Is Yahoo! Assist a new form of news and media or is it a waste of time? Some people are swearing by it. I’ve yet to hear anything negative.

Personally, I don’t have anything negative to say either, but I do believe it doesn’t stand up to Ask.com 3D or Google Universal. Besides the News and Media Blog coming up in the No. 5 spot for the phrase “News and Media,” I can’t imagine that there’d be anything super about it. It’s really just a no-brainer that the search engines - all of them - would go this route.

I like Yahoo! Assist as a feature. I can’t wait to see further improvements.

News and Media Blog

The Internet has spawned an entirely new industry of search engine marketers, who attempt to manipulate the results of search engines based on keywords and links. A recent comment thread on one of my favorite blogs showcased the following comment from a fellow reader:

The keyword density argument is very similar to that on reciprocal linking. We are told that this is not of any future value. Only inbound one way links will count.

Next week we could equally be told that keyword plugging of any description is bad for your search engine health.

Why can’t the search engines work purely and simply on a “Quality& Effort” standard then it will be the same as everything else in life. We all will have an equal chance to promote our sites accordingly and be judged on merit.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about how to market oneself and one’s business on the Internet. First, it isn’t about keyword density. It’s about high value content, but you can’t write high value content without keywords.

You also can’t provide such content without links. Inbound one-way links to your website are quite valuable, especially if they are from websites related in content to yours. Truth is, the search engine algorithms consider hundreds of factors when ranking web pages for certain keywords.

This commenters notion that the search engines currently do not operate on a “quality and effort” standard is entirely false. The problem is too many website owners have figured out what the quality is supposed to be and have tried to game the system through dishonest or false keyword and link play. Google’s answer to this is to offer personalized search and future search engine developments such as latent semantic search prove to fix that problem. Right now, though, search engine marketers are stuck with the system that has been created by Google and its competition. If you want to rank high for your keywords you’ll have to work within the system, or risk being shut out for good.

News and Media Blog

The most recent development in search engine technology is latent semantic search, or what some people call “natural language.” The idea is to make a search for a particular term and the search engine will deliver results based on the context in which you use the term rather than focusing on specific keywords that might have several, or ambiguous, meanings. Will the search method have any merit? Will it be useful?

Some of us are hoping so. One of the newest search engines, which hasn’t gone live yet, has developed a natural language technology - latent semantic search - based on artificial intelligence, which promises to deliver the types of results that searchers have been longing for. The name of the search engine is Powerset.

Powerset is not yet live, however. It won’t go public until September 2007. Meanwhile, they have begun their beta testing, which they call Powerlabs. I was selected to be one of the beta testers, an honor I don’t take lightly.

I am looking forward to sharing my insights with my readers in the coming months as I use Powerlabs to discuss changes in the search landscape. I have high expectations so I come down a little on the harsh side sometimes, well, que sera que sera. If latent semantic search does not work as a technology, wouldn’t it be better to know it now as opposed to later, after we’ve all spent considerable time and money on its investment?

News and Media Blog

A mini-revolt leading up to today’s Yahoo annual meeting made some impact: The company said investors with a third of its stock voted to tie executive pay more closely to company performance, as pressure builds on Chief Executive Officer Terry Semel to narrow Google’s lead in market share.

This is an interesting development. Unfortunately, this measure didn’t pass as 1/3 of the stockholder vote wasn’t enough to make it company policy. Still, it does reveal a certain change in perspective among shareholders in general. It could actually happen at some company in the future where executive pay is tied to performance. A lot of people have been calling for that to become national law for some time. Scandals involving Enron et. al. at the beginning of the Millennium made that much more on the minds of many people in the last few years. I believe this sentiment will grow stronger in future years. Meanwhile, back at Google …

Trying its best to quell privacy concerns raised by European regulators - gotta keep an eye on that evil thing - Google is cutting the time it keeps the personal search records of its users.

When Google first announced it’s limit on the time it will keep personal records, privacy advocates saw it as somewhat of a victory that Google would ditch personal information after 24 months. Now, the company has announced it will ditch records after 18 months. I still think that’s too long. I say cut it to 12 months and you’ve got a deal.

