While on the subject of Microsoft, Live Search has undergone a revamp with several new features added that enable users too both research and find deals on products.

The above screen shot shows the results of a typical search. These results include both negative and positive feedback that has been left. I am sure there is a search engine marketing and search engine optimization opportunity there. It would certainly pay to keep on eye on the results for any negative trends before they do too much damage to your reputation.

The highlights, as published by Live Search include:

• One stop to research product details and find good prices You see an image and description for each product, reviews from other users, prices to help you find good deals, and spec sheets for many products.
• Feature-based refinements See which products are reviewed positively or negatively for the features that interest you. View product features such as screen size, battery life, ease of use, and portability.
• Sorting Sort product results by user ratings, expert ratings, and price.
• Filtering Filter product results by specific brands, categories, and price ranges.
• Richer product details Read expert reviews and a spec sheet describing the product.

At present this feature is only available for US based searches. There is no indication yet for an international release.

It’s old news now - well a week old anyway. How are your search engine optimization strategies holding up under Yahoo!’s new Slurp 3.0 web crawler. It seems that while in the test phase the new crawler did cause a few little hiccups in the way it picked up data from web sites.

All is good now and the new crawler is slowly making its way around the net. If your the kind of person that goes looking for crawl evidence as part of your search engine optimization program then perhaps you should check out Yahoo!’s latest blog on the subject.

To quote a small snippet:

[source - Yahoo!]Any reverse DNS checks to identify our crawler will continue to work. Please note that if you’re using IP-based recognition of our crawlers, you might see a drop in crawl/coverage from Yahoo!

Yahoo! is quick to point out that as far a web masters are concerned, nothing has changed and Slurp 3.0 will continue to read Robot files as before. There appears to be no reason to change any search engine optimization strategies. Reactions on the Yahoo! blog site have been mixed with some finding crawl problems with others questioning the sudden jump in search results for some of the social media sites.

The proof will be in the search results over the next month two. Give it a week to settle then see what changes there are. I suspect that social media sites will continue to return higher positions in the search results pages. This can only mean that as webmasters, we will have to work harder on our social marketing and search engine optimization programs.

If you have your own website you can add a search box to your website for your users and use that to increase your own Search Engine Optimization and also use it for keyword research. In the back end, Google provides you with statistics on the number of times people search. You can also see what they are searching for. So if a particular search query is popular in your market then you can be one of the first to know that. You can use that information to improve the Search Engine Optimization on your website. You can also use it help you come up with ideas for future pages and websites.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you own a website dedicated to teaching people how to chop and pick out the best firewood for their home furnaces and chimneys. If you notice that there are a lot of searches for cherry wood and you don’t have any web pages on your site dedicated to cherry wood then you can create a page for cherry wood. The next time someone searches for cherry wood, they may find your web page instead of someone else’s. If they don’t, tweak the page to improve your Search Engine Optimization.

Note that this is only going to work if you have your site search settings set to search the whole web. If your searchers can only search your own site then the results are not going to include your competition. It will be like not having site search at all.

It looks like the dreams of every Search Engine Optimization professsional in the world have come true:

(Source) Since we closed the acquisition of DoubleClick on March 11, we’ve been immersed in integration planning for each of our products and business units. Recently we completed this process for the DoubleClick Performics businesses, and have decided to split them into two separately-run business units: Affiliate Marketing and Search Marketing.

It’s clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business. Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google’s mission and core to the trust we ask from our users. For this reason, we plan to sell the Performics search marketing business to a third party. We believe this will allow us to maintain objectivity and the search marketing business to continue to grow and innovate and serve its customers. While we have not yet identified a buyer, we’ve received preliminary interest from a number of our current partners. Search Marketing will continue to run as a separate entity until the division is sold.

While Google plans to get out of the search marketing business altogether, it does plan to fully integrate the affiliate marketing side of Performics into the Google business plan. I’m OK with that as long as the affiliate marketing doesn’t involve some aspect of search marketing. Google should stay clear of that altogether.

Others have asked Google to make this move and it’s only right that it should happen. I’m glad it is. Now, all the surly Search Engine Optimization experts who have been badmouthing Google for the last half month can get on with their lives and chortle about something else. So it appears that Google is staying true to its “Do No Evil” philosophy after all - at least for now. But don’t turn your head.

In the meantime, for those complaining consider this. If I search for YOUR COMPANY and then decide to shop elsewhere–after using a site search for YOUR SITE and seeing an AdWords ad–how strong was my relationship with you in the first place???

Andy Beal once again makes a good point.

