Source: www.clickz.com

Consumers often look to merchant reputations on shopping search engines when deciding to make a purchase. But who determines these reputations? And can you trust them?

A special report from the Search Engine Strategies conference, August 8-11, 2005, San Jose, CA.

Many shopping search sites carry ratings and reviews from shoppers, as well as third party sources. The Shopping Search and Merchant Reputations session looked at how merchant reviews may impact shopping search listings, and panelists offered recommendations for merchants to ensure that they maintain a good reputation.

How shoppers can rate merchants
At PriceGrabber, shoppers can rate merchants via two methods: filling out a merchant review directly at Pricegrabber.com or by participating in a shopper satisfaction survey. To rate a merchant, shoppers must meet the following criteria:

- Users may only write reviews of merchants that they’ve bought from
- One review per merchant per 30 days
- Merchant "X" may not be referenced in review for Merchant "Y"
- Reviewer must provide a valid invoice number
- Reviewer must sign up for a PriceGrabber account, with the exception of reviews via the shopper satisfaction survey

"Sixty-nine percent of shoppers do not appear to be concerned with the lowest price," said Graham Jones, director of new accounts at PriceGrabber. "Product quality and customer service are also important."

Merchant ratings and reviews can help shoppers make more informed buying decisions. "Consumers view user reviews as objective," said Chris Saito, senior director of product management at Yahoo. "According to a Yahoo Shopping study in January 2005, 60% of users are uncomfortable with buying from an unknown merchant."

To participate in Shopzilla’s BizRate Customer Certified program, merchants place a survey link on their check out page. The link delivers shoppers to a point of sale (POS) survey invitation. "Shoppers complete the POS survey to rate their just-completed purchase experience," said David Weinrot, vice president of direct marketing at Shopzilla.

The survey measures:

- Overall shopping experience satisfaction
- Likelihood of repeat purchases
- Product selection
- Ease of navigation

After completing this survey, shoppers are invited to rate their satisfaction on order delivery. "Merchants who maintain performance and customer-satisfaction standards become BizRate Customer Certified," said Weinrot. Merchant ratings "report card" data are then sent to Shopzilla’s partners for display on the Web. These merchant ratings provide "at-a-glance" information about whether or not shoppers liked a specific shopping site.

Saito made the following recommendation to improve merchant reviews:

- Send status emails on orders and shipping
- Set expectations on delivery time
- Be easy to contact via phone or email
- Make "in stock" and "back order" status clear
- Make return and restocking policies clear

"Solicit reviews from all of your customers," he said, "the majority of reviews are positive."

However, not all merchant reviews are appropriate. Quite often, competitors will fill out surveys to purposely lower a merchant’s score. If you feel that a review is inappropriate, such as one that is clearly off topic or inaccurate, you can use the Report Abuse form at Yahoo. To get this form, click on the "Report abuse" link at the bottom of the alleged inappropriate review.

On PriceGrabber, merchants are allowed to post a response to a poor review. A panel oversees the merchant ratings. The panel looks at items such as IP address, invoice numbers, and account activities to ensure that the merchant review is accurate.

Online merchant reviews - fact or fiction?
Even though client testimonials and merchant report cards appear to communicate shopper satisfaction on the surface, underneath all of that data might lurk competitors giving merchants lower scores and advertising/marketing agencies hiring people to give merchants high scores.

"The problem with a lot of online merchant reviews is that they are heavily gamed by the merchants and sometimes by their competitors," said Jon Glick, senior director of product search at Become.com. "When you see a site list Amazon as a 3-star merchant based on 200 reviews, and a ‘grey market’ merchant listed as 5-stars with 5,000 reviews, it’s hard to feel confident in the information you’re getting."

"Right now, I don’t think that the shopping search engines are doing everything they can possibly do to manage reputation," said Laura Thieme, president and founder of Bizresearch. "We need more types of support mechanisms in place to help merchants."

"I prefer that there not be any type of scoring outside of follow-up to the purchase," she explained. "Post-fulfillment reporting is best—reporting on the whole procedure. The reporting should be clear about what part of the fulfillment might have suffered, including things out of the vendors’ control—such as product delivery."

"For example, one or two customers that have a poor experience on a merchant site. Whose problem is it?" asked Thieme. "How does the merchant get evaluated on the entire process if only one part of that process is not delivered?"

Shari Thurow is the Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc. and the author of the book Search Engine Visibility.

by Shari Thurow
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

The Internet Movie Database is a standard and respected reference database for film and TV information, but for film, TV and pop-culture fans it’s also a great deal of fun.

