Google DoubleClick Hearing: New World vs Old

There is the transcript of the statement made by David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer, Google on the proposed acquisition of DoubleClick by Google (GOOG).

It explains in simple english Google's existing online advertising business and DoubleClick's display ad technology and business.

David went on to say that "Google’s business model has focused on what’s known as the “long tail” of the Internet – the millions of individuals and small businesses that cater to niche interests and markets. We lower the barrier to entry for these small publishers and advertisers, and we match them up with users who are interested in what they have to say or sell."

There is the statement made by the opposing party Brad Smith, SVP & General Counsel, Microsoft.

Smith said, "While there are millions of web sites and advertisers on the Internet, there are actually a very small number of “intermediaries” that provide the tools and services that connect them. If you are a web site and want to sell ad space on your site, or if you are an advertiser who wants to display your ads online, you have to work with them or one of their intermediaries."

Web Video Ads Increase Web Site Traffic

There is a highly correlation between online video ads watchers and an increase in web site traffic. Online video watchers are more likely to act on after watching web video ads. This is according to an online survey conducted by Google and AOL, as part of larger effort to get marketers to move their ad budgets from other mediums such as television to online video advertising.

- 78% of respondents said that online video ads provide as much or more of an opportunity to learn about an advertiser than television
- 64% of respondents indicated they have taken action after seeing an online video
- 44% went to a company's Web site after watching an online video ad
- 33% searched for the product or service after watching an online video ad
- 22% visited a bricks and mortar store
- 21% discussed the advertised product with friends or family

75% of respondents survey said they watched more video online than they did a year ago and more than 50% expect to watch more online video in the next year. Further, 32% characterized the feature product as "innovative", 32% said it was "creative" and 30% said it was "fun".

Google Party Over For Ad Agencies

Google is set to scrap its subsidy payments for European search advertising agencies.

The program, called Best Practice Funding, which has made subsidies to the tune of US$100M, will wind up at the end of 2008. It is in effect across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The program gives agencies that used Google's search engine to book ad dollars, a percentage of money back based on how much they spent on behalf of clients.

The goal of the program was to drive search advertising across the region by allowing investment in technology, training and research to create better campaigns.

Agencies get from 3% to 8% of their ad spend returned each quarter depending on how much money they place with Google and other qualifying factors.

The program is similar to incentives TV and other media ad channels offer agencies, discounts for buying ad slots and rewarding agencies that do higher volumes with more discounts.

Participating agencies get to train two staff members as Google Advertising Professionals and approximately 2,000 have gone through the process to date.

"Agencies are now at a level where they don't need a subsidy," said Damian Burns, head of agency relations for Google EMEA.

Mr Burns did add that there had been a "mixed" reaction from some agencies at the news.

For those agencies that have based their business model on using subsidy as profit in place of the traditional discount for volume buying, will have to rethink their business model.

Google's rival Yahoo! last year modified its agency discount system for search campaigns to offer a maximum of 10% rebate, down from 15%.

MSN has maintained its discount rate at 10%, according to one media agency source.

Yahoo's Casualties in Search War

Semel maybe out but so are 10 of Yahoo's 26 executives (see then and now). A 40% turnover in executive management in one year is pretty high. I guess the battle against Google is taking its toll. Semel, who didn't know what email was before he arrived at Yahoo has left behind a trail of destruction. The vacancies are being filled by Susan Deckers' friends according to sources. Susan, who takes over as President of Yahoo, is famous for saying that "Yahoo's goal is not to be number one in search". Besides losing all this "talent" in a short time, the company is losing millions in severance compensation. Several employees said that Farzeed Nazem, CTO, spent more time filing papers with the SEC over stock options purchases and sales during his 11 year hibernation. The WSJ says it reinforces doubts about Panama when the guy overseeing the global rollout leaves smack in the middle of it. A senior Yahooligan (Yahoo employee) described Panama as larger than the Titanic and that it will help Yahoo capture more search advertising dollars.

Here is the list of executives jumping ship:
Terry Semel, CEO
Susan Decker, CFO
Lars Rabbe, CIO
Dan Rosensweig, COO
Farzeed Nazem, CTO
Chris Castro, CCO
Lloyd Braun, President, Yahoo! Media
John Marcom, VP International, Yahoo!
Phu Hoang, VP Engineering
Daniel Finnigan, VP Classifieds

At the annual shareholder meeting Jerry Yang had nothing to say about Yahoo's business but human rights. Yesterday, he released a statement saying "Terry has given Yahoo! six of its best years".

Yahoo, hosting the Titanic party at its campus in Sunnyvale, CA.

