Yahoo new Search interface

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong but several weeks ago Microsoft and Yahoo made a widely discussed deal and so from now Yahoo doesn't suppose to work on R&D any search technologies and instead use Microsoft Bing? And so this news does seem to sound really controversy but here is what I think is happening.


Of course the deal was made couple weeks ago but we have to keep in mind the scale of the companies like Microsoft and Yahoo. The deal was made on paper, btw hasn't been approved by FTC yet, but it will take at least a year or so to make this deal real in terms of technological aspects. But until then why Yahoo has to burry all its technological innovations in Search?! I think by keeping the things rolling the guys in Yahoo campus want to keep their users from jumping to Google and so to avoid a situation when the dial will become reality the majority of Yahoo users have already been switched to using Google on regular base just like those 65-70% of people who do it now.


I find it's interesting to watch how Yahoo will try to avoid such frustration situation.

Translate documents: sharing across languages and generations

Now this is huge! I've been waiting for this feature for a while as it does seem logically as Google already has translation tool, why not to integrate it with Google Docs? And finally it'd happened.

Translate documents: sharing across languages and generations: "My cousin is in first grade and sometimes she writes short stories for class. I try to share the stories with her grandparents, but because Japanese is their first language and they don't speak English very well, it's been tough. Today we're releasing a feature for Google Docs to make this kind of multi-lingual sharing easier � you can now automatically translate documents into 42 different languages.


So for my cousin's latest story, I helped her type it up in Google Docs and then clicked 'Translate document' from the 'Tools' menu. In a matter of seconds, Google Docs has translated the whole story into Japanese using Google Translate's technology.




You can replace the original document with the translation or make a new translated version. I like keeping an English version for friends here and creating a separate Japanese version for her grandparents. All the formatting and layout is preserved no matter what language it's in � translations aren't perfect, but we are continuously working on improving translation quality over time. We hope this new feature helps you more easily share information without worrying about language barriers.


Posted by Rita Chen, Associate Product Manager Intern, Google Docs

SEO Remains Steady While PPC, Email and Direct Increase

Another reason why SEO is a good choice when you evaluate promotional methods in current tough economy.

SEO Remains Steady While PPC, Email and Direct Increase: "
Engine Ready has released another study revealing the growth rates among various traffic referrers. While SEO showed the least amount of growth in conversion rates and value per visit, it also showed the least amount of decline in order value, which is significant in this economy.
For conversion rates and average value per visit, the data mimicked results from an earlier study conducted in 2008: big growth across the board, except for SEO.






But when Engine Ready took a look at the average order value (AOV), things had changed. PPC was no longer the highest AOV, surpassed by direct access/bookmark as well as other referrers.
SEO declined the least, which supports the theory that these changes are a reaction to the economy. While SEO does cost money if you hire a consultant or retain an in-house employee, there are no extra charges for ad buys as there would be for PPC.

Snow Leopard is coming...

I didn't expect that Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard will come that fast. I thought it will be somewhere in the middle of september but it's this Friday!!! :-)

I put into this blog title Mac OS hints and despite I haven't written anything yet I do want to share by some tricks I came across by chance or after reading through forums, helps and manuals. And sure I'm gonna dig into the difference between Leopard and Snow Leopard. Stay tuned.

Blind Search Test: You Might Be Surprised at Which Results You Prefer

Now it's very interesting point of view on the current situation with the search. And you know what? Even after reading this short article I still prefer Google as my search tool and the reason is simple it does find me the stuff I look for and I know that the guys who have been working hard in Google Campus to make Google as useful as it is still have lots of ideas for innovation and improve. It's my gut feeling.

Blind Search Test: You Might Be Surprised at Which Results You Prefer: "
Last night, I began playing around on BlindSearch, which returns results from Google, Yahoo! and Bing, but doesn't tell you which one is which. Then, you vote for the results you like the test and it reveals which search engine you chose.


BlindSearch was developed by a Microsoft employee, but not on the company dime or time. (Plus, if it was designed to trick you into liking Bing, it would be entirely too easy to prove that it was tampered with.)