News and Media Blog

Google will certainly take Street View to the next level of sophistication, and I have a few suggestions. Resist the temptation to use live cameras (that will really make the privacy folks go insane). Take this international. I want to walk through the favelas of Rio from the safety of my laptop. I want to examine the ruins of Cherynobyl without ruining my kidneys. I want to glimpse shami kabob in the markets of Kabul. I want to see a shirtless guy peeing in Tehran.

In other words, this asshole wants a war he can watch on TV without the danger of being collateral damage. Oh, wait! He doesn’t need Google for that, does he?

The problem with Street View is that there is no inherent value in it for anyone. Google is a search engine. Their purpose is to provide easy-to-find information for the world’s searchers. How valuable is some guy peeing on a street sign? Who will be looking for that ‘information’?

News and Media Blog

NameCritic posted at Blogs.pn a couple of ranting reviews of Yahoo’s Sponsored Search. I rather like one comment he made:

(Blogs.pn) They should stop calling it Yahoo Sponsored Search and start calling it Yahoo Hussein where you will do as the dictator says.

I’ll never use Yahoo Sponsored Search and will recommend my clients do not use it either. The fact that they have the attitude that is is THEIR search engine and they will do whatever they want with the money you pay them, then they will fall flat on their face in the long run.

His battle with Yahoo started April 24, 2007 when he made this post regarding Yahoo’s Sponsored Search services.

In that post, NameCritic mentions that Yahoo doesn’t allow advertisers to choose their own key phrases. That’s rather strange. Why would anyone want to advertise with Yahoo if they can’t use key phrases that are important to them? It makes no sense. If you are a business trying to rank for certain key phrases and drive traffic to your website so you can capitalize on those key phrases for your customers’ benefit then you want the best key phrases possible. This kind of thinking from Yahoo is undoubtedly what keeps the search engine in second place among those even contending. Just imagine if there were real alternatives. What place would Yahoo be in then?

News and Media Blog

One of my favorite features of Google’s personalization features is “This Day in History.” Many of the entries link to The Free Dictionary.

Well, it just so happens that today in history a Confederate sympathizer by the name of John Wilkes Booth snuck into the presidential box at Ford’s Theater in Washington and shot president Abraham Lincoln. The year was 1865.

As Booth leapt from the balcony to the stage he broke his leg and yelled “Sic semper tyrannis!” which translates into “thus always to tyrants.” He followed that up with “The South is Avenged!”

I’ll have to disagree with the actor on that last statement. Lincoln lived. But the previous sentiment, that tyrants deserve death is an absolute. Too bad a majority of modern historians don’t echo that sentiment.

At any rate, Booth went on the lam for two weeks before being found in a barn and shot. Perhaps we should institute a memorial John Wilkes Booth Day to commemorate the passing of a courageous rebel warrior?

News and Media Blog

Cybersquatting, the act of using trademarks and widely recognized domain names to lure people onto similar websites after misspelling the trademark or entering a typo, has been around since the earliest days of the Web. As early as 1999, ICANN started addressing the practice. There was even legislation attempting to penalize those who practiced cybersquatting (Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act). It is clearly frowned upon by some in the industry.

It is interesting to note that the practice of cybersquatting (now more commonly referred to as typosquatting) started raising heads at about the same time that Google started raising its head. The No. 1 search engine didn’t invent pay-per-click advertising, but it sure took it to the next level, and it’s no coincidence that typosquatters rely on PPC advertising to make their millions of dollars in revenue every year. This makes Google look rather circumspect in the eyes of some.

In December 2005, eWeek ran a story on the issue challenging Google to put a stop to this practice and cut typosquatters out of the Google AdSense loop. Google’s response was a paraphrased “It’s not our problem.”

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Privacy. Say that word in post-911 America and people cringe.

Well, Google recently announced a new policy that it would make all information it gathers from users private after 24 months. Some people say that’s too long. But I applaud Google for making the move nonetheless. They could have just left things they way they were.

The policy will allow law enforcement officials to require Google turn over information for criminal investigations but give ordinary law abiding citizens assurance of some level of privacy. As long as you are not being investigated for a crime you’ll have a certain level of privacy within that 24 month period as most people aren’t going to care what you’ve been looking for. After 24 months, however, even low enforcement agencies will have difficulty getting your information. Can’t solve the crime in a reasonable period of time then I guess you’re just SOL. Thanks Google.

News and Media Blog