Fourth quarter financial results for 2008 are in at both Yahoo (pdf) and Google, and while Google still showed a sizable profit, the numbers show that 2009 may be a tough year for both search giants.

Yahoo
In Q4, Yahoo saw revenues down 1% compared to the same period, ringing in at $1,806 million. While revenues approaching $2 billion sounds good on the surface, when you take away the expenses and the dust settles, they were left with a net loss of more than $303 million!

2008 on the whole wasn’t a total loss for Yahoo. Their revenues finished with a 3 percent increase compared to 2007, at $7,209 million and an overall net income of over $424 million. This number is certainly reasonable, at least by my standards, but when you look at the huge loss in the 4th quarter alone, unless things get turned around, 2009 could show to be a tough year for Yahoo.

Google
Just like Yahoo, Google also took a hit in the fourth quarter of 2008, only their hit managed to remain on the plus side. Compared to the three quarters preceding (all over $1.2 billion) Q4 saw a net income of only $382 million.

While 2008 saw total revenues reach nearly $5 billion more than 2007, at $21.7 billion, Google’s net income for 2008 was nearly identical, only about $20 million more than 2007.

There is one important factor to remember whenever you are involved in improving the organic rankings of a website, and that factor is time. One of the most common questions I receive as an SEO is “How long till I start to see results?” This article is dedicated to anyone who has ever asked that question.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are involved in, or what techniques you follow, in all cases you will be a prisoner of time. In the vast majority of cases search engine rankings don’t come over night. Read more…

If you find that your Yahoo email account is being hit with too much spam, all that junk may be significantly cut back in the very near future.

On Jan 20th, it was announced that Yahoo will begin using the anti-spam services of Abaca to help protect Yahoo users from spam, phishing, and other email attacks.

Abaca is the only anti-spam company to guarantee a rate of 99% accuracy.

“As one of the world’s leading Internet companies, we take the security of our users very seriously,” said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail. “Abaca offers superior e-mail security capabilities and has built a reputation for reducing unsolicited e-mail within mailboxes. We believe that by deploying Abaca’s solution with our anti-spam toolkit, we will offer Yahoo! Mail users not only added email security, but an enhanced user experience as well.”

Google market share is down – or level, depending on who you trust most. The December numbers are in over at both Nielsen and Comscore, and while both agencies are reporting very similar figures for Google, one is actually showing a loss.

Comscore is reporting Google seeing no change between November and December with back to back months being at 63.5%. Nielsen, after reporting a jump of 2.9% for November, is showing a 1.2% drop for December, down to 62.9%.

This drop in Google’s shares is really quite minor if you look at their performance over all of 2008. Nielsen figures show Google’s share increasing by 6% from 56.9 in Jan 2008. Comscore shows a similar increase of 5% over the same period up from 58.5.

I suspect that Google’s market share is not on the decline and that in the coming months we will continue to see their figures rise.

On January 29th Marketing Sherpa is presenting a webinar that we strongly recommend to all of StepForth’s readers called:

The webinar is 90 minutes long and includes a printable report called “Create Content Your Prospects Adore”. All of this is just $97 and if it is anywhere near as good as the “How to Viral Market” webinar StepForth purchased last month then it will be more than worth the investment (yes this is one place we get our training!). Read more…

Whether it is for spreading propaganda to a nation’s populous – or suppressing it – governments have always sought to control new forms of media. From the printing press to the radio and the television, there has been the presence of political powers.

Today’s new media is, of course, the internet. And, it is the most potent form of media yet. However, though the internet’s power to broadly and immediately reach an audience is unparalleled, it is far too large and complex a system to be controlled exclusively by just one group or entity.

Nevertheless, world governments still try to manipulate what they can; however they can. Read more…