The (IMDB), owned by Amazon.com, is more than just a "enter a movie title or actor’s name and get results" type of service. While you usually get great info from that type of search, it only scratches the surface of what IMDB offers.

Buried deep (and I mean deep) within the IMDB web site is this amazing power Search page search interface that can help you find an incredible amount of movie/TV info within seconds.

I learned what this power search interface can do when a news librarian asked for a solid list of movies filmed in Denver. IMDB got me a list in about 10 seconds.

How? I went to the Power Search page, and in section two entered Denver in the "location" field. My results included nearly 200 matches. A perfect list? Probably not, but no reference tool is 100 percent accurate.

Sure, I could have gone to Yahoo, MSN, or Google and searched, but they aren’t the best tool for this type of specific reference request. This power IMDB interface understood the context of my search was about TV and movies and only that.

I probably could have called Denver or the Colorado Film Commission to get a list, but I’m not sure everyone would think to do that and heck, this was easier and faster. Plus, this interface offers many more options. How about comedy movies that filmed in Denver between 1970-1980 and were rated R? No problem! (There were four, by the way, including that Clint Eastwood classic, Every Which Way But Loose.

The IMDB has other speciality search interfaces. Another favorite is the Name Search/People Working Together database. Just enter names and see if they’ve appeared or worked together.

For example: How many movies (if any) have Gene Hackman and James Gandolfini been in together? Put both of those names in the "Names" box, click "Start Name Search," and a new page loads with both actors listed. Check the boxes next to their names, then click the "Look up joint ventures" button. Back comes the answer:

- Crimson Tide (1995)
- Get Shorty (1995)
- Mexican, The (2001)

by Gary Price
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

Web site owners must be on constant guard with copyrighted and trademarked materials, both to make sure competitors don’t "borrow" content and to avoid provoking search engines in legal gray areas.

A special report from the Search Engine Strategies conference, August 8-11, 2005, San Jose, CA.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members goes into more detail about various methods to protect your intellectual content, including how to safeguard images from being copied, and a checklist for taking action if you’ve found that your content has been stolen and illicitly used elsewhere on the web. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.

A panel of experts debated a number of hot legal issues during the Copyrights & Trademarks panel at SES. How can web site owners get links to material infringing their copyrighted materials out of search engine results? What recourse do web site owners have if their sites were removed unfairly from search engine results due to an unfair or unfounded accusation of copyright infringement?

Do web site owners have trademark protection rights and responsibilities in search engine advertisements? This session explored these and many other issues, in particular looking at some recent rulings and existing search engine policies.

Search engines & meta tags
Even though few search engines use meta-tag content to determine relevancy, using another entity’s copyrighted or trademarked material is still problematic. "Some search engines, especially second-tier search engines, are still using the description information to publish what’s in those web sites," said Eric Goldman, Assistant Professor of Law at Marquette University’s School of Law. "Taking the metadata from another site with trademarked terms is not only a problem from a legal perspective, but also from a search engine marketer’s perspective."

"It could be problematic if a trademarked term shows up in the actual search results, and the site is also similar in its domain name to the trademarked web site to create confusion," Goldman continued. "It still has to be a concern from what is being published in the search results."

"Using someone else’s trademark in the metadata, even if it didn’t affect the ranking in the search engines, could still be considered infringement," added Matt Naeger, Vice President and General Counsel at IMPAQT. "We have a lot of companies who would still treat this as significant, even if it is not from an operational standpoint."

Web site owners should be careful about using other company names in their meta tags because some commonly used words are actually legally protected. "Terms which are made-up words are very strong trademarks, like a Xerox," said Debbie Wilcox an intellectual property attorney at Baker & Hostetler LLP.

Paid site content
Sometimes web site owners use content from other web sites. "Friendly" sites might contain a link back to the URL with the original content and believe that alleviates their burden of possible copyright infringement. "Unfriendly" sites are ones that use other content that’s not their own to improve their own search engine optimization (SEO) rankings or to generate revenue from Google’s AdSense, usually without proper authorship attribution.

"Friendly" sites are no less liable than unfriendly sites. "Attribution to the original content source has no impact on potential liability," said Naeger. "If this were copyright infringement, then the attribution would be irrelevant." Before reproducing an author’s material, make sure you have permission to reproduce it from the person (or company) who owns the copyright.