He’s addressing an article that appeared in The New York Times concerning Google’s new search-within-search feature. The feature allows searchers to search within a company’s website without leaving Google. The way it works is like this: The user makes a query. When a list of results appears on the SERP for that query, some results will show a search box beneath them. The user can then make another query within that search box to search within the company for which that search box appears. The problem, some of these companies are saying, is that competitors’ ads are appearing on that second SERP.

For instance, let’s say I search for Best Buy. The top listing, of course, is for the big retailer’s web site. But there is a second search box below that company’s listing in the SERP. That search box allows me to search Best Buy’s web site. Cool, huh? Well, some people don’t think so.

Let’s type in mp3 and see what happens. Wow! 527,000 results - all on Best Buy’s web site. Plus, two PPC ads for Best Buy competitors. When you consider that over 80% of searchers don’t even click on PPC ads, that’s not a real big deal. Is it? According to some retailers, they don’t want to take a chance on losing those potential customers. Amazon.com is one of them, and they’ve asked Google to turn the feature off. Didn’t know you can do that? Well, now you do.

There are two ways of looking at this. The first way is as Amazon does - that it’s a negative. You could lose customers (who aren’t really loyal customers because if they were then they wouldn’t click a competitor’s ad nor would they be searching for you in the first place because they’d either have you bookmarked or just type your URL into their browser window); or, you can see it as a way to help your potential customers find what they are looking for even if it’s on a competitor’s web site.

That’s right. Traditional customer service. In retail, everyone knows that sometimes a customer will ask for an item that is out of stock or that you don’t carry. You know your loyal customers will come back to you even if such disappointments occur from time to time. So why not seize upon the opportunity to provide them above-and-beyond customer service. Call a competitor, ask if they have the item your customer wants, and if so tell your customer where they can go to get what they want. It works. That kind of service builds customer loyalty because your customer will know that if you happen to be out of stock or don’t carry what they’re looking for that you will at least make the effort to help them find it. When they want something else, they’ll come back to you knowing they’ll get the same level of service. That’s the way that I see the Google search-within-search feature. It’s just good customer service, and I’m guessing that Google sees it that way too.

(Source) Recently there has been some dialog and commentary on certain SEM channels about upcoming harder economic times calling for SEO to be taken back to the basics: “Textbook SEO” as Mike Grehan would put it. I disagree with the premise that companies should stop experimenting with new tactics and stick with the fundamentals. Effective SEO in any economic environment means getting more creative, not mundane.

It’s difficult to argue with Lee on this one. I don’t think SEO is about being safe. It isn’t about protecting what we did yesterday. It’s about innovation. It’s driving the bus to the future, even if it means coming dangerously close to the cliff.

Search engine marketers, by nature, must be creative. Every time Google (or one of the other search engines) changes its algorithms, so too must SEOs and other SEMs change their practices. Maybe the changes aren’t drastic. Maybe we don’t have to change at all on certain search engine tweaks. But there is change involved - sometimes more, sometimes less. Knowing when to change and how much adjustment is necessary is a vital part of the profession.

To some extent, search engine marketing has always relied on certain principles - “the basics,” if you will - and it likely always will. But what search engine optimizers and other Internet marketing professionals need to keep in mind is that innovation drives best practices. “The basics” are the starting point, not the end. Even in hard times, search marketers who put the pedal to the metal will be the ones who pull ahead of the pack.

The search engine marketing industry now has its own set of awards, the Semmys. While Search Engine Optimization Journal was not nominated for a Semmy Award, there are several SEO blogs that I admire who were. Among those nominated for the first ever Semmy Awards, for the year 2008, were:

• Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz
• Todd Friesen of Search Engine Land
• Tamar Weinberg of Search Engine Roundtable
• Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable
• Aaron Wall of SEO Book
• Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide
• Michael Gray of Graywolf
• Ross Dunn of Stepforth
• Andy Beard

These aren’t the only nominees, of course, but they are among the top search engine optimizers in the world and deserve the nomination. The Semmys were started by Matt McGee, a notable SEO himself. Other categories in which Semmy Awards are offered include:

• Google
• Analytics
• General Online Marketing
• PPC
• Blogs & Blogging
• Search Tech
• Reputation Management
• Small Business
• Link Building
• Rants
• Viral Marketing
• Local Search
• Social Media
• And a Funny category as well

While many of those nominated deserve recognition, the list of those involved read like a list of insiders. Some of those nominated in each category are judges in other categories and if you read the list of nominees in all the categories you’ll find that you’ll see the same names over and over again. That may be because this is the first year for the awards so those nominated are among those most well known. I suspect that many of the nominations came from posts submitted to Sphinn and if you aren’t posted at Sphinn on a regular basis then you likely didn’t make the cut. The names listed as nominees in every category are the same names I see at Sphinn on a regular basis, so that’s I why I say that.

