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Your Weekly Step Forth into the World of Search Engines |
News
From StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Wednesday, August 20th, 2003
Dear valued subscribers,
Welcome to StepForth’s weekly search engine update. This update is a weekly news summary designed to bring our subscribers up to speed on the constantly evolving search engine marketplace.
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| Highlight of the Week: Yahoo and MSN Continue to Grab for Google's Gold | ||
Yahoo purchased one of the largest search databases, Inktomi, earlier this year. Inktomi powers HotBot and provides some of the listings for Yahoo's rival MSN. Currently, Yahoo receives its search engine listings from Google and inserts paid advertisements from another recent acquisition, Overture. Overture and Google are direct competitors in the Pay-Per-Click market and the emerging contextual-focused advertising markets. Yahoo announced today that it will be replacing results generated by Google with results generated by Inktomi on its Australian search engine and other, unnamed regional search tools. This indicates a significant change as Yahoo has been displaying Google results for over 18 months.
At this week's Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose CA, Search Engine Watch editor, Danny Sullivan, noted that the search engine world will be radically different next year. Last year's search engine business buzzwords were "relevancy", "personalization", and "strong site content". This year, words such as "consolidation", "merger", "back-room dealing", and "winner-take-all", are the keywords which best describe the industry. |
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| Major
Player Update: YM - Changes :: Overture Goes
Deep |
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| In the Client Spotlight this Week: Personal Life Coaching - Calm, Cool and Concise | ||
"Executive, Work and Life Coaching is all about finding and exploring various paths and ways for you to be in your work, your family, your relationships and in your life generally. This type of ongoing exploration makes life as exciting and fulfilling as it can be all the time. Coaching honors the heart felt values basic to a fulfilling lifestyle that works both for you and those around you." (from, What is Coaching, www.montpelliercoaching.com) Paul Hayward offers personal and life coaching
on an individual or corporate group basis. With a strong, calm voice
and almost thirty years of business, counseling and coaching experience,
Paul's services are used by professionals and businesses around
the world. From helping with personal motivation, to weighing the
pros and cons of major life decisions, Paul helps his clients clarify
their goals, obstacles and challenges, often removing many of the
perceived roadblocks along the way. For more information on the
personal and life
coaching services offered by Paul, please visit
his website at www.montpelliercoaching.com |
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| Weekly Quick Tip: Watch Your Domain - The End May Be Near | ||
| Your website address, or 'URL' (uniform resource locator) is like your street address on the information super-highway. Like a street-address a URL is a commodity, like a property. Unlike a physical address, however, URLs are portable and can be changed, moved and re-registered at the push of a button. Another difference is that URLs can only be leased through the registration of that URL. Herein lies a potential problem for all webmasters and website owners. There is a large number of squatters out there watching popular URLs to see when the registration expires and if the webmaster or site administrator has or will renew it. Quite often, the squatters get to the renewal before the site-owner or administrator does and ends up with a lease on the use of that URL. The onus is on the site owner or administrator to keep their domain registration up to date and out of the hands of entrepreneurial squatters. Recently, a well visited community news site in Canada, lost its domain to a porn-squatter. When folks in that community logged in to read the news one morning, well... let's say they saw images that generally don't appear in local newspapers. Most domain registrars will send a notification letter when the domain is about to expire. Unfortunately, there is also a number of scam-domain registration letters circulating out there. Even if you haven't received a registration letter, it might be a wise idea to ask your IT staff, (or check for yourself), when your business URL is due to expire. You should also ask your staff where the domain was first registered to avoid the false renewal notices that are spamming-up the system. |
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| The Net Reality: Spam King Goes Soft | ||
Citing threats made against himself and his family, infamous New Zealand email spam-king, Shane Atkinson has called it quits. Atkinson and his associates bragged about sending over 100Million email messages per day, much of it promoting penis enlargement pills and creams. Atkinson's name and personal details were released in an article, "Spammers hit below men's belts", published on August 15th by New Zealand Herald writer, Juah Saarinen. Two weeks ago, Wired Magazine featured an article about another now defunct spam factory, Amazing Products Inc. Perhaps the best way to fight spam can avoid legislation altogether by simply naming the person responsible for sending said spam. |
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Someone, somewhere is going to write
a great business book about the search engine wars of 2003 however,
their publishers will likely send it back for a rewrite because
business books are not supposed to be more interesting and action
packed than a Tom Clancy spy thriller. For a recap of previous events
(and if you haven't been keeping up, you'll need it), please visit
the 
MSN is also breaking news about how they wish to break Google's
virtual dominance of the search engine market. In an announcement
that will have massive financial impacts on Overture and LookSmart,
MSN stated that it is advancing the release date of its new search
engine from the autumn of 2004 to the spring of 2004. This move
will hurt Overture's bottom line and could cripple LookSmart as
both search tools rely heavily on revenue from providing both
paid
and "free" listings to MSN. Over 25% of Overture's annual
revenues come from MSN. LookSmart depends on MSN for almost 50%
of its annual revenues. For Google, the advance of the release
date means they must work much harder to win back the waning
faith of
the professional internet community before Microsoft either earns
or co-opts it from them. Google has started to receive unfavorable
press, most notably in Monday's edition of the Wall Street Journal
as the mainstream (non-IT) community starts to notice how inconsistent
Google's results have been over the past few months. In Monday's
article, the WSJ noted a loss of confidence in Google from the
SEO
community and touted new comer TEOMA as their new search engine
of choice. 
Two
weeks ago we wrote about a new search tool, yeswacked.us. Our
editor noted the silliness of the name, as did several others.
Late last week, the site designer contacted us to let us know
he had changed the name and made the search tool easier to use.
While the tool was already easy to use, the redesign makes viewing
results much simpler on the eyes. The old design opened four
results pages on one page, (using FRAMES). Now, results are
shown on two pages, making each set of listings readable without
the need to scroll to read the results. The new name fits well,
Overture
has introduced a new feature that will allow its paid advertisements
to come up under a wider range of keyword phrases. Advertisers
will be able to choose between two unique listing formulas,
Phrase Match and Broad Match. Phrase Match will allow listings
to be displayed when a portion of a keyword phrase appears
in
the search-user's request. For instance, when a search engine
user types "Good Toronto Tours", a site with the keyword
phrase Toronto Tours would be displayed. Currently, advertisers
bid on specific keywords and phrases and only appear when that
phrase is entered directly. The other option, Broad Match will
serve a listing when a portion of a keyword phrase is used in
the search query, regardless of the order of words. For example,
"Tours of Toronto Ontario" would produce a site bidding
on the keywords Tours, Toronto or Ontario.If you have any questions please
do not hesitate to call the StepForth staff:
Toll-Free: 1-877-385-5526 | Local: 385-1190
http://www.stepforth.com
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