posted by Karl Ribas on Thursday, May 03, 2007
I noticed a HUGE change in the look and layout of Yahoo's Search results pages today... however it appears to only be showing up on a few computers within our office.
Click on Image to See Full Size
Yahoo's search results now display a "shopping cart" icon for which seems to be a quicker checkout option offered through PayPal... similar to what Google Search has done with Google Checkout. If you're a Yahoo! Store owner and looking for more information on this "quick checkout" option or if you're looking for ways to integrate this new function in with your Yahoo! Store, check out this post by Michael Roebuck.
Anybody else seeing this?
Labels: yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, November 17, 2006
In the first joint and open initiative to improve the web crawl process for search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft today announced support for Sitemaps 0.90, a free and easy way for marketers and website owners to notify search engines about their websites.
Sitemaps 0.90 is set to be a one-stop shop for webmasters in which they can now alert all three major search engines of their websites, and all at the same time. The companies are adopting Google's Sitemaps protocol which enables webmasters to manually feed their pages directly to Google, MSN, and Yahoo!, and to check whether their sites have been crawled. Before Sitemaps 0.90, webmasters would have to repeat a similar process for each of the major search engines.
Here an official quote from the Google Search Blog:
"Last year we published the Sitemap 0.84 XML protocol as a free and easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about URLs on their web sites so that search engines can more effectively crawl them. We released it under the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license in the hopes that other search engines would adopt the protocol too. And today, we're excited to announce that Yahoo! and Microsoft are joining us in officially supporting the Sitemap protocol."
I personally love the idea behind Sitemaps 0.90. It's not only simple, but also beneficial. As a search engine marketer, it saves me time from having to setup and manage each account individually and provides sites with a more comprehensive and efficient indexing process... allowing for an overall better representation in search.
And let's not forget the users... who benefit from having a more complete, higher-quality, and fresher search index.
For more information Sitemaps 0.90, visit the MSN, Yahoo!, and Google search blogs.
Labels: bing, google, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Thursday, October 05, 2006
It seems as of late that all the major search engines are eyeballing the mobile advertising market, and who can really blame them... it promises to be a very worthwhile and rewarding market. Yahoo!, on Wednesday, launched a beta version of their sponsored search program for mobile phones in the United States and United Kingdom. Of course, being in beta means that only a "select group" of advertisers will be able to test/use it. Bummer!
Similar to their current sponsored search platform, advertisers will have an opportunity to bid (in auction format) on keywords that will display their ads on the search results page. As of now, this service will work on most mobile phones and handhelds that have web-browsing capabilities.
With more and more consumers using their mobile phones to perform searches on the web, most of which are local-related, it's a great idea for companies like Yahoo! and Google to offer some sort of mobile advertising platform. There are several times when I've personally performed searches on my cell phone, typically looking for restaurant information or specialty shops, and wished for better results.
Paid ads are definitely the way to go with mobile search! Putting the information that is desired in front of those that desire it is what a search engine is all about. Adding advertisements to mobile search results is a great way for search engines to see that it continues to happen, while making a little something-something on the side.
Do you or your clients own a brick and mortar business? If so, consider tapping into mobile search advertising via Yahoo!. I imagine that local businesses, such as restaurants, bakeries, taxi services, day spas, bowling alleys, or other shopping centers and venues, are the perfect fit for such a service.
Labels: industry-news, mobile-marketing, paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, July 21, 2006
Yahoo!, the world's largest Internet media company, announced this past Wednesday that it has inked a deal with Motorola, the second-largest maker of mobile phones. The new multiyear deal calls for tens of millions of new mid-priced and high-end Motorola phones to run an integrated set of services known as Yahoo! Go for Mobile.
Yahoo! Go, a software system designed to make Yahoo! services as easy to use on mobile phones and TVs as they have become on computers, will feature mobile versions of many of its premiere services including Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, photos, calendar, address book, web and image search, news, sports, and finance.
