Google AdSense Ad Links, Google Local Business Center, The Butler, The Sandbox, New SEO Blogs

Ad Links by Google:
Peter D shows new AdSense change

Google Local Business Center:
wonder if the Yellow pages are feeling yellow? Andrew Goodman has the details. for now US only.

Wonder What Google thinks?
of a free product that strips out their published ads for the user

their response to autolink thusfur has been nothing short of pathetic. nice job Mark.

Ask Jeeves also recently created a FireFox toolbar.

Google Sandbox:
Does the sandbox only affect phrases containing popular words?
found on ThreadWatch

I have recently seen a site under a month old rank for some rather short query sets.

New SEO / SEM Blogs:
maybe not new, but at least new to me.
Got Ads? - seems to be more focused on the ad / ppc side of the search game. have not read it a ton yet but have seen John contribute many good posts on Andrew Goodman's SEM 2.0
Wolf Howl - should have mentioned and found this one a while ago as multiple friends have recommended it to me. his most recent post references Flatland, so it must be a cool blog :)

the conference I am at:
ended today. I could blog about a bunch of stuff but now find myself headed toward the closing party, which I suspect may give me more stuff to blog about.

Ask Jeeves Interview, Search Stocks Falter, When is it OK to Start Selling SEO Services?

Feb 24th

Ask Jeeves:
Interviewed. Mike Grehan interviews Jim Lanzone & Apostolos Gerasoulis.

Search Stocks:
downgraded on weak PPC spend

thread asks:
When is it OK to Sell SEO Services?

Writing Tips, How to be a Consultant, IR Books, Ask Buys Bloglines

Writing:
Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes

How to Be a Consultant:
Create The Warm Fuzzy Feelingâ„¢. Reading it certainly takes much longer than 10 minutes, but it is well worth it if you are considering becoming a consultant.

The list is great, but on the web / marketing front I would also add create affiliate and content sites to help build a stable income stream when down periods occur.

Even when you have few clients you help shore up your technical understand by creating things. If you create great sites then they will make money and you will be able to better filter what work you are willing to take on. If you create lousy sites then they will make for great research and will help you identify symptoms of a lousy site when prospective customers contact you.

As stated in that article, it can't be overly stressed

  • how important it is to be easily available; &

  • how amazingly well syndicated articles act as sophisticated salesmen

found on SearchEngineBlog

Information Retrieval Books:
A while ago I read A Theory of Indexing
by Gerard Salton. I also have heard good things about Information Retreival by C. J. "Keith" van Rijsbergen, and Modern Information Retrieval by Ricardo Baeza-Yates & Berthier Ribeiro-Neto. What information retrieval technology books have you read and liked? Wonder if guys like GoogleGuy have a favorite IR book :)

Ask Jeeves Buys Bloglines?
it is what people are saying...

Trademark Laws:
Deregulating Relevancy in Internet Trademark Law

Would You Name Your PPC?
RipUsOff.com...just randomly came across it and after seeing so many articles about click fraud it would appear as though that name could be took the wrong way.

My Favorite Muppet:
Flying Gonzo, though the Cookie Monster is also cool.

Google AdWords / AdSense Shakeup, Free Link Renting Guide, Ask Jeeves Blog

AdSense and AdWords shakeup:

found on ThreadWatch

SearchGuild birthday awards:
fun stuff

I was nominated but was beat out by Orion. a real shame that I do not know more about fractal spam and semantic co-occurance...

Free Link Renting Guide:
Patrick Gavin offers free link renting tips (PDF link)

Complacency:
Tim Converse (from Yahoo!) calls out Marissa Mayer (from Google). I am sure there are lots of fun dialogs between the various engines employees.

Ask Jeeves:
creates their obligitory blog.

Google Beats Geico in Court, Google Spam Filters, MSN Desktop, Google Library

Google vs Geico:
Huge news for many marketers, Google won.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that there was not enough evidence of trademark violation to bar Google from displaying rival insurers when computer users search the word "GEICO."

Search Engine Filiters:
Three was a good thread on SEW forums about search engine filters. A couple people defaced the original thread with useless garbage, but ThreadWatch's coverage is a great read.

