was similar to trademark lawsuits against Google Inc. in which the world's most popular search firm was accused of wrongfully selling ad rights to keyword searches."

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Yahoo Challenges YouTube On Music Video Front

Doug Caverly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:11:06 +0000

Watching music videos on YouTube can be an annoying process insofar as, when you search for an artist's name or album's title, you're sure to be shown all sorts of unorganized results and amateurs' covers. But today, Yahoo tried to make sure no one has the same problem when using one of its services.

A Yahoo representative explained in an email to WebProNews, "Yahoo! Video Search is unveiling an easier way for people to explore their favorite music artists. The new video search music refiner taps into the 'Web of Things' to intelligently present the most popular albums and songs for artist or band queries so you can explore music artists in an intuitive way."

The below screenshot shows how this idea works out when it's applied to Metallica. You'll see that popular albums and songs are indeed listed, along with a nifty "Official Videos" option. You can even sort clips according to length if you're either in a real rush or plan to spend a while watching James Hetfield and the rest of the gang.

The one odd thing is the new "Twitter Videos" box - unless there's a very new music video out, few people are likely to care what clips are being shared. Also, the "Buzz topics" probably won't relate. The section doesn't do any harm, though.

So the next time you're in the mood to watch music videos, consider giving Yahoo Video Search a chance. For at least some bands, the upgrade is in effect and working quite well.

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Microsoft, Yahoo May Extend Partnership Outside The U.S.

Doug Caverly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:40:26 +0000

Microsoft's CEO isn't getting ahead of himself; for the time being, Steve Ballmer's taking a "first things first" approach. However, he indicated today that if the proposed U.S.-only Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership goes through, an international agreement may follow.

According to Mayumi Negishi, Ballmer said at a news conference in Tokyo, "It's possible that we will extend that partnership (with Yahoo) outside the U.S. We will have to wait and see if we can get approval and consummate that partnership inside the U.S. first."

An international arrangement would make a great deal of sense for Microsoft and Yahoo. After all, Google's extremely popular in many places around the world, so any measures the two companies take to fight it in America would be appropriate elsewhere.

Also, even if Microsoft and Yahoo can't make any inroads on Google's market share, being more efficient in lots of countries is better than being more efficient in one if they can save money by working together.

So we'll see what happens in early 2010, assuming Microsoft and Yahoo are able to implement their U.S. deal as planned at that point. And we'll try to keep an eye on what the two companies have to say to international regulators in the meantime.

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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.

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."

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Yahoo Real-Time Search Test May Be Days Away

Doug Caverly — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:20:49 +0000

A little more information regarding Yahoo's take on real-time search has emerged, and the details - scarce as they are - sound encouraging. Another key point is that public testing of the real-time search feature may be just a few days away.

As we've said before, real-time search will be a tricky thing for Yahoo. Google and Facebook have already made their first efforts in this field, and their partner - Twitter - has a rather higher profile than Yahoo's pal, OneRiot.

Still, Yahoo's thinking through some important issues. After speaking to several unnamed sources, Jessica E. Vascellaro wrote, for example, "Yahoo said the real-time shortcuts will only appear on certain search queries," so if you're researching George Washington, you shouldn't have to read about "dead president" Halloween costumes on Digg.

Vascellaro also wrote that Yahoo "is still weighing whether to integrate the results across its user base," meaning it may give users a straightforward choice about what they'll see under any circumstances - always a nice touch.

Anyway, it shouldn't be much longer before we're able to find out about the specifics straight from the Yahoo press office. Yahoo seems to have focused on not falling too far behind Google and Bing, which is probably a smarter approach than agonizing for months over a not-quite perfect product.

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10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email

Chris Crum — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:54:53 +0000

Update: VerticalResponse CEO Janine Popick has written a separate piece adding 10 more reasons.

Original Article: The Wall Street Journal just ran a piece about the evolution of communication technology, chronicling the rise and alleged fall of email to social media. "Email no longer rules," the title reads.

Do you agree that email no longer rules? Tell us why or why not.

"We all still use email, of course," says Jessica E. Vascellaro, the author of the piece. "But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all social networks also require logging on to use? Sure, you can set them up to remember your info so you don't have to log-in every time, but the same could be said for most email services. That's beside the point though.

It's fun to look at how communication has evolved, and it's easy to declare the old medium dead (although to be fair, Vascellaro didn't exactly go that far). It's just not the case.

