4th October 2007

Blind Person Suing Target For No Alt Tags

Search Engine Articles What started as a student suing target.com this time last year, has now grown into a class action lawsuit that just received certification from a federal court judge in California, Reuters reported. "Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also rejected Target's motion for summary judgment in the case, according to the ruling filed October 2. According to the ruling, plaintiffs -- including the National Federation of the Blind -- claim Target.com violates federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination against the disabled," Rueters stated. Click to read the rest of this post...

4th October 2007

Krugle Announces Deal with IBM

Search Engine Articles Code Search Engine Krugle continues to rock and roll. Their latest announcement is a deal that will IBM. Under the terms of this deal, IBM will incorporate Krugle search within IBM's developerWorks site. In addition, the IBM code has notw been incorporated into the Krugle index. Both of these are significant, but I believe that the visibility on the developerWorks site is the more important development. This includes a statement with the search results as follows: "Code results provided by Krugle". This provides exposure to IBM's developer community incorporates 2.5M developers, out of a worldwide community of about 14M. There are plans for IBM to begin to use the Krugle appliance in the near future. According to Laura Merling, Krugle's VP of marketing, down the road IBM and Krugle are in discussion of how to integrate Krugle into more of IBM's products. Ultimately, the two most important points about this deal are:

1. The endorsement by IBM. IBM takes all the product evaluations it does very seriously. This is a very significant accomplishment for Krugle.
2. Expanded reach into the world of enterprise developers. Given that the core revenue model of Krugle is the sale of the Krugle appliance into the enterprise, this exposure is a big win.

4th October 2007

SEMPO Running In-House Salary Survey

Search Engine Articles While the search marketing industry has done much growing in the last few years, it's also lagging behind other industries in certain areas. One thing the industry lacks is credible information about salary and structure of in-house search marketing teams. Part of this is due to the esoteric nature of the job compared to other corporate functions, and part of it is just the relative newness of in-house search marketing and myriad ways in-house teams can be structured. To help shed some light on the compensation and common reporting structures of in-house search marketers, SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is conducting an online survey of in-house marketers. "There's no firm grasp on what's out there. You have people who have heard stories, but it's all third-hand information," said Duane Forrester, co-chair of SEMPO’s In-House Committee and search marketing manager of Sports Direct. "For most other positions, you can find out the average compensation for that position, including bonus packages, broken down by geographic area. None of that exists for search." Forrester came up with the idea for a survey after returning from SES New York earlier this year. He had spoken to several in-house marketers at the event, and inevitably the topic of salary came up. Urban legends of someone who knew someone who got a $300,000 a year job mixed with stories of large companies looking to hire a director of search marketing for $80,000 a year, he said. The survey began running among SEMPO members earlier this week, and so far the results do not seem to be tied to geography or size of company, he said. What does matter is how vested in an online presence a company is – those who rely on search traffic for their business know the value of a top-shelf SEM and SEO team. The 20-question survey is open to in-house search marketers, both on the organic and paid search sides. Results will be tallied anonymously after the survey is completed at the end of October. A preview of the survey can be downloaded here (PDF). "SEMPO's goal is to go beyond anecdotal material and obtain data points that will add some clarity to the entire topic of compensation of in-house SEM professionals," Forrester said. "We want to provide professionals with a sense of their value in the marketplace, and businesses and employers with a greater understanding of SEM's valuation as they recruit for SEM professionals." Join the discussion in the SEW Forums.

4th October 2007

Who Is Better At Finding Duplicate Content?

Search Engine Articles So who likes finding duplicate content more? Or who has the most to gain by finding duplicate content - Google or Copyscape? The forum members on Digitalpoint are having an interesting conversation on the differences in the ways Google and...

4th October 2007

ComScore Launches Search Marketing Intelligence Service

Search Engine Articles Market research firm comScore has launched a search marketing-specific intelligence service, comScore Marketer. Using data collected from comScore's panel of more than 2 million consumers, the service can offer search marketers insight into their own visitors, as well as their competitors and partners. "We have this rich base of panelists where we pick up online behavior, and we pick up search behavior too," said Dan Lackner, senior VP at comScore. "It made sense to harvest the data we collect to help our customers allocate their marketing dollars more efficiently." ComScore Marketer is a subscription service, with data updated monthly. It presents the marketer with site-specific data, such as traffic and keyword referral data, as well as comparisons within a site category or among competitors' sites. It also presents visitor data based on the search query, identifying other sites and categories frequented by others who typed in that query. That information will allow a marketer to find other sites to consider for advertising to increase their reach, or excluding sites that are being overexposed to control frequency, said Steve Dennen, comScore's senior director of market research. "Over the last six to nine months, there's been a movement in the industry to get search out of the silo, and make it work together with other advertising," Dennen said. "This lets them reach people at different touchpoints, and find other places to reach similar people."

4th October 2007

Google Alerts Now Works with Google Video

Search Engine Articles Last week, Google announced that Google Alerts is now compatible with Google Video. Barry over at Search Engine Land illustrates how this is done: Now, Google Alerts can email you when certain key phrases are found in News, Web, Blogs,...

4th October 2007

Budget Busting with Google AdWords New Algorithm Change

Search Engine Articles A few weeks ago, we reported that the "promotion algorithm" for Google AdWords is changing. Instead of using the actual CPC, Google will use the maximum CPC. Similarly, as Barry reported on Search Engine Land, Microsoft is following suit. AussieWebmaster...

4th October 2007

Microsoft Doesn’t Allow Ads with the Number “69″

Search Engine Articles An advertiser using MSN adCenter has a product listed for $69.99. However, he can't actually feature the price in the ad because the number "69" is not allowed. I tried to update an ad this morning with the price of...

4th October 2007

What Defines an SEO “Expert?”

Search Engine Articles Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is such an exiting field, in my opinion, because it constantly changes. What works today may not work in six months or even three weeks. Practitioners of full time SEO can attest to the fact...

4th October 2007

Google Campaign Optimizer – A Friend or Foe?

Search Engine Articles Google AdWords and other paid search marketing (PPC or pay-per-click) platforms including Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter provide very robust administration platforms to allow for a variety of options to be specified when serving ads to searchers and contextual...