Yahoo vs. Google + MSN = Uh Oh!

Yahoo, the old superpower of the search engine world is now going to go head to head with the current superpower of the search engines, Google. Uh-Oh, look out, MSN is starting to play the game too! Ok, let me put it simpler, Google is the super search engine, Yahoo is the super directory and MSN, well, MSN is not much currently. Stay tuned though, Bill Gates is stirring the pot.

The speculation is rampant about Google becoming a public company. Google is in discussion with investment banks about possible offerings within the first quarter. If this is true, then get your cheque books ready, and prepare to spend when Google goes live on the stock exchange. It is speculated that it will be one of the biggest events in years on the global exchange. With a possible 1/3rd of the company going up for public investment. What does this mean? Well, unlike other public search engines, Google is all privately owned, which means you don’t currently see advertisements on the homepage, etc. Once a public company, just like Yahoo, you may begin to see changes depending on what the public advise. This is exactly why Google has become so popular. It is private and delivers quality results, not quality advertisements. Well, did provide quality results until last November. See the impact. A new look Google that annoys you with a homepage just like Yahoo and MSN. Fight through the rubbish to get to search!

With that in mind, Yahoo over the past year has been conducting its own little monopoly with the purchase of Overture and Inktomi. As Yahoo currently enhance their directory results from Google, it is speculated that once Google go public, as Yahoo already is, then Yahoo are going to drop Google like a hot rock and take up results from their own company assets almost immediately. As Yahoo owns All The Web (ATW), and ATW has the largest web search database, it is unknown whether Yahoo will utilise its own ATW or Inktomi database to provide results to Yahoo search results.

All you had to do was rank well in Google and that transferred to Yahoo with little difference. Ranking well in Google will not have any impact on Yahoo in the near future. If your website is not optimized to perform across this wide range of engines, and included within their results, then your in trouble. Yahoo will utilise Inktomi results as it wishes and sell the results to other engines as currently occurs. The good news is, my customers don’t have to worry as my work is never specific to one search engine. I guess that Yahoo paid submissions will once again increase to be listed within their directory. Once officially announced, if Yahoo go with Inktomi, then their price may go up and let the wars begin at Inktomi for rankings.

If Yahoo kicks Google into touch, then guess what? Surprise, surprise, it will also kick Looksmart Australia over the fence from supplying paid sponsored results to them. Yahoo, owning Overture, will utilise Overture results in Australia very soon as they already do in most other countries. Yes, Overture has plans to open in Australia very soon. Hopefully the picture is starting to come together for you.

Here’s the left field player, MSN. MSN are starting to play the game with Internet search and pay a little more attention to their search features and services. MSN have been supplied by Inktomi, but wait, MSN now have “MSNBOT” crawling around the web building a substantial database for themselves. Now with MSN releasing some impressive features lately, targeting broadband users, it is anyone’s guess what is to come next. I believe that Bill Gates has not bothered before because he’s been too busy monopolising world IT and Internet browsing.

Searching the internet is about to get a whole lot more funkier. Good old Bill Gates and his little family, Microsoft, are paying some attention to their own Internet features. Lets see now, Google - “x” Billion dollar company, Yahoo - “xx” Billion dollar company and whoo….. Microsoft, I mean MSN - “x” Trillions of dollars. With Google and Yahoo possibly splitting and Microsoft coming up behind real quick, I somehow think MSN may end up the superpower of search engines in the coming years. Money wins, lets face it. Google can have all the PageRank they want, and Yahoo all the other engines they want, but lets face it, Bills money will buy technology and supremacy if need be.

In conclusion, all those listed with Google will now have to concentrate on Yahoo submissions and ranking to remain listed within Yahoo. You will also need to keep abreast of whatever Microsoft comes up with. No longer will there be one clear winner, but possibly three (3) search engines going head to head to win users. Some SEO’s are about to get a real wakeup call.

Yahoo! Establishes Yahoo! Research Labs

Recently Yahoo! has announced the release of Yahoo! Research Labs to help advance search engine technology an innovation. Yahoo! research labs is to help Yahoo! compete against Google Labs.

by aaron wall @ SEO Book.com

Google #1 Search Engine for Business Users

The search engine business searches go to first is Google, which 66 percent of the respondents say they use most. The other top search engines among the business community include Yahoo (15.25 percent) and MSN (7.8 percent).

Google: 66.37%
Yahoo: 15.25%
MSN: 7.8%
AOL/Netscape: 4.16%
Lycos: 0.55%
AltaVista: 1.55%
FastSearch: 0.35%
Excite: 0.70%
Hotbot: 0.30%
iWon: 1.21%

To an even greater extent than the online public at large which uses Google about 23% of the time , the business community overwhelmingly uses Google to conduct its searches. Yahoo (at 15.25%) and MSN (at 7.8%) combined only represents 23% of use.

