What’s so special about Microsoft’s Bing search engine?

Microsoft tried, with overall mild resolve, to compete with Google and Yahoo! in the search engine arena. Its Live Search service, by all means, didn’t deliver the kind of user experience that generated repeat uses. So they killed that service.

That’s right, the Live Search service is gone!

How’s that for big news?

But there’s even bigger news. The old “live.com” service is officially set to be replaced tomorrow by a new search service called “bing.com“. Another 4-letter .com which is easy to remember and cool to bookmark. That’s pretty much as far as the similarities go, however.

The Bing.com search engine is built, from the gound up, so to speak, to be completely different than Live.com in the sense that it’s more mature and precise. A lot of testing went on using the Live dataset so expect to find in Bing what was available through its [now retired] predecesor.

Steve Ballmer said this about its new web destination: “Bing [will] enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions.” at last week’s All Things Digital conference, in Carlsbad, CA.

And gosh, is Ballmer ever fired up about Bing!

According to Microsoft, in addition to offering search by category, Bing will offer…

• more relevant search results;
• snapshots of search results’ Web pages;
• color-coded search results; and
• search tools on the left side of the page.

This new search engine is also set up to organize query results in relevant groups rather than as a series of links. Google might want to pick up on this! So, for instance, a search for “travel to Seattle” may return Seattle destinations like hotels, restaurants and museums as almost a guidebook page. The same search on Live generated straight individual links that users had to go through one by one.

Microsoft has looked for ways to improve its search advertising revenue for years and maybe Bing will give them “more bang for their money”. It’s hard to imagine that advertisers will be leaving Google and Yahoo! for Bing anytime soon but overtime, maybe some people will get curious and want to see if Microsoft go its new search service right, this time around.

Everyone “in the know” regarding the search engine wars was aware that Microsoft’s search market share had been slipping for more than two years. It struggled to make its online advertising unit profitable but that wasn’t going too well. According to comScore, Microsoft maintains a meager 8.2% share of the market for core searches compared with 64.2% for Google and 20.4% for Yahoo!.

After trying a few searches in Bing’s “preview” search service for “new technology“, “local pizza“, “alternative cancer treatments“, “free education” and “open source scripts” yielded impressively relevant results which actually made sense. The pay-per-click results were generally related but not always useful. Maybe when Microsoft convinces more advertisers to sign-up, those results will become more interesting.

You may also appreciate the “quick information” that’s displayed at the right of the hyperlinks [and descriptions] to give you a sort of preview of what you’ll find, at any particular web site. Here again, Google and Yahoo! should send a few spies to check it out.

We’ll need at least a few months to see if Bing has what the users are looking for but until then, it’ll be interesting to see what the competition does to make sure they stay on top.

Tags: bing, about bing, bing.com, bing search, bing search engine, microsoft bing, steve ballmer, ballmer about bing, allthingsd, all things digital, live, live.com, search engine war, google, yahoo!, competition, users, visitors, internet, web, online

Google’s own definition of AdSense

For online advertisers, AdSense is a huge network through which they can sell themlselves, their products and their services. For web publishers, it’s a revenue stream but what about Google, what’s their take on the service?

Over the years, a large number of AdSense publishers have wondered what words Google would use to properly define the “publisher side” of its all important pay-per-click advertising system (comprising other elements, namely AdWords where advertisers purchase the ads [that are later shown through AdSense]).

If you’ve been wondering about that too, here’s how Google defines AdSense, in its 2008 annual report, on page 56:

AdSense for content is our online service for distributing ads from our advertisers that are relevant to content on our Google Network members’ web sites. Under this program, we use automated technology to analyze the meaning of the content on the web page and serve relevant ads based on the meaning of such content. For example, a web page on an automotive blog that contains an entry about vintage cars might display ads for vintage car parts or vintage car shows. These ads are displayed in spaces that our AdSense for content partners have set aside on their web sites. AdSense for content allows a variety of ad types to be shown, including text ads, image ads, Google Video Ads, link units (which are sets of clickable links to topic pages related to page content), themed units (which are regular text ads with graphic treatments that change seasonally and by geography) and gadget ads (which are customized —mini-sites— that run as ads on AdSense publisher web sites).

For our online AdSense program, our advertisers pay us a fee each time a user clicks on one of our advertisers’ ads displayed on our Google Network members’ web sites or, for those advertisers who choose our cost-per-impression pricing, as their ads are displayed. To date, we have paid most of these advertiser fees to our Google Network members, and we expect to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. We recognize these advertiser fees as revenue and the portion of the advertiser fee we pay to our Google Network members as traffic acquisition costs under cost of revenues. In some cases, we guarantee our Google Network members minimum revenue share payments based on their achieving defined performance terms, such as number of search queries or advertisements displayed. Google Network members do not pay any fees associated with the use of our AdSense program on their web sites.

Our agreements with Google Network members consist largely of uniform online —click-wrap— agreements that members enter into by interacting with our registration web sites. The standard agreements have no stated term and are terminable at will. Agreements with our larger members are individually negotiated. Both the standard agreements and the negotiated agreements contain provisions requiring us to share with the Google Network member most of the advertiser fees generated by users clicking on ads on the Google Network member’s web site or, for advertisers who choose our cost-per-impression pricing, as the ads are displayed on the Google Network member’s web site.

Whoever wrote this, at Google, did a very good job at explaining AdSense… in just three paragraphs!

If similarly-sized businesses, like IBM, Cisco or Microsoft had attempted to define such an important business operation as this one is such a short linespan, chances are they would’ve failed, filling page after page to eventually “get to the point”.

This AdSense definition, published in the annual report and reprinted here, follows the exact same logic as Google’s search home page. “Easy does it” seems to be the general rule of thumb behind what AdSense is and seeks to be. In itself, this is wonderful news for all the smaller web publishers out there because it means Google doesn’t intend to overly formalize its ad network, like some competitors have.

Take APT, Yahoo!’s unified digital advertising platform.

It’s probably good but you likely need millions of visitors per day to get any level of attention from them to be —considered— for their ad program. Which is basically out of reach for over 99% of the web publishers out there. So all these fine web enthusiasts flock to Google’s AdSense where such insane “barriers to entry” simply don’t exist.

Talking about Yahoo!’s ad network, one has to wonder why they insist on being so elitist about who gets to show their ads. Is it because Yahoo! hate smaller publishers? Are they convinced only “they” know how to deliver content, and value? It’s anybody’s guess why Yahoo!’s “external publisher base” is so severely skimmed to keep only astronomically huge publishers while slamming the door in the face of all others.

Oh! Well, it’s their problem, not Google’s.

For those who like to read annual reports (even if the very idea of it might seem odd, at first), Google’s 2008 review of its activities, amidst the economic downturn that has started to be felt at the end of that year, proves that Larry and Sergei still steer this search giant with agility and grace.

Tens of thousands of people stand behind Google’s success but even though the valuation of the company has skyrocketed in the last decade, the people at the top have kept cool about it.

And it’s probably why any web publisher with sound content (i.e.: unique, useful and valuable) and a legitimate desire to generate revenue can apply to Google’s AdSense and reasonably expect to be accepted.

If you’re looking for a true sense of entrepreneurial spirit, online, look no further that Google AdSense… even in these hopefully episodic times of economic crisis.

Tags: google, adsense, adwords, definition of adsense, what is adsense, why adsense, how does adsense work, adsense publishers, ppc, pay-per-click, online ads, ad network, advertising, contextual ads, yahoo, apt, online publishers, money, revenue, online revenu, content monetization

Higher PPC revenues with Dotzup

Owning domain names is one thing. Lots of individuals and corporations do it. Intelligently generating pay-per-click (PPC) revenue through them, however, is a whole different story.

Some more advanced web developers prefer to create valuable web destinations to encourage repeat visits which are more often exposed to their advertising (PPC or otherwise).

Now, lots of domainers don’t have the time or resources to create this much value associated with every single one of the domain names in their portfolio so they purchase outside help.

Dotzup offers such “domain name portfolio management” landing page services, setting-up for you a highly relevant landing page that direct type-in visitors will likely appreciate — and click through.

More “pay-per-click revenue” generated through well-thought landing page design is obviously very be good news for any domain name owner so Dotzup’s continued partnership with Yahoo’s popular (and lucrative) PPC advertising network makes for an enviable sustained revenue stream.

Established in 1997, in Spokane, WA Dotzup is a leading Direct Navigation Technology Development and High Profile Domain Name Asset Management Corporation.

One of their goals, probably the most important one dor domainers, is to both produce higher PPC revenues -and- grow the domain names’ value (even in a “landing page” context). This is quite important for domainers looking to maintain the high “desirability factor” associated with their domain names.

If you want to see what some Dotzup “niche optimized” landing pages look like, you can check out MiamiJob.com, DetroitJob.com or DenverJob.com.

If your domains have to do with American or Canadian web visitors (naturally typing-in the names), Dotzup’s Yahoo Advertising Network back-end might yield surprisingly high revenues.