Search Engine Strategies:
I was going to attend, but decided not to at the last minute...anyhow, if you want coverage RustyBrick is posting about many of the sessions here...he may not be blogging the event though ;)

Funny:
GoogleGuy reviews a non-profit site: (really funny)

I'd recommend that he remove all links to these aggressive sites, and then send an email to us requesting reinclusion.

(found on ThreadWatch)

Google Suggest:
DaveN has opened up his scraper for public use.

MSN Desktop Search:
launched, & integrated into the MSN toolbar.

Search Stats:
ClickZ writes about a recent ComScore search survey

Of those consumers who converted on a trademark keyword, 91 percent did so after starting with a different term type. A full 80 percent started with a generic search term. Trademark searches, meanwhile, accounted for 20 percent of all online searches.

As for conversions, an estimated 92 percent of all computing and consumer electronics purchases occur offline. Meanwhile, 7 percent of conversions occur in the form of latent conversions. Only 1 percent of conversions occur in the same session online.

Google Library:
Google to digitize lots and lots of books...

Late to the Party:
Ask Jeeves desktop search

Brits Behind the Curve on Spam?
Nearly a quarter of all online UK consumers (23%) have purchased some form of goods or services from a spam email, according to new research. I wonder if thats why many of the UK SEOs are so good at what they do ;)

Transparent Search Engine Business Models

Nov 24th

Google created the PageRank and Google Toolbar as a smart marketing ploy, but for the most part they speak in ways which intentionally convolute their actual ranking criteria.

Yahoo! has tried to be a bit more open with Yahoo! Shopping doing link renting / SEO for their own sites and the Yahoo! Search blog referencing and communicating with SEO industry members.

MSN Search Beta went one step further than Yahoo!. They not only link off to SEOs on their blog, but they also brought some SEOs in on developement of their search engine.

Bill Gross recently released Snap, which was founded on the idea of a 100% transparent search engine.

Lycos and Ask Jeeves (1 page PDF) are going one step further by selling SEO services. Is there any better way for a search engine to throw their credibility in the dumpster?

forum threads covering Lycos & Ask Jeeves:

Searching for a Search Story...

Sep 15th

Ask Jeeves Japan

Aug 24th

Ask Jeeves lauches Ask Jeeves Japan. The site currently does not have an ad partner, and Ask Jeeves has some strategic partnerships which should make the site fairly popular right out of the gate.

Cnet has more info on the new search site.

Terrar for Sale, Paparazzi Search?

Aug 18th

Terrar for Sale
My Buddy Chris Ridings is selling off Terrar, his RSS search engine.

If I were more technically inclined I would really want to buy it. I think it could be used as an amazing PR tool used to track what various people are saying about other people in real time...similar to Web Fountain but at a much lower cost.

Here is his full post about the Terrar sale. You can contact him via PM at SearchGuild if interested.

Paparazzi Search?
Ask Jeeves offers celebrity search. Example: Elvis (who is not dead by the way)

Taking a Break
The MSN tech preview has ended...for now at least. They will be back soon though and likely more evil than ever :)

Yahoo! Local Search

Get Loco Local
Stefanie Olsen writes about the new Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves local products.

Yahoo! Launches Yahoo! Local
http://local.yahoo.com/

Yahoo! still has an ongoing relationship with CitySearch but will be using Yahoo! data to power this beta release. If it does well enough Yahoo! may replace Yahoo! Get Local with the new Yahoo! Local product.

CitySearch Finds Ask Jeeves

Ask Jeeves just announced a partnership with CitySearch for the new Ask Jeeves city guide product.

Ask Jeeves on Monday also added a new feature to its results for queries on cities, called a city guide unit, which displays local information such as weather on metropolitan areas. The company also introduced a service that lets people call up local maps and driving directions. Ask Jeeves' upcoming service will complement its "Smart Search" feature by letting people retrieve a box of information on locally relevant search queries, such as "Manhattan Thai restaurants" that would include address information for a business and user reviews or ratings.

Ask Jeeves signed an exclusive multiyear deal with CitySearch and intends to start serving the CityGuide ads in September.

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