I had first Blogged about "Yahoo! Go" back in January of this year, but only then Yahoo! was striking a deal with Nokia, the world's largest mobile handset maker. Here's an excerpt from that post:
"Dubbed Yahoo! Go Mobile, these communications and media applications are expected to be preloaded on Nokia Series 60 mobile phones and available in 10 countries worldwide, including Cingular and AT&T customers in the United States. Additions and updates to the information in the applications are said to be automatically synched between the mobile phone and the user's account on Yahoo! servers."
These new ties between Internet companies, such as Yahoo!, and hardware makers, such as Nokia and now Motorola, promise to provide consumers with easier and quicker access to personal Internet information. As mentioned in my January post... Yahoo! Go is a monster of an idea. Yahoo! has near 500 million users or more accessing their website (services) each and every month, and until now their lives have been literally locked into a PC browser. Yahoo! Go is the first step, of what I believe are many to come, in the direction of a more-mobile Internet.
With both Nokia and Motorola, the #1 and #2 companies in mobile phones, under Yahoo!'s belt I can't help but wonder what the company has in stored for future distribution of their mobile services. I also can't help but wonder how their closest competitors, mainly Google and MSN, could allow Yahoo! to get 2-up on them.
Labels: industry-news, mobile-marketing, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Monday, July 03, 2006
The time has finally arrived... Yahoo and MSN are partners' no-more. As of July 1st (this past Saturday) the MSN / Yahoo! agreement regarding the distribution of Yahoo! paid search listings has ended. That's right! Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers will no longer have the luxury of having their PPC ads reach MSN's search result pages. Instead, MSN will be employing their own PPC program, MSN adCenter, to fit the bill.
Here is an official quote from the Yahoo! Search Marketing division:
"MSN's U.S. search distribution agreement with Yahoo! Search Marketing ends this month, and Yahoo! Sponsored Search listings will no longer appear in MSN's U.S. search results. Although we regret the loss of MSN as a distribution partner, it was not unexpected, and we do not anticipate a significant change in the total amount of traffic to our advertisers as a result."
This shouldn't come as that big of a surprise to many... the MSN / Yahoo! days have been numbered ever since MSN first announced its plan to create a PPC program. In addition, for the past few months MSN has been serving many of its own adCenter ads, in place of Yahoo! ads, on its search results pages. This was most likely done to help search users and advertisers adjust to this weekend's transition.
So what exactly does this mean for Pay Per Click marketers? Well, if you haven't done so already, you should definitely consider breaking-down your overall Pay Per Click budget to accommodate MSN's new program. Most likely you've already split your advertising budget between Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords but now you really should consider "slicing the PPC pie" a third time. Even though MSN's reach is no where near that of Google's and Yahoo's advertising networks, MSN still rakes in over 40 million searches a month... and quite frankly, that's search engine traffic that no one can afford to miss out on.
In fact, now would be a great time to begin an MSN capaign. PPC competition isn't at its fullest and the per-click costs usually associated with competitive keywords are, for the most part, dramatically less. Of course, this is until the word spreads farther about the MSN adCenter program and the ending of the Yahoo! agreement.
For more information on MSN's adCenter program, including how to sign up, check out the adCenter home page.
What do you think? Does MSN have what it takes to compete on the frontlines with Yahoo!'s and Google's already established PPC programs, or do you think that they'll fall short? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Labels: bing, paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, May 19, 2006
It's no shocker to anyone following the Pay Per Click industry that Yahoo! faces some very stiff competition from Microsoft, which launched its new AdCenter system in the United States a few weeks ago, and Google, which has the largest share of the search ad market. Simply put, Yahoo! is a bit behind, and now seeks to catch up.
This past week Yahoo! announced their plans for implementing a new ad system, which is said to offer enhanced ease of use, advanced testing features, geo-targeting, and automated analytics. Yahoo!'s new ad system, scheduled to launch in the third quarter, is designed to let marketers target prospective consumers not only by the search terms that people use, but also by their demographics, location, and most importantly what they do on other areas of the Yahoo! network.
