Andrew Goodman Latest search engine news blog articles from Andrew Goodman. http://www.seocentro.com/seo-archives/author/Andrew+Goodman.html Andrew Goodman News Archive http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13180 Under the guise of the weekly personal financial profile called "Me and My Money" in the Globe and Mail, reporter Tony Martin teases out an interesting local tech story from investor Will Ashworth that refers directly to Geosign's click-arbitrage-oriented business model . Holy moly! For those just beginning to score at home, Geosign's properties included a site called TrueLocal, along with several thousand other websites that showed sponsored links, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:43:06 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13096 Google currently holds $46 in cash per share , and its book value per share is $87. Going with the most optimistic figure, if you bought Google stock today at $287, it would be like getting it for $200. An amazing bargain? Personally, I think so - recession and all. Another point to consider is that Google's EPS is dampened by massive expansion. Any belt-tightening at all, or a hiring freeze, could goose profits and add to that cash pile. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:07:37 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=13059 Google has been unusually active with product releases and good-news announcements all of a sudden. Historically, this has often coincided with a PR strategy to blunt the impact of bad news in the immediate news media and blogosphere reaction. In the last few days, we've heard of upgrades to Google Ad Planner, major new developments with Google Analytics, the release of Google video chat, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:30:50 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12793 Somewhere in the world, business carries on more or less as usual. This report shows Canadian auto sales hitting a record in October, while US car sales are reaching new heights of terribleness. Automotive industry expert Dennis Desrosiers wonders whether Canadians opened their "investment statements" in October. Don't they know they're poor? But hey, that's thinking like an American! Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:15:58 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=12737 ...for a long, long while. Pretend Investors: I was recommending you dollar-cost-average your way into tech stocks, by buying GOOG and YHOO at bargain prices. Today is another sickening day on the markets, so what better time to get our buying over with and go back to sleep for another five years. I no longer feel strongly about following up with more YHOO, however. If you like gambling on takeover offers, then take a plunge here at $12.04, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:14:50 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11657 As an interim entry for the annals of the Annual Internet Infinite Regression Awards, I note Best News Site Prediction of Its Own Demise (This Week) - Techmeme on the new Google Blog Search. Will have to check it out. Old Google Blog Search was so bad and so spammy. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:52:39 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=11482 To continue the off-topic nature of recent blog posts... Whenever I tune into a radio station like 92.5 JACK-FM ("Toronto's best music mix," one of several similar best music mixes available), I'm reminded of why I hate it when somebody is so overtly trying to target "people like me". Sure, if you had to target "people like me," I guess you'd try really hard to follow up a song from Green Day with some bad Platinum Blonde. On paper, I like both - or have, some days, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:41:20 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=10516 Of all the responses to the Chrome announcement, three stood out for me. 1. The most obvious approach is to download it and try it, as I've just done. If you like it, predict world domination for Chrome! The thing is lightning fast, and bound to improve. So the commenter on the previous post, Mark, makes a compelling case when he argues: "...while my [Twitter] friends are hardly a representative sample of anything other than agency technogeeks, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:04:35 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=10496 This is one you just have to cheer, for the "hey, cool!" factor. Today Picasa is set to release a feature that will recognize a series of faces in your collection as being the same person, and offering the ability to tag them all quickly. Now that's sharp! I sort of stumbled into using Picasa as it was one of the first photo organizers I used seriously - Flickr notwithstanding. I'm glad I stuck with it. They keep adding features and I find it a joy to use. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:18:23 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=10234 Stale news, but interesting: Jeremy Toeman received a notice from UMG regarding his posting of a video on YouTube that included copyrighted content (U2's Beautiful Day) in the background. The offer from the copyright owner, facilitated through YouTube, basically said, go ahead and leave the video up if you wish, but we'll be showing advertising on it. To some this might sound heavy-handed; to others, a nice compromise. I tend to think the latter. As Toeman writes, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:13:49 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=9938 I just got through a bit over half of Bryan Eisenberg and John Quarto vonTivadar's Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer , on the plane on the way from Toronto to San Jose. In the last hour of the flight, I quickly scanned the remaining chapters. Funny and all too familiar story: I left the book in the back of the seat when I got off the plane, so I expect United Airways personnel, or the next passenger, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:40:03 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=9683 So basically, what SearchMonkey does is allow publishers to push their customized content look and feel right into the Yahoo Search results. Well, not push, actually, but make available, based on open formats. So for users who opt into the widget for any given company's rich content, if the listing for that content comes up in search results, custom look-and-feel info included. So if it's a Yelp review, you get a bit of the Yelp "richness, look, and feel" right on Yahoo. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:38:54 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=9375 Linkworthy for a Friday: Yahoo is now automatically enabling formatted Yelp , LinkedIn, and Yahoo Local results via its SearchMonkey rich data / open formats platform. I'm a big fan of SearchMonkey and happy to see Yahoo forging ahead with it. P.S. Yahoo should acquire Yelp and LinkedIn. This dude is dumping Outlook for web-based email. Welcome to the club, finally! Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:29:33 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=9226 This very timely post by Google Fellow Amit Singhal gives us a brilliant capsule summary of past and present trends in information retrieval. Most of those who pay close attention will be familiar with the high level trends, as well as some of the bells and whistles that search engines have added that do a great job of guessing at user intent. In nearly every bullet point though, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:07:32 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=9129 TechCrunch reports that at the 11th hour, Google walked away from a deal to acquire Digg. Given the perfectly good news-recommendation features being used by more and more users at sites like Yahoo already, it looks like it may not be a great fit for anyone; thus, Digg might indeed have to raise more capital and go it alone. It would be overzealous of Microsoft to acquire it, IMHO, but maybe a strengthened partnership is in the cards. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:21:58 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=9000 Through the magic of dynamic keyword insertion in title, GM's AdWords ad serves up the headline "2009 Chevy Cobalt" when you type "2009 Chevy Cobalt SS". When you click, you're taken to the page for the 2008 Chevy Cobalt, of course, since they're still trying to clear those out. Time to back button: less than a second. General Motors can sort of afford the lost click (for about $2-3) misleadingly applied to their own brand term, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:14:26 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=8717 So a man got 668 clicks on his ads through one portion of his Google AdWords, and zero conversions. And for that, it's seen as good enough reason for a lawsuit . Ever heard of testing? I'm no lawyer, but it looks like the complaint is shoddily written and inaccurate. The thinking here is that the suit has limited merit because: There is little truth to the claim that the ads had "little or no chance of converting. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:45:20 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=8260 Danny's trenchant analysis of this recent court order to Google starts by playing the WTF card, but does much, much more. In this detailed post, he cogently argues for a savvy national Internet privacy act. Absolutely. We cannot endure repeated episodes of clumsy application of outdated law, with judges spinning theories about cookies and IP addresses, sometimes ignoring real privacy concerns, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:49:53 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=8206 Very brief update from conference-land. After attending Fredrick Marckini's excellent keynote session in the a.m., I moderated sessions for the rest of the day. Very brief summary of one: In the State of Search Marketing in Canada panel with Ken Headrick, Brent Bernie, Guillaume Bouchard, Eric Morris, and Martin Byrne (Microsoft, comScore, NVI, Google, Yahoo), Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:50:11 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=7538 Browsing through Sphinn, the forums, and other places where online marketers hang out, it's hard not to notice the disproportionate focus on anything but paid search. To put it another way, the disproportionate focus on SEO, especially SEO 1.0 details, intimate details of SEO's as individuals, who said or did what, and various meta-minutiae contributions like the one you're reading now. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:41:41 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=7462 One thing is certain: Bryan Eisenberg is delivering the SES Toronto keynote on May 18. What is less certain is the topic. It's classified information, says Eisenberg . Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:27:28 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=7388 Andy Beal tells it exactly how it is : Google trends just "took a small baby step towards being something of value." Actually, if you're doing broad keyword brainstorming and seasonality research and you don't want absolute counts, Google Trends is the best available tool. It gives you real Google data (though not absolute), is very handy in terms of presentation of historical data, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:09:44 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=6921 Thinking things over, I've come to the conclusion that Canada has comparative advantage in a few areas (not quite as many as she might think): Smugness Gay Marriage Blackberry Universal Health Care (only compared to US) Diamond mining not in a war zone Oil sands French people not from France We also have some fascinating thinkers and poets nonpareil: Marshall McLuhan, Têtes à Claques , Leonard Cohen, and Funnyman Bobby Bittman . Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:14:07 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=6856 Since Barry Schwartz has escalated his Search Engine Roundtable post to a post over at SEL about Google's - wait for it - new favicon , I thought I'd provide a 10-of-you-need-to-know tidbit of my own, and unlike the lower-case favicon (which Barry doesn't like), it's been something I have been waiting on a long time. For AdWords advertisers and agencies who have an MCC (My Client Center) multi-account dashboard, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Fri, 30 May 2008 14:26:16 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=6129 Henry Blodget's post on the impending crisscrossing of lines on Google's and Microsoft's core businesses is timely. In 2009 sometime, Google's search ads business will be l arger and more profitable than Microsoft's core Windows operating system business . (If Microsoft is lucky, that won't be the day Google launches a hostile takeover bid for Microsoft, a development Sergey Brin slyly alluded to several years ago, when such talk could easily be dismissed as a joke, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 13 May 2008 16:55:06 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=6026 This list of the top 100 Techmeme sites of all time (the site itself only factors in the past 30 days) is interesting fodder for tech meme junkies. What strikes me in particular about the list is the prevalence of people like you and me (that is, if you and me were prolific a-list bloggers). There is a professionalism to many of these writers, but that said, they don't directly represent enormous news organizations. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 10 May 2008 16:21:28 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=5746 Time out to publicize a good cause. Ross Rader, an associate who works at Toronto-based technology company Tucows (and therefore a client; Ross was a co-founder of the company), sent around a message about his upcoming epic ride for children's cancer charities. He's given me permission to reprint the message in its entirety. Without any further ado - take it away, Ross. - Hello - sorry for the interruption (and the lengthy message to come!) As you may know, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 05 May 2008 02:47:37 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=5417 Going back over some posts on Marc Andreessen's fantastic blog, pmarca, I came across this post that places market (and granular product-to-market fit and timing) ahead of "team" and "product per se" as a determinant of eventual success. In other words, a good product with an average team can still win if the market "pulls them along." I always thought of AOL as a company like that. You can probably think of many others. (Some in my field will say GoTo. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:59:46 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=5344 Rich Skrenta finds an interesting bug in Yahoo Search : unlike Google and Microsoft, which return search results, a search for "0" on Yahoo reloads the blank search engine box. He also thinks Microsoft's result is biased. Given the difficulty in figuring out how to handle this pesky query... why not just rank Page Zero at the top? Can't we all be friends? Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:28:47 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=5016 News organizations made a big deal out of comScore reporting a slowing of Google's paid clicks (at least according to its projections) recently. Yet somehow Google blew out earnings again. Was Google reproaching comScore in today's earnings call ? I don't think so. comScore has already warned that its data should not be misinterpreted. Why Eric Schmidt would bother referring to "certain third parties," I can't say, but best not to overthink. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:59:32 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=5009 Google must really be having a hard time getting a read on my email thread today. In this one, I was *not* talking about Mike Grehan. But there he is. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:11:46 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=4957 OK, so I don't want to rain on the parade of the domain registrars who have a national newspaper campaign running to encourage Canadian companies to register a ".ca" . But here's the thing about the messaging ("Get the domain name you really want" - "Avoid getting lost in the dot com shuffle."). It's kind of a load of hooey. Personally, I have a real problem with the .ca. It reinforces the tendency of Canadian businesses to think "provincially." Much of the time, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:01:22 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=4600 Because there have always been more professional SEO advocates and amateur SEO junkies than paid search practitioners and advocates, many have come to assume that organic search somehow "performs better" than paid search. In one ugly distortion of reality, an analytics vendor we like continues to give truncated examples showing that bounce rates (or very short visits) on paid search are higher in many cases than they are for organic search. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:34:22 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=4507 So AOL acquires huge social network Bebo . Sort of reminds me of when Overture acquired two search engine companies prior to being acquired by Yahoo. Bulk up when in reality you're planning your exit. A bargaining chip, if you will. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:08:10 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=4323 As some in the advertiser community had advocated, Google has decided to sell off the Performics division that came along as part of the DoubleClick acquisition. This would have put the agency in a conflict of interest position. Next on the agenda... Ahem. Microsoft? Don't you own ... [Here's the official Google post . Hat tip Techmeme . Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:12:41 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=4126 The following went out to the Traffick Occasional newsletter list a few days ago. Here's the reprint. - Hi all, As usual, it's been awhile. So our industry is at something of a crossroads again. This watershed moment is the will-they or won't-they merge Yahoo into Microsoft to form a giant online powerhouse. My main take has been that consolidation in the paid search platforms currently operated by Microsoft and Yahoo would make life easier for us marketers day-to-day. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:39:53 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3081 All other candidates are conceding. Marc Andreessen's post of last month on the New York Times Deathwatch contains a scathing indictment of the lack of Internet expertise on its very large board. The concluding sentence encapsulates the whole mean mess in a compact format: "So, if you want to issue bonds to pay for FCC-approved snack cake manufacturing in a submarine on display at a national park by a sundress-wearing cigarette-puffing Levitra-popping Judy Miller, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:19:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3082 Google has just released a post indicating that they're poised to incorporate landing page load time into Quality Scores . What does this mean? Well.. it means they're about to incorporate landing page load times into quality scores. [As a side note, much like quality-based bidding itself, it's possible that they've already been testing the inclusion of such site performance variables. After all, they gave the thumbs-down to popups years ago. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:49:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3075 On the subject of Ask.com's latest restructuring, we have the following guest post from Holly Buchanan, of Future Now . Take it away Holly! - So Ask.com is now going to focus on married women . OK, they have my interest since marketing to women online is my focus. "With the shift, the Oakland -based company will return to its roots by concentrating on finding answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies, children's homework, entertainment and health." Um -ok. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:28:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3095 Ask.com is gradually sinking... like the Titanic. Danny Sullivan proffers this detailed obit . I worry for Lisa Barone's health in that she is "intensely angry" with Barry Diller. It's stunning to note that share is king and that differentiation is hard to achieve. Nothing has changed, really, since I riffed on this here 4.5 years ago . Google is winning. Everyone else isn't. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 05 Mar 2008 06:27:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3074 Facebook has done themselves a favor by hiring long-time Googler Sheryl Sandberg as their COO. Sandberg was one of the brilliant early thinkers in the Google AdWords program and part of the reason Google maintained its monetization "compass" for so long... leading to enormous long-term profitability. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:56:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3094 If you're an outsider looking to come up to speed on what's going on in the world of online advertising - particularly with regard to the complex machinations of the paid search algorithms which line search engine companies' pockets - look no further than this post by Magid Abraham and James Lamberti of comScore. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:57:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3093 I'd like to congratulate my friend Mike Grehan on hosting a successful SES London conference. With that perfunctory collegiality out of the way, it's time to get those polite but increasingly competitive Canadian juices flowing. Canada, it's high time we outflanked London on the world map of search marketing. Sure, the old country has its advantages: a pleasingly inflated currency unit, Leicester Square, green grass in February, and those fabulous accents. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:24:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3073 All search engines but Google were, true to form, only moderately competent in last night's Search Bowl trivia game , hosted by Danny Sullivan, who quaffed "girly drinks" while making loud sarcastic comments throughout. Alex Trebek's job is not in jeopardy. Yahoo seemed savviest, but they had a penchant for losing points after winning them. Two steps forward... one step back... etc. The search marketers team had the loudest cheering section, but the most woeful performance. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:51:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3083 I just learned that Yahoo Search Marketing is introducing reserve pricing in their keyword auction. Although the Panama system already included a quality index, this was for ranking purposes only. Now, similar to Google's auction, Yahoo can raise minimum bids to dissuade low-quality advertisers further. It can also, presumably (like Google) use this system to optimize (i.e. increase) its own revenues, concurrent with improving the user experience. Win-win, n'est-ce pas? Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:52:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3076 I'm taking in Danny Sullivan's keynote at SMX West right now. He's talking about social search and the as-yet-unrealized potential of communities like Facebook to influence search results in deep ways. Although this will raise privacy issues, it underscores the value of Facebook right now. It's leveled off slightly, maybe, but it hasn't backed off by much. MySpace, on the other hand, seems increasingly like the trailer park of social media. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:40:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3090 In an SES London session on Click Fraud I had made a reference to the fantastic series Mad Men , using a thought bubble over Don Draper's head that said "Baby, our whole industry is a fraud!" Mad Men were Madison Avenue ad execs, and the series is set in the very early 1960's. Few of my American and Canadian colleagues have watched the show, so I shouldn't have been surprised when no one in the UK audience admitted to ever having heard of it. Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:34:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3072 Phew. I was getting worried Danny Sullivan would run out of material soon. Luckily the attacks on SEO never cease - this one by popular PR guru Steve Rubel , in connection with social media marketing. And so it goes within the part of the world of search visibility that calls itself the "SEO industry." Wandering around in London Thursday with Anne Kennedy and Mona Elesseily, prior to catching Spamalot (irony unintentional), Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:23:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3091 Sergey Brin finds a potential Microsoft Yahoo deal "unnerving" because of the control that a big corp like Microsoft might exert on the "open" Internet in part by "tying up" top sites. Sergey, this is just unbelievable! Where to start? Perhaps with a reality check as to the power you have when you have these market share numbers in search . Or that "tying up" (acquiring) one of the top 10 sites in the world, YouTube, Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:07:00 GMT http://www.seocentro.com/cgi-bin/rss/go.pl?uid=3077 I'm fresh from moderating a very useful Fundamentals session on "Ad Program Strategies: Compare and Contrast" with Thomas Bindl, Steven Kaufman, and Richard Gregory. After the presentations I polled the audience: "from your standpoint as a marketer using these ad platforms: would you prefer that Yahoo remain an independent company, or that Microsoft and Yahoo merge to form a single #2 vendor in the space? Search Engines News SEO News Andrew Goodman Andrew Goodman Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:23:00 GMT