[Ed. note: This article originally set to post on 4/28]

Google and Yahoo sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G…well, that possibility could be a reality in the near future. Let it be known that Yahoo is currently seeking a business partnership with Google.

As of April 28, 2008, Google and Yahoo are in the middle of a two-week alpha test. This test is primarily composed of both Search Engines combining and “testing” specific search functionalities to improve Yahoo’s Online search and advertising platform. Simply put, Yahoo Is using Google’s search query and selected algorithmic components to generate and display ads to Yahoo users based upon their searches.

For those that are not familiar with Search Engine market share break down; Google controls roughly 60% of the U.S. Web search market and Yahoo owns roughly 20%. The remaining percentages are comprised of lonely MSN with about 10% market share and the remaining numbers being divided amongst smaller search engines such as Ask.com and aol.com.

The coalition of these two search engines, Google and Yahoo, could dramatically change the world of online search and advertising. In theory, this merger could eliminate all competition within this industry. Why would any business or online surfer want to use a different channel? Google and Yahoo already utilize the most advanced algorithms within the industry and retain the highest levels of user loyalty.

Due to this potential merger, the “Google/Yahoo” test is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and other competition regulators for possibly violating antitrust implications. Nothing of note or credible importance has yet to be quoted or released pertaining to this investigation.

I believe Yahoo is taking the right approach to test Google’s applications, strategies and brand name to improve upon their current search operations. Also, this is a slap in the face to MSN as Yahoo recently rejected their (MSN) $44 billion buy out offer. By rejecting MSN and now “working” with Google, I feel that Yahoo is moving in the right direction to improve their search functionality. If this merger happens, I believe this will be a win-win for the Google and Yahoo, but a major lose for all competing search engines.

One step at a time though, lets see what type of reports and feedback are released once the test is complete and their data is viewable. I am very interested to see what their “test” findings show and what the next steps are, if any.

Addendum:

Generally, my addenda are long and make several sub points on what I write about. However this addendum is quite the opposite. I wanted to point out that I am biased towards Google. My tone in writing this blog may not show it, but I respect Google too much and want them to succeeded and fully control this market. Google is simply a great brand with a great product, which I want to see get better. By Google helping/working with Yahoo I only see future benefits and improvement in this youthful world of Search Engine Marketing. In my eyes, I see Google as the older brother, helping his younger sibling, Yahoo.

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Yahoo’s new system, complete with minimum bids in the same vein as Google, has been up and running for the latter half of April. No doubt, if you are running accounts in Yahoo, you have encountered the message that this change has affected you.

I’m not positive whether Yahoo was inspired by Google or whether they made the decision independent of the the big G, however, the timing is certainly coincidental. Yahoo has been running Google AdWords ads with some real success and so it wouldn’t be crazy to think that Yahoo might start to look a little bit more like Google, if only coincidentally. What is interesting, though, is that the Yahoo minimum bid system seems to make a heck of a lot more sense than the Google system which often requires bids of $1.00, $5.00 or even $10.00 in order for a keyword’s ad to go live. So far, I haven’t seen anything that didn’t look at least somewhat reasonable from Yahoo’s system.

Search Engine Land, a personal favorite news source of mine, weighed in on Yahoo’s minimum bid system as it differs from Google’s and which best practices to enact while dealing with this new system. The article is highly informative and thorough and serves as a nice tool for anyone confused by the new order.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure how big of an effect Yahoo’s minimum bidding requirements are going to have on the final search marketing product. It might serve to cut some of the fat in the system (e.g. users that are inattentive to their Yahoo campaigns or users that will bid on anything, provided that they can get $0.10 clicks), or it might just be a way for Yahoo to make more money. What I do applaud, though, is that, at the very least, Yahoo is seemingly making an effort to improve the quality of their user experience, which has always been a hallmark of Google’s success with AdWords.

Yahoo as a company has a lot of work to do in general in order to stay competitive with Google; therefore, just about any news of change is likely good news. It’s refreshing to see that they are embracing rather than ignoring the need for this change.

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If you want to know more about SMX here is a link to their SMX News Feed.

