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."

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.

NY Times Web Site Purses Online Ads

Two years ago the NY Times began a subscription program charging $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives.

Yesterday, the NY Times abandoned this program and opened up its entire site to all readers. In addition archives from 1851 to the present will also be free.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

Most of the NY Times readers ended up on the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These readers, unable to get access to articles because of the subscription model quickly left the site. The Times hopes that opening up the site will increase page views and in turn on-line advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said.

This is also a win for the writers and columnists who were not getting any visibility due to the restricted access.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the web site gets about 13 million unique visitors each month, thus the potential for increased revenue from advertising, versus subscriber revenue, is so much more attractive.

Now the Times can also deploy better SEO strategies to increase traffic and better target its advertising to get premium rates.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you can't find the site you are looking for or if it is not on the list please submit it.

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

SEO for Web 2.0

Originally uploaded by WebGuild.

Over 200 people attended the WebGuild event on SEO for Web 2.0. The panel shared their views on achieving a high Page Rank, cloaking, linking, link spamming and more. This event was more about achieving SEO for Web 2.0 websites, there will be a another event on SEO for Web 2.0 focusing on flex and ajax.

WebGuildlink
Originally uploaded by WebGuild.

Also, the event provided great exposure and visibility for LinkedIn. The Alexa chart shows that at the time of the event (Nov 29, 2006) LinkedIn experienced the greatest traffic to date.

Overall, it was a great event, here is the link to the photos. Photos and podcast Podcast .

SEO For Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is making the entire internet a giant community by connecting communities of users together. User-generated content can quickly grow a web site to vast dimensions in little time. Web2.0 companies depend heavily on communities and viral marketing to drive traffic to their sites.

However, Web2.0 sites need to rely on search engines to attract visitors as well. But getting a Web2.0 site to rank ‘well” is not as easy as it seems because there generally is less editorial control and various structural issues can cause lack of indexability. These issues can represent insurmountable hurdles for online visibility but they can be overcome.

This event will focus on
- How Web 2.0 companies can increase their traffic and search engine rankings.
- Why all content can’t be tucked away behind a membership login
- How to open up internal data to the search engines without compromising user privacy
- Structural barriers limiting indexability and maximizing the spiderability of a web site

Speakers
David Hahn, VP Marketing, LinkedIn
Joelle Kaufman, VP Marketing, Engage
SEO Strategist, Google

Keyword Optimization

According to a new study by AOL’s advertising.com on keyword performance for paid campaigns, simple, relatively low-cost techniques related to search keywords, titles and descriptions can dramatically improve search performance for advertisers.

"From managing keyword lists to establishing bidding strategies, search management is notoriously complex for marketing professionals," Lauren Weinberg, Advertising.com's research director. "This study reveals several highly effective yet relatively simple ways to generate more clicks or conversions, enabling marketers to obtain greater ROI from both their search budgets and their management efforts."

The study tested three “creative” optimization techniques, each with a different goal, and found that;

Keyword Insertion - resulted in a 38 percent increase in click-through rates, on average. Keyword insertion refers to the incorporation, into the sponsored link, of the exact keywords that the consumer is searching for.

Keyword Expansion - resulted in a 15 percent in click volume. Keyword expansion refers to the expanding of an existing list of keywords by generating additional terms that contain more specific information; the intent is to increase the overall volume of consumers.

Targeted URLs - resulted in a 36 percent increase in conversions. Targeted URLS is an effort to increase conversion - consumers are directed to a specific, subject-relevant page on a website instead of the homepage or a more general page.