How would you like to change the way your site rankings appear within the search engines? I am not talking about the ranking itself, but rather the listings appearance. This idea may soon become a reality, at least at Yahoo, with the introduction of Yahoo Open Search.

As noted in the Yahoo Search Blog Monday:

“..instead of a simple title, abstract and URL, for the first time users will see rich results that incorporate the massive amount of data buried in websites — ratings and reviews, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data — directly on the Yahoo! Search results page.”

Rafe Needleman at Cnet reported on the announcement made by Yahoo at SMX West Tuesday noting details on how exactly this program will work have not yet been released. It does appear that both new and small sites will continue to have their listings displayed as they currently are, with the new customized appearances being available to larger sites such as the New York Times.

A formal launch date has also yet to be announced but is expected within the next couple of months. With the ability to make your listing appear more attractive (and to encourage clicks) this is certainly a feature that will be welcomed by webmasters.

Yahoo Search is aiming to show more useful information on its results page. Yahoo state’s it will eventually “enable 3rd parties to build and present the next generation of search results”. This includes bringing data found within a website like ratings and other useful information into it’s Yahoo search results page. Instead of just a website’s URL and abstract on its results page Yahoo will include “ratings, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data”. Although this is still in the works the plan is to let websites “regain some control over how their content is presented without allowing them to actually muck with search result ordering.”

Great Q & A from people working with social media (Lee Odden, Shana Albert, Neil Patel, Jane Copland). Topics include good sites to promote content, attracting links, social media as a marketing strategy, and an insiders guide to Social Media.

Google Maps is now including a “refine by user rating and neighborhood system” to its search results of local services (hotels, restaurants). So whether you are downtown or uptown you can find more specific and user rated search results.

Yahoo is changing its minimum bid for PPC. Depending on what keywords you are targeting your minimum bid can now be under the previous .10 cent minimum. Although this will not affect any competitive keywords it will likely help to lower costs of targeting smaller niche markets.

It appears that YouTube is having some serious problems because it has been unreachable for over an hour now. I checked with a fellow Twitterer and there is no question this is a widespread outtage.

What I find the most odd… Is there isn’t even a error page provided by Google which is highly irregular and does not bode well.

I hope you are all having a great weekend. Tomorrow I am off to Santa Clara for SMX West… I hope to see some of you there. If you want to hookup drop me a note: Ross at StepForth and that dot com thing.

Virtual gifts may be nice but Facebook is putting actual goodies behind the way to spread cheer on their social platform in the UK. A UK company is behind the application to allow easy purchasing and sharing of Mars related products on Facebook. Once being sent a real chocolate bar on Facebook you can redeem it at local UK grocers.

Business Week explains why Social Media is a great business and market research tool. Social media is essential for advertising and building your on-line presence. New technologies gather and analyse data on products and services from throughout the blogosphere, news media sources, and on-line communities. They stress the importance of monitoring your online presence and the influence of social networks. They point to Google’s “growing ability to incorporate blog posts within Web search” to show the influence of social media content on the web.

Here are ten tools that should help any company keep track of whats going on within the social media world in relation to their business. These tools help you find out who’s saying what about you and your company.

Google is cashing in on video popularity as it is testing adding video to their search results page. Google is trying to draw your eye towards video images and provide interactive advertising to their search results.

Ever wondered how social media helps already established individuals build their image. NBA all-star Steve Nash is trying his hand at LiveVideo.com, a social networking and video sharing site. It fun to watch celebs like Steve Nash and Will Ferrel build their audience through social media channels.

Today comScore released the search engine rankings for January 2008 and although the leaders of search are still holding strong to their positions Ask.com has experienced 20% growth! By far, ASK has shown the most significant improvement of all search properties. Furthermore when the report included all of the Ask Network the growth still trumped all other networks with 14.7% growth; the network includes other search properties such as MyWebSearch.com, Bloglines.com , etc.

After all was said and done Ask only had 477 million searches in comparison to Google’s 6,181, million searches… a substantial difference to put it mildly. That said, it is great to see growth at Ask because I see it as a vastly underrated search engine; it has evolved into a leader of Web 2.0 search. I was so impressed with Ask I determined it was well worth writing an article on How to Optimize for Ask. Read more…

Combining marketing with social networks can be a great way to spread your message through word of mouth and viral marketing campaigns. If they become popular they will drive exponential traffic to your website. In “ What makes a Successful Marketing Campaign on Social Networks?” 9 key attributes are given that are shared by the social media campaigns.

I enjoyed this great interview of Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People as he gave his secrets of the SEO business. He placed SEO as part of your overall marketing strategy. He gave his views on linkbuilding, linkbaiting, an insiders guide for new bloggers,and how he became head of his own SEO company. He also looked into the crystal ball for the future of SEO and what search engines will be crawling some time soon.

Topix, a news site, will be providing discussion forums for NBC affiliates.

Yahoo has been making improvements on consumer satisfaction scores for Yahoo Search.

Over the past few days there seems to be a lot of action with Google and Mobile search. As the advancement in mobile technology continues, the major search engines are finding their place in this infant marketplace to seek out as many advertiser dollars as possible.