The survey of business users and their search behavior conducted by WebAdvantage.net, a search engine marketing and interactive agency, also reveals that members of the business community rely more heavily on organic search results than paid search listings.

The survey, which was conducted between October 1st and 31st, polled 475 respondents and has an overall margin of error of 2.6 percent. A white paper with survey results can be accessed at
http://www.webadvantage.net/news.cfm?news_category_id=1&&news_item_id=140&&a=2

Open-Source Search Engine : Nutch

A group of international developers are working together to produce an open source search engine that may rival the commercial search bandits. From the Nutch project’s site:

Nutch is a nascent effort to implement an open-source web search engine.

Web search is a basic requirement for internet navigation, yet the number of web search engines is decreasing. Today’s oligopoly could soon be a monopoly, with a single company controlling nearly all web search for its commercial gain. That would not be good for users of the internet.

Nutch provides a transparent alternative to commercial web search engines. Only open source search results can be fully trusted to be without bias. (Or at least their bias is public.) All existing major search engines have proprietary ranking formulas, and will not explain why a given page ranks as it does. Additionally, some search engines determine which sites to index based on payments, rather than on the merits of the sites themselves. Nutch, on the other hand, has nothing to hide and no motive to bias its results or its crawler in any way other than to try to give each user the best results possible.

Nutch aims to enable anyone to easily and cost-effectively deploy a world-class web search engine. This is a substantial challenge.

Nutch will definately be worth keeping an eye on.

Search Advertising Blocker Threatens WebMasters in Addition to Search Engines

First we had spam filters, then pop-up blockers, and recently spyware removal tools have become popular. Time to add one more to the list which has the potential to hurt the search engine marketing industry even more than a Google update, search engine sponsored listing blocking.

The InterMute, Inc. company announced today the latest version of its best selling Internet ad blocking software which gives users the option to block paid or sponsored Search Engine results, the fastest growing segment of the online advertising industry.

There may be some credence behind the need for more regulation of the search advertising industry, according to a recent study, nearly half of those surveyed among the business community state that they do not recognize the difference between paid search listings and unpaid.

While some search engines, Google for example, make an effort to differentiate its ads from its organic search results. Other search engines like MSN search do not do so good of a job, cloaking paid results with organic.

Intermute’s AdSubtract Pro with search engine advertising blocker has the potential to start a worrisome trend which could put a large dent in the search advertising industry.

Their new feature, dubbed New Search Sanity, lets the user block paid or "sponsored" listings from showing up on the most popular search engines including, Google, Yahoo, Overture, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb and LookSmart. The tool even has the power to block contextual advertising, such as Google’s AdSense.

The ability to block AdSense ads will put AdSubtract Pro in the sites of webmasters, since AdSense dollars go to the owners of the sites it is advertised on.

Hotrate Reborn as Illumirate

IllumiRate.com -- lighting your way through the web

I asked Barbara York the new owner why the name IllumiRate. Here is her response: "First, one of the platforms for the directory is the fact our editors' assess many of the sites we add. Therefore, I wanted to keep the "Rate" portion of the name.

Don't know if you had a chance to see our logo, but I think the candle that stands in for the first "I" in our name pretty much explains the concept.

IllumiRate is a "turn" on the word "illuminate" -- thus the slogan "Lighting your way through the Web".

Have you been "illumiRated"? Browsing this directory is an "IllumiRating" experience? For editors: Become a member of the "IllumiRate Nation"!

There are all sorts of phrases that could be used in connection with upping the power, high-voltage, etc., and other "light" connotations that are possible with the name.

Finally, having been a student at William & Mary, and an overall huge fan of the Williamsburg, VA, area, I have a soft spot in my heart for the holiday Grand Illumination celebration. Thus, when having a huge brainstorming session in my kitchen, we all came up with the name "IllumiRate".

Hope this better explains my objectives when choosing "IllumiRate" as our directory's new moniker. :-)

BTW, we do have a direct free submit for sites to be added to our waiting list at http://www.illumirate.com/IllumiRate/add_your_site.cfm."

Directory For Sale

About a month after splitting up the GoGuides.Org Directory is now on sale with a minimum bid of $10,000. On their home page it reads "Notice: GoGuides.Org is for sale! If you think you have what it takes to run one of the fastest growing and most popular human edited directories on the net then this opportunity is for you. Offers will be accepted till 12-3-03. If the minimum reserve price is not met the directory will not be sold. If the directory is sold the buyer must agree to continue running all advertisement, all listings, and agree to continue developing this directory as a spam free community. Minimum Bid Price: $10,000.00 US Dollars. All offers must accompany a 20% down payment of the bid amount via paypal to be considered legitimate. For more information contact us at teamsupport@goguides.org with your offered bid."

by Aaron Wall of Search Marketing Info