Government Services
Proprietary data, global reach and complete accountability for federal, state & global government agencies.
Learn More
Posts Tagged ‘Yahoo!’
4 Things in ’08 That Changed the Face of Search
Christian Vuong | December 19th, 2008
What a year this has been! With 2008 drawing to a close, “Top 10” or “Best of 2008” lists are the way to go. ’08 bought about many changes to the online world, but without being to broad and I’d like to share 5 things I thought contributed to change in the face of Search. #4. The iPhone & Blackberry Why: Local SEO, Location-Aware Search, Geo-Targetted PPC Ads & Mobile Web Sites. 2008 was the year for the smart phone. While numerous manufacturers rolled out new models, it was Apple’s iPhone 3G and the Blackberry that took the spotlight. Apple’s iPhone claimed over 17% of the smart phone market in Q3 and Blackberry continued to roll out newer and faster models such as the Storm and Pearl Flip. What these devices highlighted was the emergence and public adoption of mobile web browsing. Mobile browsing was no longer for just for the businessperson, but for the average Joe the Plumber. Location-aware search also took center-stage with applications like UrbanSpoon, Around Me, and Google Maps (with the iPhone’s GPS). How exactly did this effect search? It further showed the importance of optimizing for local SEO terms and mobile friendly web sites. As CNet reported, Google is starting to display Sponsored Ads on the iPhone. In 2009, we’ll mostly see the rising importance of geo-targetting ads for mobile platforms. #3. Google Search Suggest & Yahoo Search Suggest Why: Long Tail Keywords Ok, this one is sort of cheating because Yahoo! Search Suggest has Continue reading…
Yahoo’s Fantasy Football Flub
Michael Block | October 29th, 2008
[Edit: I just found out that you can upload custom pics in Yahoo fantasy leagues, however, the Flickr integration, I feel, is still relevant. My apologies for the mistake.] I love me some football! And, like most Americans, what I really mean is that I love watching and following football and drinking beer while watching and following football. Of course, I seldom play, but why would I play when I’m in four fantasy football leagues? I’m not a player, I’m a General Manager four times over! I’m much too busy to burn any calories on the field. Of the four leagues, three of them are through ESPN and one of them is through Yahoo. It may sound stupid, if you don’t play fantasy football, but this kind of traffic is huge for both ESPN and Yahoo, really inflating their page view numbers which are key to driving ad revenues on the respective pages. Now, I used to think that Yahoo was the superior service, but I’m beginning on leaning toward ESPN for two major reasons: You have to pay for live stats in Yahoo, You can upload your own team image in ESPN. Let’s throw out #1 for the purposes of this discussion because I have no empirical evidence to show that charging for live stats is a mistake by Yahoo. For all I know, it’s a great financial move for Yahoo since most guys are trapped in a league that they didn’t create and will have to buy the Continue reading…
Yahoo Agency Day Wrap Up
Michael Block | October 1st, 2008
Yesterday, I spent the day in scenic, Burbank, California. No, I wasn’t there to get myself one of those Hollywood-style smoking citations; I was attending Yahoo Agency Day on behalf of Wpromote. Yahoo was kind enough to invite Wpromote to give input on Yahoo’s Search Marketing platform and I was kind enough to drive an hour and a half to be there. Good deal! Thanks to a pretty imposing NDA that I was forced to sign upon entry, there is a lot that I can’t talk about, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a great time and get to discuss some of the issues regarding Yahoo Search Marketing with some very attentive Yahoos. I arrived at Yahoo’s Southern California HQ right on time. After parking, asking for directions from someone who parked near me and then walking a country mile, I was able to get to the right building, put down a cup of free coffee and a $0.50 bagel right before they opened up the main room to guests. Mistake number one became evident right away; I just blew $0.50. Yahoo had a lovely array of fruit, bagels and danishes along with fresh OJ and coffee. After lamenting my purchase, there was a quick introduction from one of the higher ups at Yahoo. He also discussed the Yahoo/Google non-exclusive partnership briefly and then it was time for my favorite part of the day, the panel discussion. The panel discussion was amazing. There’s nothing I like doing more than Continue reading…
Tues News: 7/22
Michael Block | July 22nd, 2008
What’s new in the world of search marketing and the Internet in general? Well, it’s Tuesday, which means, of course, that it’s news day! Here are some of the more interesting stories from this previous week in online news: Yahoo’s CEO, Jerry Yang, and the rest of the board are trying some reverse psychology on Carl Icahn. Will inviting him to the board get him to let up on his crusade to oust the current regime? The Yahoo/MSN saga takes another unexpected turn. Rob Malda of geek favorite, Slashdot, goes on a tirade that I think just about everyone in SEO can agree with; i.e. Alexa is worthless, if not overrated. Due to the vast disparity of tech knowledge between Internet users and the flawed methodology invoked by Alexa, its clout seems nearly incomprehensible. SearchEngineLand.com provides us with a pie chart of what we already suspected: Google is still dominating. The Google, Yahoo, MSN breakdown is still around 60/20/10 and Google has broken 7 billion searches in a month. Wow! So, really, what’s new? Not a whole lot. Google is still king of the hill. Yahoo and MSN haven’t really resolved anything. Alexa? Well, it’s probably going to continue to cause people with only enough knowledge of SEO to be dangerous to give it more credence than it deserves. I’m not sure why people love Alexa’s simple-yet-useless ranking system, but, then again, I’m not sure what’s going on with this whole Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana thing. Does she get two paychecks Continue reading…
