Marketing Pilgrim

Paul Christ as KnowThis.com Marketing Blog lists search engine marketing as the #2 concept that modern marketers need to know. It’s a pretty strong endorsement. From the post:

But I will say that if you are not thoroughly familiar with each of these topics then you owe it to yourself to learn. Soon! Pick up books, go to websites, attend seminars, enroll in courses. Whatever it takes learn these concepts as soon as you can. . . .

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I’ve been working from home, mostly telecommuting, since my son was born a year ago. If, like me, you’re one of those SEMs who works from home, Read/WriteWeb has compiled a list of programs to create a complete virtual office, including giving presentations and collaborating with team members (presumably also working from their homes). In addition to the author’s (Alex Iskold’s) favorites, he offers several alternatives in each area.

The best things about working from home? Alex writes:

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The first round in the legal battles over using trademarked terms in AdWords ads went to Google. The decision in Rescuecom v. Google was, bottom line, that Google could accept bids on trademarked terms.

Naturally, Rescuecom, the plaintiff, is appealing the decision. The case is waiting its turn in the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Now the Electronic Freedom Foundation has filed an amicus brief. In the brief, they claim that the use of trademarks in ads is in the public interest, citing the First Amendment.

EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz is quoted in the press release:

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MSNBC is launching a site for citizen journalists to contribute to their news. As a separate site, FirstPerson has a social media twist to it:

In the coming months, you will see the FirstPerson logo show up throughout the site, seeking your input and contributions on stories both serious and light-hearted. You will also be able to quickly scan through FirstPerson submission requests from throughout the site. . . .

See FirstPerson content from other readers you like? We invite you to vote for your favorite reader-submitted photos and video, and will let you know which ones the editors liked as well.

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Yahoo has come through with it’s promise to release a no Yahoo directory meta tag much like the no ODP meta tag.

Many webmasters complained that the title and description given to organic search listings when a site was listed in the Yahoo directory affected click through ratios and rankings. Now they can opt out of Yahoo using the directory information.

The format for the meta tag is:

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOYDIR”>


or

<META NAME=”Slurp” CONTENT=”NOYDIR”>


Yahoo noted that to make these changes effective there would be an index update. Full information is available on the Yahoo blog.

Motricity, a mobile content and services company based in Durham, N.C.,  has announced a $50 million round of equity funding from serial investor Carl Icahn.

Being a company local to me, I’m glad to see them growing and getting some working capital. but I’m sure they’re well aware that Icahn is not always an investor that likes the status quo.

I guess Yahoo felt they needed to be in the news this week - no matter what the reason. It’s the only explanation I can think of for Yahoo’s Jeff Bonforte, senior director of real time communications, attacking Google’s usability efforts.

“[Google] definitely is lacking in usability,” Bonforte said in a meeting with reporters at Yahoo’s corporate headquarters.

“They don’t have this intimate connection in usability with consumers that Yahoo has had for 10 years. When it comes to consumer applications, no-one is more successful than Yahoo hands down. And it happens over and over and over again. In every application, we are number one or two.”

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You’d think this would be obvious, but it took a recent law suit and a judge’s ruling to confirm Google, Yahoo and Microsoft don’t have an obligation to run every submitted ad.

Someone bought some gripe ads on Google, Yahoo and MSN, only to have them rejected. He then sued all three companies arguing that the search engines should be required to post his ads. The judge in the case appears to have made quick work of it, dismissing almost all of the claims and pointing out in no uncertain terms that many were specious and frivolous.

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Read/WriteWeb continues to monitor the second tier of search engines. Last month, they published the top 100 alternative search engines. This month, they’ve updated the list for February, with 32 new additions.

The criteria to make the list:

1) The Search Engine should exhibit superiority to Google—not as a whole, but in just one particular area. . . . We are not arguing that any one of the 100 list members is a “Google killer”. Rather, that they should be matched against the appropriate corresponding part of Google. For example, TheFind is a shopping search engine and therefore should be compared to Google’s shopping search engine, Froogle. . . .

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The North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law (NCICL), led by former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Robert (Bob) Orr, is challenging Google’s tax breaks. Orr and the NCICL are questioning whether the North Carolina Constitution allows the legislature to extend tax breaks like the ones it awarded to Google. (Google is not specifically named in the legislation.)

Orr says:

“The idea is that you don’t give individuals or individual companies to receive special treatment. There are provisions in the constitution that say your tax legislation be uniform. The fact is that these are tax breaks for one company. I don’t think anybody would disagree that these are not for Google.”

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A pingback from BlackHatSEO.no on yesterday’s post about YouTube infiltrating Google SERPs brought up an interesting point that I hadn’t considered.

What, you can’t read Norwegian? Okay, neither can I. But I’ll attempt to paraphrase:

Jordan McCollum from Marketing Pilgrim has an interesting post on how YouTube is beginning to creep up the SERPs. There’s some potential here—if your site is stuck in “Google’s Sandbox” you can generate a strategic video, optimize YouTube for on-site search [I think] and drive video traffic from YouTube to your site.

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Since when is listing a company on a web page who is part of a true partnership program, paid or not, considered selling links? Since never, that’s when. But some people like to make a stink about anything they can find.

Conversion Rater blogged about Google linking to companies who are part of a paid partnership program that Google has. They titled the article “Google Selling PR7 Links For $10,000!“. An obvious piece of bait to say the least.

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