That's right, Yahoo! plans on leveraging its millions of registered users and broad network of services to improve its advertising sales. There are so many things a person can do on Yahoo!'s network with a Yahoo! ID, and with that there is so much the network can tell Yahoo! Search Marketing about each of its users. The new ad system will allow Yahoo! to analyze its users, based off of information found on its network, and then distribute advertisements according to each user's intent to buy products and services.
For instance, if a registered Yahoo! user were to search "things to do in Illinois", Yahoo! Search Marketing will now be able to consult with its network sites such as Yahoo! Travel, learn that this user is planning a trip to Chicago, and thus provide him/her with advertisements tailored to Chicago, Illinois... instead of say Springfield, Illinois.
A great idea if you ask me.
There are 2 facts to consider. One... online advertising is estimated at more than $30 billion a year and growing, and two... Yahoo! has more users than any website on the net. This new kind of advertising targeting, if harnessed correctly, will outdo every other PPC advertising model available and deliver relevant advertising better than keyword searches ever could.
We are no doubt seeing the beginning of what we can expect in the future from PPC search advertising and individualized / personalized searching. I just never would have thought that it would have come from Yahoo!. Kudos to you, Yahoo!.
Labels: paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, January 06, 2006
Yahoo! has announced today that many of its premiere online services, including Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Photos, calendar, address book, web and image search, news, sports and finance, will now be available on mobile phones and PC-connected TVs, as well as on personal computers without using a browser.Dubbed Yahoo! Go Mobile, these communications and media applications are expected to be preloaded on Nokia Series 60 mobile phones and available in 10 countries worldwide, including Cingular and AT&T customers in the United States. Additions and updates to the information in the applications are said to be automatically synched between the mobile phone and the user's account on Yahoo! servers.Yahoo! Go TV, which is expected to be available before April, will make entertainment-related services available on any PC-connected TV through a small downloadable application on the PC. The services include local and video search, including access to content from CNN and MTV, movie trailers, information on movie times, TV shows, user ratings and weather, sports scores, stock data and news from My Yahoo!. The service is said to be free, but I imagine that it will pack some sort of advertising.
Also later in the year, Yahoo! plans to launch a service that will allow mobile users to program the recording of TV shows remotely over mobile phones, and eventually offer music services through the TV. I imagine this is the result of the Yahoo! and TiVo partnership that was announced back in November.Yahoo! Go Desktop brings a suite of services to personal computers that do not rely on a browser. The initial applications will be Yahoo! Widgets (formerly Konfabulator), a small widget engine that performs tasks for users like checking for the presence of a wireless network, and Yahoo! dashboard, which provides one-click access to Flickr photos, Yahoo! Messenger, news, web search, address book and calendar as well as blogs, photos and other items posted to Yahoo! 360 by friends.
All in all, I believe Yahoo! Go Mobile is a monster of an idea and a great one at that. Yahoo! has got to have more than 500 million people going to their website each and every month, and their lives are locked into the PC browser. With Yahoo! Go Mobile, Yahoo! is literally trying to connect the whole internet to a device (of your choice) and a Yahoo! ID... providing a truly user-friendly experience. I give it two thumbs up!Labels: mobile-marketing, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, November 11, 2005
Have you ever planned on watching something on television that you saw advertised a few days before? Better yet, have you ever done so and forgot about it and remembered after you've already left the house. Well, Yahoo! and TiVo have your solution. In a move that further blurs the lines of television and the Internet, Yahoo! and TiVo have partnered to schedule downloads to TiVo boxes from any Internet connection.
For those of you who are unaware of what TiVo is (not sure of how that's possible... it's literally everywhere) it is a digital video recorder which uses built in hard drives to store large amounts of content, specifically television programs. TiVo users can pause live shows and program their systems to record TV broadcasts and even skip commercials.
Starting soon, consumers (those with valid Yahoo! and TiVo accounts) will have the ability to schedule recordings of TV shows on their TiVo box from a special Yahoo! portal. A Yahoo!/TiVo user can simply log into the special Yahoo! section, view an updated episodes page, and click a "Record to my TiVo box" button to transmit the request to their home TiVo box. TiVo then follows through and records your request. I for one think that this is a great idea and one that both parties and their customers / users can benefit from.
