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February 27, 2004
Google future plans
The Google representative Matt Cutts at the Webmasterworld's Publishers Conference gave us a hint of what is in store for the future. Google will allocate many more resources to fighting spam. Instead will rank higher sites that he called signals of society.: Sites with improved user experience.
The promise from Google is for an increase in 'in depth freshness and relevancy' in line with the recent Google algorithm changes that promoted sites with quality back ward links (and not simply sites with many back links). There was also the promise for new services from Google.
I am sure that there is much more in this than Google wants to reveal. The war strategy against the Yahoo! oponent can be won only with the element of surprise.
Posted by Basileios at 07:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 24, 2004
The power of the search
A report by Nielsen//NetRatings - the
global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis - was published yesterday with information concerning the use of search engines in the USA. Apparently one in three Americans used a search engine during January 2004. The breakdown of consumer audiences fopr search engines is as follows:
Search Engine Percentage of Consumer Audience
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1. Google 36.0%
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2. Yahoo! Search 25.3%
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3. MSN Search 14.0%
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4. Ask Jeeves 5.0%
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5. AOL Shopping 4.8%
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You can check the full results of the report here
Posted by Basileios at 06:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2004
Inktomi Paid Inclusion
So what will be the situation with Inktomi Paid Inclusion now that Yahoo! uses Inktomi? Rumors have it that Yahoo! will launch their own paid inclusion services shortly and the Inktomi paid inclusion will be kept completely different. It is probably to your advantage to register for the inktomi paid inclusion before yahoo! launches their own...
Posted by Basileios at 06:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 19, 2004
Google answers...
Yahoo! finally announced yesterday (some 20 hrs after we announced it) that the switchover from Google to their own search technology has been finalized. Google spokespersons replied that they will still provide the best search results available.
Google also replied with a small algorithm tweak which we brought to your attention a few days ago. Although not as dramatic as the 'Florida update' last November this update is more than a simple Google dance.
Posted by Basileios at 05:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 18, 2004
Orkut Marketing (II)
A recent article by Frederick F. Reichheld in the Harvard Business Review argues about the one number that can act as an indicator on how a business will grow. This number is a ranking of how likely current customers of the business would advise the business to their friends. This 'viral' metric indicates both how contagious a company/product is and of whether it offers quality products/services.
The Orkut expansion is solely based on the 'tell your friend' principle and has potential for incredible growth. It's just a matter of internal 'quality dynamics' to get there...
In the meantime, if/when Orkut gets popular enough to have millions of users Google will have an excellent platform to extend their Adwords/Adsense program.
Posted by Basileios at 08:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 17, 2004
Yahoo Prepares the Switch to Inktomi
The change happened sometime last night. Take a look at http://search.yahoo.com for the new Inktomi based results in yahoo! (It works for some keywords only).
The google 'monopoly' is about to be broken, the war is on and the developments will influence all online businesses.
Posted by Basileios at 06:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
'Miserable Failure' update. The 'Empire' Strikes Back
A search on 'miserable failure' on Google at the moment reveals a different set of results than before... Michael Moore, heads the race this time...
Posted by Basileios at 06:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Have You Been Crawled by Yahoo!?
Yahoo!'s new crawler is out spidering the web. Check your logfiles and look for a footprint of the Yahoo! Slurp crawler (basically the Inktomi cralwer with some appropriate modifications). The referrer left by the crawler points us to a Help page that has some basic information about this crawler. Yahoo, plans to do a 'cached pages' service, just like Google has, and comments on the fact that although your site may be crawled it may take some time before your pages appear.
Interesting, very interesting... The game has began.
Posted by Basileios at 03:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 16, 2004
Orkut and Social Networking Websites
Having been members of Orkut for some weeks, it is a good time to analyze the phenomenon a bit more.
Social networking (dating?) websites will be on everybodys mouth (or keyboard) within the next few months, Part of the amazing expansion of the internet as a medium has been the ease of communication and the ability to talk and reveal things that under ordinary circumstances one wouldnt. Cyberspace seems a far more honest (and brutal, rudem unrestricted, anarchic, disorderly, left-hemisphere etc.) place than our every day world.
Orkut is simply an addition to the many communities that existed before but done in a totally integrated way (Orkut isnt the first to follow such an approach. Friendster.com and LinkedIn.com for example have been going on for some time). You now have the opportunity within the same website to talk about business, plan a meeting with fans of your favorite actor, meet and date people in your area etc. It is really a micro-internet under the same domain name.
Orkut is remarkable in its marketing approach to getting popular. Its totally viral way of getting more and more users induces an automatic expansion: You can a\only become a member only if another member invites you to join. In other words the fame of Orkut is populated by its own users since it is definitely to their advantage to get as many of their friends as possible in the community (so with the six-degrees-of-separation argument they can start to network with friends of friends of friends).
However, Orkut after about a month of service has yet to get a critical mass of participating members to call it a spectacular and lively place to be. And to make things worse a check of the Orkut terms and conditions reveals that By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials. Which sounds just like the Microsoft Passport terms that created an outrage a couple of years ago
Again, we must stress that we will hear a lot about similar social networking websites (as Lycos is entering the game as well). Orkut is bound to be one of the main players in the game as it is played in a smart way (and is also promoted by Google, the mother company). It is a matter of checking how all this is going to evolve.
Posted by Basileios at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 13, 2004
Possible Google algorithm change?
Google has been experimenting with a new algorithm so you may find different results in your SERPs from time to time. You can check http://64.233.161.99/ for the datacenter with the new results to check how you are doing.