I had a great time the past two days learning more about Social Media and meeting a lot of cool people. This is a much smaller community then most people think. This is likely because some of these larger conferences (like Webmaster World / Pubcon in Las Vegas) attract a lot of ‘wannabes’ who are on the outside of this industry and are often trying to figure out how to grow their own business without hiring a search marketing firm.

What’s nice about SMX is that most attendees are Search Marketers & SEOs or somehow much more closely related to the industry then some of the larger conferences. For example there weren’t guys there who are all about their online auto sites.

Some of the things I learned about more than I had expected to are listed below

1. I even learned more about the strength of lists in blog posts and on Digg.

2. I won’t make a list now, I was just practicing

Yahoo Answers

So, I’ve learned that Yahoo! Answers is a really great place to get traffic from. All you really need to do is know your own industry, then create a profile and start answering questions from the categories that relate to your site (or your client’s site). The longer you are on the site (by answering questions and participating) you will be rewarded with more abilities. I really like this model, just like SeoMOZ allows you to have ‘do follow’ links after you have reached a certain level of participation.

The important thing to understand here is that as you can gain credibility in Yahoo! on your topic, also be sure to give credit to your page. If your answers are voted ‘best answer’ then you receive points that give you more credibility in the community and increase the link love to your sites.

The help section also encourages you to simply ‘Ask’ your question if they don’t help you out with what you need either!

When answering questions, it is encouraged to site your sources, in which you would be best to put something like the following:

Source:
Aaron Kronis / Wpromote
http://www.wpromote.com

After 4 days, the ‘answering’ of posted questions ceases and everything goes into ‘vote’ mode. Most people don’t really care about the questions, they are just looking for answers so you can go in and simply vote for your own answer as the best - your competition will be with the others who answered and want the ‘10 points‘.

Yahoo has a ’scoring’ system where you start with 100 points and after 250 you can then start to click ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ on questions, for example along with more options like being able to ’star’ a question more times then just 10 in one day. You get 2 points for answering, 10 for best answer and -5 to ask a question.

Extra special: from SMX - > Another sneaky tip for all you bloggers and SEO folks out there: In Yahoo! Answers, on the profile below the avatar you will see 3 tabs: Answer, Discover and Vote. Click on vote, look for your own questions and vote on them. Most people don’t remember or know how to do this.

Wikipedia:
It has come to my attention after SMX that the large community of Wikipedia can be an excellent resource for helping out your clients with their link-building efforts. If you find a very old picture on Wikipedia and your client has the same thing for sale and has updated photos that are ‘not going to have licensing issues surrounding their use’ - basically amateur photos - then you may be able to get them into Wikipedia.

This would be you helping Wikipedia grow its image database with newer fresher and more up to date images. You would give up the ‘rights’ to the images, but in exchange for a link when it is referenced on Wikipedia. I’m still researching the numbers on this, however it is amazing how many links you can actually get from this if your image is accepted.

Start learning about this at The Wikimedia Foundation, which consists of volunteers who edit “The World’s largest free online encyclopedia”.

Until next week,

Team SEO

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If you’ve messed around with creating a web page, odds are you’ve used tables. Tables are a great way for someone who is new to web design to start laying out their HTML. I know that’s where I started. While they can get the job done, tables were not designed to be the backbone of web page layout. The table element is meant to be used for displaying tabular data (hence the name). Time to learn some CSS!

What is CSS?

CSS stands for “cascading style sheet.” Think of it like this . . . there are two main properties to your web page. On one hand you have the HTML. Your HTML is responsible for the content of your website and has NOTHING to do with the visual representation. On the other hand you have your CSS file which tells your web browser how to display the content. Check out csszengarden for an excellent visual representation of this idea. Here you can see the work of advanced web designers applying unique CSS files to one common HTML document. Notice how each example contains the exact same content, but is displayed in a vastly different manner through the use of CSS.

Separating content and design is extremely important. One of the most frustrating things on the web is waiting for a web site to load. If I’m browsing the web and find myself stuck loading a page, chances are I close the window and find someplace else to go. So if you want to drive traffic to your site, you want to make it load as quickly as possible. This is where using CSS really shines! Browsers are much quicker at applying CSS properties to an HTML document then reading through HUGE table layouts. CSS files are also cached (stored) on the user’s computer which means it only has to be downloaded once. So if your web site has more than one page that references the same CSS file, load time is almost instantaneous.

