For a short time last week, both MSN and Yahoo were displaying results drawn from Inktomi. MSN continues to use results directly from the Inktomi database but it appears that Yahoo has reverted back to results from Google, for the time being. Last Thursday (Jan. 15), MSN dropped results from LookSmart and went pure Inktomi. Yahoo, on the other hand, has announced that by the end of March, they too will have switched over completely from Google to Inktomi generated results. In the meantime, Yahoo seems to be experimenting with results from Inktomi by bleeding them in at different times and in different locations.

Everyone knows about PPC Advertising on Google and Overture. But what about the smaller second tier engines like FindWhat, Kanoodle, GoClick, or any of the other dozens out there? Is it worth your time and money to bother with any of these small fish? Read more…

It is obvious the holidays are long over. While it is only the beginning of the third week of 2004, the ongoing battle between Google and Yahoo has heated up and is the most interesting subject in the search industry. Rumours about Google and Yahoo are abundant in the tech section of newspapers, in IT newsletters (the better ones anyway), daily articles and discussion forums. Behind those rumours stand literally tens of millions of hard-working people desperate to know which directions the industry will be going in over the next twelve months. Nobody wants another Christmas surprise like the one delivered by Google in 2003 and, given the sudden perception of volatility in the industry and the overall economy, nobody wants to make poor bets with their limited marketing budgets. As the gathering of as much information as possible allows advertisers, consumers and small businesses to make relativity informed decisions, it is in everyone’s best interests to share as much information as possible. The search engine world went through monumental changes last year and looks as if it will go through even more this year. With 2004 being labeled the “year of search”, a quick look at some of the anticipated changes is in order. Read more…

Yesterday’s Toronto Star ran a story about the perils of being “Googled” before a romantic date. If there is any embarrassing information about you online and your real name is attached to it, chances are it can be found fairly easily in Google. As most people don’t realize, information your put on the Internet or that is put on the Internet about you can stick around for years after it is posted. You will have likely forgotten about it, but it is still there waiting for someone to find it… The same phenomena can effect job interviews, media relationships and your child’s perception of you as a responsible role-model. We at StepForth synopsize with people in this position as our names all all over the Internet and each of us get “Googled” fairly frequently in our interactions with potential clients and contacts. Read more…

The duplicated article was pulled from SEOinc.com, however, Google remembers:

The Google Cached Copy – Live Version

Now since this cache is not likely to stick around either, here is a downloadable version of the Google Cache in PDF format – Archive Version

2003 was a watershed year in the search engine industry. Not only was it the year of mergers and acquisitions, it was also the year that the media, business and financial sectors really took notice. It was a very busy year for the SEO sector as well, perhaps marking the maturity of the optimization industry. With so much action and so many changes, one almost required a scorecard to keep up. By the end of 2003 the search world looked remarkably different than it did at the beginning. Some firms were big winners while others were huge losers. Here’s our list to kick off the new year. Read more…

Link building is about to become a lot more important, and a lot more difficult if the current reigning theory/analysis of Google’s new algorithm is correct. Earlier this week, the CEO of India based SEORANK, Atul Gupta, published a brilliant analysis of Google’s new algorithm. We are experimenting with some of his findings but, for the most part, we think Gupta’s analysis is very accurate. To make a long analysis short, the article basically states that Google is now using two unique algorithms to measure the relevancy of incoming links to a website. Gupta theorizes that Google is just now introducing an algorithm known as Hilltop which appears to be blended with the Florida algorithm. The new algo measures incoming links in a very different way than the older PageRank algorithm did.

With Yahoo!’s pending switch from Google (free-listings) to Inktomi (paid-inclusion), website owners with high Google rankings will see the number of visits to their sites drop dramatically as Yahoo! drives about 30 – 35% of all search traffic. Inktomi is also the primary supplier of results for MSN, the third largest search tool. We are predicting that the bulk of search traffic will come from the Inktomi database, starting sometime around March or April. This likely spells the demise of free-inclusion as Inktomi’s popularity will increase and Google will need to plug a sudden and likely massive revenue hole. While Google has traditionally spurned paid-inclusion, Yahoo!’s adoption of Inktomi results and the pressures stemming from going public through the anticipated IPO might move Google’s management towards the paid-inclusion spectrum.

It looks as if Google is starting to show standards again. We have seen relative stability in the search engine return pages and a fairly massive decline in SPAM listings. We expect a full update by this time next week so stay tuned.

We all know just how sadly irrelevant the results can be at Google. The reason for this is that Google has difficulty distinguishing the intended relevance of a search. As a result, search results often include results from web sites that may only include the words searched without actually proving relevant to your needs. Read more…