SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION SEO COMPANY

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A small group of ex-Google employees have started a search engine company with hopes of conquering the “big three”: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. The founders of the company (Anna Patterson and Tom Costello) were integral members of Google, working on the algorithm, the heart of the Google.

Their new search engine, Cuil (pronounced “Cool”), promises to deliver  more relevant results, and with a larger search index. There have been plenty of other search engines who have attempted to break into the market, however Cuil believe their pedigree, combined with indexing more sites will give them an edge. Not all analysts agree with the methodology however, as Danny Sullivan has these thoughts:

…unimpressed by Cuil’s claim that its index includes more Web pages, noting that that could mean users are “overwhelmed by a whole bunch of junk”

For more information on the new company, check out the New York Times article.

Yahoo, in an attempt to win back market share from Google has decided to let independent web developers use the Yahoo technology to create their own custom searches.

This new service will be know as “Build Your Own Search” or BOSS, and will allow any third party developers to piggyback onto their technology. Yahoo in return will display their ads next to any search result, in an effort to combat Google Ads.

Yahoo figures plenty of Web developers will be interested because it’s providing access to a set of tools that would cost more than $300 million to build from scratch.

Whether this is a sign of innovation or desperation from the wounded giant of the search engine world is yet to be seen. Microsoft has attempted a takeover of Yahoo, with certain shareholders favouring the takeover due to plummeting share prices.

For more information on the technology and the takeover, check out the Forbes article.

An obscenity trial currently underway in Florida is highlighting the impact that search engines are having on the offline world. The defence team are using results gathered from Google to show the browsing trends of the community.

 Whether the data is admissible in court or not is yet to be determined, however the salient fact is that the data collected by the major search engines is providing a more detailed shapshot of our lives.

“That’s why a lot of people are nervous about Google or Yahoo having all this data,” [Chris Hansen, lawyer] said.

For more information, see the New York Times Article
The far-reaching impact of cases like this come into play when looking at the Microsoft takeover attempts of Yahoo.  Civil Libertarians are worried that the fewer the number of companies holding onto the data, the less secure the private viewing histories would be.

Microsoft has signed a deal with an up and coming start-up YuMe. The company specialises in serving in-video adverts and the deal with Microsoft will see them serving ads to online videos across Microsoft-owned web sites. The deal is another step by Microsoft in their quest to gain a bigger piece of the lucrative online advertising pie.

YuMe is the first dedicated video advertising network and ad management system built exclusively for the new world of Web video. With 400+ websites, more than 150 million video streams, and 46.9 million unique visitors, the YuMe network provides both audience scale and quality reach for advertisers.

More details in the press-release on the YuMe web site.

A post by Udi Manber, the VP of engineering at Google in charge of Search Quality on the official Google Blog called “Introduction to Google Search Quality” begins a renewed effort by Google to reveal more about search quality and optimisation of search results.

…being completely secretive isn’t ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow.

The post is said to be the first of many to come, and whilst it does not delve too deeply or give too much away, it is still a very interesting and valuable read. Udi takes us through an explaination of the different groups involved under the search quality umbrella - ranking, user experience, product testing, usability, and of course the web spam team (headed up by “web-famous” Matt Cutts - who is often mistaken to be the head honcho of the whole Search Quality outfit) amongst others. Well worth a read.

Google has been beta testing Google TV Ads since last June and has now officially opened up to all U.S. AdWords advertisers. To celebrate and promote the launch, Google has said that for a limited time they will cover the cost of creating the Ads up to the sum of $2000. This seems like a pittance, however by way of the Google Ad Creation Marketplace - a directory listing professionals and businesses that provide Ad creation services - Google says Ads can be put together for as little as $100-$1000. Of course the $2000 kicked in by Google only applied if you use the marketplace to source ad creators. (more…)

Facebook is said to be nearing a settlement with the ConnectU.com crowd over allegations that Facebook’s concept was stolen from Harvard Students that Mark Zuckerberg the CEO once flatted with.

No one is commenting on the situation, but it is believed that a payout will be near to get the case out of the media.

Who thinks that Mark stole the Facebook concept?

For more information please see the following post at the NYTimes.

E-Web Marketing was featured in BRW last week, with an article about one of our clients, Catering on the Move.
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Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick has resulted in the need to sell the Search Engine Marketing side of DoubleClick known as Performics.

Performics offers SEO and SEM services - which would be a great conflict of interests for Google as the SEO/SEM industry focus on increasing dominance in search engines, specifically Google.

Historically Google has gone on a shopping spree when they make their first acquisition for the year. People are saying they may be in the talks of acquiring Skype off eBay for SE integration. It is also said that Google want to buy Expedia.

Google could in turn offer travel services via search results!

According to a recent US study by CoreBrand, Microsoft’s brand power has significantly declined over the past 4 years. An indication that the IT giant is losing credibility  and mindshare with some of America’s largest business users.

CoreBrand polled an estimated 12,000 US business decision makers on core brands in their associated fields. Microsoft of which dropped from 12th in the annual list in 2004 to that of position 59 in 2007.

Google however has dramatically increased.

Due to the paradigm shift to the internet, most people barely understand what exactly Microsoft do in the online space.