1 Million Dot .CA Domains Registered

A landmark one million dot-ca (.ca) domain names have been registered in Canada. According to the Canadian Internet Registry Authority, the dot-ca represents Canada on the internet and is a means to verify you are dealing with a Canadian or Canadian business online. Dot-ca now reportedly ranks seventeenth in the list of internet domain name registry. Would be interesting to know how many of those domain name owners also registered dot-com (.com) versions of their sites and redirect to their .ca counterpart.

Domain name registrations, in general, are on the rise. As of Dec. 2007, there were 153 million domain name registrations worldwide across all of the top level domain names (TLDs), an increase of almost 33 million domain name registrations since the end of 2006. The total base of country code top level domain names (ccTLDs) was 58 million, a 33 percent increase YOY. Across all of the gTLDs and ccTLDs, .com has the highest base followed by .de (Germany), .net and .cn (China), and .uk (United Kingdom) and .org. tied for the fifth spot with approximately the same number of domain name registrations. (Source: Domain Name Industry Report)

But how do cctlds rank on a Google.com search? It seems to make sense that cctlds would rank better on Google's regional/local search engines e.g. Google.ca versus Google.com and would help to serve geo-location relevant search results. In fact, supposedly if you do a Google search in another country, Google is able to anticipate the user's intended destination based on their originating IP address and can determine their location and redirect them to the country specific site - which is a huge user experience plus. And if you don't want to be redirected, you can notify them.

Yahoo Launches Womens Web Site "Shine"

Yahoo has launched a web site called Shine targeted at women between ages 25 and 54. The site brings together content from other smaller sections of Yahoo, with original content and syndication deals with the likes of Conde Nast, Hearst, Rodale, Time Inc and others. The content will be focused in nine specific categories: Fashion & Beauty, Food, Healthy Living, Work & Money, Love and Relationships, Parenting, At Home, Entertainment & Culture, and Astrology.

Yahoo reports 40 million women come to the their web site each month and Shine presents an opportunity to serve targeted content that is of interest to women and presents a lucrative opportunity for advertisers looking to connect with women.

Shine competes with site like of iVillage, Glam Media and Sugar Publishing among others.

Netvibes Ginger Beta Announced

I recently met Tariq Krim, Netvibes Founder and CEO. The company has just come out with the next gen of their personalized homepage Netvibes Ginger. This is a private beta release of the service; general availability for all users is expected in mid-Feb.

As described on the site, with the beta, users can "create and personalize a netvibes Universe page just for yourself or publish one for your friends, family, everyone! A Universe is your very own personal dashboard that's updated live directly from all your favorite Web services (email, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, widgets) and media content (blogs, podcasts, video). Everything you enjoy on the Web, available at a glance, all in one place — spend less time surfing and logging in from site to site and more time enjoying your web, your way."

10 Best Intranets of 2008

Jakob Nielsen just came out with his annual 10 Best Intranets of 2008. The winners are based in six different countries and five of the winners were US companies but surprisingly, there was only one high-tech company, SAP. The winners in alpha order are: Bank of America (US); Bankinter S.A. (Spain); Barnes & Noble (US); British Airways (UK); Campbell Soup Company (US); Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation (US); IKEA North America Service, LLC, (US); Ministry of Transport (New Zealand); New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (Australia); SAP AG (Germany).

The winning elements were design consistency in navigation and UX, integrated IA, focus on productivity tools, employee self-service, access to knowledgeable people versus knowledge management, and better presented company news.

Some of the key findings were:
-News was a key homepage focus on most intranets
-Multimedia use growing in popularity
-Improved user experiences yielded productivity gains for tools such as employee directories to facilitate access to people with knowledge and single sign-on capability as employee self-service was key on most intranets
-The most used technologies used were SharePoint and Google Search Appliance
-Some intranets had unique names as opposed to just "Intranet" such as Discover, InSite, and Flagscape, Employee Self Service, my Campbell, Coldwell Banker Works, and US Retail Inside

Other trends which they discovered were:
-Increased personalization
-Integration of information sources, often resulting in a single "one-stop shopping" page
-Emphasis on mission-critical applications and information (such as sales targets)
-Improved event and project calendars
-Special sections to help orient new employees
-Prominent display of stock quotes and other financial information
-Integration of external and company news, often in the form of customizable feeds
-Alerts integration
-Redesigned and improved search features

Time Magazine's Top 50 Sites

Time Magazine has come out with its annual top 50 websites of the year. Here is the list.