RSS feed content is no exception. "People use my RSS feeds to pull in the full content to their own pages for their own AdSense [revenue]," explained Jennifer Slegg of JenSense.com, who is experienced with enforcing legal copyrights. "I run AdSense up on my own site. So my AdSense is up on their sites with their AdSense ads, which puts me in violation of AdSense terms. These are people that want freebie content and try to get away with stealing it."

"You can set up an RSS feed that only puts out summarized content. But we don’t have resolution yet on what are those rights—are they broad or are they individual?" said Goldman. "There are those who will say that by having your content posted in an RSS feed, you are giving others the right to go and grab that content for their own sites."

"Until we get resolution, there is a lot of room for ambiguity," he said. "Until we get clarity, there’s a lot of room for that to happen."

Trademarks in paid search advertising
While a judge’s opinion had originally ruled that the sale of trademarked terms as keywords was lawful (in the GEICO case), the lingering issue was the usage of trademark terms in ad text by the search engines. This issue might be going through appeals and cases in other courts dealing with the different aspects of trademark law. Search advertisers should not think that they won’t be suspect to a suit themselves just because only the search engines have been the only ones targeted.

"Advertisers themselves could always be challenged by the trademark owner with purchasing trademarked keywords," said Naeger.

"Despite what Google or Yahoo’s own policy or actions, that doesn’t stop you from taking action against the advertiser with a cease and desist," added Goldman.

"I just go right to the cease-and-desist letter every time," said Slegg. "If you try sending a friendly e-mail, they don’t always take it seriously. My objective when sending a cease-and-desist letter is not to get monetary damages. It is just to have the infringers remove my content. I am quite happy to have it end there."

"Cease-and-desist letters look pretty good on their face," said Wilcox, "but when you send a letter you have to decide if you really want to get involved in litigation."

"When you send a letter citing infringement, depending on how it is worded, it can open the door for a lawsuit against you," she added. "So you have to be careful about who you send it to and what you are accusing them of. In a very clear-cut case, all you may need to do is send a letter and just carefully refine a couple of terms."

Grant Crowell is the CEO and Creative Director of Grantastic Designs, Inc., a full-service search engine marketing, web site design, and usability firm.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members goes into more detail about various methods to protect your intellectual content, including how to safeguard images from being copied, and a checklist for taking action if you’ve found that your content has been stolen and illicitly used elsewhere on the web. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.

by Grant Crowell
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

Who Will Be The First Classifieds Search Engine?
Search Engine Watch Forums

"From real estate to just about anything that sells on eBay, this category is HOT and I’m sure the search engines could grow their revenues big time if they take a chunk at this segment. Wouldn’t it be relatively easy (with their current infrastructures) for the search engines to develop a Classifieds Search Engine so that the many hidden listings currently nonSEOed surfaces from the invisible web?"

Google Base, Classified Ads?
Webmaster World

"Is Google trying to be everywhere on the Internet? Rumors surface on the big G and their plans to take on ebay with their own site for buyers and sellers."

Google Bowling
Small Business Ideas Forum

"A small loophole on Google has turned into a devastating black hole, sucking in and wiping out countless quality websites in the process. And it just may be their competitors sending them into the abyss."

Is "Jagger" A Major Google Marketing Error?
WebProWorld

"Heartless? Google is not a character in a Dickens novel, and pity Bob Cratchit if he bet Tiny Tim’s future solely on the free organic returns that can be had in Google. Google is a business, with clear responsibilities to only one group, it’s shareholders."

Does the Sandbox Effect Hurt Relevancy?
Search Engine Watch Forums

"If the search engines are all saying that their main goal is to return relevant results for search queries, how can Google’s alleged age delaying sandbox be considered helpful when the application of the filter may be keeping searchers from important information when that information is contained within a new site?"

Fragment Large Website Into Subdomains?
Virtual Promote Forums

"To me it sounds crazy what your company is doing, far better to create solid branding with just the domain, or to build real pages if they have something special they need to say."

Google Places "Dummy Bidders" In Regional Search Artificially Raise Required Bids
Search Engine Watch Forums

"As an advertiser, why should I be excluded from advertising to users from a country, simply because my website doesn’t happen to be from that country?"

What’s Next for the Google Advertising Professionals Program?
Webmaster World

"So, what do you have to say about the Google Advertising Professional program, present and future? How could it be made easier and more effective to use? How could it be made more valuable to you and your clients - both current and prospective? What should be added? What should be done away with?"

Tracking Your AdSense Statistics
Webmaster World

"Given how little we get to know from Adsense, what are the statistics you are looking at?"

