A group of Canadian recording artists is calling for an end to the RIAA and SOCAN lawsuits against music fans who share digital files. Calling themselves the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC), many of Canada's best known musicians have signed on to the petition with more expected to endorse the CMCC's public statement.
"Until now, a group of multinational record labels has done most of the talking about what Canadian artists need out of copyright. Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies, but let’s be clear: lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists. Legislative proposals that would facilitate lawsuits against our fans or increase the labels’ control over the enjoyment of music are made not in our names, but on behalf of the labels’ foreign parent companies."
The coalition includes The Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavinge, Sarah McLachlan, Sum41, Sloan, and many others.
Attending a Search Engine Strategies Conference has been likened to having an encyclopedia downloaded into your mind in two or three intense days of concentrated information sessions. For long term SEOs and SEMs, a SES conference is a chance to catch up with colleagues and exchange gossip, information and collegiate humour.
Traveling across the continent to get to the conference can be tiring. My parents live in Toronto so I am fortunate enough to have a place to stay complete with home cooked meals and the security of sleeping in a familiar bed. Given the tenor of the conference and the exhaustion of jet-lag, staying at my parents' place is more than helpful.
The travel, the weather, the dial-up access at my parents' place and my state of physical exhaustion wouldn't be so bad if the amenities at the conference were as perfect as they have been in previous years. As I was to discover, they are not.
SES Toronto - Day 1
The conference has moved locations. It is still being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre however the venue has changed from the spacious south building to the smaller basement of the north building. The rooms are smaller and more spread out. The exhibit hall is much smaller than the one in the south building as well. It appears there are fewer booths than in previous years. That sad fact will likely cut into my quest for the gaudiest booth bling, forcing me to actually think about shopping for my colleagues at Christmas.
The greatest flaw I've found is a lack of public WiFi anywhere near the conference area. There is actually a very strong wireless connection in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre but Incisive Media, the new sponsor of the conference, has not paid for attendees to access it and a log-in and password is required.
That puts me back to wardriving for a steady wireless connection. I did find one good hotspot up in a café above the convention centre but it is too far away from the convention site for practical purposes. There are several other WiFi networks present in range of my computer however they are all secure and inaccessible without a password. There is a Linux World conference happening in another set of rooms just down the hall. Perhaps I can get someone from that conference to give me access to their WiFi network. If all else fails, there is still the media and speakers room which is conveniently located down a very long corridor, about a quarter kilometer away from the rest of the show.
Regardless of any inconvenience or exhaustion, it is a pleasure and a privilege to be here. I really enjoy the people in this industry. They are as clever as they are smart and to a person, they are all very, very smart.
Danny Sullivan opened the conference with his annual keynote address. The room he is speaking in was packed with the standing room crowd spilling out into the hallway. I was unable to actually hear Danny speak but should be able to get time with him later and will be able to read the coverage from Barry Swartz and the Search Engine Watch team covering the event.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how one looks at it), I wasn't able to attend the "Search Marketing in Canada" session because I was busy meeting with a number of other established Canadian SEMs who wanted to talk about building our businesses by focusing on our Canadian identity and cooperating with each other to handle massive and bilingual accounts. The person presenting the idea to the rest of us makes a number of good points and has a great track record in the Canadian search marketing scene. He also went out of his way to get each of us together in the same room for this meeting. Though the proposal poses tough challenges and risks, I am excited about the prospect of expanding our networks and growing our businesses.
I have a number of other opportunities to pursue over the next 48-hours, buoyed by the good vibes I feel from the first. Our meeting ended just before the morning sessions did so I had a few minutes to stalk my way around the conference hall. Here are a few short observations.
First of all, this year the SES Conference looks smaller but has larger attendance numbers. It seems there are more folks here but less space.
Next, there are a lot more women here than in previous years. Having worked in tech for the better part of a decade, I am used to attending conferences with higher concentrations of testosterone. A better gender balance is obviously a welcome indicator in the industry. I'll have to remember to ask a few American and European SEOs if similar gender balance is present in the industries in their countries.
Third, there are far more sessions about SEO this year than in previous years. Search engine optimization is regaining a lot of the respect it lost to PPC over the past four years. As an added point, thus far I have met a lot more new SEOs than I had in previous years.
Like last year, the talk about search engine optimization leans heavily towards white-hat practices with several strident warnings against search engine spam. The SES shows have gathered criticism from a notable segment of the SEO community over the years but, building on my experience today and at last year's Toronto show, much of that critique seems unwarranted. The line on spam this year is similar to last year... Don't do it.
One critique of the SES format is there are a number of sessions, seminars and press conferences that overlap each other. For instance, I could attend the Search Behavior Research session or I could sit in on the Search Term Research and Targeting session, both of which would interest me. I settle for the former, wishing I could also attend the latter. I face an even tougher decision in a few hours when I need to decide between Ad Agencies and Search, Writing for Search Engines, and RSS, Blogs and Search Marketing. Those sessions start at 4:30. At 5:00, there is a press conference on a new SEO certification program being held by the Society of Internet Professionals. Having no idea which to choose from, I suspect I am going to fall back on Barry's coverage, wishing I could be in three places at the same time.
That is where I find myself at 3:30PM on the first day of SES. It appears I am going to have to elbow my way into the Google party tonight as they have apparently only invited a small, select group of advertisers to their party.
SES Toronto - Day 2
I made it into the Google party last night and got to bed somewhere around 3AM. A monstrous hangover is an inauspicious way to start the day, especially with the knowledge that I need to be up, dressed and downtown by 8:45AM. My contribution to the conference was sitting on the site clinic panel with Jake Baillie (TrueLocal), Christine Churchill (KeyRelevance), Kashual Kurapati (Ask.Com) and Ian McAnerin. We are all professionals here. It doesn't matter how much one's head hurts, the show must go on.
Site clinics are always fun. A room full of people fills a fishbowl full of business cards from which the example sites are drawn. There is no way of really knowing what is going to come at you until the site is shown or a question posed. With no possibility of preparation, panel members need to think on their feet and be ready to back up their statements with concrete information. We only had an hour and a half to cover as many sites as possible. I think we managed to rip apart five unique sites before the two minute warning was given.
Opening the session, each panelist takes a few minutes to introduce themselves with me going last. "Please remember friends", I added, "It's not personal, it's only technology." Some of the sites are bound to be awful, some are bound to be great. Nobody knows until the cards are drawn.
Two observations from the site clinic I participated in. First of all, webmasters are learning SEO. Many of the basic mistakes new webmasters used to regularly make did not appear as frequently and the knowledge level in the room was higher than any of us on the panel expected. That in itself is a good thing but a little education can often be a dangerous thing, especially in search marketing. Another observation I made is how strange it is for someone to come to a site clinic, putting their site under a professional microscope and then having the boldness to question the suggestions made by my fellow panelists and myself. It was only one person but he took about a third of the session.
I have two more seminars to attend before the conference ends this evening. I will be checking out the Measuring Success and Shopping Search sessions. After that, I will be attending a news conference, dinner, and the conference after party held by Andrew Goodman and PageZero.
It is sometime close to eight fifteen in the morning when our sales manager, Bill, unlocks the door, fires up his computer, and begins brewing the first of several pots of coffee the staff will soon consume. As the coffee machine sputters and burbles, Bill scans his emails, listens to phone messages and begins his daily hotlist to-dos for clients and resellers. As we work in the Pacific Time zone, communication with the rest of North America is an early morning priority. The East Coast tends to take lunch around the same time those of us out west are ingesting our first cups of java.
Bill has a long day ahead of him. He is often the first live-voice callers hear when they dial into our office. If those callers wish to become clients, he is the person charged with explaining our services and helping mix and match those services into a coherent, client-specific search marketing campaign. Between his desk and those of his sales associates, at least a dozen complicated deals are being worked out at any given time. Bill makes stronger coffee than any other staff member.
Our office, ( Fort Forth ), is built on a multi-pillared foundation consisting of sales, administration, news and research, and production. Each pillar is anchored through this architecture and though some are more prominent, none could stand without the support of the others. Collectively, they keep the roof above our heads, so to speak.
As Bill prioritizes his communication schedule, the coffee machine coughs out the last few drips into its falsely labeled "ten-cup" carafe. Before dialing a digit, Bill pours himself eight ounces of liquid nitro, topped with an ounce of light cream. It's almost time to talk shop. First, he has to finish reviewing overnight emails, check his calendar and direct various emails to the proper recipients, some of whom should be coming through the door any second.
Who comes in next depends on the day. The majority of the staff work from their home offices. Geographically, Victoria BC is a very small city. All but one of our staff live within an eight block radius of the central downtown office, and each of us who can prefer to telecommute, meeting at the office or for lunch when necessary.
On Mondays, Thursdays or Fridays, I am usually the next one in. It's my job to keep the company up to date by following as many techniques, technologies, trends, tangents and trajectories as possible. In order to stay ahead of other SEO firms, I get paid to simply stay on top of developments, conduct extensive research, theorize and explain. I spend a lot of time talking (or typing) to our developers, the sales staff, and our head SEO, Scott Van Achte.
Being paid to think, teach and write has got to be one of the sweetest gigs in search marketing. Often, I write lengthy and colourful explanations of ideas (my own or other people's) that get published to the SEO Blog and republished across hundreds of other search marketing related sites. Though I do get the challenge of the occasional difficult consultancy contract, my work as a hands-on SEO has become secondary to my role of researcher and writer. It is an uncanny and obviously intimidating responsibility.
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I write the columns that get sent directly to about three dozen larger web publishers and am thus responsible for making that essential first pot of coffee myself.
The philosophy at the Forth dictates we demystify our industry as much as humanly possible in order to, move SEO towards greater acceptance as a mainstream marketing channel, and to ensure our clients fully understand what we are doing and where we are coming from. These are two important points for the next guy walking through the door, our CEO, Ross Dunn.
Ross founded the firm nine years ago while working as a photographer at the Whistler Ski Resort near Vancouver . Like many of the earliest SEOs, Ross came across the industry by chance when he and a friend who owned a local business were discussing a web site Ross was going to build. Though the web was slightly simpler in 1997, a limited number of people knew how to work on it. Back then; Ross was a computer hobbyist with a college certificate in Adventure Tourism Business Management and a keen sense of foresight. While working on his friend's site, Ross came across the late Jim Wilson's SEO forum, read a lot and applied what he had learned to the project at hand. When the site debuted high in the search rankings, Ross knew he was on to something extremely interesting and formed the first of three companies that would eventually merge to become StepForth.
Today, Ross has a lot on his mind. It is just about 9:00 AM and he has been up half the night messing around with ClickTracks, our new soon to be implemented electronic survey system, our website, or simply researching. Ross spends a lot of time researching his way through the multiple streams of data he tracks for each of his clients.
Along with heading the company and doing the administration tasks only an owner can do, Ross personally handles the high end of analytical data mining and consultancy work, bringing nine years of experience and his skills as a researcher to bear on the increasingly convoluted issues presented by corporate level SEO campaigns.
When Ross the Boss comes into the office, it is generally considered polite (as well as purely rational) to ensure there is at least one fresh cup of coffee in the pot. If there isn't, the staff has two immediate problems. First we have a disappointed boss, which is never a good way to start the day. Second and more importantly, Ross prefers a less substantial, sometimes translucent, brew, presenting an even greater problem for the staff that has to drink it before brewing another pot.
As it happens, Mark, lead designer of our Pure Ignition site development division, almost always follows Ross into the office, arriving mere minutes after the last cup is poured from the first pot. Mark has somehow found a way to brew a pot of coffee that is the perfect medium between the jet-fuel preferred by the sales and news/research departments, and the mellower styling of Ross, the ultimate administrator.
Mark had a hands-on tutorial on how to balance the demands of the staff against the realities of management. Though he was originally hired as an assistant SEO his sense of meticulousness and organization, combined with his bookkeeping abilities and the fact that he already knew the company, made him the perfect candidate for office manager when the internal position became available.
The tasks of the office manager, at least in a fast-paced SEO shop, are among the most thankless and irritating imaginable. Mark handled everything from billing to contracts to keeping the rest of us in line and focused. His diplomatic skills are second only to his design skills and as the second year in his role of ringmaster approached, it became obvious to everyone that Mark needed to start coding again. Fortunately for Mark and the firm, his need to shift roles coincided with one of the greatest shifts in Google's algorithms, the Jagger Update.
Jagger has made site usability and architecture more important factors in achieving strong search engine placements. Our sales manager had noted months ago that he had to turn away an increasing number of potential clients because their sites were simply not ready for search engine optimization and we didn't have a design division. Shifting Mark's energies into a new division of the company where his design skills were needed and his administrative talents would prove crucial was presented as the perfect solution.
Shifting Mark also helped with the quality of coffee in the office. Now that he no longer runs the office, he can show up a few minutes later than he used to, if at all. That means the Ross will always get the third (and last) cup in the "ten-cup" coffee pot every morning and will not have to brew another pot, leaving it up to myself or Bill, or one of his sales associates to keep the coffee strong.
The last pillar-person on our team never comes into the office at all. Our Head SEO, Scott Van Achte, recently moved nearly 1,000 miles north to the tiny community of Dease Lake BC so his wife could pursue her career as a schoolteacher. Scott has to telecommute but through the miracles of modern technology is actually capable of doing more in a day without the distractions of a busy, coffee charged office atmosphere.
Scott is a long-term SEO with almost five years of experience behind him. Having graduated from the University of Victoria 's incredibly challenging Advanced Information Technology Management (AMIT) course, his original job at StepForth was the stepping-stone to a promising career as a search marketing specialist. Scott now juggles responsibility for dozens of clients. Known for his mellow attitude, absolute lack of pretension, and his ability to read code like other people read prose; Scott is the only person to ever have worked for the firm who does not drink coffee. Perhaps it is fitting he is also the only one who, as a rule, almost never comes into the office.
By the end of the day, the coffee machine will have made at least four fresh brews. The staff will be wide awake all day, though Bill or myself might require assistance being peeled off the ceiling around closing time. While we all work on computers, the hardest working machine in any tech office is almost always the coffee machine. In our office, the four pillars might be anchored in the foundation of the company but that foundation is supported by a 24" tall "ten-cup" brew-master. No wonder days at the office pass so fast.
Online gambling is illegal in the United States and has been for years. Though it is against the law to place a bet online, US Government regulators have been unable to prevent sportsbooks, online casinos and for-profit poker rooms from opening, advertising and profiting.
Increased enforcement of anti-gambling laws is expected to grow to include targeting revenues generated by all casino and gambling advertising, including participation in affiliate programs.
While over 50% of all online wagers come from the United States, most online casinos and betting rooms are housed on servers outside US jurisdiction, putting their operators virtually out of the reach of US law enforcement agencies.
Since the US Government has little power to prosecute the operators of sites legally based on foreign soil, the Organized Crime and Racketeering section of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is betting on a simpler target, advertisers and ad-publishers. They have started targeting the largest advertisers in a bid to send a message to smaller ones.
According to a report in today's Wired News titled, "All Bets Are Off, Online Anyway", the website Sporting News, owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, reached a $7.2Million settlement with the DOJ in order to avoid prosecution for running gambling ads in its magazine and on its syndicated radio show in 2002 and 2003. Allen's site recently surrendered $4.2Million in gambling ad revenues and is running $3Million in anti-gambling advertisements over the next three years.Here is a script for one of the spots, copied from the Wired News piece.
Announcer: "Sports fans like you should know that betting with offshore or foreign gambling enterprises via the internet or telephone violate U.S. federal and state laws." Fan: "You mean it's illegal?" Announcer: "Yep!"
The Sporting News website is also running a series of anti-online gambling ads that appear at the bottom of several pages in the site. One such ad reads:
NO INTERNET GAMBLING.Please be aware that betting with offshore or foreign gambling enterprises via the internet or telephone violate U.S. federal and state laws. Companies that engage in the business of online casino-style gambling, or online or telephone sportsbooks also violate U.S. federal and state laws. (A public service announcement from Sporting News)
Online gambling is estimated to be a $12Billion per year industry that is growing rapidly, especially due to the rise in popularity of poker variation, Texas Hold'em. Advertising for online gambling in the United States is considered aiding and abetting illegal activities by US law enforcement authorities.
For many webmasters and site owners, an enforced ban on gambling advertising is going to hurt. Online casinos offer lucrative revenues for sites carrying their advertising, sometimes even splitting monies lost by gamblers with the owners of the sites that originally referred them. In one reported example, Gibraltar based casino affiliate program, Referback, offers ad-publishers 20 - 35% commissions, depending on the amount of losses accumulated by high-spending gamblers referred by sites in the affiliate program.
Webmasters should also be aware that as part of the anti-online gambling crackdown, the US Government could seize assets and revenues believed to be derived from online gambling advertising. One famous case involved the Discovery Channel, the US Department of Justice and online poker-room, Paradise Poker.
In October 2003, Paradise Poker paid the Discovery Channel $3.85Million to run ads for Party Poker during the televised World Series of Poker Tour. The Discovery Channel cancelled the contract after running about $600,000 worth of the 30-second spots but did not refund the remaining $3.25Million. Paradise Poker filed a suit to recover the unearned portion of the contract but by April 2004 US Marshals had seized it stating that the Discovery Channel was a party to illegal activity when broadcasting online gambling ads. The US Marshals also seized about $2Million under contracts relating to PartyPoker.com advertising from sister-station the Travel Channel.
The message sent by the US Government at the time was very simple. Assets derived from online casino or gambling advertising could be seized and held as evidence pending trial.
Following US law, Google and Yahoo refuse to run ads for online casinos or gambling operations in the United States but serve such ads to search engine users in many other parts of the world. A search conducted in the UK under online gaming related keywords often produces paid advertising for real-world and online casinos, along with betting parlours and poker-rooms.
For non-US citizens, running online gambling advertising could be a risky source of revenue, even if online gambling is perfectly legal in their home countries. Violation of US law, regardless of where the violation takes place, is punishable on US soil or by restrictions from visiting (or flying over) US territories. The United States Government considers the Internet, or at least the parts of it found in US jurisdiction, to be subject to US Federal law.
Though the United States has laws prohibiting online gambling, the fact remains over half the revenues generated in the online gambling industry come from the pockets of US citizens. The demand is obviously high and there are plenty of entrepreneurs willing to fulfil that demand.
While Google and Yahoo don't run ads for online casinos, sportsbooks, or other direct Internet gambling operators in the United States, both still offer a wide array of paid-advertising choices for US visitors. Filling the vacuum left by the Paradise Poker, PartyPoker, various Sportsbooks, and other direct online gambling sites are a number of "educational" sites offering free games, playing tips, books on the perfect gambling systems, and a heck of a lot of malware in the form of adware products.
Surfers and free-gaming enthusiasts beware, adware products are often included in the free-game downloads found at many of these free-game "educational" sites.
There is nothing wrong or illegal with running a few thousand friendly Texas Hold'em tables, as long as no money is bet or exchanged at those tables. Advertising for, and accepting money for on behalf of, online gambling operators is illegal but somebody, somewhere is sporting the bill for the free, educational online card rooms. For all we know, they could be watching you now.
StepForth's methods of providing search engine optimization services for Google rankings have evolved significantly over the past year. Since the release of Google's March 30, 2005 patent application, "Information retrieval based on historical data", our SEO and research departments have made site usability and understanding user behaviours a priority.
After reading, analysing and writing about information found in the patent application, we correctly predicted user behaviours were becoming critical factors in Google's estimation of the relevancy or importance of documents in its index. To meet what we see as the major challenges for our search engine advertising clients in the coming years, we have spun off a SEO friendly web site division, moved to provide several levels of SEO consultancy, and accessed the services of website usability experts.
A growing number of others in the SEO community are sensing, testing and talking about issues central to how Google perceives user behaviours and how that perception affects search engine placements.
A discussion thread at WebMasterWorld, "Google algo moves away from links, towards traffic patterns", has been mentioned in several SEO/SEM related news sources and blogs this week. S tarted on April 4, the thread has been picking up steam with discussion generally ranging towards Google's tracking of user behaviours and how that data might affect search results.
The term "user behaviours" describes any number of actions taken by people while using a Google branded search tool, while visiting a particular site in Google's index, and while moving from site to site or document to document.
Basically, Google wants to know what its users like and dislike. Those user-judgements have become important factors in how Google ranks sites in its index and in personalized search results shown to registered users.
Hundreds of millions of Internet users subscribe to or otherwise use Google products every day. Google tracks each of their actions to one degree or another. For some, a simple cookie feeds basic data back to Google's servers. For others, products such as the Google Toolbar, Bookmarks, News Alerts and even Google Analytics feed large amounts of online behavioural information to Google.
Google pays attention to what its users do when they visit a particular website, page or file listed in its index, keeping an active record in order to compile historic profiles of those documents. If a visitor accesses a document while performing a Google search or from a bookmark file, Google notices and takes note. If visitors find a document by following a link from another, that action (or behaviour) is noted. How long visitors tend to stay on a document is counted, as are the actions taken by those visitors after they are finished viewing the document.
It does so for a number of reasons. Search is increasingly becoming personalized. Google is experimenting with personalized search results for registered users, showing ads that match location; results from Google Base that match user locations registered with searches performed using Google Local. The goal of search is to deliver the most relevant set of results possible, and Google is trying to account for the fact that relevance is relative to the searcher's personal needs. Google also views user-behaviours as a way to filter out sites that a mass of users might deem less useful.
Google's core ranking algorithm, PageRank has long used links as an indication of the relevance of unique documents. One facet of user-behaviour tracking looks at how site-visitors use those links as a factor determining the relevance, or importance of those links. It is also interested in knowing which documents its users take seriously by gauging the number of visitors and the time each visitors spends examining the document, and other documents associated by domain or link.
User Behaviour has become an important pillar supporting the PageRank algorithm. A short note in the discussion thread from WMW admin Brett Tabke suggests Google has been tracking a wide range of information supplied by its users, along with a wider array of information supplied by the web documents in its index since November 2003's Florida Update.
Data supplied by user-behaviour is included in a larger and more important profile Google keeps of each document in its index. As it visits and revisits documents in its index, following and evaluating every link it can from document to document, Google forms an evolving impression of each document. It records that impression in document-specific historic profiles. These profiles are thought to generate a reputation score for each document that acts as a major factor in its algorithm.
Google also pays attention to any changes made to documents in its index. It finds site or document changes during its normal spidering cycle. It notices when new text is added to a document and when text is deleted. When a new link, or set of links, is added to a document, Google notices and follows the links, recording the date of insertion and its impression of the pages or files the new links lead to.
It adds this all data to a profile that already includes specific details about the history of a URL, historic details on document and site content, and an evaluation of all links leading to and from the document. User behaviour forms a fourth pillar of PageRank's overall relevancy formulas.
It should be noted that Google takes interest in user behaviour for a number of reasons but with the exception of specific personalized search data, it's nothing personal, it's only data. There is no reason to think that Google is playing Big Brother by tracking user-behaviour. It might use specific personal data to serve advertising, as is the case with Gmail and with personalized search results but it appears to have acted ethically to protect user data from various governments over the years. Google recently earned a notation from the Thomas Jefferson Center for "strenuously" resisting the US Department of Justice's request for user data.
The writing has been on the wall, (or on the server at any rate) for over two years. After several algorithm changes and a four-month infrastructure upgrade, Google results are starting to show the direct influence of its users as they vote with their mouse-buttons. User-data is an important factor in search engine placement, making website usability an important factor in SEO services.
Earlier this week, the board of directors of a well trafficked grassroots online news-source decided to pull Google AdWords from their site. The decision was based on the outrage its members felt over what they perceive to be Google's collaboration with Chinese Government (PRC) officials to censor or otherwise limit content available through Google China.
It's easy to understand why a group of social activists have become disenamored with Google over its relationship with the PRC. The details surrounding the numerous issues shared amongst activists are far too broad to mention however most people are familiar with concerns over Tibet, Human Rights and Democracy.
It is more difficult to understand why Google is so often singled out as the major collaborator with the totalitarian PRC regime. Along with Google, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Yahoo have each made startling compromises in their bids to do business with the Peoples' Republic. Known as the Tech-Gang of Four, these firms comprise the biggest Western players in the Chinese Internet market.
While they are not the only Western firms willing to comply with laws that violate concepts of free thought and expression, the Tech-Gang of 4 have, directly or indirectly, helped the PRC impose severe restrictions on the flow of information.
In the case of Cisco Systems, its routers are viewed by many, including a number of Cisco shareholders, as the cornerstone components in what is referred to as the Great Firewall of China. With the ability to identify and filter individual information packets based on keywords, Cisco's routers are used by the PRC to censor information as it flows into China. Cisco also sells networking and monitoring equipment to Chinese law enforcement authorities, including products that could be used to trace the origins of content found on Chinese Internet servers.
In June 2005, Microsoft faced intense criticism over its reprogramming of the Chinese version of its blogging tool, MSN Spaces. In compliance with a Chinese Government request, a pop-up warning reading, "This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression", when users in the PRC type a banned word into the body of their message. Banned words or expressions include reference to Tibetan independence, Taiwanese independence, the Tiananmen Square massacre and Chinese violations of human rights.
One of the most frightening accusations of collaboration with repressive officials were thrown at Yahoo last year when it was revealed that Yahoo shared information identifying Chinese journalist Shi Tao that led to his arrest and subsequent 10-year jail sentence. Tao's alleged crime, forwarding to foreign websites of a government Email warning journalists of the dangers of social destabilisation and risks resulting from the return of certain dissidents on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
In each of the cases outlined above, Western tech firms assisted the Chinese government by making it easier to exercise state control over the information available to its people. At the same time, each firm asserts they are only following the laws of the land in which they work. Both statements are true and reasonable. In an interview with the BBC, William Makower, CEO of Panlogic, a marketing consultancy with operations in China said, "If you want to deal with the Chinese, you have to deal with their rules. It is all very well to have high-minded ideals about how you want the Chinese to behave, but opposing China is going to be counter-productive."
Citizens of any jurisdiction have the right to expect corporations operating in those jurisdictions to follow the law of the land, just as we have the right to expect fellow citizens to abide by the laws that govern our society. Arguing against rule of law is a kin to arguing against reason. So, what should a company do when the rule of law is unreasonable? A good answer might be found in the actions of the much-maligned Jr. member of the Tech-Gang of 4, Google.
Partially in reaction to the public furor over self-censorship at Google.CN, and partially in reaction to the arrest of Shi Tao, Google has moved many services aside from core-search away from Chinese jurisdiction. Gmail, blogger, Orkut, and other Google-based tools are not available to Chinese users, unless accessed via proxy.
Google has also demonstrated a high degree of corporate responsibility by openly addressing issues associated with doing business in the PRC. It has posted its rational on its official blog, and has explained how it weighs such decisions against its "Don't Be Evil" ethics policy.
In January 2006, cofounder Sergey Brin explained Google's decision to self-censor Chinese results to Reuters News. In his explanation, he outlines why Google does not offer blog, email or chat services in China. "The practical matter is that over the last couple of years Google in China was censored — not by us but by the government, via the 'Great Firewall,"' said Brin. "It's not something I enjoy but I think it was a reasonable decision."
Google was also the only search firm to stand up to the US Department of Justice request for millions of search-queries and results. Due to Google’s legal challenge of the request, a significantly smaller set of data, minus user identifying information, was turned over. Its competitors caved to the initial request; over six months before the story became public knowledge, giving US Government authorities an enormous amount of user generated data.
Search Engine Watch Chief-Editor, Danny Sullivan, often questions why Google seems to attract most of the negative press, often to the exclusion of its competitors. That they are the biggest seems to be the only explanation.
It is no surprise that a group of people concerned over social issues, the environment and human rights would be so upset with Google that they remove AdWords advertising from their community news site. In doing so, they will be paying costs that AdWords was able to cover, thus transferring those costs back to their own wallets.
What is surprising is how easy it is to forget the operations of other firms in regards to the Chinese Internet market. More than any other search engine, Google attracts a great deal of user outrage. When compared to its competitors and others in the tech world, Google tends to err on what appears to be the side of good far more often than on the side of perceived evils.
Yahoo is testing a new paid-ad placement and revenue model in Scandinavia that appears similar to the algorithm Google uses to determine the placement of paid advertising.
Basing its rankings on a combination of cost-per-click and the number of times search users click specific paid ads, Yahoo's new ad placement system is expected to be rolled out in the UK in July.
While there is no official word on when the new system will be introduced in North America or other parts of the world, an announcement about Yahoo's intentions is expected in the coming weeks with speculation on a global rollout in late 2006 or early 2007.
Codenamed, Project Panama, the switch is expected to bring a higher volume of click-throughs than the current system that determines ad placement based on the highest keyword bidder.
According to a story in Forbes Magazine, Yahoo has already notified a number of high volume search buyers of the upcoming changes.
North American MSN users awoke today to find MSN Search was out of commission. The service was down for at least four hours today. Thus far we have been unable to find out why.
First noted at Threadwatch, searches conducted at MSN Search resulted in an error page reading:
This service is currently unavailable.
Our team is working to restore service as quickly as possible. Please try your request again later.
As reported at Search Engine Watch, there is nothing in the MSN Search Weblog noting the outage. The last entry, from March 28th, details the Search Macro feature at Microsoft's beta search service WindowsLive.
The search engine, web portal formerly known as America Online has changed its name to that of its acronym, AOL.
"Our company long ago accomplished the mission implied by our old name. We literally got America online," said Jon Miller, chairman and chief executive of AOL LLC, in an interview with Associated Press.
This is the fourth time the company has changed its name. Formed in 1985 as Quantum Computer Services, it changed its name to America Online Inc. in 1991. Ten years later, it bought the Time Warner media empire and changed its name to AOL Time Warner in 2001. Three months after the purchase, the bottom fell out of the tech market and the name AOL became a liability on the larger corporation. It was later dropped from the Time Warner banner.
Time Warner is making AOL a limited liability company, removing its corporate status, hence the name AOL LLC. Miller added, "Our new corporate identity better reflects our expanded mission - to make everyone's online experience better."
Around here, we're just going to keep calling it AOL.
Google is without a doubt the world's number one search engine. According to the research firm Neilsen/NetRatings, Google's share of the global search market in February 2006 was 48.5%, more than double the 22.5% share its nearest rival Yahoo saw. Having been the engine of choice for nearly five years, Google is synonymous with search. Because Google is the first thing most folks think of when they think about search, it is the most important search marketing venue, at least for the vast majority of SEOs.
That might be changing in the coming years. There's a sense in the SEO sector that the horizons have expanded significantly and the search marketing map has gotten far larger. What the new landscape will look like exactly, and how large Google's footprint will be, is still unknown. The emerging online environment is still being explored, so to speak. As it is explored, it is evolving very quickly. In many ways, it feels like the early days of the commercial web where everyone knew that everything was about to change, but no one really knew exactly how.
While Google's influence is incredible and its dominance appears unassailable, a number of newer products and changes in public perceptions have prompted subtle shifts in the habits of Internet users. Search marketers and online advertisers have started taking notice, putting more energy into helping clients understand and use tools such as blogs, images, press releases and video content as marketing devices.
The evolution of the Internet, in regards to search depends a lot on four unique groups; users, online marketers, search engine developers, and creative web developers. How each group reacts to these new user/marketing channels in the coming months and years will determine if Google's dominance is threatened. As it stands today, Google remains synonymous with search however, users are starting to venture away from the Google brand, even if it is the most recognizable one in their minds.
A recent survey conducted by UK-based online marketing firm, Harvest Digital (reg. req.), shows that Google is almost universally recognized as the UK 's leading search engine. (When thinking about North American search engine usage, similar results are assumed to be a somewhat safe assumption.)
When asked, "What search engine do you use?" 94% of respondents said Google. 40% said they used Yahoo, 39% said Ask Jeeves and 37% said MSN.
The answer clearly shows that Google is the first thing consumers think of when asked about search but is also shows that most search engine users are looking at more sources when looking for information. It also confirms that Ask continues to enjoy high popularity in the UK , even after dropping ex-pat butler Jeeves. Of the 205-person test group, only 24% said they only used one search engine with 56% using two or three search engines.
A large group of search engine users express less than stellar expectations from their experience with search engines. There appears to be a growing dissatisfaction among UK search engine users with only 22% of the survey group stating they felt "... confident that search engines would always give them the information that they needed." More often than not, users blamed themselves when searches produced less than useful results. 36% assumed they were using the wrong keywords. 32% figured the information they were looking for was too specialized. These statements should be noted by SEOs when thinking of creative keyword targets along with alternative search venues such as vertical and local search.
Interestingly, nearly a quarter of respondents said that advertisers paying for higher position are responsible. 24% agreed with the statement, "Advertisers are paying to come top of the results", is the reason "... some searches are less successful”. While the survey draws the conclusion that this is a paid-search issue, it is unclear if respondents are noting PPC ads or well-optimized sites dominating organic results.
When choosing results to click on, 60% said it is because that result appeared on the first page with 17% tending towards the top results. 32% stated the description as an important factor when choosing which search results might best match their needs. Again, 78% of them will express some sense of dissatisfaction with the results.
Ultimately, the survey tells search marketers and their advertisers to spread their focuses to see the much wider horizon. Almost one third of respondents stated their search queries are too specialized to produce successful results. This suggests there is a lot of room for adoption of more targeted search tools such as the vertical search sector and local search engines.
Google is working to cover the vertical bases with its all-in-one solution, Google Base. Several search marketing forums have noted the appearance of Google Base results in searches conducted around the travel, home sales, and automotive industries. It is assumed by many SEOs that Google is trying to see if it can take a share of the market from popular advertising boards like Craigslist and e-commerce facilitators such as eBay.
Yahoo and Google continue to compete against each other and smaller firms such as A9, Ask, and even AOL, in the race to perfect a local search model. As Internet access is integrated in smaller portable devices, local search is seen as one of the greatest growth areas for search marketing.
Other search firms are moving to explore the expansive web as well. Last month, Lycos announced it was introducing a number of self-publishing and distribution options for content creators. It recently entered the VOIP market with Lycos Phone and today announced the release of a desktop Blog editing tool, Lycos-Qumana.
Google has another problem on its plate in regards to user loyalty. Its footprint has grown large enough that at times, it sort of steps on people's expectations in the course of its operations, as is the case with Google's relationship with the Chinese Government. While the other major search engines are active players in the Chinese market, and actively make values-based compromises their Western users might find unacceptable, Google tends to attract the majority of user outrage. That's likely because users have come to expect Google to hold itself to a higher standard, one that goes beyond compromising fair search results. A minor migration from Google happens every time the tech-press cracks a shot across Google's bow.
As Internet usage increases, and the online environment evolves through growth, search engine users are being offered more options while becoming more educated about the medium. Social networks (which enjoy enormous traffic) such as MySpace have search features that users turn to when logged in to the network.
The goal of online marketers is to drive traffic to client websites or documents. For search marketers, the expanding horizons can bring a bounty of business. Today, the reality is that Google is the most difficult engine to achieve a high ranking on but it is also the most effective search marketing venue. Google is the most popular search engine and continues to drive the most traffic.
We expect that fact to remain the same but, at the same time, we are strongly advising our clients to think about other search marketing channels. The habits of Internet users are changing as the incredible growth of MySpace demonstrates. There is a lot of new search marketing turf out there and it is time to work towards establishing a presence there.
Through its Overture pay per click search division, Yahoo has been found facilitating fraudulent click activity generated by known spyware makers including 180solutions, Intermix, and Direct Revenue. A study released earlier today, The Spyware - Click-Fraud Connection - and Yahoo's Role Revisited, (Apr. 4, 06), shows how at least a dozen different spyware firms redirect Internet users searches through their servers, inserting Overture ad links on unrelated websites or with pop-ups triggered by those sites.
Ben Edelmanis a researching PhD candidate at the Department of Economics at Harvard. In his follow up to a Sept. 5, 05 paper, How Yahoo Funds Spyware, Edelman documents a web of relationships between Overture and, "... a startling number of notorious spyware programs."
A recent graduate of Harvard Law School, Edelman lays out his argument methodically, briefly explaining what constitutes click-fraud and ways in which it happens. He also notes that Yahoo has tried to sever its relationships with the offending firms, often unsuccessfully, as they (spyware makers) continue to include Overture code in their spyware programs. "When Yahoo terminates one fraudster, that fraudster's partners find another way to continue operations."
A few paragraphs down, he notes, "After I highlighted these vendors in my August report, it seems Yahoo attempted to terminate its relationships with them. Yet 180 continued not just to show Yahoo ads, but also to perform click fraud, as documented." Eliminating spyware click-fraud is likened to a game of Whack-a-Mole. When Yahoo moves to shut down one channel, another is immediately opened.
Edelman calls the methods outlined in his study, Spyware Syndicated PPC Fraud. "Suppose X, the Yahoo partner site, hires a spyware vendor to send users to its site and to make it appear as if those users clicked X's Yahoo ads. Then advertisers will pay Yahoo, and Yahoo will pay X, even though users never actually clicked the ads."
Using four detailed case studies, conducted between Dec. 17, 05 and Apr. 2, 06, Edelman traces traffic generated on test PCs known to be contaminated with various spyware products. Using packet logs, screenshots, images and video, Edelman effectively demonstrates how each of his conclusions was drawn.
In one case, he shows a link inserted on a New York Times document anchored to the word "prime minister".The link was placed by Qklinkserver and would not appear on an uninfected PC. It was placed without permission from the Times. When clicked, the link sent traffic through Overture to a PPC advertiser.
The study names, Intermix, 180Solutions, Nbcsearch, eXact, Ditto, Look2me, Ad-w-a-r-e, Improvingyourlooks, Qklinkserver, Srch-results, Claria, InfoSpace, SurfSideKick, TrafficEngine, HotBar and IBIS, as companies directly involved in spyware click-fraud.
Edelman goes on to note, "Yahoo's problem results from bad partners within its network."Because it distributes advertising to third parties who might in turn syndicate those ads to others, Yahoo has no real control over how its ad codes are used to generate clicks.
The problem of click-fraud is an ever-present danger in pay per click advertising, one that troubles Google as well. David Utter at WebProNews quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying, "Believe me, as a computer scientist, we have the ability to detect the invalid clicks before they reach advertisers", juxtaposing the quote against the $90million settlement Google reached in the Lanes Gift and Collectables class action.
Edelman closes his study with a realistic but stern warning. The problem is not going to go away. In fact, it is likely to get worse. The market for spyware vendors is drying up, mostly because consumers are aware of the problem and corporate advertisers no longer want to be associated with it. The spyware makers are increasingly turning to more complex systems, including the money-rich PPC market, to find susceptible targets.
Spyware makers have long been known leaches on the Internet. Some, such as Claria receive support from large venture capital firms such as US Venture Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. In some cases, they have become parts of much larger companies, including some of the worlds largest advertising firms. For example, Intermix is a division of News Corp and owns the social network MySpace.Com.
Now that several noted spyware makers have been shown to be involved with click-fraud scams, Yahoo and Google should be moved to immediate action. Aside from protecting the integrity of their PPC programs and maintaining the trust of their advertisers, they must be aware that the New York Attorney General's office is watching.
In a speech sponsored by TRUSTe and the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Ken Dreifach, chief of the Internet bureau in the New York State Attorney General's office, sai
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