50 Best Websites 2007

• Wotartist.com
  
• FunnyOrDie.com
  
• INGDirect.com
  
• StumbleUpon.com
  
• Mozy.com
  
• More
  

25 Sites We Can't Live Without

• Amazon.com
  
• BBC.co.uk
  
• Citysearch.com
  
• Craigslist.org
  
• Del.icio.us
  
• More
  

5 Worst Websites

• eHarmony.com
  
• Evite
  
• Meez.com
  
• MySpace.com
  
• SecondLife.com

Yahoo's CPO Goes to Google And Speaking at Web 2.0 Conference

Yahoo's Chief Performance Officer (CPO), Steve Souders, is moving to Google starting next week and will be a speaker on "Creating High-Performance Websites" at our Web 2.0 Conference on Jan. 29. Sounders, who has been with Yahoo since 2000 was responsible for developing a set of best practices for making web sites faster. He worked on the YSlow Firefox (Firebug) extension, as well as the official Developer Network, and the User Interface blogs. He is also the author of a book titled - you guessed it - High Performance Web Sites.

ROI Of Forcing Users To Register To Access Content

It's pretty much a standard practice online to require users to provide some information about themselves prior to gaining access to "free" content. The price of this free content is clearly your personal info. If your site runs third party ads, the business rationale is generally to learn more about your users so you can serve them more targeted ads for which you can charge advertisers a premium. For other sites like enterprise sites, the motivation is for lead generation so you can seek your sales guys on them once they have registered. The problem with these forms is that users loathe them; they just want the info - not straddled with a catch to get the information. Depending on the site, the form may be longer than others' and there may be more required info than others'.

So, do most people just opt not to complete these forms? Are there many lost opportunities for business for these sites? Probably. Because registration forms are not standardized and because the usability of such forms may vary from site to site, many users may choose to forego the promised content altogether. I, myself, have signed up if I deem the information valuable enough; however, there are many users who wouldn't bother. And, don't state that it will take 30 seconds when in fact it takes 5 minutes.

This is a cost-benefit analysis that each site needs to determine for itself based on its users, the actual time it takes to register, and the value of the reward for registering.

Sites which offer the same content as elsewhere or for which similar content can be found from other sources online like news sites, should not be forcing users to register to read the news. They simply lose readership and annoy users. Sites like NYTimes and WSJ which require users to not only register but in the case of WSJ, complete a four page form and pay for the content, when you can get the same thing on CNN.com for instance, are missing the boat here. And then of course, there is the degree of personal information some sites may request. NYTimes asks what is your annual household income and guess what - it's a required field; although, you can choose not to say. I wonder how many people really do say! The other usability issue that can arise is once a user is signed in, how quickly does the system time out forcing users to re-signin. This can get tiresome. If users do signup, however, then they have basically opted-in or self-selected, thereby, making them more likely to remain a loyal user. It is the ones who choose not to register that sites need to figure out where they might have failed in converting them, considering, they got them as far as the registration form.

So, in summary if you are considering adding a registration form:
-Figure out your cost-benefit analysis
-Keep forms short
-Refrain from too many required fields
-Don't ask for too personal info
-Don't mislead users on the form completion time
-Make your forms usable
-Be mindful of short system timeouts
-No more hurdles. Once the user has completed the form, give them what they are looking for!

Web Offers Exclusive Smoking Zone

There is virtually nothing you can't do online and now that even includes taking a cyber puff. While patrons of French bars, restaurants, and nightclubs may no longer be able to smoke in these establishments come Jan. 1, smokers can now get their smoke-on online. Complete with entertaining videos, support group, and information, European tobacconeer, Altadis, has created a social networking site called Le Lab. But don't get your smoking jacket on just yet, Le Lab is an internal only website to rally the company's brand managers in the face of France's increased smoking ban.

Introducing Mozilla Weave

Mozilla is doing its part to weave a good experience for users online. Mozilla Labs introduced "Weave" a couple of days ago. Weave will "focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences". The basic organizing principles around this idea are to provide a set of Mozilla-hosted online services, use freely available open standards-based tools, allow users to control and customize whether and how their data should be shared with their family, their friends, and third-parties, and provide privacy mechanisms like client-side encryption and access rights.

