| Top Search News |
NetRatings
Gives Google A Lift
July's search market share reported by Nielsen//NetRatings pegs Google at just
under 50 percent, given their methodology; the top five looked the same as those
featured in comScore's report on search share in the US as well.
ClickTracks
Merges, Now Offers Services Including SEO
I received an email from John Marshall (as did other bloggers and pubs) announcing
the merger of ClickTracks into a group of companies owned by J.L. Halsey that
includes: Lyris, EmailLabs, and Hot Banana in a deal worth about $10 million.
SEO
Directories - A Godsend?
Directories have been around for some time now, even longer than search engines
have. Directories, like search engines, are used by people to search for websites
containing the information they seek.
Google
Mapping KML Applications
Google used the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas this week as a launching pad
for mobile maps functions based on key markup language (KML) files, downloadable
from fellow Trekker developers.
Go
Ogle Somebody, Not Google Them
Google doesn't like Boggle or Scrabble or word jumbles in court. Neither do judges,
it seems. All those exercises in logic, or perhaps regular arguments with teenagers,
proved helpful to Google's legal team when the owner of googlecheckout.com...
AOL
Data Leaked Google Secrets
If anyone in the world of search engine marketing or optimization ever doubted
the importance of a top five organic ranking, a look at AOL's search data, served
up by Google, should remove any question of that.
Google
Base Adds Traffic Stats
The Google Base team added a few new features to its "My items" dashboard,
allowing merchants to monitor search engine results pages (SERPs) impression,
click-throughs, and page views.
Forget
Googling, Go Ahead And Yahoo
Upon hearing that the big name in search has been objecting strenuously to having
its name used as a verb, Yahoo decided to have some fun with the controversy.
PPC
Patent Bid War On The Horizon
According to a couple of sources, there are some very early patents (filed in
1996 and awarded three years later) on pay-per-click advertising that could spark
a bidding war. The patents cover systems and methods for online advertising rather
than the technology for it...
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08.22.06
Jill Whalen Interviewed At SES San Jose
 By
Jim Hedger
This is Jill Whalen's fifth or sixth interview of the day, a fact I am critically
conscious of before sitting down to speak with her at 2pm on the second day of
last week's SES conference.
A few hours earlier, I breezed through the pressroom to check my emails and sort of eavesdropped on one of them. Watching Jill stir patiently while answering age-old questions is making me nervous. Obviously I needed to come up with some better questions.
By this time, most of the conference participants are safely tucked way into one of five sessions and the pressroom I work out of is almost deserted. That's a good thing because at any other time the pressroom is likely to be filled with the noise of a dozen writers hacking away against their deadlines, arguing with their editors, conducting interviews with sources or simply debating the finer points of where to find lunch.
What do you ask the Grande Dame of search engine optimization? To someone like Jill, what exactly constitutes an original question, one she hasn't heard a million times before? As one of the originals in the business, Jill has been around so long her writing techniques and ideas on website marketing have served to define SEO practices.
Over the past twelve years, Jill has established two search marketing companies, HighRankings.com and Search Creative, maintained one of the most subscribed to newsletters in the business, HighRankings Advisor, and managed to maintain one of the busiest SEO/SEM forums. She is also a staple speaker at Search Engine Strategies Conferences and runs a series High Ranking SEM Seminars. In short, Jill Whalen is a busier person than most, except for today.
On this day she only has to do a bunch of interviews, sit in on a session, meet a few friends for supper and go to the Google Dance later that evening so she can add to her collection of Googlesque Tshirts. This time she is only around for a day and a half before heading to Hawaii to hang with family for the rest of the week.
As a featured speaker at several Search Engine Strategies conferences, Jill has had a first hand look at how the industry has changed over the years.
"There are more media covering these shows", she says in the face of what I think is a good wolf-in-sheepish clothing grin. "There are also not as many geeks as there were before. There are more marketing people here this year."
The San Jose show is the largest annual search related conference in the world, growing larger and more diverse every year. "One of the things I like about this conference is the number of new topics being covered, more specialized niches."
Bigger shows mean bigger crowds but bigger crowds don't necessarily make for better experiences. "This conference has grown hugely," she said, "but I really like the smaller ones like London or Toronto where it can be more of a social."
Jill suggests the rapid growth of SES conferences is indicative of overall growth in the search marketing sector and as the sector grows, she sees a realignment happening within it. "There is a greater focus on organic search at this conference," she says, "part of the fun for me is helping teach SEO through leading by example."
She is referring to the tremendous growth of her High Ranking Advisor newsletter
and the High Ranking Forums she started about four years ago. "HR Forums just
passed the 10,000 member mark, boasting over 200,000 posts. As for the newsletter,
I honestly don't know how many readers receive it. There are over 24,000 subscribers
and 100-200 people signing up for it each week."
Read
the Entire Article
About the Author:
Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. |
