http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/ 2008-09-22T22:23:14-06:00 Sympozeum_searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com News, updates, added features, products, services, partnerships, etc. on search engines. http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Life_in_Google_Hell.html 2007-05-02T14:35:00-06:00 An interesting Forbes article discusses what its like to find your site in Google Hell. It also addresses what may be a growing issue, Google's ability to continuously index the billions of Web pages floating around the Internet. In the case of Skyfacet.com, it appears they were penalized for having a mirror site or mirror pages, i.e., pages that have the same or similar content on them, which Google interprets as someone's attempt to game the system. Skyfacet shouldn't throw in the towel. By retaining a search engine optimization company with SEO specialists who know what they are doing, a specialist could petition Google on behalf of Skyfacet and possibly resurrect their site to Google's regualr SERPS. Was that too much of a Biblical analogy?     James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Mac_Users_Can_Now_do_the_Google_Desktop.html 2007-04-05T09:56:00-06:00 I've been using Google Desktop since it first came out in a beta version a while back. It's great for finding files that you've long forgotten the names of but suddenly have a need to locate. It's not perfect. I've gone in search of an item on more than one occasion only to come up empty. But it seems to be better than any of the alternatives. I didn’t realize it, but Google Desktop has not been available to Mac users, a few of whom are friends of mine. Well, Google has finally released a version for my Mac buddies. You can learn more about it, as well as see what Mac-devotees have to say about, by visiting this article at Search Engine Land. I think this is yet another example of Google staying ahead of the game, and offering products and services to as many Internet users as possible, thereby creating and maintaining a loyal customer base. Is it any wonder Google stays ahead of all the other search engines when it comes to innovation and keeping customoers?   James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/SEMPO_Reports_SEM_Spending_Hit_96_Billion_in_2006.html 2007-02-09T14:26:00-06:00 The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), has released it's annual industry survey, The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006, whose findings conclude that spending paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization (SEO) and other forms of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) hit a record $9.6 Billion in 2006. SEO remains the most popular form of SEM, although paid placement still gets the lion's share of online marketing budgets, with total spending of $8 billion. Expect SEO spending to grow as a percentage of marketing budgets, as a growing number of advertisers continue to see the benefits of organic SEO as an important element, maybe the most important element, of their marketing. James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Pipes_Bricks_What_Exactly_is_Yahoo_Building.html 2007-02-09T09:07:00-06:00 Just a few days ago, February 7, 2007 to be exact, Yahoo! launched Pipes, a service designed to allow users to combine, or as more tech-savvy types might put it, "mashup", data from various Web sites. What is Pipes? Here's how it describes itself on it's Home Page: "Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant." A further explanation on the same page says: Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line. What's that mean? Well, for example, using Pipes, you can combine news feeds from both Google and Yahoo News on one site. But maybe the best way to get an idea of what this mashup produces, is to visit their site. And it seems Pipes is part of a broader initiative at Yahoo! that's been dubbed "Brickhouse." You can learn more about Brickhouse in this BusinessWeek article. What it boils down to is Yahoo! is hoping Brickhouse will give it a way to develop new products, rather than finding itself buying up other companies who've already beaten it to the punch on developing next generation Web features, tools and platforms. Remember, Yahoo! and others had developed photo sharing sites, but Yahoo! found itself spending millions to buy Flickr because Flickr was seen a s both an innovation leader and, perhaps more importantly, cool. There's a desperation among large companies to appear "cool," on the Internet, and thereby attract the millions of 18-to-34 year olds who advertisers and businesses alike crave as customers. Of course, as we've seen time and again, even if you can somehow manufacture or buy cool, it eventually fades away. In fact, not to long ago, Yahoo! was cool, only to see itself supplanted by Google (we should note, even Google's cool cache is way down these days). Whether Yahoo!'s Brickhouse proves to be a good idea remains to be seen. The brief history of the Internet is waist deep in similar ideas and operations that failed.   James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Search_Engine_Spending_Expected_to_Rise_by_39_in_2007.html 2007-02-06T13:30:00-06:00 Outsell, Inc. has released its second annual report on U.S. ad spending and, based on their survey of 1,010 advertisers and media companies, spending on advertising on search engines is expected to grow 39 percent. The press release, issued by Outsell,  indicates that overall online spending will grow 20 percent. Interestingly, 49% of those surveyed indicated they plan to reduce their Pay Per Click (PPC) spending because of click fraud concerns. The report demonstrates the growing confidence advertisers are gaining in marketing on the Internet, as online spendings share of ad budgets rises while more traditional media will see continuing declines in ad spending. Also noteworthy in the report is the fact that advertisers rate online advertising as a very effective means of branding, wihch runs counter to the conventional wisdom that online is effective for generate leads, but poor for branding. Expect to see an increased focus on search engine optimization (SEO), as these same advertisers continue to see the value of SEO in both attracting prospects and bolstering their branding efforts. If you'd like to know more about how you can leverage SEO to both develop your brand and attract prospects, why not give us a shout today? One of our Zunch account executives will be happy to discuss what SEO can do for you.  