Why Apple Is An "A" Player

I was at an Apple store yesterday - this one was newly refurbished - and was struck by how kool and high tech it is. The store is kinda easy on the eye, open, and new-age design much like Apple products (iPhone, Mac, iPod, etc.). Hit the closest available Mac to surf online - the graphical picture quality is next to none. And, if you have some, get your kids started early by dropping them off at the kiddie Mac play area complete with miniature sized everything. There are built-in plasmas on the wall telling you who is the next customer being served and offering up tips on how to use your Apple products along with definitions of terms like Wi-Fi and bandwidth, etc. There are store clerks everywhere. I made the mistake of pausing a few times and was instantly approached each time by a clerk offering their assistance. No need to checkout your purchases at the cashier, clerks on the floor come out-fitted with electronic POS devices. Got a Mac because it looks cool but have no idea how to use it, a friend of mine mentioned he was getting his friend a one- to two-hour lesson for Christmas with an in-store Apple "genius". Ok, I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard Apple fan - I have a Mac collecting dust - but I do like Apple products and their product and UI designs and experience (on- and offline) are good. Not perfect but good. Where else can you get this?!

The Apple Online Store is equally cutting-edge. The UI is clean, clear, streamlined, and seemingly simple. It is Web 2.0-esque with the use of gradients and radial-edged corners. It is wide-screen, utilizes a lot of white, displays a lot of content which is well organized and clearly labeled. The scale of images is not overly large or small. The online store site is clearly identified at the top left with a store-specific search (separate from the general site search), contact tel, and online chat.

The company has had a stellar year and with their recent release of Mac OS X Leopard, they sold 2 million copies in the first weekend. Fresh on the rumor circuit is that Apple has sold nearly 5 million iPhones since its debut in June, half of their '07 and '08 goal. Apple is also currently embroiled in a controversial case against Harvard student, Nicholas M. Ciarelli's web site, Think Secret, which reports on leaked insider info about Apple's product plans. They have reportedly come to an undisclosed settlement which, in essence, means the site will be shut down. Nonetheless, they keep pushing the edge on product and UI designs and I look forward to what's to come from them in the new year.

Using Eye Tracking To Focus A Webpage

Eyetracking studies where you look at users' reading and gaze patterns are a staple of web usability research. We hear all about users going for the jugular - the golden triangle - or casting F- and E-shaped patterns on a site. While this is generally the case in parts of the world where we read from left to right, what is interesting is that what people look at is totally dependent on what you show them or rather what they see. What tends to happen is users will look at what catches their eye initially, then depending on what's on the page or not, move onto the rest of it to create these shapes. So, whatever you as a site owner makes more attention grabbing is what will likely grab users' attention first and foremost. It could be something over to the far right or smack dab in the middle of a page, if it sufficiently stands out from other elements on the page. However, if you have an overly busy page, users may not know where to focus either.

On an e-commerce site like, Target.com, the focal area is the big red ad area in the middle of the page then the eye moves to the bullseye logo at the top left. Of course, it also depends on how the page loads. If the top left portion of the page loads first, like on BestBuy.com, and the content area is slow in painting on the screen, then the top left is what users will be forced to look at. Usually, though, that's just the logo so I am not sure how much value that is to the site or the user. On cnn.com, clearly, CNN wants you to see the top headline story first so they make the featured story image very large and incorporated the findings of eye tracking research in keeping the image to the top left so it is unlikely for users to miss it. Similar situation on yahoo.com. Google.com's homepage is a bit of an anamoly. The focus on the homepage is the logo and search text field but the search results pages follow the regular F-shape pattern. There are other cases where flashy ads can be a scene stealer away from your core page message. The prescription for this would be to tone down the visual impact and scale possibly of such ads. And, there are other cases where there are a lot of competing items vying for the user's attention. This requires prioritizing and balancing these various elements and determining and focusing on what is the core message of the page. This is easier said than done on homepages versus a landing page, for instance, given that on homepages, you are trying to communicate as such as you can as homepages tend to be gateway or directory-like pages.

Top 50 Sites of November

The top online properties in the U.S. for November 2007 as determined by comScore were released yesterday. Yahoo maintained its lead position, with Google a close second, Microsoft trailing behind in third place, and Ask taking the 9th position. eCommerce sites eBay and Amazon, and online encyclopedia Wikipedia were amongst the top ten. Taking the eleventh position was Apple and Facebook at number seventeen. At the bottom of the list - if you consider 17M unique visitors paltry - was CareerBuilder. There were some sites on there that I never visit but clearly enough other people in their target group do.