In addition, I am betting that both companies have future plans of some how integrating and sharing web related content, such as weather, user photos, or even search listings. Imagine being able to search Yahoo! through your TiVo recorders and TV... very nice! Apparently talks are already taking place to create a service which would enable consumers the ability to search for videos across the web and then watch them through their television / TiVo connection.
All in all, this partnership agreement carries some very positive elements. Both Yahoo! and TiVo are household names and coming together like they have provides a truly incredible user-experience.
Labels: yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, October 21, 2005
A month ago, September 23rd to be exact, I wrote an entry regarding AOL and how Microsoft and Google were competing (most likely bidding) against one another in their attempts to partner-up with the popular web portal. Now, this week, Yahoo! has reportedly left the sidelines and entered itself in this ongoing struggle for a piece of American Online.
That's right, Yahoo! is in talks with AOL, a unit of Time Warner, and is looking to attain AOL's millions of search and portal users, not to mention the near $400 million in ad revenue that currently goes Google's way. In fact, I bet that the only reason why Yahoo! is now even interested in AOL is to ensure that the "kool-aid" that is generated from AOL's / Google's paid-search agreement does not go back into Google's refrigerator... or Microsoft's for that matter.
Time Warner has yet to comment on whether or not they have received offers from Internet search giants Google, MSN, or Yahoo! or if they are even interesting in partnering up or potentially selling AOL. It seems for Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft, a bid for AOL is merely a defensive move against the others.
One thing is for sure and that is if Yahoo! is in the running, the stakes could get high. In general, when you've got multiple players going after a property, like anything, you get increased competition and companies tend to bid higher. Well when we're talking Yahoo!, Google, and especially MSN, who as we all know is a division of Microsoft and has seemingly bottomless pockets, we're talking a huge increase in competition and bids.Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, October 14, 2005
Do any of you remember my posting about a month ago regarding Google's new blog search tool? Well guess what? Yahoo!, one of Google's primary competitors, has made the next stride in this market by revamping its basic news search tool to grab material from the millions of blogs out there, in addition to just the regular headlines from 6,500 newspapers and magazines. Yahoo! launched a test version of the new tool on Monday, saying it aims to give consumers a more complete view of the news. Obviously this addition will increase the consumer's ability to find events that matter to them, from major news stories, citizen reporting, commentary and pictures that might not be covered by the mainstream media... and that in itself creates a more user focused experience. The new search feature separates blog headlines from other headlines, displaying them in different columns. By clicking on "all blog results," users can find photos related to their search from Flickr, Yahoo!'s photo sharing service. They may also find relevant material from websites they've marked as favorites via user-generated tagging, which again is a plus in the user-ability department. It's quite obvious that Yahoo! and Google are facing off in the blog arena, as they do with everything else related to search. Such competition is a great thing because it not only makes the top dogs reconfigure and revive old tools but it also breeds the development of new tools for finding the content that we are wanting. I give Yahoo! and their new blog search feature TWO thumbs up!Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, October 07, 2005
This past week, Yahoo! publicly acknowledged that they have acquired Upcoming.org, a social events calendar website, in an effort to expand on its local-content offerings. Upcoming.org, which will now operate as a Yahoo! company, is a free website that lets people manage their social calendars and share information about upcoming events like local concerts and festivals. Users can also comment on events others have attended and can include a continuously updated listing of Upcoming.org events on their own websites. Yahoo! recently revised its local search program back in August, adding such features as user-reviews and interactive maps. Now, with this acquisition, the company will have access to tons of local content and will no doubt use it to enhance their search capabilities and features even further. For those of you unfamiliar with what has been going on in the local search industry, local search is now being thought of as a very profitable growth area for advertising. More and more people are booting up their PC or turning on a cell phone to find local services or to book local events. Because of this, search providers such as Yahoo!, Google, and American Online (AOL), are now banking on the draw for small and medium-size businesses to advertise when people are most interested.Search engines such as those listed above have been doing their best to stay on top of the local search industry by finding different ways to locate and provide local search content, services, and tools... and why shouldn't they, the local search market is expected to attract somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 Billion in revenue within the next five years.If you're a search engine marketer or if you operate an online business than I would highly suggest that you start taking advantage of the numerous local-advertising outlets that these "Search Giants" have made available. Local is where to be!Labels: local-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, August 05, 2005
This past week, Yahoo! officially launched (BETA - US only) its long-awaited self-service contextual ad network. Much like Google's AdSense, this program will extend the reach of paid listings through small and mid-sized publishers as well as provide website publishers a fast and easy way to display relevant Yahoo! ads on their website's content pages... and earn money while doing so.