Google Searches Abundant on iPhones
On Wednesday, Google reported that it has seen more mobile searches by users using Apple iPhones by 50 times that of any other mobile handset, according to the Financial Times. This shows that the increasing use of mobile search will prove to be a significant source of revenue for Google and others involved in mobile search into the future, but the statistic had Google second guessing.

“‘We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,’ Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.”

Gundotra went on to note that the number of mobile searches could outnumber that of fixed internet searches “within the next several years” if other manufactures improve the ease of web access as Apple has. Read more…

The policy at Google may not be changing regarding how they treat Display URL’s within AdWords accounts, but they are cracking down on those abusing the system. Effective April 1st of this year the display URL policy will be strictly enforced.

While the policy is relatively simple, some advertisers have found ways to abuse the system and in the light of some advertiser complaints, Google has decided to put its foot down in the act of fairness.

Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land has written on this in more detail and has given a few examples of acceptable and unacceptable Display URL’s, but in short, if your Display URL’s coincide with your landing page, you should have nothing to worry about.

Over the past week I have been keeping the StepForth SEO Blog updated on the events focused on Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Yahoo and the fall out since. This is becoming quite a debacle so I thought a little chronological update on how all this went down might be useful.

From 2006 to Now

1. 2006: Rumors abounded that Yahoo and Microsoft were in talks about working together and that an acquisition was possible. However, nothing substantial was revealed at the time but we later learned that Yahoo refused to work with Microsoft.
2. May 4th, 2007: The rumor mill was working overtime that Microsoft was quietly trying to acquire Yahoo for $50 billion. I was elated
3. Jan 22, 2008: The New York Times reports that Yahoo is expected to layoff hundreds of staff in order to boost profitability and share prices. The quarterly earnings report is eagerly anticipated on Jan 29th.
4. Jan 29, 2008: Yahoo’s quarterly earnings fall short of shareholders expectations.
5. Jan 29, 2008: The New York Times relays news from Yahoo that the search giant has confirmed it will layoff 1000 employees by mid-February.
6. Jan 31, 2008: Microsoft officially offers to acquire Yahoo while the iron is hot for $44 billion which is roughly equivalent to $31 per share.
7. Feb 1, 2008: Yahoo announces its Board of Directors will evaluate the unsolicited offer from Microsoft.
8. Feb 3, 2008: Google’s David Drummond weighs in on the hostile bid by Microsoft citing concerns that a potential purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft “raises troubling questions”. He goes on to ask “Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?” Check out this hilarious interpretation of Mr. Drummond’s blog posting by Kara Swisher.
9. Feb 11, 2008: Yahoo’s Board of Directors deny Microsoft’s offer on the grounds that the proposal “substantially undervalues Yahoo!” Here is a link to the common questions and answers page that Yahoo created for the media.
10. Feb 11, 2008: Microsoft promptly responds to Yahoo’s rebuff with a ‘gloves are off’ tone. In the letter Microsoft says it will “ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.”
11. Feb 12, 2008: The first lawsuit was filed against Yahoo by shareholders unhappy the company didn’t agree to the Microsoft buyout.
12. Feb 12, 2008: The first of the 1000 Yahoo layoffs begin.
13. Feb 12, 2008: Yahoo exec Bradley Horowitz leaves Yahoo and moves to Google. Bradley was head of Yahoo’s Advanced Technology Division and his departure is only the beginning of a long list of talent that is likely to leave Yahoo over the coming months. See Bradley’s bio and you will see why this respected man’s departure will hurt. To his credit, however, Bradley insists his departure was not directly due to recent events.
14. Feb 13, 2008: Yahoo writes a letter to shareholders trying to drum up excitement in companies future without Microsoft.
15. Feb 13, 2008: Yahoo announces an acquisition of online video company Maven Networks. Why? “Video is projected to be the fastest growing segment of the online ad market, and Maven will significantly help advance Yahoo’s strategy, expanding the video opportunity for publishers and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness for advertisers.”Sniff… sniff… I smell desperation! This is yet another rallying cry from Jerry Yang to help keep Yahoo from the slobbering jaws of Microsoft… unless of course Microsoft offers $35 or $36 a share at which point OKAY.

So What Now?
First of all, forget about Google saving the day. I would put money on Google being out of the picture for any possible partnership with Yahoo; Google is just not interested in the certain SEC ramifications of such a partnership.

With that potential path closed Yahoo has had to look elsewhere. As a result there are rumours that News Corp and Yahoo are talking in an attempt to forge a deal that could counter Microsoft’s.

Meanwhile Yahoo is facing pressure from all sides to make a move that appeases the company’s particularly distressed shareholders and they had better do something soon. Otherwise, (this is hard to believe) matters could actually get uglier.

Things I found interesting while on the web today…..

• Jeff Quipp’s article on passive and aggressive approaches to attaining friend’s within social media.

• Andrew Goodman shows us the makeup of a good web site in relation to how the Google’s “adsbot” views it.

• Want to know why Social Media is so important to advertisers? It is because Social Networks have the information that allows “behavioral targeting” of us as the consumer. Being able to target the individual creates a “trusted environment for reaching high-value, frequent purchasers.”

• CBS and Facebook have created the NCAA Basketball Championship March Madness brackets application. Not only are they providing this service but they have free, live, online coverage of the whole tournament.

• Ever wanted to know what it’s like to work at Google? Here’s your inside guide.