The Search Engine Blog
News and Tips From The Search Marketing World
Yahoo! CEO Steps Down
Jerry Yang steps down as CEO to better the company. Smart move on his part. Not that he’s a bad guy, it’s just that a CEO needs to be detached emotionally from the company he’s managing. Anyone out there interested in applying for the job?
Techmeme: Jerry Yang’s Entire Memo to His Employees on Stepping Down as CEO (Kara Swisher/BoomTown)
Yahoo! News…If You Missed It….
Geo-target and language at Yahoo Search Marketing is now a few days old. Have you visited your PPC account to view the new options? Many appreciate the changes however it appears that you can’t combine the options. Small marketing companies appear to benefit the most, but I can also see some very valid reasons for any sized marketing campaign.
Yahoo! Price Increase
A 25% increase just before the holidays. Merry Flippin’ Christmas to you too Yahoo!. They are also changing phone support to email only. There are a number of other posts across the boards along similar lines. Is Yahoo! burying themselves into a hole? Are they strapped for cash? Are they raising funds to fight the entity that is Google? Is so, shouldn’t we get shares in their stock?
All kidding aside, every company has had price increases. You must decide is this advertising is valuable for your own company. If you are still obtaining value for the dollars spent, live with it or cancel your ads. You’ve probably increased your prices this year as well. (Ok, maybe not 25% unless you sell petroleum.)
Yahoo! Flippin’ Crazy Man
10x the minimum to get into Yahoo! Product Submit. It used to be $25, but many members are receiving email messages that the minimum is $250. There goes the incentive to take a gamble and try it out. I can understand $50, but this is too high a minimum for the average home seller that wants to test the waters. What’s your opinion? Discussion at Webmaster World….
Yahoo! Does Not Equal Redirect
With Google still gaining market share, Yahoo! had better do better than this to stop the profuse bleeding. Here’s a Webmaster forum thread discussing how Yahoo! is ignoring simple www redirects. What else are they ignoring?
Qassia Heavyhanded
Qassia is one of those social marketing sites that is becoming too heavy handed in their attempts to purge their data. Thinking they are Google, they are requiring all users to place tags on their web sites so they can confirm that they want them listed in their engine. Now who in their right mind would go to this trouble unless it was for a listing in Google? Quite honestly, why would I stop work just to put a tag on my site’s pages for a little site that’s still stuck in a closed beta? If I didn’t manage my own sites, why would I pay someone to put the tag on the site. If they had a better system in the first place, maybe they wouldn’t attract the riff raff they are seeking to weed out. The method won’t work and only people who have serious business to attend to will be put off by it.
When I commented about this change in policy to them, I got a very rude reply that I was wasting their time with such comments. As a business, I want customer feedback. I don’t want to stifle it. There was more to their message and all of it was quite hateful. Now that’s the way every customer wants to be treated. Strange policies and rude customer server. Hey, sign me up for this treatment. No one expects a Spanish inquisition.
Bottom line, avoid using Qassia.
Where Do You Want To Go Today?
Talk about verticle market, how about a search engine for public restrooms? Diaroogle searches for “quality public toilets from your mobile phone”. Currently it covers NYC, but they have plans on indexing additional locations. If you are on the go and need to go, then go to this site.
Get a Buzz at Yahoo!
Yahoo! buzz is now open to everyone in the US. Read here to learn how you can share content and vote on others content.
Is cuil Really Cool?
A new search engine in town is being compared to Google. cuil (pronounced cool) has an impressive number of web pages indexed and a nice interface to the web, but Google it isn’t….at least not yet. Still, it’s worth checking out and popping in once in a while to see if they continue to improve. One very noticable thing is that the images they display can’t always be found on the resulting web site. Some of our listings showed images I’ve never seen before so I know it’s not old images. Some links were old and led to different (new) sites or 404 errors. Good luck to them. It ain’t easy taking on the big boys of search.
Cuil
Interview with Yahoo’s Priyank Garg
A must read interview regarding search rankings and how links impact you. If you can only read one online marketing article today, this is the one. Read it, think about it, put it into action.
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