The network, which has been expected to launch for months now, will complement Yahoo!'s existing network of larger publishers, including CNN, ESPN, and NBC. Up to 2,000 publishers will be invited to join the beta test, with a full launch expected by the end of the year. This makes sense to me. By helping the broader publishing community maximize the value of their sites, Yahoo! is aiming to create an even more rewarding Internet experience for publishers, advertisers and users.
It's fair to say that this is not just Yahoo! trying to cash in on another Google idea. This is not another Google Adsense. This is a Yahoo! venture that pays attention to quality of sites in the network, strives for openness in its policies, and offers advertisers more control... which are several of the issues marketers have raised about Google's network.
With the launch of Yahoo!'s new ad network, advertisers will no doubt benefit from increased competition in an area that has been ruled by Google, and publishers will have another revenue-generating option for their sites.
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Just as an off-subject reminder, Its once again time for SES conference to make its way over to San Jose California... which is where I will be all next week. To me, the San Jose show is like the "Super Bowl" of SES shows, seeing how almost every major Internet company seems to reside near by. Hopefully I will have time to drop by and visit with Yahoo! and Google again... last year was a blast!
Oh, I just remembered that I may or may not be blogging next week. I figure if I come across some down-time I may be posting then, but looking back at my previous experiences... I will have no such down-time and will be resuming the following week. What I do know is that I will definitely have plenty to blog about. Until next time....Labels: paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Tuesday, July 26, 2005
This past week search king Yahoo! announced that it has acquired software widget-engine Konfabulator in a move to spur third-party developers to devise new applications for the Internet giant's services. For those of you unfamiliar with Konfabulator and the neat desktop applications that can be found on their website, it is a JavaScript runtime engine that lets people run very small applications, or widgets, on either Windows or Macintosh systems.So what does Yahoo! have planned for their new purchase? Well Yahoo! plans to run the widgets via XML feeds. These applications can perform any of a range of functions, from informing people of their Wi-Fi signal strength to dishing up the local weather to providing a battery monitor. There are literally hundreds of widgets available.Konfabulator is one of many key pieces for accessing Internet content and now with Yahoo! in the picture, together they will be making these resources available to everyone in a format that's useable outside the traditional browser, as XML feeds.Yahoo!'s acquisition comes as it is looking for ways to get outside developers more involved with writing applications for its content and putting greater pressure on its archrivals Google and MSN. This was indeed an interesting move on Yahoo!'s part and I can clearly see what they're trying to do as well as where they're trying to go with this acquisition. I have no doubts that this will be another success venture for Yahoo!. What the hell, there is really no reason to think otherwise… slap a Yahoo! logo on it and it turns to gold.Labels: yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, July 01, 2005
Internet giant Yahoo! is testing a new service that extends its search functionality, as part of an effort to provide its users with new, quality searching solutions and to narrow the gap with rival Google.
Dubbed "My Web 2.0," the service builds on personalized search features introduced this past April. Those features allowed Yahoo! users to archive their search results and share them with other people using the service, but the next iteration will go a bit further.
Internet searchers with a Yahoo! login will be able to bookmark and cache copies of their favorite websites, label them in certain categories and attach comments in a structured way. Users will then be able to search among their contacts' knowledge base with what Yahoo! is calling its "MyRank" search technology.
