Danny announces his new Search Engine Land site is opening next month; search engines unite on URL sitemaps submission standards; Yahoo exec calls for reform and staff cuts; Yahoo cuts deal with newspapers; Google makes calling local businesses free and much more!
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- WebmasterWorld 2006 Las Vegas Coverage, Search Engine Roundtable
- Greg Boser & Vanessa Fox @ Pubcon, Danny Sullivan's Flickr Set
- Naylor & Amanda Finally Meet: Universe Fails To Be Destroyed, Danny Sullivan's Flickr Set
- PubCon 2006 - Las Vegas Photos
- Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Land Launches December 11, Search Engine Land
- Search
Engines Unite On Unified Sitemaps System
In alphabetical order, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to all support a unified system of submitting web pages through feeds to their crawlers. Called Sitemaps, taking its name from the precursor system that Google launched last year, all three search engines will now support the method. More about Sitemaps is to be provided through the new Sitemaps.org site. As part of the announcement, the existing sitemaps protocol from Google gets a version upgrade to Sitemaps 0.9. However, no actual changes to the system have taken place. The new version number was simply done to reflect the protocol moving from... - Why an XML sitemap is BAD, Dave Naylor
- Yahoo
Exec Releases Jerry Maguire-Style Reform Memo
Over the weekend, an email from Yahoo senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse was released by the Wall Street Journal covering how Garlinghouse fears Yahoo's resources are spread too thinly (like peanut butter on a sandwich) and that massive reforms, along with firings, are needed. Some excerpts:... - Yahoo
Strikes Deal With 176 Newspapers
The New York Times reports that Yahoo has struck a deal with 176 newspapers, consisting of a 7 newspaper chains to "share content, advertising and technology." The first part of the deal will promote Yahoo's HotJobs site, where newspapers will post the local jobs to HotJobs and use HotJobs's technology on their local newspaper site for classifieds listings. Then Yahoo wants to make these newspapers content more accessible within Yahoo's search index, local news and other search services. Greg Sterling has more information at his blog. Postscript From Danny: As a reminder, Google cut a deal for its Google News... - Verizon
Spins Off Idearc
Idearc is the newly spun off parent of local search provider SuperPages.com. The company started trading today on the NYSE. The SuperPages brand, which survives the spin-off, will continue to publish Verizon yellow pages. SuperPages has been the most progressive of the incumbent YP sites in embracing new business models (PPClick/Call) and consumer trends (ratings and reviews). Indeed, SuperPages sees itself not as a “yellow pages” per se but as a local search and shopping resource. Let’s see how far the company pushes that metaphor now that it's on its own.... - Google
Officially Buys YouTube
Yesterday, Google announced that they have officially closed the deal on YouTube, acquiring them for "3,217,560 shares, and restricted stock units, options and a warrant exercisable for or convertible into an aggregate of 442,210 shares, of Google's Class A common stock." For more details, please check out the press release.... - Google
Holding $200 Million In Escrow For Possible YouTube Copyright Cases
First Google was rumored to be keeping $500 million back from the YouTube sale to settle possible legal problems. Then Google CEO Eric Schmidt said they weren't. Today, turns out they are. Google holds back stock in YouTube deal from the Associated Press covers the details about keeping 12.5 percent of the stock swap for one year "to secure certain indemnification obligations." What Eric Schmidt Meant When He Said Google Wasn't Holding $500 Million From YouTube For Lawsuits: We're Holding $200 Million from TechDirt does a summary, plus gives you a funny headline about the entire thing.... - Huh? YouTube Sends TechCrunch A Cease & Desist, Techcrunch
- Sprint
Launches Mobile Search Relationship With Microsoft
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint has launched mobile (local) search has part of a broad new strategic relationship with Microsoft, "allowing its subscribers to use their phones to look up information on local businesses and events and find downloadable multimedia content such as ringtones, videos and games." (Here's the Microsoft release.)... - Google
Expands Mobile Text Ads Beta
Google has expanded its mobile ads beta test beyond the U.S., U.K., Japan and Germany to eight more countries: France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, China, Ireland, India and Australia. Ads appear above and below Google search results on mobile devices.... - Click to call in Google Maps, Google blog
- How To Use Google Maps For Prank Calls, Inside Google
- Google
Testing Map Quick Link Under Search Results
Threadwatch screen captured Google testing out placing a link to Google maps results directly below the search result's description and above the url of that result. It is a limited test, and I am not able to reproduce it, but Matt Cutts of Google has confirmed this as a real test. As long as it is useful to the query and the searcher, I am happy with it also.... - Yahoo
Integrates Answers Into Search Results
Yahoo has finally officially integrated Yahoo Answers into the Yahoo Search results, according to an email we received from the company. We reported back a month and a half ago that Yahoo Tests Enhanced Yahoo Answers Integration In Search Results but now everyone can see it for themselves by conducting a search for vacation ideas. If you do not see it, I have posted a screen capture below of the before and after.... - Answering your landing page quality questions (part 1), AdWords blog
- New
Compliance Manager from Yahoo Publisher Network
Yahoo Publisher Network has launched a new feature that alerts publishers to any compliancy issues within their account, such as URLs that contain content in direct violation of the YPN Terms. These alerts would show up on the homepage of a publisher's YPN account, meaning publishers don't need to worry about compliancy emails going astray. For full details and screenshots of the new compliance manager interface, visit JenSense.... - How do I get my blog to show up?, blog.memeorandum.com
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InfoSpace Launches Kid-Friendly Search Engine Zoo.com
InfoSpace has launched kid-friendly search engine Zoo.com, which provides web and news search. Intentionally there is no image search at launch. The content comes from Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia with news content from ABC News, Fox News and Yahoo News. Zoo.com uses several methods to screen out adult sites and phrases and doesn't generate results for some queries. For example, a search for "sex" yields zero results.... - Yahoo vs Google Tennis Championship, Google Blogoscoped
