'Net Features : ses

Ask.com's Carla Borsoi on the New Search Landscape and more...

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:38:00 GMT

Website Magazine's SEO Corner columnist Dante Monteverde is out at Search Engine Strategies this week meeting and greeting his many fans. Of course, he's had some time to get some work done too. Monteverde interviews Carla Borsoi, Ask.com's VP of Research and Analytics about the role that Ask.com will play in the new search engine landscape, how Ask.com and parent company are innovating, social media, personalization and more.

WM: What role does Ask.com hope to play in the new search engine landscape where a combined Bing-Yahoo and Google dominate the scene?

CB: Ask.com has a very good opportunity to grow. Ask is the 7th largest U.S Internet property and now, one of three global search engines. Thinking about it from a consumer perspective, Bing and Yahoo! are going to look exactly alike, and Ask.com will provide consumers with another choice of search engines. We’ll continue to leverage our strengths to focus on providing an outstanding consumer experience. Also, while Microsoft and Yahoo! are distracted with the integration, we can use this time as an opportunity to continue down our path of product innovations, as well as to pursue new B to B partnerships. Search is still relatively young – it’s very early days, and there is a huge opportunity for Ask to grow now more than ever.

WM: How is Ask.com and parent company IAC innovating to secure mindshare among consumers?

CB: For one thing, we’re furthering our strategy of going deeper in categories that our consumers care about most. For example, at the beginning of the year we announced our sponsorship with NASCAR. We know that NASCAR is one of the largest marketing channels in America, with 75 million fans who are famously loyal to the sponsors who help keep the sport alive. We implemented a product strategy designed to deliver NASCAR fans the best answer, the first time, every time. We will continue to look for areas like this that resonate in the hearts and minds of our consumers. We also know that our users enter queries in the form of a question 3x more than on any other search engine. Consumers like to see questions & answers, which is why we launched our Q&A database using our semantic search technology. Currently, our Q&A database has more than 300 million Q&A pairs. So, we will continue to make inroads with our semantic search technology to be able to provide consumers with the best answers to their questions.

WM: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have actively fostered webmaster and developer communities. In what ways can Web professionals interact with Ask?

CB: Nothing at the moment, but stay tuned – we’ll be rolling some great stuff out this year.

WM: What are Ask.com’s thoughts on integrating social media and traditional algorithm based search – is it something they plan to do? Do you think it will make search better or just add more noise? Is social media, when used as a search device, too easy to game?

CB: Yes we absolutely plan to integrate social media into our algorithmic search results soon, and we will only do so to the extent that it adds value to our results – the same as integrating blog content.

WM: In regards to personalization – do you think there is a point where search can become too personalized - where people become profiled and then feed certain results, thus kept from discovering new ideas, products, services, websites, etc? For example, the word “fencing” can mean a sport involving swords, a man-made barrier, or selling stolen goods. Depending on how you’ve categorized someone you may feed them results based on only one of these meanings. How do you prevent that from happening or decipher when the user wants to expand beyond their profile and get results for a different meaning?

CB: Consumers want search engines to understand the context of their queries so they get the answer they’re looking for quickly, which is why we’ve been so aggressive with our advancement of semantic search technology. Dr. Tomasz Imielinski, Ask.com’s EVP of Technology is speaking on this topic at SES, based on his recently published paper on this topic, called, “If You Ask Nicely, I Will Answer… “ As for “keeping consumers from discovering new ideas, products, etc.” … sounds to me like it’s a way to keep them clicking on links, which makes more money but is not a good consumer experience nor a viable long-term approach as consumers come to expect more from search engines.

WM: What effect has consumers' demand for greater personalization had on Ask? What sort of challenges does this present?

CB: Personalization is important to our consumers and we try to build products that give them the opportunity to personalize their space. We offer Skins, a product that lets users pick their own background for the Ask.com homepage. The product is extremely popular and we’ve found that products like this are extremely helpful in driving frequency and retention among users.

Web Morning Wire: 5-5-09

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:15:00 GMT

The following are press releases that caught our attention today, May 5th, 2009. If you have a news announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine community, please contact Website Magazine editors or submit it online now.

WhosHere - Popular iPhone Social Networking App Introduces "Jerk Filter" in Latest Release
myRete Inc. introduces WhosHere 1.0. WhosHere, the very popular social networking application on the iPhone, introduces new features, including one specifically to improve the experience for its female users.

Twit Pro Quo - Newly Released Service is a Promising Tool for Expanding Social Visibility on Twitter
With Twitter's continued growth, more and more individuals and companies see the importance of maximizing their reach within this social network. Twit Pro Quo is a service which embraces this notion and adds an enjoyable twist for users to expand their Twitter following.

Goodmail CEO Peter Horan to Participate on Email Insider Summit's "Email Innovations" Panel
Peter Horan, CEO of Goodmail Systems, the creator of CertifiedEmail™, will participate on a panel at the Email Insider Summit titled "Innovations in Email/CRM."

Charlene Li, Co-Author of "Groundswell", to Be Keynote Speaker at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose 2009
SES San Jose conference, to be held August 11-14, 2009, expected to attract approximately 6,000 marketing executives, managers, professionals, specialists and consultants this year.

Travel Affiliate Pro's Beta-Version Partner Program Can Increase Website Revenue While Enhancing Website Content
Lowest hotel rates for your customers and highest commissions for your website; participating companies conveniently earn extra cash while offering their clients a valuable service, enhancing their websites' functionality, benefiting from brand-name recognition, and improving their websites' search-engine optimization.

Outstanding Firms Have Been Included in the topseos.com's List of the 30 Best PPC Companies for May 2009
topseos has released their list of the top 30 PPP agencies for May 2009.

More SEO Automation Features at SEO Samba

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:40:00 GMT

In advance of the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York next week, SEO Samba, a search engine optimization automation platform (and don't forget CMS), has announced a new version of its solution which integrates a wider array of Google Tools directly within their offering.

"We have now made it possible to use your Google login account to link your existing account with SEO Samba," said Michel Leconte, founder & CEO. "Once logged into SEO Samba, you will notice three new Google colored tabs. Each tab enables you to make use of Google tools, including Google Website Optimizer for testing A/B variant of landing pages and Google Webmaster Tools to access search engine early indexation, ranking and analysis feedback."

These features are unique among CMS vendors and could certainly help further differentiate the company. For those struggling with the effort required to rank competitively, solutions like SEO Samba ease integration, facilitate many SEO best practices and provide a scalable content management system to boot.

The concept of a management platform for SEO will be appealing to many. SEO Samba was initially launched at SES Chicago in December of 2008. I had a demo of the platform at that time, and I came away with the feeling that SEO Samba, despite its savvy core focus on SEO, is poorly marketed. Visit the SEO Samba site and you'd have to be an outright genius to know that it's really just a very SEO friendly content management system.

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The End of SEO - Chicago SES 2008 Key Take Away

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:10:00 GMT

A recurring theme at this year's Chicago SES 2008 was that 'SEO (as we know it) is Dead.' The reason given is that as search becomes more personalized by location, recent searches, time spent on web pages (Microsoft's BrowseRank), and by user-built search results (Google's SearchWiki), it becomes increasingly difficult to gain top rankings across the board, since everyone sees something different when they perform a search. This even makes the idea of ranking reports, a common SEO benchmark tool, obsolete.

But it's not really about ranking reports and never has been. Ranking for keywords has always been a goal, because higher ranking means more traffic, and the right keywords often mean more conversion. And that's what it comes down to - traffic and conversions.

So in this brave new world of personalized search results, the shift is now away from search ranking, and instead it will move toward personal profiles - gender, profession, interests, hobbies. In other words, SEO will take a more classical marketing approach by first determining the audience and then determining how to communicate to them in an effective way.

And targeting personas has never been easier. As more and more social media users pour their data onto the web, it becomes easier to research and discover the who, what, and where. For example, who is talking about a certain type of product, what is the language and tone of the conversation, and where that conversation is taking place can all now be answered. This information will help marketers develop better ad copy and deliver better ad placement. Following both these steps can only result in better conversions and better ROI.

So on one hand, it's all becoming infinitely more complex. But on the other hand, to someone familiar with the tools, the ability to perfectly match a product or service to the right people is close at hand.

SES Chicago Highlights: Search Industry Update

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:06:00 GMT

The Search Engine Strategies session "Search Industry Update" was an informative session, especially if you need to convince those holding on to the marketing purse strings on how big the effort needs to be.

Search marketing is the largest online ad format - hands down. In fact, paid search accounts for nearly 45% of the global online ad spend - remaining one of the fastest growing online ad formats. The panel focused on trends in search marketing, growth drives, search spending and CPC trends, search penetration and overall adoption.

The following are highlights from the individual speakers:

First up was Roger Barnette from Search Ignite:

Search market share is stable; Google leads the way, followed by Yahoo and Microsoft
Big (seasonal) spend comes in the fourth quarter
The economy did not affect third-quarter spend
All engines have seen increases in impressions (especially Yahoo)
A mid Q4 report reveals a lower average order value, that conversion rate was holding steady and that spend is up (33%). This is not uncommon year-over-year (considering the holiday season) but it remains impressive.
Search is the best channel, and it's still profitable.
Advice: Monitor first quarter closely.

Next up was Heather Dougherty from Hitwise:

Google search engine share is at 72% (even more pronounced internationally, but 96% are return visits
Google share has accelerated the past five months
Branded search terms account for 88% of US queries at Google
Navigational queries are increasing (walmart.com, myspace.com)
The conversation is shifting to social networks; 65% increase, 3-fold increase in the past three years, e.g. 4% of searches for "virgin mobile" went to social networks
Regarding paid search effectiveness, generic search terms receive the highest share of paid search, which is driving up keyword costs.

Rafeal Zarilla of BankRate.com was next:

According to a McKinsey report, 91% are using online advertising, 50% plan to maintain or exceed spend
It's not only about numbers, but people too. "There is a social science behind what we do."
It's important to stay in front of consumer trends and use all available tools
Search is not part of a vacuum, but rather part of an ecosystem. As such, use search combined with display, as you'll get a profoundly better return (citing a Yahoo! Research report from Dec. 2006).
The term du jour is "engagement mapping," that is, looking at everything within the purchase funnel to determine overall effectiveness.

Jon Stewart of Nielsen Online completed the session:

85% of people are online (not including China), accessing 42 billion search pages
France is growing fast (76% year-over-year growth), as is Spain (28% year-over-year growth)
Searches are not loyal; 42% use Google exclusively, 10% use Yahoo exclusively and 2% use MSN only.
Heavy searcheres are even less faithful (no definition of how big the heavy searcher population actually is)
Finance and retail are seeing lower impressions
Marketers should look at organic search and social networks as prime branding opportunities.