Category: Of Note in Search Biz

Funny that I was in Florida last week, because the webmaster boards are lighting up with speculation that Google is about to do another major update to its index. When this happens, the rankings of many keywords and websites shift dramatically, with major implications for the business models of thousands of small sites.

The last major update, dubbed Florida, was just about a year ago, and it killed a lot of affiliate spam. But it also took out a lot of innocent bystanders. Site owners and the SEO community are battening down their hatches, as the holidays are usually the times when Google hurricanes hit. Why? That’s when the pressure to make money on the web is most intense (many online retailers make 80% of their profits in the fourth quarter). That means the attempts to game Google also intensify. Should be fun to watch…but I wouldn’t want to be a small online retailer right about now…

Gary points us to a new report (PDF download) issued by the folks at Consumer Union that reviews the disclosure policies of major search engines.

Key findings:
• Paid inclusion was not satisfactorily disclosed or explained by any of the search engines tested. The credibility of this practice is of such concern to the industry itself that, after Consumer Reports WebWatch testing had been completed, two of the top five search engines announced plans to terminate paid inclusion programs.
• Meta-engines, which present results from several search engines simultaneously, repeatedly failed to adequately disclose the presence of paid placement and paid inclusion within search results.
• Disclosures are generally hard to find, accessible by headings and hyperlinks that often blend in with the page, making them easy for consumers to overlook. • Information disclosed by the sites on business practices with advertisers — and how these practices may affect search results — was often confusing and jargonladen.
• Some engines, like Google – one of the few majors not named in the original FTC complaint – took pains to visually segregate paid results from non-paid results. Consumers may want to avoid others, like 1st Blaze, because of inadequate or absent disclosures that undermine the integrity of search results.

According to a release I rec’vd from Fathom Online today, keyword prices are still rising at a healthy clip.

Fathom Online, a leading search engine marketer, released its October monthly Keyword Price Index™ showing an overall 14% increase in the price of keywords from the September average of $1.37 per keyword to $1.55 for October.

Search advertisers in some sectors of the market found that the start of Q4 was definitely more costly than September. For instance, in the consumer services category, which includes entertainment, spas, and other related goods and services, prices increased on average 78% from $.54 to $.96 per keyword. Retailers faced increases on average of 52% from $.32 to $.48. Other advertisers fared better, particularly in the automotive industry where prices dropped 10% from $1.43 5o $1.39 and in telecom/broadband where the average fell 5% from $1.89 to $1.78.

Slashdot has details on Apple’s integrated search function, noting that metadata will play a starring role. Apple’s new search technology, which will incorporate desktop search, is called Spotlight. More detail here. Spotlight is expected to be integrated into Apple’s next OS release, Tiger, due in Spring. From what I can glean from the thread, it seems Apple’s search tool will be well received. As a Mac guy, all I can say is hurry up!

Interesting speculation from David Weinberger on what Keyhole might mean if mixmashed with the Google Browser rumors.

It would not be a Web browser. It’d be a world browser. It would find pages on the Web, of course, but it’d also find the ones on my desktop (Google desktop). It would know about my email (Gmail). It would know that my own photos are categorically different from all the other jpgs on the planet (Picasa). It would let me browse the physical earth (Keyhole) and show on a map the documents that talk about any particular place (Keyhole + Google Local).

And it wouldn’t be just a browser. It would let me work with the information I’ve found: Manage my photos (Picasa), manage my desktop files, translate documents (Google Languages), shop…

Silicon Beat has an overview of a recent talk given by Ram Shriram, early Google investor and Board member.

— It’s all in the grooming. Shriram set out to made sure Page & Brin hired only the very best, or “A” people. He cited the well-known Silicon Valley tenet: Hire only A people, and they’ll hire other A people. If you hire the B person, they’ll hire C or D people. Someone asked a good question: How did Shriram decide who are a so-called “A” people? Grooming is a part of it. “I try to find out who their mothers are,” he said. If they are raised well, they’re more likely to make good citizens, employees and entrepreneurs.

Jerry Yang on the future of search over in Yahoo’s Search Blog. Nothing mind blowing here, save it’s sure nice to see Jerry blogging.

Ten years ago, we were focused on a simple yet vast problem: finding better ways to aggregate and organize information so people can find it. Today, the challenge is different. On the one hand, there’s a lot more information to aggregate and it’s not just more in terms of quantity; there’s a larger variety of content as well — from products and images to news and business information. In addition, we’re pulling content from more sources than ever before.

On the other hand, our user’s expectations have also changed. It’s no longer enough to simply provide a structure for users to find what they want on the Web. Today, people expect to find precisely what they’re looking for exactly as it relates to them. It’s the old example of the “Java” search query. Are you looking for coffee or for the programming language? People want to define what’s relevant to them in their own personal way. They also want to tap into the source of their information at will and they want to manage it all to personally suit their needs.

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For some odd reason I find the Yellow Pages interesting, always have. There’s something about them that just reeks of…opportunity. Apparently Google agrees. They inked a deal with BellSouth’s Yellow Pages unit, a deal which let’s BellSouth resell AdWords. In other words, this is a new strategy for Google – BellSouth is the first ever company to have rights to resell Google’s AdWords. If it works, it may have far reaching implications.

So why did they do it? Local, local, local. It’s very hard to sell AdWords to plumbers. The Yellow Pages have reps who already sell ads to them. It’s all about the trenches in the Local market.

I’ve covered the YP before, here and here and here.

Release in extended entry. Also, see SEW coverage.

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