Using CSS also addresses the issue of getting listed in search engines. The cleaner and more organized your web page is, the easier it is for search-engines to read and rank your site. If you have completely identical sites, in terms of content, where one is designed using a bulky table-based layout and the other using CSS, search-engines can make a more educated guess as to what the CSS based web page is about, and thus will receive a higher ranking and more search traffic.

Switching over to CSS layouts is a very important step in website optimization. While it can be pretty intimidating at first, it is a giant leap in the right direction. I highly recommend checking out the web tutorials found at Lynda.com to get started. If you’re more advanced with CSS, alistapart.com is a great site to learn more about professional techniques and web standards.

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So, there’s good news and bad news from the Yahoo camp for Microsoft.

The good news is that Yahoo is definitely open to the idea of a buyout.

The bad news is that it’s gonna cost Microsoft much more than they originally anticipated.

Yahoo responded to Microsoft’s buyout bid by reiterating that the $44.6 billion offer undervalued the search engine and online mega-portal. Despite the fact that Yahoo share prices have recently dipped to well below the offered price of $31/share, Yahoo is confident that they can get more out of a potential buyer. Other names that have been discussed as interested in Yahoo include News Corp. and Time Warner Inc.

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of Yahoo becoming the property of Microsoft. The effects on paid search would be difficult to predict. Many remember that Yahoo and Microsoft shared Overture as a paid search provider years ago and, since Microsoft broke away from Yahoo in mid-2006, the companies have moved in different directions in terms of the quality of their search products.

Although Google’s AdWords product is unmatched in terms of usability and efficiency, I think that it would be fair to say that Yahoo, especially since its move in 2007 to the “Panama” platform, has made significant strides to improve. Whereas Overture and Yahoo Search Marketing in its infancy were very difficult to use and were often easily ignored by users who frequently dedicated their entire search budget to Google, nowadays, we find that Yahoo is, at the very least, an excellent supplement to an active Google AdWords account and, in some cases, a flat-out better provider of quality traffic.

Microsoft’s MSN adCenter product, on the other hand, continues to baffle users and agencies alike. With an inefficient user interface, an inability to opt out of unpredictable traffic drivers such as a-list, and a still developing support staff, Microsoft has, in many ways, regressed even from the days of Overture. Who’s to say that Microsoft, despite its war chest of funding, wouldn’t simply degrade the quality of Yahoo’s product in the event of a takeover, leaving Google without any real competition? It’s a frightening possibility.

It’s unclear whether Microsoft will balk at Yahoo’s demand for a better offer or whether this was an expected move from the opposition in what will inevitably be a buyout. For search marketers, though, I feel that there is some cause for optimism in either scenario. If Microsoft does balk and Yahoo remains independent, I feel that it really puts the pressure on Yahoo to continue to invest in their search marketing product in an effort to narrow the usability gap between Google AdWords and itself. In the event of a takeover, I would hope that Microsoft would be more likely to integrate with Yahoo’s current model or upgrade their current system to include some of the improvements that Yahoo’s system offers. Microsoft is many things, but it is not a stupid company; we could potentially end up with a product superior to the current Yahoo and MSN products that integrates both engines.

The ball is back in Microsoft’s court. Unless they are ready to pony up more cash, Yahosoft remains purely fictitious.

**Update: There was an interesting BusinessWeek article backing Yahoo’s play of holding out.  Check it out.

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Last week, the Account Development department welcomed its newest member, Amir Shoucri. Not surprisingly, Amir’s fresh perspective introduced a compelling blog topic…He wrote:

With all the immunity granted to the ignorant new guy, I’m going to throw this out there – I never clicked on an Internet ad before working here. I realize I’m walking a fine line, and at the risk of subverting what we do, I’ll be upfront about it. Like many people, I associated search-engine advertising with a variety of other negatives – spam, pop-ups, spyware, viruses etc. What’s more, I considered myself sophisticated enough to avoid all the traps set to ensnare the casual web browser. I use search engines; they don’t use me, kind of thing.

That having been said, I will admit to some misapprehensions. I don’t think I understood what a Google ad was until recently. The most I ever thought about it was the time I was discussing my private life in an e-mail and suddenly noticed I was being offered a variety of mental health services. Having now attained some background, I’m fairly impressed with the standards Google maintains for ad style, content, and security.