Yahoo Focused On The Past

Angry shareholders voted down proposals to tie executive pay to competitive performance and challenged the company's human rights policies in China at their annual meeting. The meeting was focused on the past three years and a little about the how the company intends to respond to Google's growing dominance.

"I am going to sell all my shares!" said Dotty Webber of Sunnyvale, CA. "He was talking about macaroni and cheese and how people like to eat it. There was nothing about their internet strategy. I went to the Google meeting and Eric Schmidt talked about how Google plans to help the world with the internet."

There was very little said about search, online advertising or Panama. Little to no mention about the acquisitions such as RightMedia or inroads Microsoft is making. No mention about the growing influence of MySpace among brand advertisers or the lock YouTube has on online video. "I don't see much change going forward, the performance of the past three years is set to repeat itself", said Eric Jackson, President, Jackson Leadership Systems. Jackson is a shareholder activist and has a even launched a campaign on YouTube against Terry Semel.

There was more talk about the human rights violations in China and Yahoo's efforts to change that. "They see this as a problem and are looking into it", said Patrick Doherty, Comptroller, The City of New York. A memorandum was issued outlining Jerry Yang's view on human rights to all.

"Search Is History", says Yahoo!

As the company realizes that it can no longer compete with Google, it is saying the future of web search is history. Yahoo says the model for getting information via the browser is outdated. In the future relevant information will be delivered directly to readers. "The future of the web is about personalization. Where search was dominant, now the web is about 'me.' It's about weaving the web together in a way that is smart and personalized for the user," said Tapan Bhat, VP, Yahoo!'s Personalised Home Page.

Interestingly, iGoogle is about personalization and Google has been making alot of noise of about it. Suddenly, it has become the core focus at Yahoo. Yahoo has been losing market share to Google in search and has been recasting itself as a company not focused on search. In fact Susan Decker, CFO, Yahoo has said previously that "Our goal is not to be number one is search". "They've realised they can't compete with Google on search." said Deborah Schultz, a Silicon Valley-based marketing consultant.

Search continues to gain wider adoption as an enabler for online commerce and soon may become the platform for commerce. Billions of dollar are being channeled into search as major marketers and brand advertisers see the efficiency of the medium. The river of money is finding its way mostly to Google. In fact the company does more in reveune in a single quarter than Yahoo does in a year. The entire Searchnomics conference is focused on the importance of search to web sites and online businesses.


On Tuesday June 12, 2007, Yahoo holds it annual shareholder meeting. Yahoo's Terry Semel was the highest paid CEO in 2006, with total compensation of $71.7 million, according to the AP. That is two times more than the $27 million in total compensation for the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, baseball's highest-paid player, and higher than the typical pay A-list stars like Brad Pitt who earn $20 million a movie, plus 20 percent of the gross box office take.

There is even talk that Microsoft may buy the company. That would give Semel a graceful exit. However, the word is that the company is not attractive enough to any single major buyer to advance their product line, not at that price. Jeff Clavier, a venture capitalist at SoftTech, said: "The problem with Yahoo! is that they're trying to be all things to all people but they don't do any one thing particularly well."

All this is making investors, partners and customers very nervous. Several advertisers and partners are moving to Google; Friendster, a social networking site, moved to Google from Yahoo to better monetize its user base with Google's larger ad platform and deeper inventory. If this trend continues, Yahoo maybe history before search is.

82% of Experts Say Web Analytics Misunderstood

According to a survey of over 1000 web analytics professionals, consultants and end-users:
- 82% said web analytics was largely misunderstood within their organisations
- 56% found web analytics difficult

Most respondents had at least two years of experience with the relevant technologies and approximately 25% had over five years experience.

The survey was conducted by Web measurement guru Eric T. Peterson and Jim Sterne, co-founder and chairman of the Web Analytics Association.

According to Mr. Peterson only 8 percent of companies worldwide are taking a process-oriented approach towards web analytics. "In my experience, process is the key to both success and achieving positive and recurring return on investment from web analytics technology and staff", he said.

Mr. Peterson will be the opening speaker on web analytics at the up coming Searchnomics conference, Brett Crosby from Google and Avinash Kaushik and John Squire from Coremetrics will also be speaking at Searchnomics.

Search Conferences

Some of you might find this listing of search conferences useful. It is a listing of the conferences Google Webmaster Team will be speaking at. Searchnomic is on the list. Shashi Thakur will be speaking on Search Engine Friendly Design and Greg Grothaus will be speaking on Search & Dynamic Web Sites and SEO for Web 2.0.

Yahoo CFO Out: Goal Not To Be No. 1 In Search

Susan Decker, the former CFO of Yahoo has been replaced by Blake Jorgensen. He will begin his new job on June 4, 2007. Susan was famous for saying that "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search." and that is precisely the plan the company has been sticking to. Here is the press release from Yahoo.

