WebMD is apparently the target of yet another merger by 2 major health web sites. Last week, Revolution Health and Everyday Health merged . This week, HealthGrades.com has announced its acquisition of WrongDiagnosis.com. Here's a Compete.com snapshot at how the 5 sites stack up against each other. It looks like Revolution and Everyday are in better position to take on WebMD. HealthGrades has a ton of content behind a premium content wall. But all of them, including WebMD,

Omniture has agreed to acquire the site search and merchandising assets of Mercado. Already a partner of Omniture, Mercado's tools were previously integrated with Omniture SiteCatalyst through Omniture Genesis. "Omniture is the top supplier of Web analytics to the retail industry and this acquisition extends our leadership further into merchandising," said Josh James, CEO and co-founder of Omniture.

Google Webmaster Central has released a couple of updates: one to the API settings and one to the crawl errors feature. Here's the sparkling new things you can do with your API settings : Crawl Rate: You can request that Googlebot crawl your site slower or faster than it normally would )the details can be found in our Help Center article about crawl rate control(. If many of your sites are hosted on the same server and you know your server's capacity,

With shares dipping below $13 last week and yesterday's rally only boosting the price to $13.49, Yahoo's third quarter earnings will be watched pretty closely. Next Tuesday at 5:00pm EST, after the bell )which may or may not mean much during this volatile market(, Yahoo will announce its Q3 2008 earnings via phone and webcast . What do you think Yahoo's earnings will show? Debate your predictions in the comments.

Search Engine Strategies and Market Motive are teaming up for a new online workshop series. The next workshop will be an action-packed one on "Landing Page Testing for Higher Profits" hosted by SiteTuners.com CEO and author of Amazon's e-commerce bestseller "Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions" Tim Ash )yes me(. This will be an interactive session with audience participation. If you would like additional information,

AdWords Conversion Optimizer has new eligibility standards that should make it easier for more people to use the tool. Now, if you've had 50 conversions in the past 30 days, you're able to use the tool. The AdWords team says that new techology has boosted the performance of the tool, as well. If you're not sure what Conversion Optimizer is,

Yahoo has updated its contextual advertising solution, Content Match. They say you won't notice cosmetic changes, but what you will notice is that "It just works better." So, what works better? Yahoo says new technology is better at the actual matching of ads to content. As a result, they say they are seeing higher click-through rates. Of course, all of this is still dependent on ads, keywords, and settings chosen. Are you using Content Match?

MySpace has launched a new self-service ad platform. Dubbed "MySpace MyAds," the new platform allows anyone to create banner ads and use the social network's HyperTargeting technology to find target audiences. MySpace offered up the following steps for advertisers to get started: STEP 1: Visit https://advertise.myspace.

I don't know if everyone is in a bad mood over the economy or what, but web content is having the worst week ever. First, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the internet was a cesspool . Then, Kevin Kelleher at GigaOm said that certain social sites are ruining the whole social networking industry because their nicheiness has gone just a little too far in his not-so-humble opinion. Finally,

Google is preparing for the launch of their iPhone ad options, according to AdWeek . Several ad agencies have been given previews of the new option by the search giant. The ads will be optimized for browsing on the iPhone, which enables direct Internet browsing instead of browsing via the mobile web. They will include an option for click-to-call. The iPhone already has a feature allowing users to click on any text phone number and it will dial it automatically.

On Friday, the YouTube Blog announced that the video sharing site was starting to test full-length programming. Apparently, YouTubers have been asking "to be beamed up with Scotty, to devise a world-saving weapon using only gum and paperclips, and to get your grub on at 'The Peach Pit'." Hey, I'm not making this up. Go to the YouTube Blog and read it yourself. Through a deal with CBS, YouTube is now offering "Star Trek," "MacGyver," and "Beverly Hills,

To achieve SERP nirvana, your search engine optimization and paid search efforts must have the same goal. In today's Search Marketing Crossfire column, " Is Your SEM Truly Looking at Search Holistically? ," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson offer five important questions to make sure your potential search vendors view search holistically when updating ongoing strategy and planning considerations.

As the travel segment gets increasing crowded, and the major online travel agencies continue to build brand identity, the race to leverage new opportunities in search and social media is most definitely on for smaller players. In today's vertical search marketing column, " The New Era of Travel Affiliate Marketing ," travel search expert Elisabeth Osmeloski looks at just how important affiliates are to the online travel industry.

Marketing has grown fairly sophisticated over the decades, and it would be foolish to view search as anything more than a component of a much more comprehensive marketing plan. Gone are the days of thinking that our only job is to drive customers to a Web site. In today's SEM agency issues column, " Search is Not Enough ," William Flaiz advises us to examine the entire marketing funnel, not just the search component, to maximize our marketing dollars.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and that Microsoft acquisition offer for Yahoo earlier this year is looking sweeter by the moment looking in the rear view mirror. Too bad Yahoo rejected the $31 per share offer , because their stock has plummeted to $13 a share this week. To be fair, some of the drop is due to the greater markets. Even Google is down to the mid-$300s after being up around $580 earlier this year.

Digital advertising company MIVA has released an update of their toolbar, enabling customizable features. MIVA is also launching a customizable homepage and a widget site, ALOT Buttons, for their customers. The ALOT brand launched in the last quarter of 2007 with the theme "Make the Internet Easy." ALOT products aggregate proprietary content and third party content across vertically themed toolbars and homepages.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt must love controversy. In a speech to magazine executives Wednesday he called the internet "a cesspool", AdAge reported . I don't know if that makes Google a sewerage company, but I think Schmidt should realize that many look at Google as their filter to the web. Employees like Matt Cutts spend all their time working on 'purifying' the results, to expect publishers to be the answer may not be the right approach.

ChunkIt is a new search toolbar that bills itself as an x-ray for search. What it does is search your choice of the "big five" search engines, and then displays results on the right and the textual content of the results on the left. Once the results are loaded, users can click on a paragraph in the left hand side, and it will highlight the paragraph - and then load the full page in the right side.

Soleil Securities has downgraded Google stock )GOOG( from "buy" to "hold." Their reasoning is that ad-driven companies will see a slowdown to the weak economy and that Google is already experiencing a slowdown in growth of their ad revenues. Soleil analyst Laura Martin downgraded the price target for GOOG from $580 to $350. GOOG was at $334 at the time of this post. Google will hold its 2008 third quarter earnings call and webcast next week . Meanwhile, Local.

When it comes to conducting a local search, where do people begin their searches? This is the topic of a recent survey conducted by TMP Directional Marketing. They found that search engines top the list of sources used first in local search. Here's the breakdown: Search Engines )31%( Print Yellow Pages or White Pages )30%( Internet Yellow Pages Sites )19%( Local Search Sites )11%( People searching for local businesses online has increased from 26% in 2007 to 30% in 2008.