WebProNews recently ran an article about how social media will not replace search, despite plenty of mutterings to the contrary. I will go ahead and declare the same thing about email. Social media will not replace email. Just as it did with search, it may replace it in some (even many) instances, but there is room for both forms of communication. In fact, they do a pretty good job of complimenting each other (for better or for worse).

Reasons Email Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon

1. People still send hand-written letters via snail mail, even though they could instead make a phone call, send an email, text message, or status update.

2. Nearly all sites on the web that require registration require an email address. Some are starting to integrate social media into this process (through things like Facebook Connect), but that is still a very small fraction, and they typically still allow for email information as well.

3. Email notifies you of updates from all social networks you are a part of (provided your settings are set up that way).

4. We haven't seen any evidence yet that Google Wave really is the next big thing and will catch on on a large scale.

5. Email is universal, and social networks are not. Nearly everybody on the web (while there are no doubt some exceptions) has an email address. Many places of employment give employees email addresses when they begin working there. Meanwhile, a great deal of them are banning workers from even accessing social networks.

6. There are plenty of people who have no interest in joining social networks. Frequent news stories about security, privacy, and reputation issues do not help convince them.

7. Email is still improving. It hasn't screeched to a halt with the rise of social media. There is still innovation going on, and integration with social media. Look at how Google is constantly adding new features to Gmail. Look at the new Yahoo Mail.

8. Even social networks themselves recognize the importance of email. Never mind that they update users about community-driven happenings via email. MySpace (still one of the biggest social networks) even launched its own email service recently.

9. More social media use means more email use. Look at these recent findings from Nielsen. The people consuming the largest amount of social media are also the people consuming the largest amount of email.

10. As far as marketing is concerned, email is doing pretty well, as many companies continue to struggle to find the right social media strategy to suit their needs.

Email Marketing

Let's expand on that last one a bit. There have been a significant number of studies released in recent memory, indicating that email marketing is doing quite well. Epsilon shared some findings about how email marketing is driving offline purchases. The same firm also found that email open rates increased for the fourth quarter in a row (up 18% YoY according to the most recent study). Forrester Consulting and ExactTarget found that email marketing is the most popular channel for consumers. Earlier this year, Forrester Research reported that email marketing in the U.S. alone was expected to reach $2 billion by 2014.

Is the email landscape changing? Yes, without a doubt. Social media has become a very large part of the online lives for many Internet users. Earlier this year, social sites were even said to have surpassed email in usage. That said, Facebook has come significantly close to matching Google in terms of unique visitors, but that doesn't make Google any less important does it? The two can co-exist, and so can email and social media. They are co-existing.

Email marketers are facing new challenges with an increasingly social and mobile web. For tips on embracing this, check out our coverage of a related session from the recent Shop.org summit.

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Do you think social networks will replace email? Share your thoughts here.

Yahoo Signs Mobile Search Deal With O2 Germany

Doug Caverly — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:56:46 +0000

More than 15 million Germans should now have a little additional Yahoo in their lives. Yahoo's signed a mobile search deal with O2 Germany, and the American company's search engine and a number of other services are getting promoted as a result.

A press release made into semi-English by Google Translate stated, "Besides mobile search by O2 customers get through links from the O2 portals direct access to other popular Yahoo! Products such as the Yahoo! Frontpage, Yahoo! Frontpage, Yahoo! Nachrichten, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sport, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finanzen, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Mail oder auch Flickr."

And while all of that would be impressive enough on its own, the new deal's especially interesting because Yahoo is replacing Google as O2 Germany's default search provider. It's not every day a swap like that happens.

Also, the partnership sort of builds on previous relationships (thus indicating a certain degree of success), as Yahoo already has ties to O2 in 15 other countries in Europe and Latin America.

Unfortunately, the exact terms of the new deal remain unknown, but the press release did make clear that this is a multi-year arrangement.

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Plan For Impressive "Yahooplex" In Motion

Doug Caverly — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:01:05 +0000

Either Yahoo learned nothing from the real estate bubble, or the company's got something pretty fantastic up its sleeve. Or it's just sending out feelers, not preparing to pour concrete. Anyway, a fresh report indicates that Yahoo's taken a step towards building a large, new campus.