In many ways, the service bears a resemblance to the recently popular Delicious Web bookmarks manager. Like Delicious, Yahoo! has opened user's My Web application, allowing extensions to its service to be easily created. I predict that overtime we may see Yahoo! integrate personalization technology across other applications and services, proving a whole new level of user experience.Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, May 06, 2005
Web giant Yahoo! announced, well sort of announced, this week its plans for developing a search engine for finding downloadable songs and music data from across the Internet.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company is expected to introduce the music search engine sometime within the next couple of months. Yahoo!'s new technology will let people search on an artist's name, for example, and retrieve all the available songs from other music services, as well as album reviews and band information from Yahoo! Music.
Yahoo! has invested heavily on music services, and considers audio and video cornerstones of the company's future. In addition to buying song outlet MusicMatch for $160 million, Yahoo! is working on another music service in conjunction with rival MusicNet. The company has also started to streamline its music and multimedia properties over the past several months, changing the name of its Launch site to Yahoo Music and consolidating its entertainment businesses.
Search technology is considered the key to navigating the Internet's growing music and video collections, as well as the Web itself. Yahoo! is not only developing media and online communities to lure visitors, but it is attempting to use its media-search engines to connect with Web surfers outside its network. That way, Yahoo! can build its audience and likely expand its multibillion-dollar search-advertising business.
It makes sense in my book because Yahoo! has access to all of this music information to begin with and in my opinion music needs better search. By looking and focusing at the structured data of music--title, genre, etc., they could easily begin to provide a better user experience than what is currently being provided... and that will no doubt mean "Dolla, Dolla Bills" for Yahoo!.Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, April 22, 2005
The portal giant on Monday shed its Overture brand and renamed the unit Yahoo! Search Marketing. This change came nearly 2 years after Yahoo! had purchased Overture for a little over $1.5 billion, a move that has no-doubt helped Yahoo! to expand its pay-for-performance search business and its contextual advertising throughout its network.
The replacement of the Overture brand will take place in the U.S. market initially. Other international markets will be re-branded later, but the Overture brand will be maintained in Japan and Korea. Monday's change-over came as no real surprise as we have been expecting some sort of change since Yahoo! announced at the Search Engine Strategies conference this past February that they would be rebranding Overture into Yahoo! Search Marketing.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company said the re-branding is designed to bring all its products for advertisers together. This is a great call on Yahoo!'s part, being as though Yahoo! is a much more recognized online company than that of Overture. Precision Match, Overture's search advertising product, will now be sold under the "Sponsored Search" name, while its local paid search product is now called "Local Sponsored Search". All in all, they still have the same great advertising solutions... just with a different name.
For search optimization and small business, Local Enhanced Listings (a highly significant part of any local search campaign) and Yahoo! Directory Submit are now included under the Yahoo! Search Marketing umbrella. Yahoo! also added Travel Submit, a pay per click offering where travel offers and deals can be listed within the ever popular Yahoo! Travel. To christen the Yahoo! Travel Submit offering, Yahoo! is currently giving away free traffic to travel agencies and sites which open an account before June 15th.
Unifying all of the Yahoo! / Overture search marketing and related products under one roof is great move and one of many moves that Yahoo! will be taking to provide an easy, one-stop experience for their search marketing advertisers.Labels: paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, April 15, 2005
Yahoo! has confirmed plans to allow Firefox users to access all of the portal giant's products and services, many of which are currently only available through Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.
In February, Yahoo! launched a search toolbar for Firefox, but users of the open-source browser were forced to revert back to IE to access some of Yahoo!'s well known features. For example, Yahoo! Messenger users still could not use Firefox to customize their online avatar and have to revert back to IE. However, a Yahoo! representative late last month said the company will not launch any new products or services in the future without ensuring that they work on both IE and Firefox.