                            Unique                                 Unique
   Rank     Property        Visitors      Rank     Property        Visitors
                              (000)                                  (000)
        
         Total Audience      182,362
     1   Yahoo! Sites        136,180       26   Shopzilla.com Sites  25,023
     2   Google Sites        131,538       27   Best Buy Sites       24,807
     3   Microsoft Sites     119,194       28   Craigslist.org       24,427
     4   Time Warner Network 119,084       29   Yellowpages.com      24,221
     5   Fox Interactive      81,325       30   Disney Online        23,822
     6   eBay                 80,510       31   Sears Sites          23,522
     7   Amazon Sites         59,058       32   Monster Worldwide    23,390
     8   Wikipedia Sites      55,157       33   Bank of America      23,354
     9   Ask Network          51,636       34   Gannett Sites        22,272
    10   New York Times       47,997       35   ESPN                 22,186
    11   Apple Inc.           43,775       36   Expedia Inc          21,796
    12   Viacom Digital       42,796       37   E.W. Scripps         21,045
    13   Wal-Mart             42,462       38   Real.com Network     20,242
    14   Target Corporation   41,933       39   Photobucket.com LLC  19,628
    15   CNET Networks        35,731       40   United Online, Inc   19,305
    16   Weather Channel      34,124       41   WebMD Health         18,346
    17   Facebook.com         33,660       42   Lycos Sites          18,335
    18   Adobe Sites          31,848       43   Circuit City         18,268
    19   AT&T, Inc.           29,843       44   The Mozilla          17,981
    20   Verizon              29,072       45   JCPenney Sites       17,976
    21   CBS Corporation      28,714       46   ARTISTdirect         17,743
    22   Gorilla Nation       26,556       47   Overstock.com        17,478
    23   Comcast Corporation  26,479       48   NFL Internet Group   17,397
    24   Superpages.com       25,603       49   Hearst Corporation   17,122           
    25   Glam Media           25,394       50   CareerBuilder LLC    17,021

Ruby On Rails 2.0 Launched

Ruby On Rails Version 2.0 was released on Friday. Rails or RoR is a free, open source application framework using Ruby programming language. It is aimed at increasing the speed and ease with which database-driven web sites can be created. Ok, I am not a hard-core programmer so I won't even begin to try to interpret the changes in v2 but here is a listing for those of you who can decode this:

• Multiple Controller View Paths - Rails now supports multiple view paths for each controller


• SOAP has been replaced with REST - SOAP is considered too complex and RoR is more focused on building REST-ful applications


• Improved Security features - to protect against phishing with provisions to guard against cross-site request forgery (CRSF) intrusions and cross-site forgery (XSF) attacks. Improved testing support and backing for Atom feeds critical to application updates


• ActiveResource feature added - which encapsulates web services and makes them as easy to use as databases. This is similar to the ActiveRecord feature for encapsulating database calls in Rails

Download here.

Internet TV Site Shuts Down Aftering Blowing US$80M

Brightcove, the much touted internet TV company headed by Jeremy Allaire is shutting down. Users were informed via email that Brightcove.TV will no longer be accepting direct consumer uploads after December 17, 2007. The company had BIG dreams of becoming the next YouTube and competing with YouTube. The company had raised US$80 million.

Here are some important pointers for entrepreneurs, partners, and investors alike:

1) Web start-ups should embrace openness. Successful web companies disrupt and bring efficiency to a market. To do so you have to become immune to the rules and limitations of the old market being disrupted. Brightcove was busy trying to compete with YouTube while working with old timers like Viacom. Therein lies the problem. Viacoms' business model comprises of a) restricting broadcast b) litigation (they have a big legal department including the CEO). For this to work you have to impose rules and restrictions and then litigate those breaking the rules and restrictions. So how could Brightcove disrupt a market, when every move they made was violating a rule set by a partner they were working with eg. Viacom.

2) Web 2.0 is demonstrating that nimble, smart entrepreneurs succeed time after time. Brightcove raised US$80 million! Where did it go? They certainly have a full management team, that is probably drawing super fat salaries, yet they have no product. At least a product that the marketplace wants. Smart investors fund agile teams that are disrupting a market using little capital.

3) Understand the web ecosystem - there are lots of people who don't understand the web including investors like Mayfield and Redpoint. Jeremy Allaire (co-founder of Allaire/ Macromedia) is not the first so called top gun that investors poured money on due to prior success and ended up losing it all. Terry Semel is a classic example of someone that never understood the web. To succeed on the web you have to have a narrow focus. Take money only from people who understand the web. Bring people on that understand the space. Just because someone was successful in the something else does not mean they can help you prevail on the web.

