Online Marketing Blog

There’s been a flurry of posts about the flaw in Google Desktop Search detected by Rice University staff/students that was quickly fixed by Google. Google Blog has post that explains the details and explains how to confirm you have the most recent version of Google Desktop Search. Nice job Google at responding to all of the attention paid to this topic. Google Blog

This could be the new look of MSN when MSN Search comes out of beta. Do a search and the url redirects to “beta.search.msn.com” rather than “search.msn.com”. Lots more white space - a definite improvement. Thanks to SEO Scoop

Ten major international libraries including Carnegie Mellon University library and The Library of Congress have agreed to combine their digitised book collections into a free text-based archive hosted online by the not-for-profit Internet Archive. All content digitised and held in the text archive will be freely available to online users - FromInformation World Review

“Advertisers need to think of search as part of a holistic marketing plan. Search is the glue between all of their other marketing efforts,” Heidi Browning, media director at Organic.from ClickZ

Is this for real? An “alleged” editor from DMOZ posts about how to bribe your way into the directory. From SEOBook.com

Google was notified by researchers at Rice University of a flaw in the beta version of Google’s Desktop Search product that could allow third parties to access users’ search result summaries and has fixed it in an update that is currently being rolled out through an auto-update feature. Yahoo News - PCWorld.com

I noticed a few new SEO and Search Tools recently and decided to post several that you might find useful.

New - Backlink Tool - Checks unique domains pointing to a site. From Jim at WeBuildPages (thanks Aaron)

New - Google Suggest Scraper - Enter letters, words and it returns more than the default 10 phrases from Google Suggest. Interesting for keyword research specific to Google. From DaveN who also has several other interesting SEO Tools.

Keyword Pagerank Finder - For all you Pagerank-obsessed-crazed fans out there, this tool lets you search for sites that rank according to their Pagerank. From SEO-Guy who has several other SEO Tools.

Yahoo launches video search engine. It searches for files in Microsoft’s Windows Media, Apple Computer’s QuickTime and RealNetwork’s Real Media. From CNet

It’s a bit like image search. You enter your keyword phrase and search results come back in a grid of thumbnails. Click on a thumbnail and it splits the screen into two frames (horizontal) with the thumbnail at the top including a “Play Video” link and the original web page below - much like Google images.

Blinkx video search engine is launched. Sources include Fox News, HBO, ESPN, National Public Radio and the BBC World Service. From ZDNet

Amazing. Firefox enthusiasts contributed enough to place a two page ad in the New York Times today. Over 10 million copies of Firefox have been downloaded already. Get your Free Downloand of Firefox Here

Google announced plans recently to index entire libraries to create the largest virtual library in the world: From Search Engine News Journal

Live from SES Chicago 2004: Yet again, Barry Schwartz, aka rustybrick, covers another SES session in detail. Next best thing to being there.

Choosing the right SEM provider: This year, the sector is worth $5.4 billion, but it will hit $7.91 billion by 2005 and $10.40 billion by 2006, according to Piper Jaffray & Co. research analyst Safa Rashtchy. From BtoBOnline.com.

Great comments by David Berkowitz, Lisa Wehr, Scott Buresh, Dana Todd and Frederick Marckini.