I searched for things I've been searching lately. Waterproof watch, flip flops, Bahamas. (My family is going on a cruise this fall.) I was surprised at how many times Yahoo! results were the ones I liked.


Then I searched topics I'm very familiar with. 'Thyroid cancer' (was diagnosed over 6 years ago) and 'Synthroid' (which keeps me alive). The best search engine was Bing. This was also the results I felt the strongest about my vote. I know exactly which sites I would want to send people to if they got thyroid cancer and Bing ranked them the best.


It made me think - why am I searching on Google so much when the results I trust the most on topics I'm an expert on - are on Bing?!


On topics where I'm more of a casual observer, though, it was difficult to even choose a clear winner. the results are virtually identical for so many searches. The idea that Google is superior is definitely a myth.


It's clear that we're at a crossroads in search. Too many searches must be refined and the results the Big 3 engines are giving us are pretty much the same. Whoever is able to reduce task time in search will emerge as the next winner.

Make a decision using Search Engine - is it possible?

The recent presenting of Bing as a Search Engine for making decision brings up such a question as it is possible to make decisions using Search Engines as this point at all?

The real life data about using Search Engines tells us that there are 3 major types of search - navigational, commercial and informational. Let's review each of them in an attempt to answer the question I put in this post title.

• Navigational search. In a nuts shell it's about typing a website domain name as keyword when you aren't sure if you spell it correctly. With the veracity of domain names it's no wonder that people do that type of search. But certainly this kind of search doesn't lead a person to make a decision. You are already know what you gonna do when you type a domain name.
• Commercial search. These days more and more people do make a decision to purchase something based on what they read about this product or service on the Internet. Let's say I want to buy a new LCD monitor (the matter fact I do:-) ) and before going into a store and asking questions to a seller, who basically can't be objective, I turn on my Macbook, go online and start googling this product.

But wait - I don't use Google for finding information about which LCD to buy, I use for this purpose Cnet.com - in a sense, a vertical Search engine for making purchase decisions. Now this is just a one example, there are tons of products and services we purchase and sure enough - there isn't 'Cnet.com' for every single of them. You simply can't create a vertical, means dedicated to specific product or service, Search Engine for all stuff you need either purchase or sale.

So the idea to equip a regular Search Engine like Google or Bing with vertical SE abilities is an important and logical one. And Google, Bing, Ask already have so-called Shopping search function. The bottom line is at this point we can make decisions using Search Engines when it comes to shopping.

• Informational search. And this is the hardest part. When you think about an example of searching for information it's really hard to come up with the one as there are so-o-o many kinds of info we need daily and I don't think that any algorithm is capable of allowing a person to make decisions about info they look for using Search Engines. Quite frankly the day when a Search Engine will allow you to make a decision about information you look for is the one when artificial intelligent becomes reality.

Seven Common Mistakes That Cause New Advertisers To Fail

Now, this is the best summarising of PPC mistakes people do, I know it for sure cause I used to do them too when I was new to SEO business :-). Read it carefully and don't repeat these mistakes.

Seven Common Mistakes That Cause New Advertisers To Fail: "The fundamentals of a good pay-per-click campaign have not changed over the past six years. However, every single day, advertisers new to the world of PPC advertising are making the same mistakes as veterans made years ago.
You can save yourself lots of time and money by examining the mistakes of others so that you do [...]

Sharing with Google Groups

I just love how the product evolves. I still can't imagine a situation when I don't use my iWork suite for complicated docs but when it comes to sharing files at work Google Docs is superb and now it becomes even better! Period.

Sharing with Google Groups: "As more and more businesses and organizations 'go Google,' we find that many of the features we develop based on feedback from large enterprises end up benefiting all of our users. We recently rolled out improvements to the way Google Groups interacts with several of our applications. Now, sharing calendars, sites and documents with multiple people is easy � instead of adding people one at a time, you can simply share with an entire Google Group.


As an example, imagine you're organizing a local intramural softball team tournament. You use Google Docs to keep track of the rosters for each team as well as each team's performance.



You want all the players, but only the players, to have editing access. You already have a Google Group set up with the tournament participants, so you simply share the spreadsheet with the group itself, granting the group members permission to edit.