No Clicks On 100 Keywords
Virtual Promote Forums

"To give you another example, if I’m searching for an engagement ring and see an ad for bracelets or necklaces I probably won’t click on it. If I see an ad for jewelry I MIGHT click on it. If I see an ad for Engagement Rings - bingo - that is the one I choose."

New Keyword Popularity Tool Debuts in Adwords Accounts
Search Engine Watch Forums

"Is it finally here? The keyword frequency tool everyone’s been waiting for from Google is out - sort of. Check out the new features of the Google Adwords Keyword Tool in your account and discuss it here."

Search Engine Forums Spotlight courtesy Search Engine Guide.

by Chris Sherman
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

Looking for a book to help you sharpen your search marketing skills? Look no further—here’s a compilation of reviews published in SearchDay over the past several years.

This is the second installment of a list of all search-related book reviews published in SearchDay, and plan to run them as a series over the coming weeks. This particular list covers books about search marketing. The first installment covered reviews of books about general web search tactics and techniques. I’ll also be publishing a list of reviews of specialized searching techniques and guides to search related technology. Once I’ve got everything pulled together I’ll also publish a Big List of search-related book reviews that I’ll continue to update as new reviews are added.

Search Marketing Book Reviews
Use the alphabetically arranged links below to go directly to a review. Scroll down the page for a reverse-chronological listings and a brief description of each book review.

The Buyer’s Guide to Search Advertising Agencies, Marketing Sherpa
The Buyer’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization Firms, Marketing Sherpa
Call to Action, Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg
The Keyword Research Guide, Wordtracker
Maximizing Search Engine Visibility, Shari Thurow
Search Engine Advertising, Catherine Seda
Search Engine Marketing, Inc., Mike Moran & Bill Hunt
Successful Search Engine Copywriting, Heather Lloyd-Martin
The Search Engine Marketing Kit, Dan Thies
Winning Results with Google AdWords, Andrew Goodman

Reverse Chronological Listings
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Google AdWords
SearchDay, October 4, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3553391

Andrew Goodman’s Winning Results with Google AdWords is an outstanding guide to the company’s advertising program. The book distills Andrew’s years of experience helping clients create and manage successful search advertising campaigns into a 352 page handbook that you’ll refer to often.

But the book goes beyond being merely a hands-on AdWords tutorial. Andrew also weaves in the insights and observations he’s well known for writing on Traffick. It’s this combination of pragmatism and thoughtful insight that makes the book a compelling read for just about anyone.

An Experts’ Guide to Keyword Research
SearchDay, Sept. 20, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3549996

How would you handle the search marketing challenge of selecting appropriate keywords for a campaign to market vegetarian dog food? The creators of Wordtracker, a popular keyword research tool, asked some of the most respected search marketing experts in the world to tackle this challenge.

The result is a 75 page eBook called The Keyword Research Guide that’s packed with useful tips and insights. Of course, the guide is ultimately a sales pitch for Wordtracker. Nonetheless, it’s relatively easy to filter out the "pitchy" aspects of the book and garner a lot of useful advice, strategy and tips.

The Business of Search Engine Marketing
SearchDay, Sept. 7, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3532401

An excellent new book focuses both on tactics as well as the managerial and organizational tasks required for effective large-scale search marketing campaigns.

Search Engine Marketing, Inc., a new book from Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, addresses the needs of search marketers running large campaigns, and that’s what makes the book unique and valuable. Moran and Hunt are responsible for search marketing for one of the largest companies in the world, managing efforts for IBM.com. Their experiences and insights gained from directing search marketing at this global behemoth are infused throughout the book.

A Buyer’s Guide to Paid Search Advertising Agencies
SearchDay, July 20, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3521376

Who are the key players in the paid search arena? The Buyer’s Guide to Search Advertising Agencies covers the basics of paid search campaigns and how they are typically priced. It also offers general advice on selecting a paid search agency.

The bulk of the guide, just like the companion Buyer’s Guide to SEO reviewed last week, is a directory of 61 paid search agencies, detailing the services they offer.

Choosing a Search Engine Optimization Firm
SearchDay, July 14, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3520186

Marketing Sherpa has released the 4th edition of its Buyer’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization Firms, a comprehensive look at the players in the industry.

The guide was developed for individuals and organizations who hire SEO firms. Originally published in 2001 and covering just 24 firms, the current guide has expanded to include profiles of 127 search engine optimization firms. The guide also offers an excellent overview of the process of selecting a search engine optimization firm.