This makes complete sense in my mind as the fire that is Firefox has greatly spread since my last entry and now holds approximately 5% of the browser market. That's a small share, but the arrival of the browser has dropped IE's dominant market share below 90% (Opera, Netscape and other browsers making up the rest). Firefox has received most of its attention as being an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer and due to this explosive popularity, Firefox will now be added to Yahoo!'s suite of browsers to test their products against... meaning that all current and new products that Yahoo! develops will be tested with Firefox prior to release.
More than 2.6 million Internet users visited the Firefox website in March to obtain more information about the open-source software... and perhaps download it. That's up from 1.6 million in February and 2.2 million in January. So what is it that keeps the Firefox flame ablaze? Well as I have mentioned before, users are jumping ship to take advantage of what seems to be 3 simple features; features that as of today Microsoft has failed to address.
1) Firefox gives Web surfers a simple tool that blocks unsolicited windows.
2) Firefox is less susceptible to virus attacks.
3) Firefox offers a unique means of navigating multiple sites within a single browser.
As Firefox's popularity and overall public usage continues to grow, both website designers and search engine marketing specialists will need to ensure that they remain in tune with the Internet audience, even if it means developing "search engine friendly" websites with the Firefox browser in mind. I, for one have already added Firefox optimization techniques and usability strategies into my daily routines and would suggest that you do as well. It won't be much longer before Firefox has taken a greater portion of this Microsoft dominated industry and its always better to be prepared for situations such as this.
As I see it, it all comes down to the users needs. Whichever browser is able to provide and continue to provide the top-notch features that general Internet users desire, this time around it just happens to be pop-ups, virus attacks, and a comfortable navigation system, will no doubt take the lead and maybe win what is becoming known as the "browser wars".
Labels: browsers, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, March 11, 2005
While Yahoo! and Google already go head-to-head for major search advertising partners such as AOL and MSN, Google has largely enjoyed a monopoly serving its signature text-only ads, also known and Adsense ads, to smaller websites... until now that is. Yahoo! has announced plans to launch its own ad network option for small publishers.
Much like Google's Adsense service, Yahoo's product will display text ads deemed relevant to the content of specific web pages in which advertisers will pay only when a reader clicks on their ad. As opposed to regular search-related ads, which are triggered by keywords entered into a search engine query bar, this new Yahoo! product will feature ads that are targeted to the content of a page and its meaning. For example, a news story about a soccer match might display a sponsored link for soccer gear.
Yahoo's on-going push to expand its advertising reach comes as the market for search advertising is taking off, fueling record revenue and profits. At the same time, Yahoo! is busy looking for new revenue sources as it seeks to transform itself into an online media conglomerate and beat Google in the Web search game.
In my opinion, Yahoo's plan for relying on small publishers to show its Overture ads offers a promising growth path for both Yahoo! and its Overture advertisers, given Google's earlier efforts in this niche.Labels: google, industry-news, paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, March 04, 2005
Announced this past Wednesday, the web portal Lycos has decided to end its long term relationship with Yahoo! and its Inktomi unit and has further selected to use the search technology of the Internet's favorite butler, Jeeves. As explained by Adam Sciroco of Lycos, a search-relationship with Ask Jeeves would provide Lycos with broader searching solutions than what Yahoo! was currently providing. The decision to switch from Yahoo! to Ask Jeeves came as no shock to me as Jeeves technology is already being used on other Lycos web properties, but I am unsure if I actually agree with it.
It has been reported as to what "searching solutions" Yahoo! was unable to provide, but in my opinion, Lycos just pulled their starting pitcher out of the ninth inning of game 7 of the World Series with 1 out away from a no-hitter. Ok maybe that's a bit extreme, but my point is that Lycos replaced a perfectly good search-relationship for one that remains to be taken seriously and for what?
Don't get me wrong Ask Jeeves has great search tools and resources and currently does a fine job of syndicating its search technologies and advertising products to other websites, including, InfoSpace, BellSouth, Mamma.com and CNET Networks--the parent company of News.com, but in my opinion, and being as though it is the only one that matters on this blog, Jeeves is not on the same playing level as Yahoo! Search is.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what Lycos has in store for their portal, but for now only time will tell on this matter.
Labels: ask, industry-news, yahoo