John Letzing wrote earlier today about a campus plan that involves 13 structures and 3 million square feet. "Yahoo's proposed campus is made up of sleek, six-story buildings set amid landscaped grounds and expansive plazas. It bears a resemblance to Google's Mountain View headquarters, dubbed the 'Googleplex,' which is situated less than 10 miles to the northwest," he reported.

Then here's another important detail: Santa Clara City Planner Carol Anne Painter told Letzing that the Santa Clara City Council could approve the development early next year.

Just don't go submitting your application to Yahoo (if you feel this is a sign of success and an expansion) - or betting on its bankruptcy (if you feel otherwise) - quite yet.

The company told Tom Krazit, "Yahoo purchased 42.5 acres of land in Santa Clara in July 2006. We submitted initial plans to the City of Santa Clara to redevelop the property in August 2008 and plans are currently with the City to procure entitlements for developing the land. We are taking the proper steps to secure approval for the development of the land. We continue to evaluate our real estate portfolio on a worldwide basis to ensure it best supports our business."

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Microsoft, Yahoo Miss Agreement Deadline

Doug Caverly — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:37:59 +0000

The proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal seems to have hit a small and oddly unspecified bump. The companies missed an October 27th deadline by which they hoped to have some details ironed out.

Yahoo admitted yesterday in an SEC filing, "The Letter Agreement specified that the parties would execute Definitive Agreements by October 27, 2009, but given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain some details to be finalized. The parties are working diligently on finalizing the agreements, have made good progress to date, and have agreed to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible."

The Microsoft-Yahoo partnership hasn't been derailed, then, and considering all the time and energy everyone's spent following these dealings, that's a bit of a relief. There's just the question of why this delay has occurred.

Microsoft and Yahoo might be holding some quiet discussions with regulators in order to make sure they get things right on the first try. Or maybe, considering that this is a ten-year deal, both sides' lawyers have just gotten a little overwhelmed with paperwork.

Anything more serious would probably merit a mention in the SEC filing.

So hang in there and we'll see what happens. Yahoo did not establish a new target date, by the way.

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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?

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Yahoo Provides Homepage Overhaul Stats

Doug Caverly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:19:18 +0000

The current top article on Yahoo's homepage may be about a former NBA player's "sad turnaround," but the story of the homepage's recent overhaul is a happy one, according to Tapan Bhat. Bhat shared some impressive statistics at Yahoo's Analyst Day Meeting.

Bhat is a senior vice president at Yahoo, in charge of both "Integrated Consumer Experience" and "Front Doors, Community, and Network Services," so the redesign was very much under his purview. We wouldn't be surprised if he's given more power, too, on the basis of the following stats.

Joseph Tartakoff wrote, "SVP Tapan Bhat said . . . that so far page views were up nine percent and time spent on Yahoo.com was up 20 percent." Also, "The new page includes third-party 'apps' that users can add to the home page to get quick access to services from Yahoo and third-party sites - and Bhat said that 40 percent of new home page users were using between 6 and 11 of them."

Then here's one more interesting point: "As for monetization, Bhat said that the click-through rates on the main ad on Yahoo.com were up 10 percent."

All in all, this represents an important success story for Yahoo; the company's effectively demonstrated that it isn't just running on autopilot until Microsoft swoops in.

Related Articles:

> Yahoo May Pursue Real-Time Search With OneRiot

> Compete: Yahoo Stumbled In September

> Yahoo Undergoes Another Exec Shuffle

Yahoo May Pursue Real-Time Search With OneRiot

Doug Caverly — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:27:40 +0000

Bing and Google may have gotten a head start, but Yahoo isn't ignoring the whole real-time search arena, according to a new report. In fact (or at least in rumor, if you will), Yahoo may be working on a product with OneRiot right now.

Yes, Michael Arrington reported that Yahoo isn't pursuing anything with either Facebook or Twitter. OneRiot, a real-time search engine that's already up and running, is supposed to be its new pal, instead. And Arrington wrote, "If our source is correct . . . the product will launch very soon."

So here's a little more info about OneRiot. On the corporate side of things: it launched about a year ago, and is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. It's received funding from Spark Capital, which has put money into Twitter, too.

As for the tech, the OneRiot search engine is in beta, yet it deals with both text and video, and more specifically, "crawls the links people share on Twitter, Digg and other social sharing services," according to an "About Us" page.

It should be interesting to see what (if anything) Yahoo and OneRiot come up with. Although playing catch-up isn't easy, they have the opportunity to learn from others' mistakes and refine their best ideas.