Search Marketing in a Box
SearchDay, June 8, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3511011

Looking for a comprehensive guide to search marketing that’s filled with tons of practical, no-nonsense tips and techniques? The Search Engine Marketing Kit may be just the ticket.

The "kit" is really a book, printed in three-ring binder format, and it’s one of the most comprehensive guides to all aspects of search marketing I’ve seen yet.

Converting Searchers to Buyers
SearchDay, May 9, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3503366

One of the most popular sessions at our Search Engine Strategies conferences is Measuring Success, which focuses on the techniques and strategies for optimizing a web site for post-search visitors, and the tools that can be used to track whether your efforts are effective.

Bryan Eisenberg is a regular speaker on the panel, who advocates taking a holistic approach to all aspects of selling online, getting inside the mind of the user from the moment before the first search all the way through to the ultimate conversion event. Bryan calls this whole process "persuasion architecture," and together with his brother Jeffrey Eisenberg he’s mapped out this approach in a new book called Call to Action. It’s an excellent, eminently readable tutorial that anyone involved with search marketing should buy and read immediately.

Mastering Search Engine Advertising
SearchDay, April 22, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3343371

Buying your way to the top of search results may seem easy, but managing an effective search engine advertising campaign requires a thoughtful approach with more than a little elbow grease.

Search Engine Advertising, a new book by SearchDay guest writer Catherine Seda, offers a wealth of information about the entire process of creating and running an effective search advertising campaign. It’s an excellent book, written by a pro who understands the mechanics of search engine advertising and has the ability to describe sometimes difficult concepts with ease and skill.

Writing for Search Engines
SearchDay, March 23, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3492116

Success with search engine ranking almost always means striking a delicate balance between applying search optimization techniques to web pages and creating high-quality, meaningful content. Effective writing for search engines is one of the crucial key elements to achieving this balance.

Writing for a computer that’s looking for patterns that can be detected by an algorithm, while simultaneously crafting the same language for a human being who’s looking for meaningful information is not an easy task. In Successful Search Engine Copywriting, Heather Lloyd-Martin offers a comprehensive guide to creating search-friendly web pages that also satisfy the information needs of human users.

Maximizing Search Engine Visibility
SearchDay, March 5, 2003
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2175071

This definitive guide to search engine optimization and marketing offers solid fundamental advice for creating search engine friendly sites, at the same time debunking myths and snake oil "techniques" that can bedevil the unwary webmaster.

Shari Thurow is one of the world’s foremost authorities in the field of search engine optimization and marketing, and shares her knowledge about creating search friendly web sites in her new book, Search Engine Visibility.

by Chris Sherman
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

Bloggers: So What Part Of "Your Fly Is Open" Didn’t You Understand?
Search Engine Watch Forums

"Problems with blog spam? Shouldn’t those who created blogging software and systems have realized the problems inherent in leaving doors open?"

Newspapers pre-Internet: Blogs post-Internet.
Cre8asite Forums

"The crucial factor is that however good a newspaper article may be, when you’ve reached the end of the article, you’ve reached the end of the article. There’s no forward path to take to get more information. On rare occasions a website may be mentioned where more information can be found. Yes, but who wants to type in a web address."

Google AdWords Advertisers must have Google Accounts to log in?
Search Engine Watch Forums

"…advertisers shouldn’t be treated the same as ‘users.’ Some advertisers spend millions of dollars. There’s no explicit security risk or inconvenience if you handle it right as an advertiser, but I would think that a basic degree of respect for such an important business relationship would mean a separate identity for the advertiser account."

Notes On October 2005 Google Update
High Rankings Forum

"Having read much of the wild speculation posted in various forums, chiefly by the same people who have wildly speculated in the wrong directions many times through the years, I am inclined to dismiss all the usual hypotheses as being unrealistic and out-of-touch with Google’s principles."

Does Your Blog Pass the Jakob Nielsen Test?
Cre8asite Forums

"Checklists are a nice way to gauge how you’re doing and are good reminders for those things you forgot or never knew to try."

Bloggers and Affiliate Links - The Debate Continues
Search Engine Watch Forums

"As more and more bloggers look to support work through contextual ads, are they missing out on what affiliate deals and rev-share partnerships offer?"

Why Should a Business Outsource a PPC Campaign
Search Engine Watch Forums

"Does outsourcing paid search work make sense? Members talk about why going to a third party may make sense."

