Search Engine Land has mentioned the study of search engine queries from Dogpile. From the April 2007 study by Queensland University of Technology and Pennsylvania State University has stated that,

• The percent of total results unique to one search engine was established to be 88.3 percent.
• The percent of total results shared by any two search engines was established to be 8.9 percent.
• The percent of total results shared by three search engines was established to be 2.2 percent.
• The percent of total results shared by the top four search engines was established to be 0.6 percent.

The majority of first page results are unique:

• On average, 69.6 percent of Google first page search results were unique to Google.
• On average, 79.4 percent of Yahoo! first page search results were unique to Yahoo!

Sponsored links on Google and Yahoo:

• Only 4.6 percent of Yahoo! and Google sponsored links overlap for a given query.
• For 22.8 percent of all queries Google did not return a sponsored link where Yahoo! returned one or more.
• For 9.9 percent of all queries Yahoo! did not return a sponsored link where Google returned one or more.

Find the complete study on infospace.

Mark

SEO Tags : Dogpile, Search Engines, Google, Yahoo

Microsoft has announced that it will acquire aQuantive, Inc., which owns Atlas and Avenue A/Razorfish, for around $6 billion in cash. This is the biggest acquisition in the Microsoft’s history and it is an effort to expand its presence in the Internet advertising market.

This deal follows the Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion and Yahoo’s buyout of Right Media Inc. for $680 million. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2008.

From Microsoft’s press release,

“The advertising industry is evolving and growing at an incredible pace, moving increasingly toward online and IP-served platforms, which dramatically increases the importance of software for this industry,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Today’s announcement represents the next step in the evolution of our ad network from our initial investment in MSN, to the broader Microsoft network including Xbox Live, Windows Live and Office Live, and now to the full capacity of the Internet. Microsoft is intensely committed to creating a thriving advertising business and to partnering closely with all key constituencies in this industry to help maximize the digital advertising opportunity for all.”

The aQuantive acquisition enables Microsoft to strengthen relationships with advertisers, agencies and publishers by enhancing the Company’s world-class advertising platforms and services beyond its current capabilities to serve MSN. The acquisition also provides Microsoft increased depth in building and supporting next generation advertising solutions and environments such as cross media planning, video-on-demand and IPTV. Combining aQuantive’s technologies and services with Microsoft’s portfolio will provide value for the industry’s key constituencies as follows:

• Advertisers and ad agencies will benefit from a world-class media planning, buying and campaign management solution to drive maximum ROI and optimize their reach to audiences across the increasingly fragmented, interactive media landscape.
• Media owners/publishers will gain access to best-in-class inventory optimization and monetization solutions across a full suite of rich media, video and targeting capabilities.
• The broader advertising ecosystem will benefit from the leading interactive advertising agency, Avenue A | Razorfish, continuing to serve its impressive client roster, while also embedding the voice of the marketer into Microsoft’s next generation advertising solutions and services.

Founded in 1997, aQuantive, Inc. (NASDAQ: AQNT) is the parent company of one of the industry’s most successful families of digital marketing service and technology companies, encompassing three primary brands.

• Atlas provides a set of advanced tools for both advertisers and publishers. The Atlas Media Console is an industry-leading toolset providing agencies and advertisers with capabilities to maximize ROI. The Atlas Publisher platform enables publishers to maximize monetization opportunities for their content.
• DRIVEpm provides services to publishers and advertisers that match advertiser campaigns with publisher inventory enabling all parties to maximize ROI.
• Avenue A | Razorfish is one of the largest interactive ad agencies in the world, providing advertisers with industry-leading digital marketing consultation, media planning and buying, and creative services that help advertisers use the online channel to build meaningful, profitable relationships with their customers.

“Combining the talented people and deep technology and service expertise of these two companies will help make buying and selling media simpler, smarter and more cost effective for advertisers, agencies and publishers alike,” said Kevin Johnson, president, Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft. “Joining the capabilities of these groups is an important step toward our goal of becoming an industry leading, Internet-wide advertising platform.”

“aQuantive’s mission has been to leverage the power of digital marketing services and technologies to drive measurable results for our clients,” said Brian P. McAndrews, chief executive officer of aQuantive. “Microsoft has set a leading example in prioritizing industry partnership, transparency, measurement and quality, and we look forward to combining forces and bringing the value of our combined assets to bear for the benefit of advertisers, ad agencies and publishers.”

Aravindhan

Tags : Microsoft,aQuantive,

Yahoo has launched two websites green.yahoo.com and better.yahoo.com/planet which helps to build consumer-user awareness about global warming and energy conservation, etc. So making a Eco-friendly environment is going on amidst of many companies and its a good sign too.

Yahoo has announced a contest with the title ‘Greenest City in America’ Challenge With Reward of Hybrid Taxi Fleet. Yahoo and Google are battling out for something called “green cred”which is related to global warming and the environment.

Google launched the website “Summer of Green” to help people travel in an environmentally friendly way. Google v. Yahoo: Who Cares The Most About The Environment? is the topic reported in Tech Crunch where the care taken by the two search giants is being discussed. Search Engine Land has also discussed about the green cred and how Yahoo made it right.

This contest from Yahoo might make Google and Microsoft react accordingly to project their ideas on Eco-friendly environment.