And if PPC is part of your online marketing efforts, don't forget that we also specialize in click fraud detection, and can help you both identify and recover ad dollars lost to fraud.     James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/The_Numbers_May_Vary_But_Anyway_You_Figure_It_Googles_On_.html 2007-02-01T10:33:00-06:00 Following on the heals of the earlier release of  search share numbers by Compete  and comScore, comes word, courtesy of SearchEngineWatch.com, that Hitwise and Nielsen/NetRatings rankings are out. Nielsen’s numbers were similar to those reported by comScore, with Google remaining on top of the search pile with 50.8% of all searches in December 2006. Yahoo was second with 23.6% followed by Windows Live Search (MSN) with 8.4%. Hitwise gives Google an even larger share, while also providing early figures for January 2006, pinning Google’s share at 63.1% and Yahoo at 21.6% for December 2006, with Google having the same figure for January, while Yahoo slipped to 21.4%. No matter how you add it up, Google remains the dominant search engine.  And if Hitwise's numbers are correct, Google is garnering nearly two-thirds of all searches. Even with numbers hovering around the fifty percent margin, as reported by comScore and Nielsen, Google's numbers are envious. Charles E. Wilson, former CEO of General Motors and the Secretary of Defense from 1953-1957, once was famously misquoted as saying, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." At that time GM had over 50% of the auto market. Is the day coming when we'll say, "What's good for Google, is good for the country?" Okay, not the best of analogies, but Google's continued dominance of the search market remains incredibly impressive, and you have to wonder how much of the economy and commerce is tied to seraches completed on Google. James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Zunch_Communications_Inc_Sponsors_Search_Engine_Optimization_Show_AwardWinning_Interactive_Agency_Team_Heads_to_Chicago_for_SES.html 2006-12-06T08:19:00-06:00 The Zunch Communications, Inc. (http://www.zunch.com) team arrived in Chicago today to participate as a Premier Plus sponsor of JupiterMedia’s Search Engine Strategies conference. As a sponsor and exhibitor, the Zunch team will be available in booth 305 for consulting and information regarding agency services. Jeff Martin, Director of PPC Auditing and Fraud Detection Services for Zunch will be serving on Thursday’s panel entitled, “Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues.” MORE Matthew Shehorn http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Zunchified_Panel_SES_Chicago_Auditing_Paid_Listings___Click_Fraud_Issues.html 2006-12-05T16:40:00-06:00 I'll be at SES Chicago and looking forward to your questions on pay per click (PPC) auditing and click fraud. The panel is Thursday, December 8th from 12:30-1:45pm. Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues Did you really get that much traffic from paid listings last month or is something funny going on? Reviewing your paid traffic is an essential task any serious search engine marketer should undertake. Discover how to spot abnormalities and follow-up with search engines if you suspect a competitor or someone else is creating clicks just to drive up your costs. Also discover the proactive things paid listing providers already do to protect advertisers. Jeff Martin http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/_Mozilla_and_Yahoo_Partner_on_APAC_Firefox_15.html 2006-11-30T09:38:00-06:00 I'm unashamed to pronounce Firefox as a superior browser, and with over 100 million downloads and market share now over 10%, it seems many are in agreement. As Firefox grows, it's been fascinating to watch the alliances and maneuvers of Mozilla. Yesterday, the final version of Firefox 1.5 launched, and with it another strong alliance. Yahoo has partnered with Mozilla to distribute Firefox 1.5 in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. I believe its fair to say that Internet Explorer has a strong hold on the browser market in those countries. Our own analytics show over 12% of visitors to zunch.com use the Firefox browser, but only 4% of our zunch.cn visitors. Can Yahoo! and Alibaba make waves in the Asian browser market? My guess is yes. As the number two search provider in blosoming China, they seem to have quite the opportunity before them. I'll follow up in a couple of months to see if our browser stats change significantly... Tyson Kirksey http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Zunch_Sponsors_Search_Engine_Optimization_Show.html 2006-11-28T20:50:00-06:00 This time next week we will be in the "windy city" for SES Chicago 2005 ~ December 5th - December 8th. Always a great time and a great event! Work hard in the day time and play hard in the evening. I had the opportunity to attend last years event and was surprised at how far the conference has come along. Last SES I attended, prior to joing Zunch, was SES Dallas back in 2001. Feel free to stop by our booth (305) and visit with John Sanchez and other Zunchers! Matthew Shehorn