Now, when people join or leave the Google Group, they will automatically gain or lose editing access to the spreadsheet. It's that easy.


This was a feature that people wanted to 'just work' � and now it does. Go ahead and try it out with your sites, calendars and documents!


Posted by Jeffrey Chang, Associate Product Manager, Google
"

A few more bits about Ya-Bing

You know what? I guess the smartest move for Microsoft will be not to mention about Bing on any of the Yahoo products they gonna keep rolling. This way they won't push away people who used to use Yahoo Search and really not like using Bing.

Twitter to Officially Adopt ReTweeting (And You Might Not Like It)

I do not think is a good idea either, ReTweet and Tweet should be clearly distinguished. It is important as Twitter is all about personalities and people which opinion you trust and value. Check out what Nathania Johnson from Search Engine Watch has to say about it:

Twitter to Officially Adopt ReTweeting (And You Might Not Like It): "

Twitter is planning on making the act of ReTweeting an official Twitter feature. Right now, it's just some crazy phenomenon started by users. It wasn't all that far-fetched, really. People have been using @username to respond to comments on blogs for years.

However, Twitter plans to post those ReTweets in a different way. The ReTweet will appear as a regular Tweet, with the avatar of the original Tweeter and everything but underneath, it will say 'ReTweeted by so and so' in tiny text.

I do not like this idea at all. Neither does Dan Zarella, arguably the most knowledgeable of the ReTweeting trend. He has done studies on ReTweeting. He is a big ReTweeting geek (that's meant with the nicest sentiments).

Writing on his blog, Zarella explains:

I follow people because I trust and enjoy their point of view, I don't nessecarily trust the POV of people I don't follow, so using the original poster's picture and name in my timeline destroys any social proof the ReTweeter may have lent the Tweet.

I agree. I want it to be obvious when something is a ReTweet. I think I even pay attention to ReTweets more because the nature of a ReTweet is something cool and/or newsworthy or something we wish we'd said but didn't think of it.

Having said that, many people ReTweet using the 'via' formula. This happens automatically with some desktop clients. The designer behind the Twitter adoption of ReTweeting does and therefore, that must explain why she designed the new feature that way.

Twitter should just add a simple feature that allows BOTH. Let those who wish to ReTweet do so and those who wish to Via do so. Plus, Twits should be allowed to decide how they would like to view the shared Tweets. Doing away with a popular format that most likely helped spread the use of Twitter does not seem like a smart move to me.

Caffeine: A Fundamental Rewrite of Google, A Shift to Real Time

This is the post from John Battelle's SearchBlog about the next Google Update. I guess its name is pretty obvious as we all drink lots of coffee working late and so Google should drink this stuff too :-)

Caffeine: A Fundamental Rewrite of Google, A Shift to Real Time: "

Matt Cutts points to a video interview (embedded above) on Google's Caffeine infrastructure update.

'It's a pretty fundamentally big change' Matt says. What I'd like to know is why and in response to what changes on the web. Of course, the major changes in how the web works are clear: Real Time Search.

In this post (and/or this one) I said:

In short, Google represents a remarkable achievement: the ability to query the static web. But it remains to be seen if it can shift into a new phase: querying the realtime web.

It's inarguable that the web is shifting into a new time axis. Blogging was the first real indication of this, but blogging, while much faster than the traditional HTML-driven web, is, in the end, still the HTML-driven web.

Part and parcel to this shift is the web's adoption of Flash/Silverlight/Ajax - a shift to assuming the web works in real time, like an application on your desktop. That makes it damn hard to index stuff, because pages are not static, they are created in real time in response to user demand. This is a new framework for how the web works, and if Google doesn't respond to it, Google basically will become relegated to a card catalog archive of static HTML pages. No way will Google let that happen...

(By the way, one of the reasons I was impressed with Wowd was exactly because of its ability to, at scale, track a new signal in the web - the signal of what we are actually doing in real time...as opposed to the signal of the link...but more on that later.

Matt was asked if Caffeine was specifically about Real Time, and he was not totally specific about this but it's pretty obvious it is all about this shift.

Oh, and Matt says it's not because of Bing. In one way, I agree. But let's be real. Microsoft and Yahoo did this deal because Yahoo alone could never sustain the infrastructure costs associated with indexing and processing the Real Time Web. So in truth, Google did this because it had to, just like Microsoft and Yahoo did what they did because they have to. If you want to play, you have to get the infrastructure right.

Here's SEL's take on it.

Yahoo - Microsoft. Ya-Bing deal.

Well, after the epic battle which lasted 1.5 year it finally has happened - Microsoft has bought Yahoo Search. I believe now Jerry Yang is watching on this deal with pretty complicated emotions. Now I clearly remember how it was not easy for Jerry to answer on John Battelle's questions about Yahoo's future as a company, as the company which used to dominate on a market, a last autumn on Web 2.0 summit. I guess at that point he already realised that it will happen but just wanted to do his best to change the future. There is an irony at this situation, back in early 2000 I remember the moment when Yahoo search technology served MSN search and now it's vise versa - Bing will do search for Yahoo. Taking into account the companies size and the number of products they have, good or bad ones, it's a real challenge to combine it. Here are few key points to highlight:

Who has won?

Basically you hear two opinions about it from industry analytics - Microsoft and...Google :-) But none of them points to Yahoo as the winner. Obviously, Yahoo has thrown a towel, they simply do not have a vision about the search and its future and they don't have the right team to beat Google and offer a superior solution and superior search experience for people. It's hard to say if there was a better way for them to go instead of selling the search to Microsoft. From what's known about this deal Microsoft will handle all search technology and will do all necessary R & D, Yahoo will do marketing, sales with big clients. The only benefit for Yahoo which is visible at this point is that Microsoft will pay Yahoo for search results gradually but nobody can predict will this deal do what Microsoft and Yahoo expect from it in a future?

A point which is being made about why Google might be the one who's achieved from this deal the most is the following. Before this deal took place we had 5 major players on the Search market - Google (65% of the market), Yahoo (~20%), MSN/Bing (~10..11%), AOL (~4), Ask (~2%). After the deal - only four: Google, Yahoo+Bing, AOL and ASk, and remember that AOL gets its search results from Google and, so roughly speaking, Google has ~70% of a market share and so we will have only 3 players. Now again we have to realize that before this deal will happen technically at least a year should went by and so Google will have a great opportunity to gain even bigger market share, today's Yahoo Search and Bing users, who is and will become aware of the situation with Yahoo, will likely prefer Google as a reliable and superior search tool. I really don't know how much market share will be left for Bing+Yahoo to gain in 2010...

Brands and Products.

What about tools like Flickr, Yahoo Local Search, Yahoo Maps, Yahoo Mail? At this point their future is not clear. Will Microsoft pick up their development with it's own developers team or let people, who has dedicated several years of their life to its development, to continue to work on these products. We don't know yet.

The search interface. Which way to go?

As I see it there are two possible ways - to leave Yahoo GUI as it's now and feed it with Bing search results and perhaps to put a little note 'Powered by Bing' or completely surpress Yahoo interface with the Bing one. It's no brainer that the first option is better but quite frankly GUI is the strongest advantage Bing has and it makes sense to use it for Yahoo Search as well. But if we can forget about technical details for ordinary people who might not know about this deal at all it's better to keep things intact. Imagine millions of Yahoo users one morning will try to perform a routine search and they won't see Yahoo GUI they've got used to! What will be their reaction?!

FTC approve

When it comes to a deal of that scale of course FTC is interested to investigate it and evaluate if anti-monopoly measures should be taken. So potentially a situation when they say 'No' and Microsoft and Yahoo will have to decide what to do with the deal is quite possible.

AardVark -The serious move towards Real Time Search.

Nobody and me either would argue that we live in ara when Google = Search. And it's far more than just a search tool but after 11 years of incredible grow it still can't address one simple but at the same time hard thing - Real Time Search. No, I'm not gonna devote this post to Twitter as for Twitter being a real time search tool is more of supplemental benefit it is not its main purpose. I'm gonna talk about AardVark .

Well, if you don't watch the Animal Planet here is the short WikiPedia dig about what its name stands for - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark and here is why this online service got its name - http://vark.com/help#about_4. Aardvark or just Vark is built on a simple idea of a volunteer collaboration on things, problems or sharing a piece of mind with either your friends, colleagues or completely strangers but still your friends in terms of tastes, common interests. Despite this service is quite new and not widely known, which is just a matter of time, it's fair to outline several purposes for what AardVark is useful:

1. You have a question but you don't know how exactly to search for it in Google. I mean you don't know the right keywords to lead you to the information you've been looking for. And so you basically you ask for help to Aardvark community, there are huge chances that other AardVark users do know the right keywords to search for the info and they will give you the right answer.
2. You don't have a time to search for information as you've tried but failed on your first shot in Google - wrong keywords you chose didn't return anything close to the stuff you expected to find. AardVark users may know the answer right away and will give it to you almost instantly.
3. You need a piece of information about a time sensitive matter, in this case Google or, for Christ sake, Bing don't have any information, which is related to a time frame like today/ yesterday / couple days ago but AaardVark community may have this kind of information.

And finally one of the strongest AardVark advantages is you do not have to stick to its site to answer or ask questions, the system will hook up to your GTalk / AIM / MSN contact list and will forward you questions or answers about the topics you specified in your profile as the ones you have expertise for or you just feel confidence to give a peace of mind about those topics. I'm sure you will love

SEO of your site - why bother?

I remember the first time I faced with Search Engine Optimization, at that time back in early 2001 even the term itself wasn’t well known and basically SEO didn’t exist. Website owners had heard of meta tags and they thought that stuffing meta tags and a website page with keywords was enough to achieve groundbreaking results in terms of ranking on Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, AltaVista ( I hope people are still familiar with this pre dinosaur age Search Engine).

Well it’s sad but still true that there are some website owners who are up till now think of SEO as a process of stuffing a website page with keywords or worse - consider SEO either a hoax or simply time wasting practice.

But today the reality is almost screaming about the fact that well professional, based on practice, which Google and Yahoo suggest to follow, Search Engine Optimization is what almost any, except well known brands, site needs. Of course banner ads and email marketing do still exist and perhaps won’t disappear any time soon but these two promotional channels simply can not compete with Search Engines in terms of ROI and bringing quality traffic to a site.

This statement was true several years ago and as time goes by it becomes more and more correct and crucial. And now consider this fact - the Internet grows constantly and it means that more and more businesses go online and therefore they bring more and more competitiveness on a market.

Having your site optimized for Search Engines to get traffic does not mean that you suppose to stress on topics of your site that corresponde to highly competitive keywords. Quite frankly - you, as an owner of a brand new site, do not have much of chances to compete with other sites on the same highly competitive keywords. Your job is just like with a regular marketing - find a competitive, winning feature, that makes your product or service unique and use this feature full potential. And it’s always good to repeat old Apple Inc. slogan - ‘Think different!’

Twitter. Have we carried away a bit?

I bet at this very moment you have Twitter.com opened in your browser or in some application which allows you to post what you have to say about your job, personal stuff, about pretty much anything you want to share with the world.

Well, I do the same every other day but sometimes when I read articles, check different directories which offer to increase a number of your followers I wonder if anybody remember the initial idea which stands behind the Twitter?

Let’s check what Wikipedia tells us - ‘Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.’ Social networking means Twitter is the tool to keep in contact with your relatives, co-workers, clients, any people you deal with in your online or offiline life.

But you won’t find anywhere neither on Twitter itself nor on Wikipedia that you have to participate in all sorts of ‘increase your followers number’ movements. It is nonsense! Once again we witness a process which took place earlier with MySpace and then with Facebook - abusing the original idea.

For me it’s another signal which speaks to the fact that as the Internet evolves a competition between commercial sites grow and people who run their online businesses grab ANY idea, these days it’s about social networking sites, to benefit from it.

I’m quite happy with getting more or less followers in a completely natural way - if somebody is interested in what I’m talking in my tweets he follows me, otherwise - he doesn’t. As simple as that.