Ask ten experts what the phrase Contextual Advertising means and you’ll likely get ten unique answers. Putting this phrase into context is more difficult than you might imagine because there are several forms of contextual advertising present in the marketplace. The most basic definition is ‘the presentation of advertising information targeted to the habits or needs of the individual viewer or to the topic of the page being viewed’. Google, which has presented contextual advertising on its own search engine for about eight months now through the highly successful Google-AdWords program has announced they will place AdWords adverts on other website's, some outside of Google’s growing network. Google calls this program Content-Targeted Advertising. As explained by Google, Content-Targeted Advertising, “… displays Google AdWords™ ads on web content pages related to your chosen keywords—so you're provided broader exposure and greater reach for your AdWords campaign. Many of these pages are not owned or operated by Google, the best example being the website, How Stuff Works. (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com//cell-phone.htm) Note the shaded ads running down the left hand side of the website. These are all generated from Google’s AdWords. Content-Targeted Advertising will also appear on many blogs through Google’s recent acquisition of Pyra Labs.

This presents amazing opportunities for large advertisers and other AdWords users. It also represents a fairly major shift in Google’s focus away from strict search and into content-driven advertising, leaving the question of Google’s core priorities open for debate. The key to winning the current war between competing search engines is ultimately gaining and/or retaining the trust of search engine users themselves. While Google has clearly won the hearts and minds of the vast majority of searchers, search engine users have moved loyalties several times in the past, often when their search tool of choice makes decisions that may influence the ‘purity’ of search results. There already appears to be a minor backlash against Google forming in the search engine world, partially due to the number of irrelevant results appearing in the Top10 under most keyword phrases, partially due to the natural tendency of Internet users to avoid reference sites that have become too commercially influenced. With changes happening throughout the search engine world, the coming months should prove quite interesting.

MSN Search UK is making the first obvious moves towards integrating enhanced simplicity and relevance into its search engine.

As of March 4th, MSN UK has removed banner advertisements, highlighted queried phrases in results and says that it has increased relevancy (new algorithm perhaps? - jury is still out). MSN's goal is to create an atmosphere of cleaner and faster searching with an emphasis on 'first-time relevant responses' (find what you are looking for right away!). All banner ads are being replaced with a "featured sites" section to continue to service Microsoft partners.

These changes abroad are certainly a glimpse into the new look that MSN USA will be implementing in the near future.

BuyABattery.Com is the home of Battery Power Online, a Victoria BC based supplier of virtually every battery every produced. From the standard AAA – D cells to highly rare batteries, Battery Power Online can find and supply it, usually within hours or days of the order. In their own words, “We supply every type of battery, rare or common, for all your applications; whether it be for your watch, calculator, computer, cellular phone, cordless phone, or any other application, you will find it here. If the battery, or battery pack is not in our database we will find it or build it for you!”

Next time you need a battery, don’t waste energy running to every specialty store in your city, visit www.buyabattery.com and you will likely find what you need quickly and easily. To speak to a live representative, please call 1-877-355-5588.

AlltheWeb has got a new look and it now offers easy access to some invaluable tools for evaluating your web site's online visibility.

To start with, visit AlltheWeb.com (the SE that was just bought by Overture) and type in the address of your web site, www.yourdomain.com (or your competition's) and click search. Now you will find that AlltheWeb provides you with a ton of information:

1. The page begins with a carbon copy of the title, description and address that AlltheWeb has for your web site,
   
2. Below the site description are a number of statistics:
   a) "Find all web pages that link to 'www.yourdomain.com' ": As we have said before, stable search engine listings are highly dependant upon the number of web sites pointing (linking) to your web site. This link popularity is a great way of finding out who links to you OR, who is linking to your competition so you can in-turn get the same links.
   
   b) "Find all external web pages that contain the term 'www.yourdomain.com' ": This is another way of finding sites that are linking to you. In this case it would also include sites that may note your web site but have not included a true link. By requesting true links from these sites you may achieve higher link popularity.
   
   c) "Find all web pages indexed under 'www.yourdomain.com' ": This is more valuable than you can imagine! This statistic will give you a better idea of just how far a search engine will (or can) go within your web site. If you find that there are very few pages indexed and you have a very large site, then you can deduce that there is a block somewhere which is limiting your online presence.
   
   d) "Discover who owns 'www.yourdomain.com' ": This will likely be less valuable unless you are researching your competition. This tool provides you with the owner details of the domain you searched.
   
   e) "See how 'www.stepforth.com' used to look": We noted in a previous newsletter the value of checking up on the different stages of growth that your competition has experienced. In this case the WayBack Machine has been integrated here so that you can do just that.
   
   
3. Fast Facts tells you what language the site/page is written in and when AlltheWeb last indexed it.

This is the first indication that a search engine understands the information a webmaster and marketer requires to properly market their web site. This is an excellent addition to this search engine and we hope it will be expanded on into the future.

The Google search engine is famous for indexing incomprehensible amounts of data and presenting it to its users in a simple manner with extremely advanced search options. Due to a distinct lack of security, the Drexel University College of Medicine's neurosurgical patient database was indexed by Google and was open for all to see. According to hackers, Google is an extremely useful tool for finding backdoors into 'secure' data due to the search engine's incredibly powerful and thorough indexing spider.

A frightening example of this method of hacking is presented when a user does a search for "select a database to view". If you conduct this search using the previous link you will soon find that you have (in some cases) complete access to online databases where it is entirely possible you should not. This search takes advantage of a security vulnerability in a popular database software called FileMaker Pro where the phrase "select a database to view" is a main search component within the administration interface.

This is a wake up call for many companies with online confidential data. If you are unsure whether your online data is completely secure we recommend you contact Tom Bourree at I.T. Metacreations Inc. Tom is intimately acquainted with the details of ensuring security online and will surely be able to answer your questions and solve any problems that arise.