Google searches web's dark side

One in 10 web pages contains malicious code that could infect a user's PC. Researchers at Google scrutinized 4.5 million pages to and 10% or 450,000 were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge, and a further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer.

Drive-by downloads are an increasingly common way to infect a computer or steal sensitive information. They usually consist of malicious programs that automatically install when a user visits a booby-trapped website.

"To entice users to install malware, adversaries employ social engineering," wrote Google researcher Niels Provos.

"The user is presented with links that promise access to 'interesting' pages with explicit pornographic content, copyrighted software or media. A common example are sites that display thumbnails to adult videos."

Some downloads, alter bookmarks, install unwanted toolbars or change the start page of a browser. However, increasingly, criminals are using drive-bys to install keyloggers that steal login and password information.

Other pieces of malicious code hijack a computer turning it into a "bot", a remotely controlled PC.

Drive-by downloads represent a shift away from traditional methods of infecting a computer, such as spam and email attachments.

The vast majority exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install themselves.

Google will start to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious.
Google, part of the StopBadware coalition, already warns users if they are about to visit a potentially harmful website, displaying a message that reads "this site may harm your computer" next to the search results.

"Marking pages with a label allows users to avoid exposure to such sites and results in fewer users being infected," the researchers wrote. This is similar to the browser install produced by McAfee called SiteAdvisor, which alters users to spyware, spam, viruses and online scams. SiteAdvisor, alerts users of web site's safety by assigning color codes next to the severity of the threat posted. However, the constant pop-up that alerts users of a sites threat level can get annoying and time consuming.

The Google report also identified the other methods by which criminals inject malicious code on to innocent web pages.

1. Spam email - are a common way to infect a computer. It found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets.

2. Widgets - are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a web page or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded from third-party sites. The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave criminals other channels, or vectors, of attack, it found. For example, postings in blogs and forums that contain links to images or other content could unwittingly infect a user.

Yahoo Auctions & Yahoo Photos To Shut Down

Yahoo has told users it will shut down its auction site in U.S. and Canada. This is the second service the Yahoo is shutting this month.

Yahoo posted a message on it website saying the service will no longer accept new auction lists from June 3. The last day to bid or buy goods and services on the auction site is June 16.

On Friday, Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's Network Division, said in a company statement: "We are making great strides in our ongoing efforts to align Yahoo's resources and focus on core strategic priorities."

According to audience measurement firm comScore Inc., online auction leader eBay Inc. accounted for more than 94 percent of online auctions activity among U.S. Web users last week. Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc.'s U.S. auction site accounted for one-third of a percentage point, while Yahoo's auctions held only an 0.2 percent share.

"It comes with little surprise given Yahoo's advertising relationship with eBay, and eBay's massive dominance of the auction category," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott wrote in a blog post.

A year ago, eBay and Yahoo announced a strategic alliance to cooperate on a range of services in their core U.S markets.

Google Analytics Gets New Look

Google announced a redesign of the popular Google Analytics application. The new redesign will make the analysis even more accessible and easy to use while improving the data reporting capabilities of the Web site usage monitoring service.

Products like Google Analytics continue to rise in importance as companies strive to understand how people arrive at their Web sites and what they do once they are there.

Knowing that helps webmasters make their sites more effective tools for displaying online ads, providing sales leads, and generating e-commerce transactions.

According to Brett Crosby, Senior Manager, Google Analytics, "The overall goal of this upgrade is to make the product more intuitive to use and its data clearer and easier to digest so that it can be used effectively to make business decisions."

Brett will be giving an indepth workings of the product at the upcoming Searchnomics Conference as part of his talk on Using Analytics To Improve Your Marketing Efforts.

Sir Martin Says Google Is Frienemy

I was at "The Future of Advertising Conference" at Stanford and Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman, WPP, the largest advertising holding company shared some interesting stats about the advertising business.

1. WPP has a market share of approximately 25% of the global ad business, annual billings of $60 Billion and yet only $200 M of that is with Google.
2. Google's revenues are approximately $11 Billion and at $200 M, WPP is one of Google's largest customers. So Google's tail is very very long and they are just getting started.
3. He went on to say that Google is a FRIENEMY - Google is your friend in the short term and enemy in the long term. His reasoning was Google wants access to large advertising account, that they do not have relationships with and that is where the friendship begins.
4. There was little mention of Microsoft or Yahoo and it understandable as their respective foot prints in this space is still considered baby steps.