Related Articles:

> How Does Bing Rank Tweets?

> Microsoft And Google Score Deals With Twitter

> Real-Time Site Previews, Faster Search From Yahoo

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

Carl Icahn Quits Yahoo's Board Of Directors

Doug Caverly — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:42:12 +0000

Another noteworthy event in the long, strange tale of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal has occurred: about 15 months after securing his seat on Yahoo's board of directors, Carl Icahn has resigned the position.

It's important to note that the move isn't supposed to be interpreted as the first step in starting another fight. Or even as a sign of disapproval. In fact, in a letter announcing his resignation, Icahn made it sound more like a case of "mission accomplished" and "time to move on."

"When I joined the Board, the company was in a state of turmoil," he wrote. "In the period since then, we have all worked together to achieve much for the Company, most notably bringing Carol on to be the CEO and then consummating the search deal with Microsoft. I am proud to have played a role in both these decisions. Carol is doing a great job and I believe the Microsoft transaction will provide great long term benefits, the potential of which many still do not understand.

Icahn then continued, "I don't believe that it is necessary at this time to have an activist on the Board of Yahoo! and currently, my attention is focused on other matters."

Then here's one more important detail: Icahn remains a major investor in Yahoo, with a 4.5 percent stake.

Still, shareholders don't seem to have taken news of his resignation well. Yahoo's stock is down 1.39 percent this morning even though the Dow and the Nasdaq have both made slight gains.

Compete: Yahoo Stumbled In September

Doug Caverly — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:20:51 +0000

Sorry, Yahoo fans - September wasn't kind to your search engine of choice. According to Compete's stats about market share and query volume, newcomer Bing did more than all right, though, which would seem to say some interesting things about the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal.

Yahoo's share dropped from 15.8 percent in August to 14.7 percent in September, which equals a month-over-month fall of 7.0 percent. Meanwhile, query volume plummeted by a not-at-all-good 8.0 percent.

Bing's query volume increased by 8.2 percent during the same period. Its market share eked up, too, from 8.7 percent to 8.8 percent.

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.

As for old Google, it performed well in September and is still far ahead of its rivals, with Compete reporting that its market share increased from 72.3 to 72.6 percent month-over-month. Only in terms of query volume did the search giant stumble, losing 0.6 percent.

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.

Yahoo Partners With GroupM On Branded Content Deal

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:16:23 +0000

Yahoo has partnered with WPP's GroupM Entertainment to help marketers incorporate their brands into original online programming.

The programs will appear across Yahoo's network of media properties, including news, sports, finance and entertainment.

"Marketers need big, ground-breaking ideas that engage and delight consumers, and this partnership with Yahoo! will enable them to create unique high value relationships," said GroupM Entertainment Worldwide CEO Peter Tortorici, who will administer the partnership for GroupM.

Joanne Bradford,
Yahoo! Senior VP,
N. American Revenue
and Market Development

GroupM and Yahoo will work together with advertisers to develop concepts that map media content with an advertiser's messaging, and produce the content for each program. Yahoo will promote the branded programs to targeted audiences across its network.

"Yahoo! has a keen understanding of what makes our audience click, and this partnership will help advertisers develop deeper connections with our users," said Joanne Bradford, Yahoo!'s senior vice president, North American revenue and market development.

"Furthermore, Yahoo! can continue to build on its successful portfolio of the Internet's most-watched original programming by tapping into GroupM's incredible creative development talent."

Yahoo points to its TechTicker program with Scottrade as the advertiser, as an example of one of its successful campaigns, calling it the most viewed business and investing program online averaging more than 350,000 streams per day.

GroupM unit Mindshare Entertainment, created "In the Motherhood," an original online series for its clients Sprint and Unilever's Suave that was later picked up by ABC Television and developed into the first prime time comedy to be spun off from a Web series.

Yahoo Undergoes Another Exec Shuffle

Doug Caverly — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:45:20 +0000

It looks like Yahoo's revolving door recently spun around yet again. A senior vice president of communications and community properties has left the company, and another man's joined it and been given the title "Vice President of Corporate Development."

Scott Dietzen is the (former) SVP who found the exit. Before getting picked up by Yahoo, he was the president and CTO of Zimbra. Dietzen also received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University, so his departure is far from insignificant.

