First, Jessamyn West spotted a Google experiment and posted a screen shot on Flickr entitled, “Google becoming Digg?” Then, Haochi Chen of Googlified posted an item about the “Google Digg-Style Experiment.” So, what’s up?
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The following post on Optimizing Blog growth has been submitted by Aaron Wall from SEOBook.
Many of my friends who are would be bloggers are afraid to start blogging because they are afraid of being wrong or writing something that might make them look foolish.
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With December starting tomorrow I thought it might be worth pointing back to a series of posts that I wrote at this time last year on How to Optimize Your Blog for Christmas.
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While Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft battle for online mapping domination, another competitor is fortifying its position quietly off to the side. In today’s Vertical Challenge column, “Local Search: Competing All Over the Map - Part 2,” local search expert Michael Boland looks at EveryScape, a new 3-D mapping beta site from MapQuest that could change everything you thought you knew about map-based advertising and local search.
Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:
Over the past six months, my feed reading habits have evolved. I used to read summary feeds in a desktop reader, but I’ve moved towards the more common model of reading full post feeds in a web based reader.
I wasn’t really conscious of this change, until I read Meg’s Hey You! Yes you, with the Partial Feed. I started off by defending summary feeds, but ended up realising that I’d come to value full post feeds as much as most bloggers.
After some further thought, I realised that there are two distinct models of feed reading, which I outline briefly below.
The Aggregated Feed Model
When I started blogging, I mostly read aggregated feeds, such as the one for the BUMPzee No NoFollow community. I’d get hundreds of entries streaming past, many on topics I wasn’t interested in. I’d pick out the small number I wanted to read and visit the site.
For this sort of feed reading, I prefer summary feeds. When I’m skimming through hundreds, or even thousands entries, the full post is a distraction - I read too much before discarding something I don’t really want to read.
With this model, reading is based on the topic, not who is writing it.
The Individual Feed Model
I’ve slowly moved toward reading a small number of individual feeds, from sites that I’ve become a loyal reader of.
For these sites, I’m going to read everything they write. I’m not skimming, so having the full text feed is much preferable. It’s a real time saver […]
Read the rest of this great post here
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Are AdSense truly interested in cutting down mistaken clicks on ads? If so - why do some of the biggest sites on the web (including one of their own) still have most of their ad units clickable while the average publisher does not?
I just had an email from WebbyThoughts who alerted me to a an inconsistency with AdSense’s recent policy to make less of their ad units ‘clickable’.
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Yellowpage.com CEO Charles Stubbs made a surprise appearance at ILM:07/ SES Local today to talk about AT&T’s acquisition of call tracking provider Ingenio.
The acquisition didn’t get the mainstream spotlight for the most part; admittedly, it’s not the sexiest announcement out there. But it is big, and has gotten a nod in certain local search circles (Kelsey Group post here; and of Frank Watson posted about the deal here on SEW).
This comes down to a unifying call tracking platform to integrate with AT&T disparate media channels including Yellowpages.com, AT&T print directories and directional advertising that will emerge in new places such as IPTV.
“With all of the assets of AT&T, we needed a cross platform ad tool,” said Stubbs. “This will be a common business platform to communicate to small business when our local sales reps sit down with them.”
Stubbs admitted that selling clicks has been a great business for local (TMP Directional Media CEO Stuart McKelvey later presented data showing that more than 80 percent of local online advertising is resold by yellow pages sales channels). But a call is closer to most small businesses (and to the cash register) than a click is. This is especially true for certain categories such as trade services — a huge local category.
Ingenio effectively brings this call tracking capability across AT&T media assets:”And Ingenio is more than call tracking,” said Stubbs. “It gives us a platform for fraud protection, a self serve ad store and dynamic procurement across assets.”
More importantly, it allows AT&T […] Read more »
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Citysearch expanded its reach to small business advertisers and added small business content to its local guides through a deal with MerchantCircle, a social media network for local businesses. Combining Citysearch’s high-touch, urban-reaching network with MerchantCircle’s low-touch, mostly suburban base, makes for a complementary partnership, according to Citysearch President Jay Herratti.
In today’s SearchDay, “Citysearch Looks to MerchantCircle to Complete Picture,” Herratti and MerchantCircle chairman Ben Smith share their thoughts on local business search.
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Though Yahoo Europe has been given until the end of the first quarter next year to improve their numbers or face closing, their new hire of Kristof Fahy - former brand manager for BlackBerry and telephone service provider Orange - shows they do not plan on going out without giving it a hard shot.
Fahy dealt with brand, planning and advertising for the mobile operator Orange’s UK business. Something Yahoo needs in Europe where they have a track record of abandoning products.
The growth of international search resurrected their interest in non-US countries and purchases of companies like Terespondo, the Latin search engine for Spain and South America.
Toby Coppel, the Yahoo! Europe managing director said recently “that poorly performing parts of the European business have until the end of the first quarter next year to improve or faced being closed down or sold,” the UK Guardian reported.
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