On May 16, 2007, the WebGuild will be having an event of The Future of Online Advertising with all the heavy weights including Google. The panel will share insight into the future of online advertising from several perspectives of paramount importance to web professionals, seos, sems or search engine marketers, web analytics professionals, online merchants, venture capitals, entrepreneurs and anyone that uses a website to acquire customers, service customers or monetize customers. There are still a few spots left. If you miss this then there is always Searchnomics, which delves deep into search advertising and search & marketplaces and must attend for all web professinal.

In Search of Traffic

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on why website owners need to harness the power of Search Engines and deploy SEM and SEO strategies to find customers.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are often shoppers' first stops when they're looking for a product on the Web and thus it is crucial for websites to show up prominently in search-engine results.

The is the focus of the upcoming Searchnomics 2007 Conference aimed at web and internet marketing professionals. Search has become the enabler for business. It is the most efficient medium connecting business and customers. Searchnomics is where the leaders of the search industry meet to share cutting-edge knowledge, best practices, and trends in:

• Search Engine Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Design and Development
• Branding and Promotion
• Web Analytics
• New Innovations and Opportunites

The article is only available via paid subscription. Here is the link http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117769688676085058.html?mod=wsj_right_click

Ask.com to launch contextual ad platform

Ask.com is getting ready to launch a new advertising platform for contextual ads some time next month. The offering will debut with other IAC (Ask.com's parent company) properties such as TicketMaster.com, Match.com and Evite before rolling out to non-IAC-owned sites.

The contextual ad product will be a feature of the current sponsored listings service offered by Ask.com. The service will provide marketers a customized ad display with placement options for ad display, relevancy and pricing. Advertisers will also have reporting tools and referrer blocking.

Contextually relevant ads have a better chance of appealing to users than random ads that simply pop up on a webpage. This is another way Ask.com to monetize the traffic on IAC properties.

Local Search Marketplace

Local.com has launched "Local Promote" a service for small businesses.

The service allows small businesses to establish a Web presence with a landing page on Local.com, in addition to various distribution, pay-per-click and featured placement options.

The free basic version includes the ability for businesses to post and update business name, description and contact info. This will make it easier for lots of small business to form a Web presence.

Local.com is one of several companies along with Google Maps, Krillion, Gruuve and others that are enabling the "Webification" of the the local search marketplace. These services enable local business to establish a web presence easily and essentially expand the addressable market of online advertisers.

Once there, they are hoped to evolve into paid marketers, whether that be a subscription service like Local Promote, featured placement or paid search on Google.

Search Engine Awards Launched to Recognize Industry Leadership

There is now an award for the best search engine web site. This is the very first award of its kind to recognize leadership, outstanding achievement, and innovation in the search engine industry.

Entry is open to all search engine websites and there is no cost for participation. The winners will be decided by a panel of judges comprised of industry professionals and nominations received for each search website. Search engines websites are encouraged to have their users vote for their favorite search engine website.

To submit your entry please visit http://www.webguild.org/meetings/2007/searchnomics/search_awards.php.

For more information vist http://www.sys-con.com/read/367042.htm.

Google's New Search Page on IE

I rarely use Microsoft IE, so today when I searched using IE the Google search results page on IE was different to the search results page on Firefox. I guess Google is doing a browser detect and displaying different looks on the different browsers. I would like to hear everyone comments on this.

Google search results on IE



Google search results on Firefox

Google DoubleClick

Google has announced its intention to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. On March 29, 2007, I wrote that DoubleClick and Performics were being shopped and that Microsoft was one of the suitors. I also said that Microsoft would not end up buying DoubleClick and that it would be a better fit for Google.

Google's is the leader in search advertising. DoubleClick the leader in display ads. Display advertising accounts for almost half of the online ad market. Via a DoubleClick acquisition Google would become a dominant player in display ads and extend its reach with advertisers, ad networks, agencies and publishers.

Also, Google would gain key capabilities in the production, brokering and distribution of online ads. DoubleClick brings a network that runs ads across multiple advertising venues, such as AOL and Yahoo, providing Google with deep penetration into the overall online advertising market.

Google reported "Our goal is to make advertising on the internet work better: better for users with less intrusive ads and better privacy protection, better for advertisers with greater accountability and effectiveness, and better for publishers with improved monetization and cleaner site integration."

Google to offer Search via Toilets

Google today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.

"We've got that whole organizing-the-world's-information thing more or less under control," said Google Co-founder and President Larry Page, a longtime supporter of so-called "dark porcelain" research and development. "What's interesting, though, is how many different modalities there are for actually getting that information to you - not to mention from you."

For years, data carriers have confronted the "last hundred yards" problem for delivering data from local networks into individual homes. Now Google has successfully devised a "last hundred smelly yards" solution that takes advantage of preexisting plumbing and sewage systems and their related hydraulic data-transmission capabilities. "There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," says Page. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and - splat - right onto your PC."