While Brick Marketing has blogs in virtually every category listed in the nominations, we were not nominated for any category this time. We’re not sulking, however. Some of our other favorite blogs weren’t nominated either. We’ll keep posting good content for businesses wanting the straight scoop on SEO and covering the other topics we cover well. We encourage our readers to head over to the Semmys and cast a vote. There really is good content there and the people nominated are tough to beat, whether we’re in the competition or not.

If you are new to webmastering you may have heard of a bounce rate. But what is it? There really are two ways to define bounce rate.

1. Percentage of Visitors Who See One Page - Some analytics software define bounce rate as the percentage of people who only view one page on your website. They may stay on that one page for a couple of minutes, but they don’t go any further. They read a little bit and move on. You don’t have enough mojo to keep them around longer, therefore they “bounce” off to somewhere else.
2. Percentage Of Visitors Who Leave Your Site After A Short Period Of Time - Another way to measure bounce rate is by the length of time visitors spend on your site. Most analytics software define this amount of time as five seconds or less. Some use a minute. But whatever the length of time is, it isn’t long enough to say that the visitor has a real interest in your content.

Ideally, you want your site visitors to stick around long enough to order something. If you run a retail site, you want them to checkout. If you sell services, you want them to purchase, or come back later and make a purchase. But you want them to be genuinely interested in what you have to offer. If your site is an affiliate site then you want your visitors to purchase from your affiliates. To do that, they’ve got to stick around long enough to be genuinely interested in your content.

The best way to ensure that people stick around is to give them what they want. Understand what your target market wants and provide it for them. That means making the absolute most out of your content. But it also means marketing your website to the search engines effectively. Your bounce rate is an important part of analytics and can tell you a great deal about your traffic and the quality of visitors you are getting.

WebPro News ran a story from Lee Odden on search marketing trends:

What will be the big stories in search marketing in 2008?

* Heavier Integration of User Data and Personalized Search in Standard Results (21%)
* Mobile Search Explodes (15%)
* Death of SEO as we know it (13%)
* Social Media Marketing Explodes (12%)
* Social Media Marketing Jumps the Shark (8%)
* Google Winning/Losing Market Share in a Big Way (6%)
* Social Networks as Search Platforms (6%)
* Record Search Marketing Budget Levels (5%)
* Increasing Searcher Sophistication (4%)
* New Paid Search Channels (4%)
* Search Engine Consolidation (3%)
* Death of Universal Search (3%)
* “Real” Solutions to Click Fraud (1%)
* Search Marketing Agency Consolidation (0%)

This is an interesting list. I particularly like “Google Winning/Losing Market Share in a Big Way.” I take it that so many people think Google will gain market share and so many others think it will lose. I really take issue with the people who say Google will lose market share. To whom? There is no other search engine on the horizon who even comes close to having anything that can take share away from Google. Ask.com waged its campaign to get share from Google and ended up taking some away from Yahoo! and MSN. Recently, Google gained and all other lost. Yahoo! has been playing catch up for years. In order for any new start ups to wage war on Google and win, they will have to fight a strong, hard uphill battle against consumer loyalty. Fat chance.

Then there’s the “end of the world as we know it” crowd. SEO will die, SEO will die, SEO will die; so they chant from their front row seats in the bathroom stalls. Funny stuff.

What I agree with most on this list is the social networks as platforms prediction and search engine consolidation. We’ve seen that last one before. MSN Live is struggling, several smaller search engines can’t compete, and Google just keeps pulling out ahead. There will definitely be some acquisitions in search real soon.

But even more interesting than that is the concept of social networks becoming search platforms. If that happens, it will likely happen through partnerships. I can see Yahoo! and MSN partnering with Facebook or LinkedIn to a mutually beneficial and satisfying relationship. Google will likely just buy a social network and turn it into another vertical search to be included in its dominance strategy. At any rate, I believe search is only going to get better.

(Source) Compared to a couple of years ago, people use the Internet more, and the venerable telephone directories much less. The trend on Internet usage for local businesses, according to the survey, comes at the all-important purchasing point.

Forget everything you know about local business marketing. When schmucks like Gene Marks tell you that you don’t need to know about RSS, blogs, or SEO, they don’t know what they’re telling you. They might as well be saying, “Just close your doors and go to work for Large Corporation America.”

But local businesses that survive and do well will have a marketing plan. They will not rely on customers tripping over them. They will go out and find the customers they want to do business with. The question is how.