Posted by Basileios at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Microsoft leak of Windows source code
Incredible as it may sound, today we found Microsoft having to announce that there are portions (some say all of it) of the Windows 2000 and winows NT source code available for download from a couple of websites. To say the least, this is definitely a case of worry for exploits that may come available shortly from hackers/crackers that may checkout the code.
The most amazing thing was that Microsoft actually had a link to one of those sites on their statement page... (I think they removed the link now...)
Posted by Basileios at 04:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 12, 2004
Lycos changes shape...
Reemember the days when Lycos was one of the most powerful search engines? Remember the days when Lycos was one of the most interesting portals? Well, now you have to experience the Lycos networking days. A recent announcement shows that Lycos has decioded to follow the steps of google (with Orkut) and join the social networking business.
There is a definitely alot in this trend, and social networking sites will sprout like mushrooms over the next few months. Lycos is entering the field quite early, but that doesn't mean that it will make it that easily.
There is quite a bit to say about Orkut at the moment since it is the new 'hip' thing. We will post this as a separate entry.
Posted by Basileios at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RSS or Atom?
Some of you may know that since the summer that has been a split in the blog world due to a new 'standard' for syndication that responds to the name of Atom. Although very few people knew of this till recently Atom is now in the news as blogger, the company now owned by Google, that has provided a home (for free) for thousands of bloggers, has adopted Atom and got rid of the 'usual' RSS standard. This sounds as bad news, and continues on the battle between Yahoo! and Google (Yahoo! adopted RSS).
Posted by Basileios at 05:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 11, 2004
Affordable WebSite Marketing
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Posted by Basileios at 02:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 10, 2004
Findwhat Merges With Espotting
The news of the day is that findwhat.com has merged with espotting.com (PPC services for the European market). The merger is intended to create an international leader in performance-based Internet marketing with combined operations and partnerships across the globe. Highlights include:
- Merger of United States-based FindWhat.com and European-based Espotting
- Combined company expected to offer paid listings to 12 countries on three continents
- Combined company expected to have relationships with over 100,000 online businesses globally
Findwhat also reported financial results for the three months and the year ended December 31, 2003, in which there is a 57% increase in revenue relative to the same quarter of 2002.
The situation in PPC advertising companies is remarkably interesting at the moment as both Kannoodle.com and Findwhat are growing, due to the rather high values of some clicks in Overture and Adwords.
Posted by Basileios at 06:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Rugles!
California, the land of personalized number plates:
Posted by Basileios at 05:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Verisign reconsiders search service
Verisign reconsiders launching SiteFinder, the controversial search service that was launched last September (and was removed in a hurry in October).
The service redirected people who type nonexistent or inactive Internet addresses to a search page created by VeriSign. The page offered links to similarly named Web sites as well as advertisements from companies that paid VeriSign to be listed on the page. Site Finder caused Internet services to malfunction, including filters that block spam e-mail and Internet browsers designed for non-English speakers.
VeriSign shut the service down in October after the group that runs the Internet's addressing system, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), threatened the company with fines and legal action.
It will be very interesting to see what the developments on this front are since the service was rather popular with the public and it opens up a new avenue for marketing and search positioning options.
Posted by Basileios at 01:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 09, 2004
AOL censors 'miserable failure'
AOL has removed the link to George W. Bush's biography from the first position of the rankings in the search 'miserable failure' (Check our previous post to see how this was done). This is not the first time that AOL 'intervenes' in the search engine results pages and unfortunately we cannot but condemn such a 'search result sensorship'. Shame on AOL for putting their personal politics in front of anything else. Thumbs down...
Posted by Basileios at 04:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 06, 2004
Search engine positioning in Google
USA today has an interesting article on the way that Google influences online business.
Inktomi and MSN on the lookout!
Posted by Basileios at 07:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 05, 2004
LookSmart and changing worlds
LookSmart sent their LookListings newsletter today with a rather interesting interview with their Senior VP of Sales and marketing, Tony Mamone who reports on the recent changes in LookSmart. Needless to say an important issue is the drop of LookSmart by MSN that has created a bit of a stir in the web marketing world. Will LookSmart hold on the sprint that Kanoodle is doing at the moment?
Posted by Basileios at 05:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 03, 2004
MSN search engine (beta)
For those not already aware of the situation let us mention that MSN has launched a beta version of their search engine in http://beta.search.msn.com/. Check out how well you rank...
Posted by Basileios at 01:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 02, 2004
Shopping cart abandonment
A recent study by NetIQ the company behind WebTrends has given some interesting figures concerning the abandonment of shopping carts prior to a successful purchase. According to the report that was launched about a week ago the cost of shopping cart abandonment could rise up to $63bn this year. This somehow makes this small phenomenon one that can be of crucial significance to the ROI of a web business.
The report has also offered the reasons for the abandonment of shopping carts, the most significant of which are:
(35%) due to shipping or other costs.
(30%) due to too much necessary information for completing the transaction
(17%) due to lack of product information.
(14%) due to a change of mind (decided to purchase on the store).
Shopping cart abandonment rate is certainly a number that needs to be calculated for an online business. It must be noted though, that for an experienced web marketer just the look/check of a shopping cart process can reveal whether it will lead to successful sales or whether it is necessary to modify the process of purchasing. NetIQ reports improvement of sales by 30% by the simple change in the shopping cart details. One way or another, this could be you.
Posted by Basileios at 09:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack