Handpicked Search Industry Headlines And Posts
Issue #074: Search Spend
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"Understanding Internet Search Technology"
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June 29, 2006 SearchReturn Issue #074
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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....
// -- ESSENTIAL NEWS -- //
"Major Changes At Google"
"Yahoo Click Fraud Settlement"
"Google Loses French Trademark Case"
"Net Neutrality Fails Again"
"MSN Robots Exclusion With Secure Pages"
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// -- ESSENTIAL NEWS -- //
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==> Major Changes At Google
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3617061
Essentials: Google has launched their Checkout service, which is
widely seen as a competitor to eBay's PayPal service even though
the company denies this. With the launch, other major changes to
the user interface of Google AdWords and Google accounts has been
updated both to reflect the new service, and enhance the overall
Google experience with AdWords and Accounts.
A few links have been renamed, such as Add Keywords to Quick Add,
and now a tabulated interface at the AdGroup level provides
users with access to the Summary, Keywords and AdVariations
screens which have all mostly been redesigned.
With respect to the Checkout service, AdWords advertisers are
given incentive to use it since their credit card will likely
already be in the system. Merchants as advertisers will also be
encouraged to adopt Checkout with no charge access, credits for
AdWords spending and competitive rates against PayPal ($0.20 to
PayPal's $0.30, or 2% of the transaction to PayPal's 2.9%).
This couldn't come at a better time for Google, who recently won
Wired magazine's coveted top spot, (displacing Apple), in their
Wired 40 list.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/wired40.html
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==> Yahoo Click Fraud Settlement
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060628-202403
Essentials: Yahoo! has reached a settlement, approved by a
California judge, that addresses the Lane's Gifts and
Collectibles lawsuit as well as other potential victims of Click
Fraud. The settlement between Yahoo! and Checkmate Strategic
Group is potentially more rewarding with advertisers having a
legitimate case since there is no ceiling amount to the reward.
This differs greatly from the Google settlement and in other
interesting ways as well. Yahoo! is to start hosting annual
panel tours to open their quality assurance team to questions and
feedback by advertisers that participate. Yahoo! will work with
reputable third parties and define click fraud appropriately,
(rather than a failing attempt at spin trying to rename click
fraud low quality clicks). And a new traffic quality resource
center will be developed so that advertisers can obtain
information on their own through their Yahoo! account manager.
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==> Google Loses French Trademark Case
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060628-122055
Essentials: While having a copyright case dropped in Germany, a
French Appellate court awarded 300,000 Euros, or approximately
$375,800 USD in damages to Louis Vuitton. The French court
rejected the appeal by Google, finding the search giant breached
copyright law with respect to the Vuitton trademark.
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==> Net Neutrality Fails Again
http://www.searchreturn.com/digest/refs074.shtml
Essentials: Although both sides continue to claim victory, the
only upside to the Net Neutrality side is that enough Democrats
are on board that ultimate victory in some piece of future
legislation is not entirely out of sight. The impact on search
would be felt worldwide because US-based hosting would change fee
structure allowing providers favoritism as well as the potential
to block access entirely. A search result page could conceivably
contain links to slow or inaccessible sites.
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==> MSN Robots Exclusion With Secure Pages
http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2006/06/28/649980.aspx
Essentials: The Microsoft LiveSearch Blog mentions that Robots
Exclusion, specifically the root directory text file protocol, is
not strictly adhered to by them and that secure pages must have a
unique file for blocking secure pages. This is an extension that
Microsoft is famous for, because the protocol doesn't specify
anything special for secure pages. It was meant for a time prior
to secure sockets layer connections via https.
This sounds like a decision by Microsoft after experience
confusing the same resource names for both http and https even
when the content actually differs. They want webmasters to solve
this for them to speed them on their way for competing with
Google and the like.
This means that we recommend if you plan to use the protocol to
exclude any secure files, that you would be wise to contemplate
publishing a specific Robots Exclusion file in the root of the
secure directory, in addition to the typical, to ensure MSNBot
will act the way you want (sort of).
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