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Interestingly enough, Yahoo search engineers have been doing a great work to give you an enhanced Yahoo search experience. This is an interesting news coming when the Yahoo-Microsoft deal is just few months from materializing. The most prominent of the search enhancements is the new Yahoo search page design which according to a post on the Yahoo Search Blog “will make search more personally relevant and helps people explore things that matter most to them.” Here are some new things that have been rolled out on Yahoo Search:

• A unique search page design realigning with the new Yahoo Home Page.
• Easy access to various Yahoo search features including Search Pad, Search Scan and Safe Search have been made more easy.
• Addition of “Related searches” in the search assist layer.
• Enhanced search results from more sites such as Wikipedia

The enhancements made by Yahoo are being tested out to a selected percentage of U.S users, but might take some more time for you to see it live.

Click here to subscribe to our RSS feed to get a daily digest of news around search engine industry. PageTraffic SEO Blog is updated four times a day and is ranked as one of the best search engine resources blog by Pandia!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Yahoo- Rolling Out Search Product Enhancements

SEOmoz has released its latest Search Engine Ranking Factors report which gives an idea on how SEO works in 2009. A total of seventy-two SEOs participated in SEOmoz's survey that involved ranking possible factors used by Google while ranking websites, as well as a variety of questions pertaining current SEO trends and topics. The survey was completed earlier this year. The survey compiled the following as the top five ranking factors:

• Anchor Text from External Links
• Keyword Use in Title Tag
• Raw Link Popularity
• Diversity of Linking Domains
• Keyword Use in Root Domain

If we compared this year's list to that of 2007 survey by SEOmoz, it will come clear that the first three factors remain unchanged, however, the order is changed. The top five ranking factors in 2007 were:

• Keyword Use in Title Tag
• Global Link Popularity of Site (”Raw Link Popularity” above)
• Anchor Text of Inbound Links (”Anchor Text from External Links” above)
• Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
• Age of Site

SEOmoz's 2009 survey ranking factors survey features negative ranking factors separately. It also features a new chart of “Overall Ranking Algorithm” elements.

Click here to subscribe to our RSS feed to get a daily digest of news around search engine industry. PageTraffic SEO Blog is updated four times a day and is ranked as one of the best search engine resources blog by Pandia!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Search Ranking Factors For 2009 Indicates Little Change In SEO

It was in March that Google had updated its mobile search image just for the sake of iPhone and Android gadgets. But now the good news is that they have rolled out images updated image search to other additional phones as well in about 38 languages. The update will include both larger thumbnail images as well as search filters.

To search images, click “images” that will take you to Google image search page in place of the page where the actual image is hosted.

To view Google image on your handset, you need to start with Google.com in the mobile browser and select “Images”. A number of pictures will appear, select your desired image.

-phones/6893/”>Google announces Updated Image Search to Additional Phones

Of late, some UK Google users have been noticing that search results pages are showing more results from .com sites as compared to earlier. Apparently, users with .co.uk sites are used to get better ranking in Google, thus they assume that .co.uk sites are more relevant to their geographic location. Well, this is quite normal in some cases that the .co.uk sites are more relevant to UK searchers, however, this may not be the case always!

Google's Matt Cutts has posted a video in which he answers to a question from a user- “Why are the UK SERPS still really poor with irrelevant non UK sites (US/Aus/NZ) ranking very high on Google.co.uk since early June?”

But, recently Cutts said through a post in his blog that he has received some criticism regarding his answer in the above video.

“There’s a couple effects going on:

- first, we’ve been making changes that make it much more likely to see .coms in the UK. I’d say that’s 80-90% of the changes that people are seeing. Most of the generic TLDs (.com, .net, etc.) that are showing up now are .com sites like tescofinance.com and churchill.com that are relevant to the UK even though they don’t end in a .co.uk.

- I’ve been following some of the examples people have pointed out. I remember kiva.org in particular was mentioned and that probably is off-topic for the UK. I dug into that one, and it was an unrelated ranking experiment that was going on that we changed.”

A post in the Inside Adwords revealed that Google has recently rolled out a set of professional looking templates for AdWords' Display Ad Builder. Just to remind you, Display Ad Builder was launched last year and since its introduction Google has helped advertisers streamline their design process.

The new set of professional looking display ad templates (read “Elegant”) belongs to the “General” category template of the Display Ad Builder. These templates have ready-made buttons with unique shapes, icons and color treatments, and backgrounds with subtle gradients. With the templates advertisers just need to upload their product images along with the text and the rest is taken care of by the template selected. With these innovative templates Google aims at providing useful resources for creating high-quality ads easily, consuming a very little time and without being required to use complex graphics software.

Here are a few examples of of the new templates:

 

 

In order to use these new templates, advertisers need to open any of their existing campaign in AdWords and click Display Ad Builder on the Create an ad page. To learn more about creating and running display ads, visit the Display Ads 101 tutorial.

In an attempt to encourage searchers to use Bing more, Microsoft has come up with a great idea recently. Microsoft announced a “Bing stimulus package”, which is a Cashback program as per which searchers will get cashback rewards as high as 50 percent upon purchasing products from select merchants. The cashback offer starts 10 August for a limited time.

Earlier, Microsoft had offered cashback up to 35 percent, but this time searchers are offered with almost double cashback as compared to before. To get the rewards, searchers out there need to search for what they are looking for at Bing. After entering your search, look for the Cashback rewards icon on the search ads. Then follow the steps as shown there in order to get up to 50 percent back.

Here is a screenshot of a search for “GPS Receiver”:

Yahoo's search and infrastructure expert Doug Cutting is leaving the company to join Cloudera. He will be leaving Yahoo! at the end of August, 2009. Cutting created the Hadoop technology for Yahoo's search index.

Although, people are assuming that the recent Yahoo-Microsoft deal, in which Microsoft would take over Yahoo's search engine can be the reason behind Cutting's move, he told the New York Times that is not the case.

“This has been in the works for awhile and is unrelated,” Doug Cutting said. “I am definitely not leaving in any sort of protest, and the thing I like least about this move is that it might be perceived that way.”

Well, Cutting will be doing the same sort of work at Cloudera that he has been doing at Yahoo. In his personal blog, Cutting informed that he will continue working with Yahoo! developers.

Microsoft Advertising, along with other ad agencies is taking part in a contest named, “The Big Ad Gig” . The contest will feature eight contestants competing for a job at a top ad agency. The New York Times Building will host the contest at 10:00 AM on Thursday, September 24, in conjunction with Advertising Week 09.

'The Big Ad Gig' will have a panel of Creative Directors, CEO's and marketing leaders from leading ad agencies like Atmosphere Proximity, Ogilvy, Crispin, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, The Ad Council and Microsoft Advertising. The panel will judge the eight contestants who will be vying for the chance to work a 30-day paid freelance gig at one of above top ad agencies. New York Times advertising columnist, Stuart Elliot will be the moderator at the event.

Also, one winning campaign will be produced and run across Microsoft Advertising's media properties, including gaming, online and mobile.

“Our core mission at Microsoft Advertising is to build the platforms, content and technologies that breathe life into the big dreams and creative vision of today's top advertising minds,” said Charles Johnson, General Manager of Mobile Media for Microsoft Advertising.“We are excited to help foster a new generation of advertising talent, and look forward to bringing the winning concept to life.”

After a July update less than two weeks ago, Bing seems to be updating again. Many webmasters are noticing a search results update on Microsoft'search engine. Some webmasters are reporting their experiences in a WebmasterWorld thread as follows:

“Definitely seeing a shift across the board. Biggest change I can pinpoint is a continued decrease in relevancy of KIDs (keywords in domain). More than 80% of the top 500 KWs I track showed movement (mostly positive for me and mostly displacing a lot of KIDs results).”

“Yes, looks like an update – and Bing traffic converts well with certain demographics. Now I've gotta scramble to do some long over-due site updates because some pages popped up out of nowhere.”

Now, you know why it's happening if you are seeing an increase or decline in your referrers from Bing recently!

Forum discussion going on at WebmasterWorld.

Recently, Google has signed a deal to acquire On2 Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of video compression technology. Both companies entered into an all-stock deal valued at approximately $106.5  million. As per the terms of the agreement, each outstanding share of On2 common stock will be converted into $0.60 worth Google class A common stock in a stock-for-stock transaction.

“Today video is an essential part of the web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform,” said Sundar Pichai, Vice President, Product Management, Google. “We are committed to innovation in video quality on the web, and we believe that On2’s team and technology will help us further that goal.”

“We’re thrilled that On2 is joining one of the world’s most innovative companies,” said Matt Frost, interim CEO, On2 Technologies. “After intensive review of On2 products, Google confirmed our long-held beliefs as to the quality of our video technologies. This transaction is a testament to the hard work of every On2 employee and the strongest possible endorsement of our products and people. On2 will continue to improve, support and sell our products throughout the transition. We believe that Google shares our ambitions and know that our products and expertise, combined with Google’s globally recognized brand, ingenuity and resources, will create an incredible team.”

However, the all-stock deal is yet to be approved by On2 Technologies’ stockholders and reviewed by regulatory authorities, including the SEC. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.