Mark

SEO Tags : Yahoo, Eco-friendly environment, Greenest Search Engine,  ‘Greenest City in America’ Challenge

News.com reports that Terry Semel, Yahoo’s CEO, took a presentation on how Internet advertising is moving beyond just the PC to wireless devices and IPTV in Microsoft’s Ad Conference. Yahoo CEO arrives on Microsoft’s turf was the topic from News.com.

Semel called his company and Microsoft to work together on Internet advertising standards and also said,

“We should get the right people together”

The rumors on Yahoo and Microsoft working together was not mentioned in this meeting by Semel. Semel also made fun out of a real estate website zillow, which was used by Yahoo Real Estate pages.

Mark

SEO Tags : Yahoo, Microsoft, Zillow, Tery Semel

Microsoft and Yahoo are talking again about how they might merge or cooperate is the report from WSJ and nypost. After Microsoft losing DoubleClick to Google, it has intensified talks with Yahoo for a merger. Wall Street sources put a roughly $50 billion price tag on Yahoo!.

From WSJ,

Still, Microsoft has technical expertise that might benefit Yahoo. Under one possible scenario, Microsoft could manage the technical platform and infrastructure of the companies’ combined Internet activities, while Yahoo’s current staff could oversee the consumer parts of the businesses, such as Yahoo News, Finance and email.

Yet top Yahoo executives could be a big obstacle to any deal. They believe they have found the right strategy and are wary of any combination with Microsoft, for whom Internet activities remain only a small part of its business, says one person familiar with the matter. Top Yahoo staff might leave if Microsoft acquired the company and triggered a vesting of their Yahoo options.

So this deal from Microsoft with Yahoo might not be possible and if possible might be a great threat for Google.

Mark

SEO Tags : Microsoft, Yahoo

Different ways of marketing has done. The most popular way of marketing is through online on the present days. Online marketing gives good and faster ROI. In online marketing there are many ways to market, they are

• Search Engine Optimization.
• Search Engine Marketing.
• Pay per Click.
• Pay per Downloads.
• Pay per sales, etc..

Search Engine Optimization can be done and can make site more popular among the people. RankQuest WatchSEO will helps you to do SEO for the site.

Search Engine Marketing can be done through various Search Engine. In this click fraud can be done through robots. Click and Conversion can be tracked through RankQuest SiteAdOptimizer. RankQuest SiteAdOptimizer will help to track the clicks and IP for the search and to track site in which content ads are displayed. Click fraud can be prevented through RankQuest SiteAdOptimizer.

Kannan

SEO Tags : Internet Marketing

Search Engine Land has reported that Google was ranked the most powerful brand by Millward Brown Optimor’s Brandz Top 100.

Millward Brown Optimor created the BRANDZ Top 100, a ranking that identifies the world’s most powerful brands measured by their dollar value. Our brand ranking provides key insights and actionable information for finance, marketing and business professionals on how to manage and grow their brand assets.

The top 5 according to Brandz

• Google with $66.4 billion
• General Electric with $61.9 billion
• Microsoft with $55 billion
• Coca-Cola with $44.1 billion
• China Mobile with $41.2 billion

Microsoft is at 3 and Yahoo is at 42. The Report, League Table, Press Release are given in the form of PDF.

Mark

SEO Tags : Brandz Top 100, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Dollar value

Google introduced a link bomb fix in January, Site with George Bush was shown as the first results for search terms such as failure and miserable failure. This issue has been fixed and again this site has used the word failure and was placed second for failure.

Search Engine Land has briefly explained it. So as a result of usage the top search engines has placed their site this way,

• Yahoo: failure, ranks 1st; miserable failure, ranks 1st
• Google: failure ranks 2nd; miserable failure, not in first page of results
• Microsoft: failure, not in first page of results; miserable failure, ranks 1st
• Ask: ; failure, not in first page of results; miserable failure, ranks 4th

So using these search terms Failure and miserable in the site will make Bush a failure again and again in terms of Search Engines.

Mark

SEO Tags : Google, Yahoo, Search Engines, Ask, Microsoft

NewYork Times reported, DoubleClick set up a Nasdaq-like exchange for the buying and selling of digital advertisements. Some days before we have discussed about Google and Microsoft in talks to buy the company. DoubleClick about link exchange has said that,

He described the exchange as a mix of eBay and Sabre, the airline reservations system that travel agents use. The service will let advertisers see information about what competitors bid for particular ads, in the same way that eBay shows visitors past bids. And it will let publishers try to ensure that they sell their ad spots at the highest possible price, the way that airlines try to do with the seats they sell.

As DoubleClick’s exchange launches and competes with Right Media and other online advertising solutions, this link exchange will make DoubleClick more attractive to the acquirers like Microsoft and Google.

Mark

SEO Tags : DoubleClick, Ad exchange, link exchange, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing

Google joins race to buy DoubleClick: report  from MarketWatch  reports that Google has emerged with Microsoft Corp. as a contender to buy DoubleClick, an online advertising company. The report was given from Wall Street Journal.

The price of DoubleClick emerges to $2 billion due to the high competition between Google and Microsoft. According to the report

DoubleClick acts as a middleman between advertisers and ad agencies and online publishers.  The New York company’s Internet-based systems let advertisers deliver ads to Web sites and serve up ads for publishers when consumers view their Web pages.

The bidding is too large as four of the biggest internet players are involved(Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Time Warner - a unit of AOL).

Mark

SEO Tags : DoubleClick, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL