Online Marketing Blog

As of Feb 1, MSN Search will be powered with its own search engine.

Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice-president of MSN Information Services & Merchant Platform division at Microsoft, said: “The final version of our MSN search service provides us with an infrastructure that allows us to continually and rapidly deliver innovative new features that give consumers precisely the information they’re looking for, no matter where it’s located.” From Brand Republic

An ambitious advertising campaign is planned including the Super Bowl, the Oscars and the Grammys as well as print, Internet and outdoor promotions. CNET News.com

Tags: MSN, search engine, Microsoft, search

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Google has become a domain registrar scroll down to #895. From BetaNews and Threadwatch.org

Interestingly, Google already has a business unit targeting the domain name industry: Google Adsense for Domains – From LexText

Tags: Google, Registrar, Domain Names

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msnsearch’s WebLog posts a new version of the Toolbar Suite for download.

Fixes and enhancements include:

* Eliminated the virus pop ups and increased performance (more below)
* Ability to index Outlook items when it isn’t your default email client
* Clear Deskbar text after performing searches
* Fixed a majority of reported Dr. Watson bugs
* Several bug fixes to improve overall stability & robustness

Tags: MSN, desktop search, toolbar

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This may not be SEO news, but it’s big news in the business world: SBC to buy ATT and P&G buys Gillette. That’s a combined $73 billion worth of business. – Wow.

Tags: ATT, SBC, P&G, Gillette, SEO

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A Harvard b-school conference including reps from Ask, Google, MSN and Yahoo discussed the need for greater relevance in search tools and the push to create a more personalized search engine.

An interesting comment from MSN: “We weren’t separating results (from ads) a year and a half ago, and since we’ve begun doing so, the response from both users and advertisers has been huge. Google proved that if you have clarity, people respond.” (imagine that)

The overall tradeoff for more personalized search is how much information are people willing to give up for a better search experience.

Full Article: Future of search rides on relevance | CNET News.com

Tags: Harvard, Ask, Google, MSN, Yahoo, search engine

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I think Thomas (our Mac loving SEO) will like this one: brandchannel announced its reader’s choice Brand Rankings by Impact for 2004 listing Apple as the top global brand, replacing Google after a two year hiatus. The survey tapped opinions of almost 2,000 ad executives, brand managers and academics on rating the impact of a particular brand on people’s lives.

Tags: apple, mac, google, brand

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Google Blogscoped posts an excellent collection ofresearch tools.

There are also some exellent search and SEO-useful tools at FaganFinder which include links to blog directories and blogging resources.

And here’s 97 Free SEO Tools

Tags: seo, research, tools, blog, blogging

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Google has released a new AdWords API (and blog) which will allow Google advertisers access customizing the Google AdWords management tool. As expected, advertisers with larger spends will be allowed more activity. Also, this has nothing to do with the placement of ads or Adsense.

Snippet from Google Blog – Live: “The AdWords API beta program is an open invitation to developers to explore new concepts (and then write great software) for managing Google AdWords advertising campaigns.”

More coverage:
* InsideGoogle
* SearchEngineWatch Blog
* ThreadWatch
* SEOBook
* SEO Scoop
* Google Blogscoped

Tags: Google, AdWords, API

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Voting is now officially open for the Business Blogging Awards. Visit the site and vote for your favorite blog in any of 20 different categories.

I am very pleased to announce that Online Marketing SEO Blog has been nominated in the Best SEO Blog category. Google agrees, since a search for “SEO Blog” ranks us #1.

Voting Guidelines:

• You can vote in as many categories as you like. You don‚Äôt have to vote in every category.
• Voting will close at 12:00 PST on February 16, 2005.

Take a moment and vote!

Tags: blog, awards, business, blogging, SEO, SEO Blog

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Amazon.com launched a new visual yellow pages feature of its A9 search engine last night. Here’s an example search for coffee. It picks up your location by ip address or if you’re logged in to Amazon.com it uses your billing address. More info on how they did it here.

Excellent post on Threadwatch.org with links to other coverage.

Tags: A9, Amazon, Search Engine

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mozillaZine reports that another Mozilla developer Dain Fisher is a Google employee. No browser in Google’s future? Right!

Other coverage:
BetaNews – Second Mozilla Developer Joins Google
SearchEngineWatch – Another Mozilla Developer Joins Google

Tags: google, mozilla, firefox, developer, Dain Fisher

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I just took a Google Advertising Professionals survey and there were some interesting questions that suggest some enhancements may be in store:

Potential Google Advertising Professionals Program Enhancements:

• Ability to have Google bill your clients directly and pass on a service fee to you for managing their AdWords accounts
• A means to verify whether or not someone is a Qualified Google Advertising Professional
• A Microsoft Windows-based tool for more easily uploading and downloading AdWords campaigns
• Technical support by phone for a fee
• Ability to add your company’s logo into reports within My Client Center
• Directory listing of all Google Advertising Professionals on Google.com
• Ability to be a tester for new AdWords features and functionality before public release

Potential Tools Offered by Google to Help Sell AdWords: