Don't cry for me Digerati, for I'm going after the married women -- so says Ask.com, about its new direction. And so say we not all. Yahoo turns 13, but will it make it to 14. A top Google exec jumps ship to Facebook. And more in today's episode!
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5 Ghastly PPC Mistakes to Avoid - SEM Agencies and Reporting: Best Practices for Success
- IAC Cuts 8% Of
Ask.com & Kills Search Engine
IAC's Ask.com to Cut Staff, Outlines New Search Strategy from the Wall Street Journal reports IAC has cut 8% of Ask.com's workforce, by letting go 40 people. Not only that, the Wall Street Journal says IAC is changing the strategy of the search engine to "focus to better answering search... - Obit: A West
Coast Digerati Deadpools Ask.com
Goodbye, Ask.com. You caught my eye back in 1997 as an unusual meta search engine that asked questions to get answers. By 1998, I counted you alongside Google and Direct Hit as shining examples of what to watch in search. You'd dumped depending on others for search results and... - Ask.com Adds
More Sponsored Ads, Pushing Organic Results Below Fold
I was messing around with the Ask.com interface on my Mac and decided to compare some results between my Mac browser and Internet Explorer for PC. I noticed that Ask.com is now displaying five sponsored results for many keyword searches. The organic results are now below the fold, like they... - Yahoo
Celebrates Its 13th Birthday; Will There Be A 14th?
As Yahoo celebrates its 13th birthday, the looming question is: will the company be able to find an alternative to the Microsoft offer or will Steve Ballmer & Co. prevail? According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo has recently "stepped up" talks with AOL about potentially folding AOL's business... - Facebook's New
Chief Operating Officer, Ex-Google VP, Sandberg
Facebook announced Sheryl Sandberg as the new Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. Sandberg worked at Google for six years at Google as Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations. Sandberg will join Facebook on March 24, 2008 and is responsible for helping the company scale its operations and expand... - Google Adds
Page Load Time To Quality Score Algorithm
A WebmasterWorld thread tipped both Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Roundtable (that's me) off on the fact that Google has added an additional quality score factor to the AdWords ranking algorithm. The new factor is page load time. If your destination URL is a very slow loading page, then... - Google Tests
Additional Search Box Within Search Results
Tamar tipped me off to people seeing secondary search boxes in the Google search results. I see them myself now. For example a search on amazon returns this search box directly under the snippet but above the URL, here is a picture:... - Matt Cutts &
The Search Community Interview
I finally got around to watching Whiteboard Friday - The Matt Cutts Interview and felt it was worth pointing out. Matt Cutts, Google Engineer, is a huge part of the SEM industry. Rand Fishkin's interview with Matt Cutts explores that relationship. Questions include how Matt got into being the face... - SEOs Want The
NOINDEX Tag To Not Show A Page In The Index
Matt Cutts of Google posted a blog entry asking SEOs how they want Google to handle the NOINDEX meta tag. If you use the NOINDEX meta tag now, Google won't show the page in any way in the Google index -- not even a "link only" listing. Matt asks SEOs... - Need More Link
Building Advice? Here Are 12 Experts
Pole Positioning Marketing has compiled yet another link building advice article. This one is very good, it asks 12 link building experts to provide a link building tip that you might not find elsewhere. The advice comes in both short and long form from Patrick Altoft, Hamlet Batista, Jim Boykin,... - Looking For
SMX Advanced 2008 Session Ideas (And Speakers)
I'm often asked what's the best way to speak at one of the search conferences we organized. The answer is simple. Suggest a great session. Do that, and you've got an excellent chance to present. And right now, we're looking for some great session ideas for our SMX Advanced conference... - 10 Reasons to
Attend SMX Social Media - Register Before March 15 and Save!
Early bird registration for Search Marketing Expo - SMX Social Media in Long Beach, CA ends March 15. Register today and you'll pay only $1195 for all the sessions, keynotes, networking and parties. Space is limited so secure your spot now. This West Coast version of SMX Social Media is.. - Google-Funded
Lunar X Prize Aims To Put Private Rover On Moon
The latest X Prize is the Google-funded Lunar X Prize, which was announced in September, 2007. It seeks to award $20 million to the first scientific team that can land a privately funded robot on the moon and meet a number of other criteria (explore terrain and relay results back...