Web advertising is a pervasive new industry. I’ve worked in other pervasive industries, and all of them felt underappreciated. In television, it was always about the Nielsen ratings (Q: How come no one is watching our show? A: Because, Donnie Wahlberg is in it). In the education field, it was similar (Q: Why does no one value us? A: Because, knowledge makes people unhappy). Determining cause and effect was a game of constant guesswork.

With online ads, however, it seems the proof is in the pudding. If someone clicks on an ad, navigates to a site, and makes a purchase, that to me is literal, definitive evidence that advertising works. This is not the gray area of traditional advertising or sociological academia; the ability to assess is tangible and simple. People, despite what I would have guessed, are clearly clicking on ads.

I get the sense that I’m not alone in my initial misconception of this industry. What impression do most people really have?

After putting some thought to the issues raised by Amir, I wrote this response. Several points probably deserve a lot more attention (see future blog posts) but there’s plenty of food for thought:

Before I joined the Wpromote team, I could have counted on one hand the number of times I clicked on Google and Yahoo ads. Sure, I used the search engines extensively when I was curious about something, or working on a research paper. Google was my homepage for at least two of my four years in college (AltaVista was probably my homepage for the first couple years, if you can cast your memory back that far…) and Yahoo was never far from my address bar, but my cursor never strayed from those organic results.

To this day, every time I talk to someone about what I do at Wpromote, the conversation inevitably turns to organic search. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say “Well, I hardly ever pay attention to the advertisements on (preferred search engine). Can you help raise my position in the search results?” Well, as a matter of fact, we have an entire department devoted to that: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It will cost you more money and take far more time, but we can help move your site into the elusive and coveted Top Ten.

So then what? Let’s say you have a site that sells hand saws, and we get your site into the Top Ten for keyword searches of “hand saw.” Well, now you’re wedged somewhere between image results, a Wikipedia entry (see future blog entry), an article on “How to Choose the Right Handsaw”, and a few manufacturers websites with far more awareness and visibility. What have we accomplished? A spot in the Top Ten, and little (if any) additional traffic.

Internet advertising continues to struggle with its longstanding reputation for poor user experience. Anyone who’s ever been on a computer has probably dealt with pervasive and intrusive pop up ads. Many have had a computer infected with Spyware and other privacy-invasive software, which sometimes host viruses that render computers virtually worthless. User distrust of online advertising is understandable, if a bit misguided. As the saying goes: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Unfortunately, many internet users categorically ignore or dismiss all forms of advertising they see online.

Still, I don’t hear anyone suggesting online advertising is overvalued. When News Corp acquired MySpace for $580 million in 2005, you could hear jaws hitting keyboards worldwide. Now analysts are suggesting the site would be worth $15 billion in today’s market! Elsewhere, advertising megafirms are producing million dollar “Viral Videos” for clients to flood the web and rack up view counts on YouTube, all in the hope that they will translate to increased sales. Some of these videos don’t even feature the client’s name, logo, or slogan, but hope the subject on screen will subconsciously register with viewers. The traditionally held concepts of brand identity and recognition in the advertising industry are being shaken to their foundations as the World Wide Web continually repositions and reinvents itself.

Right. So we’ve got subliminally encoded videos and privacy-invasive software logging our every move online to figure out the way we think. Is that what people want? Seems to me that anytime an ad pops up in my face, even if (read: especially if) it’s advertising a product I want, it will only evoke Orwellian fears in my mind. People don’t want to be spied or preyed upon; but, when they want something, they want it as quickly and conveniently as possible. Which brings them right back to where we started: their trusted search engine.

Having said all this, the fundamental issue still remains: the Google and Yahoo advertising departments could stand to hire their own PR reps. Should they advertise their own advertising? How can they regain the trust of internet users who clearly want the advertised products, but fear the links will implant some sort of tracking software on their hard drives? For one thing, they can continue to offer the user-friendly advertising they’ve become known for. The cream always rises to the top. More and more people will eventually catch on to what’s happening on the right hand side of their search results pages. It certainly helps when online businesses have well built, highly targeted, and closely managed ad campaigns. I, for one, have come to discover that I’m actually more likely to find what I’m looking for under the sponsored links.