In the old days, the yellow pages were instrumental in helping a lot of small businesses get off the ground. But people aren’t using the yellow pages any more. About all their good for now is to boost your three year old at the dinner table. Today’s small business customer is going online to make searches (at Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) and finding those businesses they want to do business with by using keywords. It just makes sense to put your name where the customers are. Local search is big, and getting bigger. Don’t discount it.

This morning I talked about the new Wikia Search search engine. What I didn’t discuss is the real benefit of being included in a search engine’s database. If Wikia is to be successful then it must meet the minimum benefit requirements for search engines and that means providing webmasters as well as searchers with benefits - not just searchers only.

Google does this well and that’s why it’s the No. 1 search engine. Google first gained a reputation by beating all the other search engines in providing relevant results for search queries. But it also grew in stature by providing webmasters with useful tools and benefits as well. Some of those benefits include:

• Link-Building Based Algorithm
• Webmaster Tools
• Vertical Search Categories
• Advertising Products
• Ancillary Products like Blogspot.com, Pikasa, YouTube, etc.
• SEO Awareness

Many of the benefits that Google has provided to webmasters have been intangible, but the tangible benefits should not go unmentioned. The Google toolbar with the PageRank tool has been invaluable to many a webmaster. Every webmaster knows that you can use certain Google tools and services to improve their websites and increase their rankings, not only at Google but at the other search engines as well. Google AdWords’ free keyword research tool has proven to be tremendously helpful to helping webmasters improve their organic listings as well as their pay per click ads.

Yahoo! and MSN have also included tools and benefits for webmasters. Ask.com was one of the first search engines to get in on the local search game by providing searchers with a platform for making local searchers through its vertical search tool AskCity. All the search engines now provide a similar service.

It really doesn’t do to call these search providers search engines any more. They are really search portals. All of them to some degree provide searchers and webmasters with benefits outside of the range of organic search. If Wikia Search is going to enter the search field and compete on a respectable level then it must able to leverage its search tools with other products and services that provide benefits to searchers and webmasters, but it must do so in a way that gives it an advantage over the existing search portals. That means, it must define its uniqueness. Is being open source and user-generated going to be enough to satisfy that requirement? Only time will tell.

Have you ever wondered what the travel search market is worth? Travel search company Kayak.com just paid $196 million for their nearest competitor Sidestep.com. Both companies are involved in travel search, which allows users to find the cheapest flight, hotel or car rental prices online.

Marketing Pilgrim:

Both companies are profitable. Kayak reached about $50 million in revenue this year, while SideStep is at about $35 million. Together they hope to compete against #1 travel search site (based on number of searches) Expedia.

With plans to expand their travel search operation to China, they look set to be doing some great business in the future.

You don’t have to attend some fancy schmancy PubCon to get some benefit out of it. An article in today’s WebProNews discusses SEO/SEM from a speaking engagement with Melanie Mitchell of AOL. Here are the salient points of the discussion:

• Big companies looking to establish an SEO/SEM strategy need to build a team
• Make the team accountable
• Train the team
• Establish your company’s standards and stick to them
• Provide your team some tools
• Measure and track

I like the list. It illustrates that there is a difference in SEO/SEM for large companies than for small businesses. A small business owner can just go and out and learn about it then do it. A large company has initiatives, goals, missions. Any effort online or off line - even SEO - must conform to the company’s stated direction. That’s why an accountable team who has been trained and given the proper tools is desirable. Every team member can have an area of responsibility related to the overall SEO/SEM mission. Then the team leader should report back to a department head. It’s typical organizational strategy.

The big challenge for big companies is maneuverability. The corporate bureaucracy can make things seem like they’re moving slow. But if you want to succeed online then you need to learn the tools of online business and massage them to fit your company’s mission and position in the marketplace.

Search Marketing Standard is the leading print publication covering the search marketing industry. It offers practical and informative articles, interviews, tips and advice from leading experts in the industry, trend analysis and much more.

If you’ve been looking for a definitive source on search marketing then look no further. The Search Marketing Standard is a magazine that sets the standard in knowledge and information on all things related to search marketing.

Published four times a year, the magazine covers every topic necessary for businesses wanting to be successful online. Among the topics covered include:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Local Search
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• Blogging
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Search Marketing Standard doesn’t just deliver the latest information on these topics, but the best information. That’s why I’ve decided to partner with them and do not mind recommending them to my readers. This is not a paid review. I really believe the Search Marketing Standard is a great magazine for any professional performing search engine marketing, for themselves or for someone else, and that’s why I subscribe.