If you’re serious about growning your landing page pay-per-click revenues, make sure to give Dotzup a spin and see for yourself how high your monthly revenues can go.

Tags: dotzup, ypn, yahoo, domain names, ppc, pay-per-click, landing pages

Rapid Keyword helps e-marketers

Successful e-marketers already understand the importance of choosing the most profitable keywords over those which yield a lot less return.

Just as every year brings new dictionary words, the keyword landscape is continuously shifting.

Wether you’re experienced in keyword research or not, the basic idea turns around the concept of “conversion”. The right keywords bring the visitors who have the most conversion potential, for your offerings.

Since the keyword research drill can become somewhat tedious and repetitive, perhaps it’s a wiser path to let your computer do the heavy lifting while you provide minimal (but nevertheless essential) guidance. Rapid Keyword (version 2.2, nowadays) installs on your Windows computer in just a few seconds and starts hunting down all the most lucrative keywords, for your business, within Google AdWords, Yahoo’s Overture and even MSN’s Digital Advertising Solutions.

The software is quite flexible as you can, for instance, analyze your competition’s keywords, generate highly probable typos and manage the relevant keywords lists that are produced. Furthermore, the META tag parser makes it fun to gather all the best keywords used at leading web destinations.

For the Google fans out there, it’s now possible to extract all the “Google Suggest” keywords that you want so, in this particular case, you’re absolutely certain these words (or expressions) are top performers. In every way, they’re “Google-approved”!

All the keywords are harvested in a live setting so your results are always fresh. That makes a huge difference since search patterns change all the time, especially in certain niches where new offerings come out frequently.

If you’re not sure about Rapid Keyword, you’re invited to download it for free and try it out for yourself. If you choose to buy this keyword research software, you’ll see it’s surprisingly affordable and continuously updated to reflect the latest updates, namely in the major search engines.

Other keyword generation tools either have less features or work too slowly to stay productive when using them so Rapid Keyword appears to be the leader in the keyword search market.

Tags: rapid keyword, e-marketing, marketers, keyword research

Like online music to your ears

Podcasts have taken the online world by storm and the variety of audio content is already mind boggling so it’s only normal that, at some point, an easy to implement revenue model be offered to podcasters who need to pay their rent.

With their dMarc Broadcasting acquisition, Google now owns a digital media solutions expertise that would help them bring their huge online advertising offering to the podcasting community.

It’s only rumors, at this point but already, the mere possibility that Google might be gearing up to serve ads within podcasts (or any other kind of streaming or on demand audio) is enough to create quite a stir in the podcasters community who are still looking to elevate their media to the next “commercial” level which would, in fact, translate into a sustainable business model.

There are many ways in which Google could implement their ads into audio streams but you may not have to hold your breath for too long since the word on the street has it that we might see a few “beta” releases before the end of 2006.

As far as anybody in the blogosphere knows, MSN-Search isn’t ready. Yahoo! Search isn’t ready. Ask isn’t ready. In this light, it sounds like Google might be first to market with the “next big -online audio- thing”, again.

Let’s hear it, one more time, for Mountain View’s finest!

Tags: google, music, ad revenue, audible, audio shows, broadcasting

Yahoo! Search’s Site Explorer gets an update

Yahoo has joined the “beta” bandwagon with an updated release of it’s truly useful (and free) Site Explorer online tool to help publishers (and everyone else) see what links go to and come from any web site.

The neat categories are displayed in such a way that even a “novice netizen” will find Site Explorer fun and rather easy-to-use… ?† la Google, if you will!

Here’s a short list of featured novelties, for this recent upgrade (August 8, 2006):

• There‚Äôs more information about the sites you own, including “last crawled” date and more.
• Feed submissions are much smoother. You can submit RSS, Atom and URL lists, and manage all of them from one place. For authenticated sites, you can also track when they were submitted and processed.
• An Update Notification Web Service was added for you to notify Yahoo of feed or site updates, part of the popular Site Explorer API suite. Since these return the same data as the tool, it’s recommended to use them for automated applications.

The new interface, in and of itself, is perhaps the masterpiece, within the scope of this update — a lot more information is available through the smart and tasteful use of expandable results which instantly reduce clutter.

Add to that the much requested ability to download more URLs from sites you own (supported by a more robust authentication process) and you see why Site Explorer should be on your “explore-worthy” list of cyber-destinations.

In case you still haven’t tried the Site Explorer tool, go check what kind of results it returns for your web site… and then check your competitors’!

Tags: yahoo, site search, web sites, web crawling, web publishers, site explorer, notifications, api suite