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Despite its very public financial problems, Yahoo has made the bold decision to reject Microsoft’s initial bid to takeover the struggling company for 44.6 billion, or $31 per share, according to The New York Times. Sources say Yahoo’s official response will be delivered on Monday, February 11th, ten days after Microsoft made its offer.

Yahoo’s board of directors met on Friday, February 8th to discuss the bid but a clear strategy for moving forward has yet to emerge. However, Yahoo executives feel the company is worth more than 44.6 billion, and remaining independent is still a potentially viable strategy. Likewise, working with Google is still a possibility. Yahoo executives are also considering the antitrust challenges it would likely face in either scenario.  According to NPR, a merger with Microsoft would give the new entity an estimated 30% of the market share in search.

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Likely you have heard about Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo by now…

It was announced on Friday, February 1st to a slew of commentary.

While I lack any new insight on the pending merger, I do find this hilarious.

Is Google really suggesting that a Microsoft/Yahoo merger would compromise the open nature of the Internet? I agree that Microsoft screwed the PC market. I’m both a MAC and PC user and I am currently looking to purchase a new home PC. It is frustrating to be forced to choose between buying a newer model PC installed with Microsoft’s new and bug-laden Windows Vista OS or paying more for an older model PC installed with the time-tested Windows XP. It is my opinion that an unfair abuse of power underlies Microsoft’s sales strategy. That being said, with Google’s domination of search and its increasing influence over the all things Internet, I find it ironic that Google would say Microsoft is challenging the openness of the web.

There may be more to Google’s interjection than meets the eye, however, as the New York Times reported today. And as consumer and someone who works online, I would prefer that Yahoo remain an independent entity. I wouldn’t even mind if Google helped raise the funding to make an independent Yahoo possible, and whether or not that would benefit Google is less of a concern to me than what might happen if Microsoft and Yahoo merge. Yes, I think it’s ironic for Google to call out Microsoft on its history of antitrust troubles, but in the end, if it came down to choosing between Microsoft/Yahoo and an independent Yahoo by way of Google, I would choose the latter. Then I would go buy a PC. Go figure.

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On the heels of Mike Block’s post about Ask.com and their 3% market share, comScore Inc’s new study estimates Google’s market share has grown to 60% worldwide and 50% in the United States.

“According to comScore’s qSearch 2.0 service, more than 37 billion searches worldwide went through Google in August. That’s about 60 percent of all searches, higher than Google’s 50 percent in the United States.”

Google however, is not number one everywhere. In China, Baidu.com remains the dominant search engine and their share in the Asian market is enough to rank them in the Global top 5, according to comScore Inc.’s inaugural report on worldwide search patterns.

Clearly the biggest room for market growth for both Google and Yahoo is in China. While Google clearly dominates Yahoo in the US and Europe, Yahoo recently added to their internal push of growing their reach in China by announcing that they will buy 10% of the shares in the initial public offering of Alibaba.com. AliBaba.com is the business-to-business unit of China’s biggest online retailer. Yahoo already owns a 40% stake in Alibaba.com Corp.

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Last week Nielsen/Netratings released the August 2007 results on the top 10 search providers in the United States.

Not surprisingly, Google continues to reign supreme, taking home 53.6% of searches and recording a 39.8% year-over-year growth in total searches. According to Nielsen, they recorded nearly 4.2 billion searches — in August alone. That amounts to nearly 50 billion searches a year, a number which is simply impossible to fathom. That averages out to over 166 searches in Google annually for every adult, child, and baby in the United States.

Following not even close to the heels of Google was Yahoo, tallying a 19.9% share of searches.

The biggest gainer in the bunch was MSN, which recorded over a billion searches in August, and had 69.8% year over year growth. They came in third with a 12.9% share of searches.  I can only assume that this massive jump is due to the release of the Windows Vista OS, which come loaded with MSN search as the default search preference for users.

Looking at these numbers, it is hard to fathom anybody truly challenging Google’s lead. There are still plenty of ways that Google can trip up, from the recent privacy concerns to simply the law of large numbers preventing Google from continuing such absurd growth (though this still does not diminish their market share, just potentially their sky-high stock price).

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