Users who sign up online for the TiSP system will receive a full home self-installation kit, which includes a spindle of fiber-optic cable, a TiSP wireless router, installation CD and setup guide. Home installation is a simple matter of GFlushing™ the fiber-optic cable down to the nearest TiSP Access Node, then plugging the other end into the network port of your Google-provided TiSP wireless router. Within sixty minutes, the Access Node's crack team of Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) should have your internet connection up and running.

"I couldn't be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product," said Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. "I firmly believe TiSP will be a breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."

For more information please visit http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html.

DoubleClick/Performics Shopping

Rumors are circulating that DoubleClick is up for grabs and Microsoft might be interested. The price tag is $2.5 Billion (Microsoft rarelyl buys anything more than $1 Billion). If the rumor is true then the DoubleClick acquisition by Microsoft will represent a key piece in the dinosaur's battle against Google.

DoubleClick is the owner of Performics the largest search marketing company in terms of revenue. A big share of their business is with Google. The acquisition would make more sense for Google, which has a lock on search ad dollars to expand its on-line display ad business.

Here is why I think that the deal will not happen;
1) Microsoft does not have the traffic to channel the ad inventory.
2) Microsoft has no experience in the online ad industry and it is clueless when it comes to operating one.

Friendster says Ya Who? & Runs to Google

Friendster, a social networking website switch to Yahoo competitor Google. It is forecast that Google’s display ads based on web search will be integrated in Q2 of this year. Google paid out $3.3 billion to its online advertising partners in 2006.

Friendster hopes that this new deal with the search giant will generate much needed revenue by improving access to advertisers. "As a top-25 global web brand with 19 million monthly unique visitors and 6 billion page views per month, this agreement with Google allows Friendster to leverage the best industry platform to monetize our high-growth business," said Friendster business development VP Aaron Barnes.

Friendster boasts 37 million registered users spanning 75 countries of which 1.3 million are in the U.S compared with around 61.5 million at MySpace, according to comScore.

This leaves Yahoo out in the cold, just weeks after launching their advanced ad platform, Panama.

Ogilvy Group Gets Into Search Marketing

The Ogilvy Group has made a splash into search marketing via the purchase of search marketing firm Global Strategies International. Global Strategies specializes in search engine optimization, brand management and training in search marketing techniques.

Global Strategies International will become part Neo&Ogilvy, Ogilvy's media communications group. Co-founders Bill Hunt, Jeremy Sanchez and Andy Weatherwax will continue to lead the firm as it maintains its own identity as a part of Neo&Ogilvy.

Nasreen Madhany, CEO of Neo@Ogilvy, said that Global Strategies International’s expertise in natural search will improve Neo’s ability to deliver comprehensive search marketing services to its global network of clients. The integration of GSI into Neo@Ogilvy will allow us to deliver end-to-end digital marketing solutions to clients throughout Neo`s global network."

NeoSearch@Ogilvy is the search marketing division, making Neo@Ogilvy one of the only companies with true global search marketing capabilities. NeoSearch@Ogilvy provides clients with a deep capability in both paid and organic search marketing that brings greater accountability, ROI and performance to every marketing initiative.

Vantage Raises $70M

Vantage Media announced raising $70M in series A funding. Vantage was one of the first companies to offer search marketing solutions on a performance basis. As an early customer of both Google and Yahoo, Vantage has gained unique insight into the inner-workings of these search engines and how to harness them to benefit its clients, said the company. Vantage currently manages more than 40 million keywords yielding over one billion impressions per year, and is one of the largest providers of search-based marketing leads for educational institutions.

Since its inception in 2002, Vantage Media has grown each year without external financing or acquisitions. Vantage is unique in its focus on high quality leads from search engines, versus lower-quality alternatives.

Branding with Adwords Coming

Marketers interested in online branding using display advertising will soon be able to do so with Google Adwords. Google plans to introduce cost-per-click (CPC) ad buying in March, to give another payment option to its advertisers who use AdWords to place display ads on select sites.

Presently, display advertisers can purchase ads on a only cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis when using the site-targeting option to select specific sites on which to place their ads.

Some advertisers have been asking for a CPC option as they look for more flexibility in their ad planning and CPC makes it easy to measure ad campaign success.

Yahoo's New Ranking Model

Yahoo has officially roll-outed out its ranking model which is a major component "Panama", Yahoo's new initiative to complete and stay relevant in the online marketing space. With Panama both bid amount and ad quality will now determine an ad’s rank in search results.

The new ranking model is designed to help both search users and advertisers by generating better results, users will receive higher quality search ads. When users engage with these higher quality search ads, advertisers will receive more interested, valuable potential customers. We hope this further encourages you—our advertising customers—to continuously improve the quality of your search ads for users.