Intuit Buys Website Company Homestead

Mashable is reporting that Intuit, the company behind QuickBooks, Quicken and TurboTax software, has acquired Homestead Technologies for about $170 million. Homestead offers website creation tools and other e-commerce and marketing products made for online use, the combination of Intuit and Homestead will present opportunities for Homestead’s technologies to be used for small businesses both internally and with direct interaction with customers.

The plan is to basically offer a suite of solutions for companies looking for an integrated option to extend their businesses into the online sector, reach out to customers and retain them as well. Intuit had already been making some moves towards offering more self-administrative tools for business owners with the launch of services like their involvement with the online service for Quicken.

The company also already has a partnership with Google, which should be another advantage for the web-based tools and Google’s ongoing initiative. With the combination of Intuit and Homestead, these web-based tools move even further into the realm of Salesforce, but could present another level of competition for services like Upspring that are using the social networking angle for the promotion of businesses online.

Top Trends in Corporate 2.0 Sites

I've been scouring around quite a bit online to identify some of the top trends in corporate websites. These sites have traditionally been nothing more than brochure-ware displaying static content like mission statements, and product and contact info. In reality, not a whole lot has changed. While the Web has evolved at internet speed from the early days of Web 1.0 to 2.0, corporate sites have remained relatively the same and many are in danger of becoming relics of the past. We were going to have an event on "The New Corporate Website" which we decided to slate for another time in light of the OpenSocial phenom that came about.

So, what's the deal. Today's corporate website is still a sales and communication channel but not of the same manifestation as yesteryear's; the DNA of these sites have changed. There are a lot of Social Media and Web 2.0 components making their way to the corporate arena. Today's new corporate website is less static, stagnant, and one-dimensional.

Here are some of the trends I found:

• Widgetization of the web
  No suprise here. The corporate marketing-ites have jumped on this bandwagon and proven the Newsweek declaration that this is the "Year of the Widget" to be true. Although, I think this year was more about the hype and next year we will see more commercialization of widgets as more and more companies get caught up and the others push the marketing efforts on their initial adoption.


• Social networking cum customer networking
  It is built for customers, with customers. Live chatting has been around for a while for customer support but full-blown social networking sites have been created to serve customers better and to build and grow the network and community and utlimately, customer loyalty and goodwill. A good example is eBay's Neighborhoods.


• Blogs
  Blogs are being harnessed carefully and selectively. Not a lot of corporate blogs except for notable ones like Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog which provides insight into the company and its products. The rarity of these blogs is mostly for fear of legal and market backlash, but a lot of companies have externally facing blogs by employees. The problem is that unless its the CEO or some high-profile employee or a sexy company, or if the blogs are not fully endorsed by the company and marketed and supported, they will flail.


• Rich Media Content
  Live or on-demand rich streaming media content with a real person demo'ing or talking about a new product or service offering. This is much preferred and more effective than just straight textual content. But keep it real. Too many companies still can't let go of the canned, highly produced videos. Customers don't want to see that either but the context is important. Use by product managers and for customer testimonials are great but how-to's are more valuable to customers. Some companies even have video on their homepage. Audio-only podcasts are also common but offer a different dimension to video.


• RSS
  RSS feeds that people can subscribe to to get the latest information delivered to them as it is available versus going to a site to find it. This is very uselful for alerts, breaking news, etc. for customers, partners, and financial community.

I didn't see the use of a lot of other Web 2.0-esque elements like wikis (probably better suited for extranets and intranets) and mashups on corporate sites. The web is a powerful tool and many companies are realizing that if they don't utilize their websites effectively, they won't be able to effectively go the distance. Clearly, there is still a ways to go.

Google's New SearchMash Site

Google has launched a new non-Google branded site called SearchMash which is designed to serve as an experimental testing ground for user interface ideas without the Google brand skewing the objectivity of the results.