The one bright spot from Yahoo's perspective is that, rather than immediately join Google or Microsoft, Dietzen said during an rPath interview that he's just taking an open-ended sabbatical.

As for the new hire, his name is Andrew Siegel. Kara Swisher reports that he'll be in charge of mergers and acquisitions. Siegel used to work for General Electric, and also spent some time at Merrill Lynch. He attended Syracuse University and the New York University School of Law.

It's reasonable to assume that Yahoo has a lot of confidence in Siegel's abilities, considering how many properties the company is reportedly trying to sell. There's the pending deal with Microsoft to consider, too.

Yahoo Reports Big Jump In Profits

Doug Caverly — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:25:12 +0000

Although Yahoo's last few months have been defined by its deal with Microsoft and a trimming of nonessential units, the company proved today that it has a little life in a yet. Plenty of the stuff, really, as Yahoo's third quarter earnings report beat analyst's expectations.

Analysts thought Yahoo would reel in $1.5 billion in revenue. The company managed to find an extra $75 million. It then did even better in terms of net income and earnings per share, reporting $0.13 against a forecast $0.07. This represents a 225 percent year-over-year improvement, and would appear to show that the cost-cutting measures have paid off.

Carol Bartz stated as a result, "[W]e had a solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized. With new products like Yahoo! homepage, our brand revitalization campaign and expansion in the Middle East through Maktoob.com, our execution is improving and we're focused on what we do best - being the center of people's online lives."

As for the future, Yahoo thinks things will be better still in the fourth quarter, forecasting $1.6 to $1.7 billion in revenue.

Investors have responded well to all of this news, sending Yahoo's stock up an impressive 5.42 percent so far in after-hours trading.

Advertising Powerhouses Champion Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Doug Caverly — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:51:50 +0000

It would seem that everybody who's anybody in the advertising industry wants the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to go through. Today, the president and CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, along with the heads of all four major ad holding companies, signed her name to a letter of support.

First, a little background info: The AAAA has an extremely impressive membership roster, with Arnold, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Digitas, and Saatchi & Saatchi on its side. Then there are the ad holding agencies - the Interpublic Group of Companies, the Omnicon Group, the Publicis Groupe, and WPP - to consider.

And in terms of the Microsoft-Yahoo debate, these organizations effectively went straight to the top.

Their letter was in fact an open one addressed to the U.S. Department of Justice. They stated, "We believe that Yahoo! and Microsoft's proposal to combine their technologies and search platforms is good for advertisers, marketing services agencies, website publishers and consumers. . . . These benefits are too important to wait for. As leading members of the advertising and marketing services industry, we urge the Department of Justice to bring its antitrust review to a speedy conclusion."

A Yahoo spokesperson told WebProNews in response, "Yahoo! welcomes the broad support this deal has received, and remains hopeful that the closing of this transaction can occur in early 2010."

Google And Microsoft Make Gains In The Search Market

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:23:29 +0000

In September, Americans conducted 13.8 billion searches, with Google leading the way with 64.9 percent of the search market, a 0.3 percent increase from August, according to comScore's latest search engine rankings.

Yahoo ranked second with 18.8 percent of the search market, a slight decline of 0.5 percent from August. Microsoft grabbed 9.4 percent of the search share and experienced an increase of 0.1 percent. Both Ask and AOL remained flat month-over-month with 3.9 percent and 3.0 percent respectively.

Americans overall search activity was down 1 percent from August (which had one additional day compared to September). Google accounted for 9 billion searches, followed by Yahoo (2.6 billion), Microsoft (1.3 billion), Ask (541 million) and AOL (416 million).

The top properties where search activity is monitored by comScore , Google sites led the search market with 12.8 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo sites with 2.7 billion queries and Microsoft with nearly 1.4 billion searches. Facebook had the largest growth of the top ten expanded search properties with a 19 percent increase in query volume to 384 million searches.

Flickr Receives Four Billionth Photo Upload

Chris Crum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:35:39 +0000

Yahoo-owned Flickr announced that its 4 billionth photo was uploaded over the weekend. It was uploaded by a user that goes by the name of "punimoe."

"Sadly, while 1,000,000,000 is no more, you can still see what 2,000,000,000 and 3,000,000,000 looked like," says Heather Camp on the Flickr blog. "For what it’s worth, it’s really difficult writing about all these billions without having a small Dr. Evil moment."

