Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: October 14, 2010
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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SES Chicago 2010 Live Blog Coverage Schedule
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 4:47pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Strategies 2010 Chicago
SES Chicago 2010 is this coming Tuesday. We are thrilled to be able to bring the event to you, even if you cannot make it, through our live blogging coverage. This is actually our 8th year covering SES events!
Live blogging SES Chicago are veteran live bloggers Avi Wilensky (@aviw)& Sheara Goldenthal (@sheara) of Promediacorp, Chris Boggs of (@boggles) ROSETTA and myself (@rustybrick). We are all seasoned and experienced live bloggers - so I am very confident you will love the coverage! Thank you all for volunteering to cover the conference for the industry!
Here is out SES Chicago 2010 Live Coverage Schedule:
Tuesday, October 19 - Day 1
11:30-12:30pm
Remaining Agile Amidst Seismic Shifts in the Social Media Landscape covered by Sheara Goldenthal
1:30-2:30pm
Update on Real Time Search: I Want it Now! covered by Barry Schwartz
"Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers" covered by Chris Boggs
Social Integration: Creating Interactive Conversations Across Channels covered by Sheara Goldenthal
3:00-4:00pm
Brand, Trademark & Reputation Management covered by Sheara Goldenthal
Beyond Listening-Establishing & Hitting Metrics with Social Media covered by Barry SchwartzWednesday, October 20 - Day 2
11:00-12:00pm
SEO 101 covered by Barry Schwartz
Local 2.0: The Evolution of Local Search covered by Sheara Goldenthal
1:00-2:00pm
Conversion Ninja Toolbox covered by Sheara Goldenthal
2:30-3:30pm
Crowd Sourcing For SEO & Social covered by Sheara Goldenthal
Killer Facebook Marketing Tactics covered by Barry Schwartz & Avi Wilensky
3:45-4:45pm
How to Become a Link Magnet covered by Chris Boggs
Twitternation & Automation covered by Avi Wilensky
Content Marketing Optimization covered by Barry Schwartz
5:00-6:00pm
Paid Search 101 covered by Barry Schwartz
Thursday, October 21 - Day 3
9:30-10:30am
Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google covered by Barry Schwartz
10:45-11:45am
Digital Asset Optimization covered by Sheara Goldenthal & Avi Wilensky
Marketing in the Content Networks Clinic covered by Barry Schwartz
12:00-1:00pm
Channel Surfing: Measuring Profit and ROI Across Channels covered by Chris Boggs
Social Goes Local covered by Sheara Goldenthal
3:15-4:15pm
Local Search Ranking Factors covered by Chris Boggs
4:45-5:45pm
The Business Value of Social Media covered by Chris BoggsThat is our live blogging schedule - it is subject to change last minute.
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Bing Gets Something Google Can't Get, Facebook Data
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 3:45pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
The huge search news yesterday was Bing's Facebook announcement. In short, Bing is now showing you search results that your friends on Facebook like.
Let me be clear, the Bing organic search results are currently not changing based on your Facebook data. Instead, Bing is adding a module on the search page that shows results that your friends might like for the query. Got that?
Here is a sample of a module:
This alone is valuable. Personally, not to me, since I really don't use Facebook like I should. But so many people, not people who use Twitter (techies) but people like your mom and dad, sister and brother, use Facebook. This is incredibly valuable. Google would not deny this, heck they are trying to make a huge push in social search by using Twitter and other open social networks, but nothing comes close to what Facebook has and they are closed.
That being said, currently the organic results on Bing are not impacted by this. Will they be? Who knows, maybe in the future. But if it is, I wonder how that impacts the Yahoo results.
Recommended reading for this? Of course, Danny's article at Search Engine Land. Matt McGee notified me of Amit Kumar's post on this. Amit was at Yahoo before Yahoo "killed" SearchMonkey (Amit used those words and he built Search Monkey). He said this will give Bing more relevant results than Google within a year - I guess that is if they have it impact the pure organic results.
More coverage at Techmeme.
Forum discussion at Sphinn, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums.
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Google Market Share Grows, Yahoo's Dips - Yahoo Questions comScore
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 3:37pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
Danny Sullivan covered the comScore search market share stats very well. Go read it. In short for the month of September:
- Google: 66.1% (up 0.7 from 65.4%)
- Yahoo: 16.7% (down 0.7 from 17.4%
- Bing: 11.2% (up 0.1 from 11.1%)
- Ask: 3.7% (up 0.1 from 3.8%)
- AOL: 2.3% (no change)
Yahoo claims the boost is due to how Google Instant is counted. Yahoo said, "With products like Google Instant in the market, it’s more important than ever to understand how third-parties measure search queries and be judicious in how we use their numbers."
I do like Tedster's comments at WebmasterWorld:
Something becomes clear to me, month after month. While many search marketers say "the sky is falling" when Google makes a change - the general population is still very much in favor of what Mountain View is doing. I'm certainly not exempt from complaining about the way things have been going.
So I'm giving myself a reality check, right now. I need to get used to rapid change and not think about Google as if it were anything but exactly what it is - right now. And then a big part of my job becomes understanding what Google is - right now - as well as listening and watching for clues as to what it may be in the near future.
In any event, I find this all funny. Being that Google cried foul when companies measured Yahoo Image Searches slideshow feature.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Updates Link Reports Before Bing
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Google announced they have updated the link reports in Google Webmaster Tools. The update adds the domains linking most to your site, the pages on your site with the most links, and a sampling of the anchor text external sites are using when they link to your site. Plus you can drill down even deeper.
The best way to understand this is to see example screens or just play with them yourself at Google Webmaster Tools.
As I said, this comes before the highly anticipated Bing Webmaster Center link reports. Bing should be releasing them any day, I believe.
Here are screen shots of the new Google link reports:
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
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Yahoo Looking To Sell Again? This Time, I'm All For It
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 3:10pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo News
Before Yahoo handed over their search engine and search ads to Microsoft, Microsoft actually made several bids to buy Yahoo. Yahoo, under founder Jerry Yang, rejected those bids time and time again.
Ultimately, under Carol Bartz, Yahoo made a deal with Microsoft for Yahoo to give up on their own search technology, let Microsoft power and control that, for ad income and reduced cost on running a search engine.
Now, there are rumors via the Wall Street Journal, Kara Swisher and others that Yahoo is putting themselves out there for bidders.
AOL Inc. and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges.
Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP are among the firms that have expressed interest in teaming up with AOL to buy Yahoo or trying to take it private on their own, these people said. They added that at least two or three other firms could be interested in participating if a formal buyout proposal is drawn up.
Prior, I was never for it. But now, heck, Yahoo go for it. What do you have to lose now, at least on the search side. :)
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums & WebmasterWorld.
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Yahoo Closing More Directories, Now UK Directory
Posted: October 14th, 2010, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Directory
Yahoo began as Yahoo by forming web directories, typically referred to as the first search engine - although human powered search engine. Yahoo began closing several European Directories late last year, including the directories in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Next month, on November 8, 2010, Yahoo is closing the UK directory. I reported this at Search Engine Land last week, via a hat tip from Martin Forshaw but didn't see any threads in the SEO community about the change.
Today I spotted a thread at DigitalPoint Forums with no real comments. The poster said:
Just wanted to let everyone know that I recived a message yesterday from Yahoo saying that .co.uk Yahoo directory is closing and moving all exisiting listings to USA directory. They are also happy to give all the refunds to everyone who wishes to terminate their listing.
They are closing in November, so anyone wishing to get their £300 refunded should do it by mid of November.
Here is a screen shot of the Yahoo UK Directory today, so that we can remember it when Yahoo takes it offline.Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.