As we initiated the Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Alliance , we had one very clear commitment to our respective customers: offer each of them a quality transition towards the newly formed combined market place. As we enter 2012 and loom towards the implementation of new European markets as early as the first semester, we wanted to let you know the latest news about and what you can expect in the UK and France over the coming weeks.

In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius established Valentines Day, named after one or more Christian martyrs. No romantic elements are known in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs, but Saint Valentine became first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

Its customary at the start of every New Year for many people to take stock of their life and the year that is slowly fading in your memory. We come up with a list of New Years resolutions , sometimes agonising over them and then spending hours writing them out, putting them into order of preference and for the more organised amongst us, writing a detailed action list to help us stick to our newly-laid plans. And then we forget about them.

So theres this thing. We cant tell you what it is just yet, but its coming soon and were going to need the help of three Find a Pro members )i.e. those who have passed the Accredited Professional exam and have opted in to the Find a Pro directory( to get it off the ground. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to dedicate a few hours each week during the month of March to share your SEM expertise. To whom,

Date: January 31, 2012 Time: 11:00 A.M. GMT Duration: One hour Cost: Free Register for free Ever thought about Pay Per Click Advertising but not sure how to get started? You have a search campaign but would like to know more about bidding & budgeting or some help finding keywords? Then this webinar is for you!

Its that time of year again. Your holiday vacation is over, but youre already looking forward to the next one if you live in the colder climates, no doubt youre daydreaming of someplace warm and sunny. Although it might be.

Changes are that by now youve read one or more end of year lists. Our MSN team polled their readers and Bing looked at its search statistics to offer you an insight at what our audience has been looking for in 2011. Is there anything advertisers can learn from these trends and how do you predict future trends specifically relevant to your business? Whats the allure of lists? People )or journalists( seem to like lists.

Meet Customer 2.0a highly social, increasingly plugged-in and incredibly powerful breed of customer who probably knows more about your brand and products than you know about him. In todays wired business landscape, customers can use the power of the internet, specifically social media and consumer reviews, to find the information that helps them spend their dollars more smartly. In fact,

This time next week, well officially be in 2012. I know that freaks some people out because of the whole thing with Mayan calendar ending with 2012, but a little research will show you that that particular factoid signifying the end of the world is a common misconception. The Mayans concept of time wasnt linear, but circular; 2012 doesnt mark the end of time, but the end of a Baktun, the 13th and largest cycle in their Long Count Calendar that begins/ends every 25,

If youre a seasoned PPC veteran whos well aware of the key performance indicators and how to tweak them to achieve the results you want, you probably dont need to read this post as the information in it is geared towards those new to managing PPC campaigns. I know when I first started learning the ins an outs of search engine marketing, I was a bit overwhelmed by how many different factors go into whether a campaign is successful or not. Not only that,

As the nights get longer and 2011 finally draws to an end, we can't help but sit and reflect over what was great, good and challenging over the 12 months. As the UK Search Account Services team prepares for the festive period we all agreed that it would be a marvellous opportunity for a spot of reflection of our own, that's why we wanted to share with you some of our highlights and best blogs. So here we go.

Matthew Stibbe is CEO at Articulate Marketing and Turbine . He also writes the Bad Language blog and the Forbes Aviator column. Search engine advertising is half science and half art )and a quarter basic arithmetic(. It takes a little time to learn and more time to get really good. In my experience, Microsoft adCenter has an easier learning curve than, ahem, some other online advertising system. In fact,

The last few months )or years( have felt, financially speaking, like one of Christian evangelist, Harold Campings claims that we are all doomed. Whilst we may do our best to ignore the increasingly disturbing financial news coming in from well, from everywhere for several months now, it's becoming harder to ignore, isn't it? Its difficult to understand and every other news story seems to open with apocalyptic proclamations about the state of Europes finances,

Reading blog posts is probably not top of mind amidst all the party planning, travel arrangements and last minute shopping going on this week, so you wont see much in the way of updates here on the adCenter blog until next week, though the forums.

While there are many social media venues that capture more attention, there are few if any that seem to connect people, businesses, products and services quite as thoroughly as LinkedIn. Although it may have been originally used as an online repository for resumes from around the world, todays LinkedIn is much more. To learn more about the current size and scope of the network, the many ways SMBs can leverage its power and a few of the new features of interest,

Welcome back to the third and final instalment in this three part series dedicated to correcting the common misunderstandings and highlighting the key functionality differences between search engine matching strategies. So far we've covered off Bidded Match Types and Negative Keywords ; today's blog will focus specifically on the essential UK differences between the Engine Matching Methodologies and Functionality on Microsoft Advertising adCenter, Yahoo!

One thing is clear: there is opportunity in the mobile/local space. Here at ILM West in San Francisco weve heard a lot of great numbers to prove this. But how can businesses take advantage of this opportunity? How do we navigate this new and quickly changing space? This morning a panel of mobile ad networks and product developers tried to answer these questions. Present were Chi-Chao Chang )President of Products and Technology, xAd(, Andrew Osis )President,

Were excited to announce the publication of our latest help video. Meet Susan Palmer from the adCenter team )you may remember her from Eleanor's recent interview with her about the Customer and Partner Experience Group (, shell walk you.

Today brought another great afternoon of sessions at ILM West in San Francisco . Of particular interest was the session about targeting in online advertising and discussion of the proximity effect. *** OHare, CEO and Founder of Local Yokel Media, discussed his companys ability to provide hyper-local targeting. And Jeff Minich, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Yahoo!, presented information about Yahoo!s Proximity Match product. Why is local targeting important?

This morning at ILM West in San Francisco, Gillian Heltai )Senior Director with comScore( presented some great data on mobile usage in the US. The data reveals what she described as a perfect storm for local based services and advertising. First lets talk technology: 3 out of every 4 mobile subscribers own a device with GPS functionality. Over 1 in 3 own a smartphone and in 2013 that number will reach 50%. Both of those numbers are huge for local based services!