Here's what the photo looks like:

Punimoe is receiving a lot of congratulations and positive comments on the photo. Here's what some of the users have said:

"Stunning photo. Well deserving of Flickr's 4 billionth picture."

"So, that's what the 4 billionth picture looks like. Sweeet :)"

"Nice one, and congrats on the 'achievement', albeit random chance o'course :)"

"Holy crap! 4 billion served!"

Flickr was launched in February 2004, developed by Vancouver-based Ludicorp. Just over a year later, Ludicorp and Flickr were acquired by Yahoo.

Recently, Flickr for mobile was added to the iPhone app store, the site refined its search results pages, and it began allowing connectivity with Twitter.

Search Engine Marketing Spend Stabilizing

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:44:31 +0000

The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industry continues to stabilize in the third quarter of 2009 and included some positive sings for the fourth quarter, according to a new report from Efficient Frontier.

"The third quarter results and a look beyond provide some encouraging signs for the Search Marketing industry as well as the overall economy," said David Karnstedt, President and CEO, Efficient Frontier.

"While certain sectors, such as travel, have continued to lag, other categories such as retail have picked up as we head into the fourth quarter, which is a critical time for online marketers."

SEM spend was up 5 percent compared to the previous quarter while year-over-year saw a 5 percent decline. Year-over-year (YoY) declines were driven by continued Cost Per Click (CPC) weakness with Google's search CPC dipping for the fourth straight quarter. Return on investment (ROI) remained stable as marketers continue to focus on efficiency.

While continuing to hold a dominant 70 percent plus share position, Google lost ground in terms of Spend Share both on QoQ basis a YoY basis by losing 1.78 percent and 0.83 percent respectively.

Yahoo's Paid Click Share was up slightly QoQ, but it lost both Spend and Click Share YoY. Yahoo' s Spend Share was down 0.07 percent and Click Share was down 2.43 percent YoY.

In contrast, Bing continued to grow since its launch in June. QoQ Bing saw gains in Paid Clicks and Spend Share by 0.68 percent and 1.02 percent, respectively. Bing numbers shows category growth across travel, finance, autos and retails with the most significant gains in travel and finance.

The travel sector saw a 14 percent loss QoQ and 39 percent loss YoY. While the QoQ loss is partly due to the seasonal nature of the travel industry, the YoY loss points to continued weakness in this space.

The finance category has stabilized with positive growth in consumer demand, with a 1 percent decrease QoQ and a 7 percent increase YoY.

Retail is the clear key going in the fourth quarter and the report forecast search will outperform the general holiday season spend.

The company expects strong consumer activity to continue and aggressive advertiser competition to follow as marketers look to capture interest and more importantly, sales. The net result of better conversions, improving ROI, and higher CPCs, will likely be seasonally strong spend increases for the retail sector in Q4 2009.

Yahoo Expands "It's Y!ou" Campaign With User Yodeling

Chris Crum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:41:34 +0000

As part of Yahoo's big "It's Y!ou!" campaign, the company has started an initiative to let users contribute to the famous "Yahoo! Yodel". Yahoo has opened up what it calls the Yodel Studio. The aim is for people to personalize and reinterpret the yodel.

"The foundation of the 'It’s Y!ou' campaign is about making the web more personally relevant to each of our consumers, so it’s important that we engage the world in the creation of our new yodel," said Elisa Steele, Yahoo! executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "It’s essentially a unique form of user generated content that honors the millions of people who visit Yahoo! every day."

Yahoo is even going so far as to hold live Yodeling events featuring celebrities and musical artists. One is in New York City and one is in London. Tomorrow there will be one in Mumbai. New York's event features Kimberly Caldwell, Jewel, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Jackson, Pete Wentz, and others. London's features Pixie Lott, and Mumbai's will feature Shankar Mahadevan, VJ Nikhil Chinappa, and Shaa'ir + Func. The events feature professional recording studios.

"The yodel is synonymous with Yahoo! and we’re ready for people around the world to put their unique expression on it," added Steele. "Whether your yodel is 80s punk or country funk, the Yodel Studio is about self-expression, having fun and allowing all the people who use Yahoo! to be an essential part of our brand revitalization effort."

Based on the number of times an entry is viewed, top yodels will ‘go gold,’ and one submission in the US, UK and India will each ‘go platinum.’ Participants can use built-in social media tools to help generate awareness for their yodels and voting for the platinum yodels will take place from November 9-15. Winners will be announced during the week of November 16, 2009 and will have a chance to be featured on the Yahoo! homepage and incorporated into Yahoo!’s new global advertising campaign.