Here are 14 observations on SearchMash:
1. The character count on the SearchMash homepage is even less than the Google.com classic homepage.
2. With SearchMash, there is no search button but there are instructions to 'hit enter to get results' but those directions disappear on the search results page. I always hit 'enter' myself versus clicking the "Google Search" button and I never click "I'm Feeling Lucky". I wonder how many people actually do.
3.The SERP page on SearchMash has a frame for the header which houses the search text field so it doesn't scroll with the page.
4. On SearchMash, you can only search web pages by default whereas Google shows you the options to search for images, videos, news, maps, blogs, etc. but SearchMash automatically gives you results for web, images, blogs, videos, and wikipedia oddly enough.
5. My search for 'flowers' on SearchMash yielded about half the number of results (14,200,000) than on Google (22,600,000). There is no time of how long it took to generate the results, the number of results showing on the page, or definitions.
6. The search results are on the left, and the images, blogs, videos, and wikipedia results are in the right rail along with a feedback survey which doesn't take you off the page. It doesn't seem to save your feedback results on the page if you navigate away to another site and then come back or do another type of search like image/blog/video/wikipedia and and go back to web search.
7. There is no pagination. There are ten results by default, designated by a "..." divider (not sure that's necessary) and when you click a link for 'more web results' or hit the space bar, the page expands downward until, in this case, I hit 100 results (so not sure what happened to my 14,300,000 results) versus paging to more pages as on Google.
8. The results are numbered which is also different from its Google counterpart.
9. The color palette is the same kind of blue and white just a softer blue and no yellow designated 'Sponsored Links' section and no heavy demarcation of section areas. So, if there are any paid links, they are not called out in anyway.
10. The font size is smaller by default (12px), all the text is the same size, the blue is a little brighter and there is no underlining by default for links (not even on mouseover but opting instead for background highlighting).
11. You can click to see images or blogs or video results which then loads in the left channel and web results moves to the top right column and whichever type of result you've clicked on doesn't show up on the right.
12. You can click on 'hide details' in the title bar to collapse the display of web or images results, allowing more results to fit in view.
13. Searches seem ranked the same as on Google.
14. From your SERP, you can also search within a site. So, my search yielded 1800flowers.com as a result, which I could click on to navigate to or search their site for 'flowers'. Cool! It will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Social Networks Going Corporate

For companies with the foresight, Web 2.0 is enabling the transformation of corporate web sites from stodgy old static brochure-ware sites to more dynamic and multi-dimensional sites. Corporate 2.0 sites are integrating social networks, social networking components, or creating separate social networking companion sites.

Old world companies like Cisco are trying to make a foray into this brave new world of social networking via their purchases of Tribe and Five Across. eBay has created its own social networking site called "Neighborhoods" to build a sense of community with users. Even Bank Of America jumped into the game with a social network for small business owners.

This can be a scary new world for old world companies relinquishing control of their carefully crafted images and opening themselves up to criticism from customers actually providing live feedback for the world to see. However, leveraging the social networking platform is a huge opportunity and if done well can yield trememdous benefits such as:
-realtime feedback from your customers. You definitely know what people think and feel, what works and what doesn't and can use it as an opportunity to improve your products and/or services and to correct any public relations issues.
-opportunity to build brand loyalty as customers will see that you value them, and to respond to their issues or concerns.
-opportunity to enable commerce. If customers are recommending your products/services then that can only serve to drive up sales.
-more content and more fluid, timely, user-generated content. Less expensive content for you to create.

Google's Constitutional Amendment: The Right to Rank as they see fit

Some of the most lively debate and controversy at search conferences surrounds the issue of Google and their ranking tactics, especially those surrounding links to and from other websites.

At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose the most interesting (and confrontational) session involved search engine optimizer Michael Gray taking Google's Matt Cutts to task on Google’s aggressive stand on commercially driven linking.

The stakes of the ”right to rank“ question may become even higher in the context of a recent Microsoft v Google case, where MS is suggesting in their court brief against the Google Doubleclick merger that the merger will create something like monopoly conditions in the online advertising space because (according to Microsoft’s sources) Google+Doubleclick serve more than half the world’s online advertising.

Although I don’t think MS is attacking Google ranking methods directly here it will be interesting to see if Google claims that since their algorithm does not rank the free “organic” listings on a commercial basis the suit has less merit than it would if they *did* favor sites in the organic listings. This would, of course, beg the key point that Google’s ranking power is now so high that it can make or break companies - offline as well as online - depending on how they rank in Google's “free” organic search listings.

Some would argue that this power confers on Google an obligation to minimize the collateral damage when good sites are excluded or downranked due to aggressive ranking policies, and maximize the correct rankings using, if necessary, more human intervention.

Google’s success has to a large extent insulated Google from the growing criticism in the webmaster community. Some of that criticism is self serving, e.g. spammers who are unhappy that old spam tactics now fail them, but much of the criticism is coming from users, webmasters and companies who are frustrated because of improper ranks for even the most obvious queries.

Google blames the spammers for this, but it’s a dynamic process and more transparency from Google - perhaps with stronger forms of site and webmaster ID for “official” or clearly white hat sites - could go a long way to solving these ranking problems.