Search Engine Forums Spotlight courtesy Search Engine Guide.

by Chris Sherman
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

Looking for a book to help you sharpen your searching skills? Look no further—here’s a compilation of reviews published in SearchDay over the past several years.

I’m often asked for recommendations of books that help people learn to take greater advantage of all aspects of search engines. I’ve reviewed dozens of books in SearchDay over the years—some dealing with general-purpose search engines, others focusing on specific niches.

I’m compiling a list of all search-related book reviews published in SearchDay, and plan to run them as a series over the coming weeks. This first installment is dedicated to books about general web search tactics and techniques. I’ll also be publishing a list of reviews of search marketing books, specialized searching techniques and technical guides to search related technology. Once I’ve got everything pulled together I’ll also publish a Big List of search-related book reviews that I’ll continue to update as new reviews are added.

Web Searching Book Reviews
Use the alphabetically arranged links below to go directly to a review. Scroll down the page for a reverse-chronological listings and a brief description of each book review.

Find It Online: The Complete Guide to Online Research, Alan Schlein
Google Hacks, Tara Calishain
Google Hacks (2nd Edition), Tara Calishain
How to do Everything with Google, Fritz Schneider, Eric Fredricksen & Nancy Blachman
The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines
The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, Randolph Hock
The Invisible Web, Chris Sherman & Gary Price
The Search: How Google Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed our Culture, John Battelle
Yahoo to the Max!, Ran Hock
Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet, Anne Mintz
Web Search Garage, Tara Calishain.

Reverse Chronological Listings
Search as the New Great Game
SearchDay, Sept. 15, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3548421

In years past, major powers struggled to win the hearts and minds of people by maneuvering in what Kipling called "the great game." The new great game is playing out not as geopolitical intrigue, but in a egalitarian dance that transcends borders and is reshaping social reality, says John Battelle in his new book The Search.

The Search: How Google Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed our Culture is an ambitious work that’s unlike any book I’ve yet encountered. Although the subtitle includes the requisite mention of Google, the book is really a much broader look at both the history of the web search industry and the profound effects and changes it is having on our social lives.

Yahoo to the Max
SearchDay, June 22, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3514636

Extreme searcher Ran Hock has published a new book, this time taking an in-depth look at the wide range of tools and services offered by Yahoo.

Longtime SearchDay readers know that I’m an unabashed fan of Ran Hock’s writing and speaking. Ran’s previous books, The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines and The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook are both essential titles that belong in every serious searcher’s library. Yahoo to the Max continues in the tradition of taking a careful, thoughtful look at the huge amount of content and the multitude of services and tools available at Yahoo.

Newer, Fresher Google Hacks
SearchDay, March 2, 2005
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3486876

One of the best books about Google has just been updated with new content and useful tools that make it even easier to exploit the full power of the popular search engine.

Google, of course, has done anything but stand still over the past two years. To keep the book fresh, co-authors Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest have released a second edition of Google Hacks.

Tuning up your Skills in the Web Search Garage
SearchDay, November 3, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3430191

Every now and then a book comes along that’s a must-read for every serious searcher, and Tara Calishain’s Web Search Garage falls squarely into that category.

I’m not given to hyperbole, but it’s no exaggeration for me to call Tara Calishain one of the world’s foremost experts on web search. She not only sports the technical chops, she also has an insatiable curiosity and proclivity for experimenting with search tools to push them to the limits. And in Web Search Garage, Tara gives us an inside look at her own search "workshop," providing an intimate glimpse of an artisan practicing her craft.

Everything Google
SearchDay, May 20, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3356021

Underneath its simple, sparse interface, Google is loaded with useful tools and services, though they’re not always easy to find. A new book offers an inside guide to maximizing the power of the search engine.

Now we have How to do Everything with Google, a pretty audacious title, but one that’s not as hypish as it sounds. This is because two of its authors, Fritz Schneider and Eric Fredricksen, are Google employees, and the third, Nancy Blachman, is an experienced technical writer who also runs the useful Google Guide website. In short, people who really do know how to do most everything with Google and share their knowledge in the book.

An Extreme Searcher’s Guide to the Best of the Web
SearchDay, February 11, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3311081

One of the world’s foremost super searchers has distilled his extensive and wide-ranging knowledge into an essential guide to the web’s highest quality resources.

The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, by Randolph Hock, is both a compendium of high quality web sites, and a treasure trove of tips and tricks for finding information online. Subtitled "A Guide for the Serious Searcher," the book is an excellent follow-on to Ran’s previous book, The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines.