Users have until November 8th to go to the Yodel Studio and create and submit their yodel. Different genre Yodel samples, check out this page.

Report: Paid Search Spend Up 10%

Chris Crum — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:25:05 +0000

SearchIgnite has released a report, which indicates that paid search spending in the United States was flat year-over-year in the third quarter, yet up 10% quarter-over-quarter. This comes largely from multi-channel retailers, who increased paid search spend by 40% in the quarter, according to the firm. This is despite flat conversion rates and average order value.

"This is the second consecutive quarter of sequential growth for paid search spend, indicating marketers' continued confidence in search marketing as an efficient component of their overall marketing mix," said Roger Barnette, President of SearchIgnite. "Multi-channel retailers in particular have continued to rely more heavily on paid search as a key driver of sales in a challenging economic environment."

According to the report, Bing saw the most pronounced growth in spend among the top three search engines, an increase of 15% year-over-year (presumably compared to Microsoft Live Search). Yahoo, on the other hand, was down 24% year-over-year.

The report also states the obvious, that there was no movement in search share, as far as rank, but year-over-year, Yahoo lost share to Google, while Bing showed "little" growth.

"Microsoft is headed in the right direction with Bing and attracting more advertiser dollars. That said, it’s an uphill battle against Google and there’s still a long way to go before Bing garners a significant amount of the search ad revenue pie," said Barnette.

More information about paid search spend for the quarter can be found in the report. SearchIgnite says it manages over $350 million in paid search annually.

Yahoo Adds Paid Search Listings to Filtered Results

Chris Crum — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:15:10 +0000

Yahoo has given Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers the ability to have their ads shown in filtered searches. When Yahoo launched its new search results pages last month, they added the ability for users to filter results by site. Relevant ads are now appearing with these results.

"On our new search page, if a searcher types in a phrase such as 'buy pink floyd', he can further refine his search results by clicking on links on the left-hand side of the page, which include sites that users often find useful. If the user clicks on one of the suggested sites, he’ll get a smaller set of results from that domain only," explains Yahoo's Jeff Hecox. "Now, if the user selects a site that is also a Sponsored Search advertiser, that advertiser’s ad should still be displayed in the new set of results."

Don't worry about competing ads in these cases. If a user searches for "buy pink floyd" as described above, they can choose "Amazon.com" to filter the results and get only Amazon results, for example. The only paid results that would show would be for Amazon, Hecox says.

So in other words, this will only affect you as an advertiser if you have a site that is actually used in Yahoo's filtering options. So the question is, how do I get my site to be listed as a filtering option? Yahoo says that the domains its system uses to filter results are chose based on a number of factors, such as their listings' quality, popularity, and user response.

For smaller advertisers, this may be a hard nut to crack. However, as far as users are concerned, Yahoo deems this a way to increase relevancy and user control of the search experience.

The move is just one of Yahoo's new ways of creating more opportunities for its bigger advertisers. Another was demonstrated by the creation of the Vitality campaign for General Mills, which illustrates how you can bring existing content together to target a demographic and then serve ads to that same demographic.

Yahoo Snags Microsoft Sales Exec

Doug Caverly — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:37:27 +0000

It would be an understatement to say that Yahoo's experienced a rough patch recently, and Microsoft, with Bing launched and a search deal on the way, seems to be doing better. But Yahoo may still have a few tricks up its sleeve, and the company pulled off one by getting a Microsoft sales exec to join its ranks.

This morning, Kara Swisher described Seth Dallaire as one of Microsoft's top ad sales execs, and then wrote, "Yahoo confirmed that Dallaire joined the company last week, as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising."

Dallaire looks to be a good catch. In fact, he worked for Microsoft for about seven years, and so should have a great idea of how its ad business operates. Another important detail is that he spent a couple of years at Amazon working as a senior account manager.

Dallaire was educated at Vassar College and New York University, too, which isn't a bad combo.

Anyway, it's more than a little interesting to see someone move from Microsoft to Yahoo instead of the other way around. Maybe Yahoo just offered Dallaire one or more parts of the usual better pay/better benefits/better hours package, or maybe - big, bleed-purple, cross-your-fingers maybe - this corresponds to the start of a turnaround.