Webmaster News Roundup - from a Web Hosting Provider

The following article summarizes important news that can affect webmasters. This web hosting provider presents news that all webmasters can use in their goal to make their website better and receive more traffic.

Search engine news

Google has voice. That is, it has launched Google Voice Local Search. Users can call 1-800-GOOG-411 to search for local businesses using their voices instead of a keyboard. When they find a business, they can then be connected with it, or the details can be sent them by SMS. There is no charge for this service. However, it's still in the experimental stage and available only in the US and in English.

iGoogle is the new name for Google's personalized home page. Users can customize its appearance and add content such as news, weather, Gmail, and date and time. When people have set up their personalized iGoogle page and are logged into their Google account, their iGoogle page appears when they go to Google.

In addition, iGoogle offers Gadget Mail, which allows users to send Google Gadgets (photos, GoogleGrams, and other gadgets) to their friends.

Froogle, another Google name, has been changed to Google Product Search. With this price comparison tool, search results are a list of products, including pricing information, from various vendors.

Got links? Don't use hidden links, and be careful about paying for links. Most webmasters understand the problems with hidden links, but paid links are more controversial. According to Google's Matt Cutts, Google will be looking at paid links more closely now. Cutts even explains how to report paid links. Reactions to Google's decision are in the hundreds of comments following the above explanation.

Google News and Digg have competition from MySpace, which is getting into news search. MySpace is going to index news stories and allow readers to vote on which stories receive the most exposure. According to the article, MySpace is on its way to becoming a web portal like Yahoo.

Yahoo has initiated what some webmasters have wished for for a long time — webmasters can now identify non-essential web page elements such as navigation or other repeated text. The new "robots-nocontent" attribute tells robots not to index the section of the page that the attribute identifies. Only Yahoo supports this attribute so far.

Two search engines (the parent company in one case) are catering to specific segments of the population. IAC (InterActiveCorp), owner of Ask.com, is targeting the Black population in the US and in other countries. Scheduled to launch in January 2008, it's creating an online destination with content specific to the Black community's interests and needs. Online now is kids.quintura.com, a search engine for kids with a kid-friendly home page and search results suitable for children.

Search engines and other media

In November 2006, we wrote about Yahoo and Google's partnerships with newspapers to share advertising and other content. Yahoo has expanded its partnership with newspapers; the partnership now includes 264 papers. The newspapers will use Yahoo's advertising technology for their online advertising, the websites will use a customized Yahoo toolbar, the sales forces will work together, and newspaper content will be distributed across the Yahoo network.

Google is testing TV advertising Google-style — targeting ads to viewers' interests. In addition, Google is expanding its radio advertising with its partnership with Clear Channel. Google Audio Ads advertisers will be able to advertise to specific audiences on the more than 675 radio stations available.

Advertising news

For $3.1 billion, Google is acquiring DoubleClick, the giant ad management company. This acquisition is the largest in Google's history.

Google's Website Optimizer was released in October 2006 in limited beta and is now available to AdWords Standard Edition customers worldwide. With this promising free tool, website owners can have different combinations of their landing page key features (titles, images/graphics, simple text, calls to action) display to site visitors, and Website Optimizer tracks the conversion rate for each combination of variations.

In a partner program, Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants help website owners know what to test and how to evaluate results.

Yahoo has formed a new partnership with eBay. Ads displayed with Yahoo search results by advertisers that accept PayPal Express Checkout will have a blue shopping cart icon next to them, indicating that the advertiser offers PayPal as a payment method. Similar to Google Checkout, processing will be free until January 31, 2008.

Yahoo has also partnered with media conglomerate Viacom. Yahoo's Panama ad platform will provide search tools and contextual advertising for 33 of Viacom's sites, with the possibility of expanding to more sites.

Ask.com is now offering contextual advertising. The sponsored listings will first appear on IAC sites and then expanded to other publishers. Advertisers will have some options that the competition doesn't offer, such as the ability to set page yield and relevancy thresholds.

In Microsoft news, changes have been made to adCenter to improve quality-based ranking. Microsoft tells us that they're assessing ad and landing page content as well as keywords to increase relevancy to users.

Coined by Marketing Evolution, "Momentum Effect" is the term for the social network version of word-of-mouth advertising. Marketing Evolution is one of the companies that produced a study published by Fox Interactive Media (FIM) about online social networks. The study indicates that not only have social networking sites changed how people interact with each other, but they've also changed how consumers choose products and brands to buy.

More than 70 percent of Americans in the 15-34 age group use social networking sites regularly. Their average time spent at social networking sites is over seven hours a week. Over 40 percent of social networking site users go to these sites to learn more about products and brands. The influence of this social interaction on advertising campaigns is great, and marketers are encouraged to connect with this energy as part of their campaigns.