Why Google Hacks is a Bestseller
SearchDay, May 22, 2003
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2209681

Google Hacks, by Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest, cracked the ranks of the New York Times top ten business paperback sellers for May. This is unprecedented. It’s rare that a technology book sells this well, and even rarer that a book about a search engine is so popular — especially with a subtitle like "100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools."

But the book deserves its success. Calishain and Dornfest are excellent writers, explaining even the most complex ideas and processes in clear, accessible language. And they illustrate their "hacks" with useful examples — things that people might actually want to do with Google.

Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet
SearchDay, October 16, 2002
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160991

A new book offers an eye-opening expose of the varied types of chicanery, fraud and misinformation that’s rife on the Internet—and what to do if you get stung by it.

Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet is a new book from Forbes Inc.’s Director of Knowledge Management, Anne P. Mintz. Mintz offers a marvelous expose of the multitudes of chicanery that can be found online. The book is a collection of essays from leading authorities who discuss both the social and technical reasons why inaccurate information exists on the Internet.

Find It Online: A Searcher’s Baedeker
SearchDay, August 27, 2002
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160641

The third edition of Alan Schlein’s Find It Online is both a guided tour of the web’s most interesting and exotic information resources, and a hands-on tutorial for becoming a searching expert.

Find It Online: The Complete Guide to Online Research is packed with useful information, including a lot that was new to me, despite my familiarity with the web. Schlein’s tone is conversational, but authoritative, reflecting his background as an award-winning journalist.

Navigating the Invisible Web
SearchDay, October 23, 2001
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2158031

To paraphrase the razor salesman, I was so impressed with the Invisible Web that I wrote a book about it. The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can’t See, written with co-author Gary Price, is a 439 page volume covering everything we know about the web’s hidden treasures.

The book takes a detailed look at the nature and extent of the Invisible Web, and offers pathfinders for accessing the valuable information it contains. We include a history of Web search engines, a detailed examination of what the Invisible web is (and is not), show you how to find your own way around the Invisible web, and include links and descriptions of more than 1,000 Invisible Web resources that we consider to be among the very best on the Net.

The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines
SearchDay, July 19, 2001
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2157351

If I were putting together a desert island collection of books on searching, Randolph Hock’s The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines would be at the top of the list. The book, now in its second edition, is one of the most comprehensive, authoritative and just downright useful guides to what goes on under the hood of the major search services.

by Chris Sherman
www.clickz.com 

Source: www.clickz.com

News aggregator services gather information from the Web and provide news to other Web sites, offering some great opportunities for search engine marketers.

A special report from the Search Engine Strategies conference, August 8-11, 2005, San Jose, CA.

On the "Meet the News Search Engines" panel, representatives from major news search engines talked about how to prepare and submit news information.

"What we’re seeing today is that aggregating news content is really a driving force with how people perceive news," said Jim Pitkow, CEO of Moreover, one of the most popular news aggregators. "People want to get a variety of news topics across a wide variety of sources."

Moreover gathers its news information from more than 12,000 handpicked, editorially-ranked online news sources from over 126 countries in 36 languages. What makes Moreover unique is how it differentiates different types of news.

"We treat blogs separately from news," Pitkow explained. "News is more about journalistic integrity, with more control and standards. Blogs tend to be more about opinions. It is our job to separate the facts from opinions—the news from those who have opinions about the news."

Users can host their news feeds with Moreover, using its paid server, or they can submit their news feed for inclusion. "It will be reviewed by editors who will determine if its actually news or if it’s a blog. There is no charge for inclusion," said Pitkow. "We do not accept any sponsorships. It is important that we appear unbiased to our customers by the end of the day."

Chris Tolles vice president sales and marketing at Topix.net, finds news and news search interesting because what he calls the "reference web" is being supplanted with the "incremental web. "The reference web is goal directed whereas the most important thing about the incremental web is that you are getting fresh information—news, commentary, etc."

"News search is about news coming to you that is local and topical," he said, "and, hence, more relevant."

Topix.net differentiates its news information via categorization and zip-code level localization. News is available via its web site, partner feeds, RSS feeds, email alerts, and JavaScript iframe.

"For our business model, we take about 10,000 news sources, combine this information with ad models such as Google AdWords and others," he said. "We categorize and localize it, and then send it to 300,000 news channels and to our own site. We present news to the user much like a newspaper."

Yahoo News has been in the business of news search longer than any major search engine. August 9, 2005 was the ten-year anniversary of Yahoo news.

