Google is updating their backlinks again. No changes in PR as of yet, just changing in # of backlinks.

You can check your Google backlinks across the various data centers using this Google Backlink / Google Dance tool.

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?

Google IPO
May occur as soon at Tuesday.

New Search Engine in China
China's Sohu.com unleashes sogou.com which means "search dog"

Search.com Launches new Features
Thumbnail screenshots, custom colors, specialty searches, & customizable category searches - more info

Thumbs Down SEMPO
They are still failing to address Mike Grehan's questions despite many opportunities too. Perhaps there could be something better. Maybe there could be an organization with the same mission statement that SEMPO has which ACTUALLY AIMS TO DO WHAT THERE MISSION STATEMENT IS.

Many people have called SEMPO a marketing scam. SEMPO blatently ignores feedback and has no clue about how to pull their own name out of the mud. Not defending yourself when dozens of your peers question your intent with hundreds of forum post is an admission of guilt in my book.

I see absolutely no value in joining or supporting the SEMPO organization.

Yahoo! Renting Links?
Yahoo! has been renting links from the Internet.com network. Generally most people view the Internet.Commerce partner links as links from PageRank more than ads (since those links are rarely relevant to the page content and rarely get clicked on).

Some people think it is a big deal that they are perhaps buying links for PageRank, but I think the bigger problem at hand is that they also edit their own search results. It becomes a sticky situation if they edit their results and rent links which manipulate them.

When I glanced the links into this page were using "cellular phones" as the link text and yet Yahoo! is using "cell phones" in the page title. Somebody needs to teach them SEO...

[update] if you look at sites like gas buddy you will see that they totally are buying links to manipulate search results...almost pro style. keyword rich anchor text, keyword rich file names, keywords in the page copy, etd. [/update]

In Other News Down Under
Sensis has new competition? Yahoo! says no, but for some reason Yahoo! just created an Australian local search directory and put a new snazzy local search tab on the au.Yahoo.com home page.

Webmaster Toolkit whipped up another quick tool. His C class IP checker lets you check if two domains are on the same IP block.

It is believed that domains which are hosted on the same C block may not get as much credit for linking to one another as sites on various independ IP C block addresses.

{update: it worked when I first tried it, but one person just reported that they had a problem with it. I let Will know so hopefully it will be good to go soon.}

Whois Source is another good place to check the IP address of your websites.

Daniel E Ross and Danny Levinson (of Yahoo!) recently created a whitepaper titled Understanding User Goals in Web Search, which aimed to figure out "why are people searching?"

The underlying relevance-ranking algorithms that determine which results are presented to a user might differ depending on the search goal. For example, queries that express a need for advice might rely more on usage- or connectivity-based relevance factors, while those involving open-ended research might weight traditional information retrieval measures (such as term frequency) more highly.

They broke the searches down into three broad groups (and subgroups of these groups).

• Resource - be entertained or interacting. not just finding info on the page - free online video games, pornography

• Informational - read or learn something - lists, advice, locate
• Navigational - going to a single topical hub - Amazon, Ebay

These findings came from 3 sets of approximately 500 AltaVista searches each.
The study found a few interesting things about web search:

• Nearly 40% of searches in each of their search sessions were non informational.

• A large percent of informational searches were aiming to locate a product or service vice find information about it.
• "Just over 35% of all queries appear to have the kind of general research goals (questions, undirected requests for information, and advice-seeking) for what traditional information retrieval systems were designed."
• Navigational searches were much less common than expected (~13% of total search. Incidentally 62% of searches were informational and 25% were for resources.

They stated the lack of distribution of AltaVista and its reputation for having powerful search capabilities might have thrown their research off and they hoped to eventually be testing Yahoo! results.

Originally found on Cre8tive Flow blog.