Pheedo
RSS Ads are here...Overture and Feedburner may be nearing a partnership too.

Getting Less for Your Buck...
PPC prices rise 14% on the month.

Public Spam Report
goes awry... DaveN states why many "spammers" still use blogs and guestbooks:

Blogs are now a smoke screen. I monitor the same areas as you, and I saw a site come in to the top 20 with only 20 backlinks before the blog screen went up..

Generally it is a bad idea to post public spam complaints. Its doubtful that search engine reps will see them before they get snipped (or react to them if they do), and you may introduce additional competitors to your keywords while making enemies.

NameBomb
(no relation to Tom Jones) ... Danny Sullivan coins another phrase.

Yahoo!
Has a stellar quarter & brings Jeremy Zawodny back to search.

Google
Negativity seems to help them... and they are off to India [added: where they are talked about image, speech, & multimedia search. also:
''There has been much speculation. But our work is focussed on improving the browsing experience,'' Google co-Founder and President (Technology) Sergey Brin told reporters here.

''Today's browsers are doing a pretty good job, but they can be improved. What we are looking to do is to enhance the quality of the browsing experience,'' he said. :source]

MSN
Robin Good on Search Champs...

Beta
Exalead

Survey Says!
My buddy Rich Stokes is running a survey about PPC advertising. Please help out. Everyone who takes it gets a free e-book on new AdWords strategies, and in addition, one in every fifty respondents will get $100 in cash.

Yahoo! Renting Links
Yahoo! was recently renting / leasing / buying / otherwise acquiring some high PageRank keyword rich links from gasbuddy.com. Normally when large companies buy these types of ads they use tracking codes, but these ads were straight links which are analyzed by search engines. Was Yahoo! Buying PageRank? Was Yahoo! Trying to Manipulate Search Results
Only Yahoo! knows what their true intentions were with the links, but within 4 days of people mentioning the links in the SEW forums the links were dropped. If they were not buying the links to manipulate the search results then one would wonder why they were not using a tracking code.

The Yahoo! ad unit used keyword rich links. They pointed links at
http://autos.yahoo.com/ with "cars" as the anchor text
http://used-cars.autos.yahoo.com/used_cars.html with "used cars" as the anchor text
http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html with "new cars" as the anchor text &
http://used-cars.autos.yahoo.com/kbb/ with "Kelley Blue Book" as the anchor text

What Did Yahoo!'s Ad Look Like
Their Gas Buddy ad unit looked like this:

Yahoo!'s Other Ads
Yahoo! Shopping is still renting other high PageRank links through the Internet.com network to boost their rankings for high margin consumer electronic items.

anchor text "cameras" pointing at
http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:Digital%20Cameras:20148412

anchor text "laptops" pointing at
http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:Laptops:20148417

anchor text "PDAs" pointing at
http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:PDAs:20148420

Yahoo!'s Problem with Link Renting
Yahoo! runs their own search engine which powers a ton of search worldwide. Not only are they renting links that manipulate Google's search results, but the links also manipulate the Yahoo! Search search results.

These links are essentially used to build keyword rich link popularity from powerful websites, which may fall under the following unacceptible practices:

• Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking

• Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity

as set by the Yahoo! Search quality guidelines.

Recently someone at the SEW forums stated that Yahoo! told them the problem with their site is that they have too many links pointing at their site.

The Problem with Yahoo! Renting Links

Yahoo! manually edits their search results. If other people have too many links pointing at their sites it is a problem, but if Yahoo! does it then it is ok? why?

Yahoo! owns a valuable network. What they do with that network is up to them. When people search for information Yahoo! can throw whatever ads they want around the results, but the results themselves should not be internally tainted.

As an oracle of information an ethical question is raised when Yahoo! is paying people to edit their results and paying other people to manipulate those same results.

What Next?

If Yahoo! decided what they want to place in their search results how can I trust them? What happens when they personalize my search? Will that mean that I get biased crap promoting more Yahoo! stuff? Will I not be able to find the information I need?

There is a level of trust associated with search. If Yahoo! wants to manipulate Google search results that is fine. If they are going to do that then they should prevent those same pages from being indexed in their own search results.

Yahoo!'s pages rank in the top 5 of Yahoo! Search for "cars," "new cars," & "used cars." Interesting how those search terms match up with the links they were renting.

Yahoo! just shot themselves in the foot if they were hoping to catch Google in search anytime soon.

Another Link Renting Problem
If you look at the Internet.com commerce partner network
http://www.jupitermedia.com/partners/
you will notice that it is a random collection of websites. The only thing preventing these links from being considered a "link farm" is that:

• they are expensive

• they are attached to a huge powerful network
• and Jupiter Media is making a ton of money from them.

  Also, how can a company claim it

  provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging technologies on their business. source

  and yet sell keyword rich ad space:

  • to random sites

  • throughout its own parent company network
  • which manipulates search results?

Wow, July is already here...

New Look MSN
MSN launched their new look MSN search engine results page. Now they clearly separate ads and organic listings.

How Other Search Engines Look
Google has always done this and Yahoo! started testing mid June and will release the new look soon. This leaves one to Ask Jeeves when they intend to dump the 10 ad blended serp technique.

While Asking Jeeves...
MicroSoft has not publicly stated any great interest, but

Ask Jeeves President Steve Berkowitz suggested he might be open to deal if it was in the interests of the company's shareholders, although he did not comment directly on any offers coming from Microsoft. - source

New MSN Search Features
In addition MSN has added a drop down box to allow people to search for specific things such as movies or news. Elsewhere MSN added its search technology preview to the MSN sandbox.

Paid Inclusion is Garbage

MSN also decided to filter out their paid inclusion search results. (time to edit my ebook again) "We really we want customers to feel the best about the results being served," MSN's Grothaus said.

Google"It's hard to be sure that the end result of the algorithm would be the same and that everyone is being treated fairly," Google's Silverstein said of allowing paid inclusion.

Ask Jeeves"We will continue to get better at crawling," said Jim Lanzone, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves. "The value proposition of Site Submit has ceased to exist."

More Paid Inclusion is Garbage / Bad Press for Yahoo!
Recently a person I consulted in the past had some of their Yahoo! listings disappear overnight (and from my talking to many other SEOs this is becoming somewhat common). After paying for inclusion into Overture Site Match, my friend's site still does not show up for terms he has shown up for ever since the inception of Yahoo! Search.

He sent them a request question and they gave him a complete crap form letter response that suggested he visit WebmasterWorld to learn more about SEO.

There horrific customer service and near complete disapproval toward the program from SEOs and webmasters has Yahoo! considering dumping or changing the program. (or at least that is what credible sources say)

While I am Picking on Yahoo!
Does anyone know what this is?
RENAMEDBYADMWHILEHIDDENTOALLOWDUPLICATEACCELERATORS

Ideally links mean more than link popularity. I am not necissarily a moralist or fan of the ethical SEO tag, but I understand some of the fundamental points of marketing. It is good business to be associated with other good businesses.

Have I bought links? Yup. Have I sold links? Yup.

Generally most links do not fall under the buy, sell, or trade category though. Usually they are earned.

When most of your links are greed driven, you are nothing more than a commodity who is working against technology and the forces of nature. When you start linking to things that are good then good things start to link to you.

This morning I wrote a quick article called Keeping Customers, where I attempted to explain that the best way to have customers come back is by sending them away to other good resources.

The web is just a sea of information and the traffic I get is never my traffic to keep.

What I did not realize is that recently Ammon Johns wrote a great little analogy piece called The Real Meaning of Links which describes what I was trying to say a bit better than what I wrote.

(found from Search Engine Roundtable)