"The first thing I want to do is possibly challenge a common misconception that Yahoo News is built on search technology," said Neil Budde, general manager of Yahoo News. "The truth is that Yahoo News is built on a combination of content that we host on Yahoo."

"We get that content through relationships with leading news providers, both wire services and about 90 other publications that we work with to bring a portion of their content onto Yahoo News," Budde continued. "We then marry that with our world-class technology that pulls in various different strengths of the Yahoo network, including search, and then we oversee that with a team of human editors. So, it’s a little different approach to news."

Google recently announced its RSS and Atom output for Google News. "You can now get any Google News page, any section, any search or customized composite page available over RSS and Atom," said Nathan Stole, product manager of Google News. "It is available in English only, for now."

"Google News has its own crawlers that goes out and is very, very rapidly scanning all the new sites that we have in our corpus, basically trying to identify new articles as they appear," said Stoll. "What we do once we find that new article is extract out the title, body, and photos." Google then clusters related articles and prioritizes the news stories.

News optimization pitfalls
Google’s Stoll provided a number of tips and pitfalls on optimizing news feeds and articles for Google. These tips are also applicable to the other search engines.

- Review your robots.txt file or the robots exclusion meta-tags to ensure that you are not preventing search engine spiders from crawling your news articles.
- Do not re-use URLs. It makes it difficult for news search engines to track news articles over time.
- Try to make the URL structure of the news article as spider-friendly as possible.
- Publish one news article per page. When a news search engine clusters information about a topic, web pages which contain multiple articles do not appear to be focused on that topic.
- Do not write article titles or headlines that are unclear or vague. Keyword-focused, factual, and concise headlines help a news article get classified more accurately.
- Registration barriers often lead to less page views over time. People do not like to click on a news search engine link only to be told that they must fill out a registration page to read the full article.

"Users really do react negatively to things like slow loading pages, slow ads, and registration barriers on new sites," said Stoll.

Multimedia files in news search engines
Many news search engines offer news in multimedia formats as well as text formats. For example, in the Yahoo News section, the file-tab navigation offers photos, audio files, slide shows and video files. Google News includes photos during its crawling process.

"Expect to see a lot more broadcast news (audio and video, advanced speech to text recognition, full transcripts) from us this year," said Pitkow.

Shari Thurow is the Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc. and the author of the book Search Engine Visibility.

by Shari Thurow
www.clickz.com

Source: www.clickz.com

Healthline is a specialized medical search engine that offers high-quality, authoritative information that’s easy to find, even if you don’t speak medicalese.

According to the Pew Internet Project, more Americans search for health information on the web than make doctor visits each day. The good news is that there’s a ton of great health care information available on the web. The bad news is that there’s also a ton of questionable quackery, and it’s not always easy to tell the difference.

Enter Healthline, the reincarnation of a site formerly known as YourDocor.com. Healthline is a specialized search engine that focuses exclusively on reliable, doctor-vetted information, covering 62,000 web sites with between 45-50 million pages. The site also features hosted content licensed from reliable content providers.

Medical information isn’t always easy to come by, primarily because most of us aren’t trained in the use of medical terminology. Healthline addressed that problem by mapping a medical taxonomy over hundreds of common lay terms for diseases, medications and other health related terms.

When you search, lay terms are translated and relevant medical information is presented. Even better, you’re offered a number of query refinement tools to help you broaden or narrow your search. So when you search for something like "high blood pressure" your results include links to articles about hypertension, as well as suggestions to broaden your search to things like "heart disease" and "vascular disorders," or narrow your search to "metabolic syndrome x treatment" and "hypertension treatment."

One of the coolest features is called a "health map," a visual display of all of the concepts related to your query. Health maps resemble flow-charts, showing phases of diagnosis, treatment, alternatives and so on. Want to explore one of those areas in depth? Just click the relevant box on the flowchart and a new search is run. It’s a very slick way to display lots of information about complex subjects, at the same time making it easy to find relevant content without advanced searching.

If you prefer browsing, Healthline makes that easy too, offering more than 200 "channels" that each focus on a popular health topic. Each topic has featured articles, current news and related health tools and channels.

Healthline also offers some useful tools for registered users. You can save, annotate or rate content that you find, or email articles to other users. All of this information is private, and is never shared, according to the company’s privacy policy.

Healthline is one of the best, easiest to use health information sources I’ve yet found on the web. The "patient friendly" interface combined with first-rate, vetted content make it an excellent resource for anyone researching health related information.

by Chris Sherman
www.clickz.com