Check Out "Checkout"

Google Checkout icon will be updated to better image to the Google Checkout buttons used by merchants on their website. The new image will help shoppers to more easily identify Google Checkout merchants. It will also be appear on the shopping cart on ads in the Google advertising network.

Google Checkout helps users find convenient, secure places to shop through tight integration with AdWords, the advertisements on the Google search results pages. Merchants who decide to offer Google Checkout as a checkout option on their sites are identified by a shopping cart when their ads are displayed on Google.

New media getting more ad money

According to a study from the American Advertising Federation, as much as 73% of online marketers are reserving 20% of their ad budgets for new and emerging media. About 12% of those marketers say they reserve between 21% and 40% of their marketing budgets for new media.

Advertisers are betting on new mediums like television programs viewed over the internet, text messaging and social networking to be among the top categories. The study also indicates that marketers want new ways to use traditional media (78%), a balance of traditional and non-traditional media (75.5%) and increasing awareness of new media properties (57.7%) in order to remain competitive.

One surprising result from the study is that many of those polled believe traditional mediums are in need of a make-over. The respondents indicated that newspapers (51.4%), network television (34.5%), radio (33.8%) all needed to be overhauled to remain competitive with new media like social networking sites, online video and other consumer generated media.

Magazines are not exempt from the overhaul message that marketers are sending. According to the categories of business magazines (46%), women's service (25%), fashion and beauty (18.8%) and men's (17%) magazines are all in need of a make-over to remain competitive in today's market.

The WebGuild event on Feb 15, 2007 held at Google Headquarters examine Online Video: Revolutionizing Advertising & Marketing. The panelists will be;
YouTube Jordan Hoffner, Director, Worldwide Web Syndication, YouTube
AOL Timothy Tuttle, Vice President, AOL Video, AOL
Fox Todd Murtha, VP, Business Fox Interactive Media, Inc.
NBC John Saroff, Content Acquisition Leader, NBC
Moderated by
Daya Baran. Chief Gruuve, GRUUVE

Paid Search nears $10B

According to "The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006" report, paid search campaigns in North America reached $9.5 billion in 2006. About 86% of that spending ($8 billion) went to pay-per-click ads. Spending for organic search engine optimization topped 12% (about $1 billion). Paid inclusion declined to about 1% ($94 million), and SEM technology platforms accounted for 1.3% ($122 million) of the search spend in 2006. SEM spending is expected to double by 2011 to $18.6 billion.

The data was based on spending trends by agencies and in-house advertisers. The SEM programs surveyed include paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization (SEO) and SEM technology platforms.

SEM continues to poach budget from other marketing channels, especially offline marketing programs. "SEM is bringing results and is helping to fuel the Internet-based economy which in turn is driving SEM spending," said Kevin Lee of Did-It.

More than 75% of search advertisers polled say search engine optimization is their preferred venue, rather than paid search ads. One new development for search advertisers is that they prefer to grow direct sales from campaigns rather than brand awareness. Roughly 58% of search marketers wanted direct sales while 57% wanted to grow their brand awareness.

"We have moved from the first wave of adoption of search-based marketing to the myriad of small and medium sized businesses, many of them startups, using SEM as a fundamental part of their business," said Kevin Lee.

Google Adwords led the pack for search ad providers with roughly 96% of advertisers using their platform. About 75% say they also purchased pay-per-click ads through Yahoo, and 68% say they also bought MSN search ads in 2006.

Google Earth gets Local

Google Earth will now incorporate local advertisements. The move will let advertisers place local ads in the form of map markers around the site as clickable links. Logos and contacts details will help users find the exact location of a certain business.

"If you've created Local Business Ads in you AdWords accounts, they'll now appear on Google Earth in addition to Google Maps," Google wrote in an email to customers.

"Advertising a hotel in Lake Louise? A neighbourhood cafe in Paris? Google Earth users across the globe can zoom in on your business. Don't forget to add a customised icon to make your ad stand out," the company added.

Google Earth was originally called Earth Viewer and was created by Keyhole. It is now available under three different licenses - Google Earth, Google Earth plus, and Google Earth Professional.

Google Earth, Google Local and Froogle will be a lethal combination for marketers. It will be a one stop ad purchasing and delivery system.

Danny Sullivan - 'Social Media Engines' are Next Big Search Thing

Danny Sullivan said recently that 'Social Media Engines' are Next Big Search Thing

Social Media engines like Gruuve, Digg and StumbleUpon are the new traffic powerhouses. Now search marketers have another channel to reach consumers in addition to Google and Yahoo.

According to Danny, TechCrunch gets much of its traffic from Google, Digg and StumbleUpon. These "social media engines" are not merely smaller vertical search engines about which search marketers can say "oh, I'm not up on Digg. I might look into it later," Sullivan writes.

These vertical engines are becoming the equivalent of major search engines in their niches. Eg. Gruuve is creating the Google of Music. Gruuve has over 20 million bits of music information. Thousands of users from MySpace come to the site everyday for discovery and recommendations.

The WebGuild Social Search event featured Gruuve, Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious.

Search Engine Friendly Design, Part II

This is an addition to my January 14, 2007 post on Search Engine Friendly Design. I found some additional tips that might be useful on HighRankings.

Best Search Websites 2007

Submit and rate your favorite search websites
Click here.

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Rating Criteria
Accessibility:
Weak - contents are accessed by scrolling through site's pages
Acceptable - contents are made more accessible via a simple search engine or other finding aid
Strong - site incorporates its own search engine with sophisticated search capabilities

Content:
Weak - site consists primarily of links to other sites, some of which are broken or not useful
Acceptable - some unique material; links to other sites are annotated, up to date, and useful
Strong - contains material unique to this site; goes into sufficient depth for research purposes; is accurate and up to date

Authority:
Weak - site's creator is not identified or lacks the credentials or training to present material of value to serious researchers
Acceptable - site's creator is clearly identified and can reasonably claim the authority to present research quality material
Strong - individual or organization maintaining site is recognized as an authority in this subject area

Navigation:
Weak - site is not organized into manageable segments or is confusing to navigate
Acceptable - site is well organized and navigation is clear and consistent
Strong - material is presented in manageable units; access to contents is logical and intuitive

Design:
Weak - site is bland or else so loaded with graphics and features that it is torture to wait for the connection
Acceptable - graphics contribute to the material being presented and enhance the aesthetics of the site
Strong - site loads quickly when initial connection is made; graphics are well-integrated into the design

Accessibility:
Weak - contents are accessed by scrolling through site's pages
Acceptable - contents are made more accessible via a simple search engine or other finding aid
Strong - site incorporates its own search engine with sophisticated search capabilities

Search Engine Friendly Design

This post is borrowed from the WebGuild User Experience Group.

Designing a search engine friendly site can sometimes connotate images of bare bones, back-to-basics, esthetically-challenged sites. But this need not be the case. Design is not a science; it's an art and designing a search engine friendly website doesn't have to mean compromising on design and usability. It just means there's yet another ball in the air to juggle in the continuing quest to meet both users' as well as business needs. We all know the old adage 'build and they'll come', and we all know equally well that this is defintely not the case. A search friendly site is about improving your findability in the vast black hole that can be the internet. Some of the ways that this can be achieved are as follows:

- Keywords: ensure your page content includes relevant keywords that can be picked up by the search engines and that users can also quickly find once they arrive on your site.
- User Vocabulary: use words and phrases in your page copy being searched for by your target audience(s).
- Imagery: use alt tags on images as they are indexed by the search engines; however, go easy on the imagery especially as it relates to critical content as you don't want to risk a missed search marketing opportunity.
-Rich Media: Flash is making a resurgence and is better search engine optimizable; but, consider its appropriate usage. Understand how to make your flash movie search engine friendly, how to embed the flash object in your code to improve its indexability, and the overall limitations of flash search engine optimization.
- Code: keep your code clean and well-formed for easier indexing.
- Text: you can't go wrong with plain old html text; so, emphasize it via bolding as this is weighted more with search engines, and add a plain old keyword rich statement somewhere on the page, even at the bottom.

Advanced Search Marketing

At WebGuild's Advanced Search Marketing yesterday Barbara Coll, Jessie Stricchiola andMassimo Burgio shared their thoughts on a range of topics such as landing page optimization, organic search, paid listings, a little bit on click, web analytics and tools. The event was filled with very rich and practical learning tips and advice. Please listen to the podcast to learn more.

Here are 7 top takes away that I picked up on;
1. Make use of your title tag
2. Get a good web analytics tool that integrates with your content management system
3. Move offline content online
4. Pay the $300 and get into Yahoo directory
5. Use the Google Webmaster SEO tips
6. Have realistic goals for measuring your success
7. Add contact info on homepage

Also, Jessie shared some interesting tools and plugins for Firefox.

One of Firefox plugins "SEOpen" enables you to view some very useful and frequented sites with a single click. Here are some site that are expressed linked.
Yahoo Backlinks
Pages in Yahoo Index

Google Backlinks
Google Cache
Pages in Google index
Google Translate to English
Google Related
PageRank Check
MSN Backlinks
Pages in MSN Index
Alexa Overview
Alexa Traffic
Alexa Related

Alexa Backlinks
"Mass Check" multiple sources at once
Check DMOZ Inclusion
Keyword Density
Page Size Checker
HTML Validator
Server Header Viewer
Wayback Machine
Check robots.txt
Whois Info

Report on Click Fraud

According to the AAAA Click Fraud is estimated to cost U.S. businesses in excess of $1 billion each year. Click fraud is the intentionally clicking an ad with no intention of converting from browser to buyer. The AAAA defines click fraud as “a person, automated script or computer program clicking on a paid search ad, adversely affecting the advertiser who received the click, often to the benefit of the publisher."

Others contend that even publishers derive a certain amount of revenue from click fraud when users click on ads with out intending to buy.

For more information about the report contact AAAA

Advanced Search Marketing

Search Marketing is a subject area that is becoming increasingly sophisticated everyday; yet, it is still far from maturity as a channel and a medium. Today's advanced Search Marketer needs to integrate search into the overall marketing mix to design strategies, processes, and metrics, gain cutting-edge knowledge, and have access to tools to improve Search Marketing performance. WebGuild's December event will delve into these areas and will offer practical advice and tips for successful Search Marketing strategies and operations.

Speakers:
Dave Roth, Director of Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo Inc.
Barbara Coll, Founder & Search Specialist, WebMama
Jessie Stricchiola, Founder, Alchemist Media

Moderator:
Massimo Burgio, Search Specialist, Global Search Interactive

Location: GooglePlex 900 Alta Ave Mountain View, CA 94043

Registration: Visit www.webguild.org

Populist Search Vs. Social Media

by David Berkowitz, Director of Strategic Planning, 360i

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING MIGHT SEEM old-hat and mainstream compared to emerging social media channels, but search's auction-based media buying is far more revolutionary. Despite the hype surrounding the new social advertising channels, however, some of the largest deals lately have involved sites that rebuild barriers to entry that search marketing demolished. The future of advertising might look like a mashup of the past. One of the most radical things about search engine marketing is that anyone can take part in it. To start, you generally need a credit card, $5 for a setup fee, a basic Web site, and Internet access. For just $1 a day, you can start making the phone ring, and if your business can scale, you can wind up spending over $1 million a month with search.

Spending more money on search marketing (not factoring in the use of agencies or technology) buys more reach and frequency, rather than perks or discounts off the rate card. For search advertising itself, the market sets the price, and advertisers can only buy more or less of it; beyond that, advertisers can then work to buy it more efficiently.

The populist dreams of search marketing haven't been perfectly realized so far in terms of every last mom-and-pop business joining in, but the search engines have come a long way. Additionally, through services like pay-per-call advertising and some types of mobile marketing, advertisers don't even need a Web site, dropping one more barrier to entry. With any advertiser being able to take part in the efficiencies of auction-based media online, the democratization of marketing is undeniably real.

While search marketing is still in its early stages--it's hardly a decade old--much attention now is turning toward social media, which is hailed as the future. Yet the future, by some indicators, looks more like the past when compared to the auction-based system. As examples, we'll turn to MySpace and YouTube, which together have reached $2.5 billion in deals with Google this year (the former through an advertising partnership, the latter through acquisition). There are some notable differences between buying with the new players and buying on Google.

The biggest differences are evident when you consider what more money buys you. On a basic level, it's possible to run text-based contextual ads on YouTube and MySpace for little money and with little effort. Yet by buying well into the five figures of display media on MySpace, you can have a custom profile that includes videos, mobile downloads, IM content, basic Flash content, and other features; six-figure spending levels buy even more features, including mashups, personalized photos, and RSS and podcast feeds. Similarly, YouTube is looking to do media deals at a certain five-figure threshold, and it sets six-figure thresholds to let marketers own custom channels.

It's a far cry from the auction-based system, and these buys lend themselves much more to martini lunches than market efficiencies. That should be very comforting to some. It's a sign that while every medium will likely flirt with the auction-based system and perhaps even adopt it for a large chunk of inventory, media buying and planning skills will remain relevant. Some media, such as a souped-up MySpace profile, don't lend themselves well to auctions. If that means some smaller businesses can't advertise there as well, those advertisers will still be welcomed by the search engines.

Auction-based media, as exemplified through search engine marketing, won't replace the old models. To enable online properties with an audience and a compelling advertising vehicle to reach users en masse, a traditional media deal established at a set price and settled with a handshake may be the most efficient kind of buy. The bigger challenge will be for Google, which has earned its billions through auctioning media and now finds itself selling media the old-fashioned way.

That the future will resemble the past shouldn't be so surprising. Social media is media, after all, no matter how you sell it.