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Advertisers love competition because (arguably) costs will be driven down. In the single search environment that already exists in many countries around the world, search advertising costs are set by one entity. In today’s Searching for Meaning column, “Forget Competition, the Search Wars are Over,” Kevin Ryan wonders if maybe we shouldn’t count the other (non-Google) search engines out just yet.

Google was the only one of the “big” search engines to experience month-over-month growth in April 2008, according to U.S. search engine rankings released by comScore. Overall, searches by Americans declined by 2%. Core search engines received 10.6 billion of the total searches, with Google seeing over 6.5 billion, Yahoo 2.2 billion and Microsoft 961 million. Here’s the stats:

Related Reading:
Nielsen Online Releases April 2008 U.S. Search Rankings
ComScore Places Google Sites Ahead of Yahoo Sites for First Time

Google FriendConnect friended Facebook. It looked as if Facebook (stocked with former Google executives) might become BFFs (best friends forever).

Then Facebook blocked Google FriendConnect.

The message is clear:

Dear Google,
Facebook is just not that into you.

Facebook says Google has forced them to break off their FriendConnect relationship. Apparently, Google has invaded the privacy of Facebook users without their permission.

Facebook hasn’t turned a cold shoulder or abandoned the search giant. The social network has “reached out” to Google to find a way to make it work.

We view this trial separation leading to divorce, not an open marriage.

Here’s what Facebook had to say in their developers’ blog, under “Thoughts on Privacy.” Read, “I want to be alone.”

What this means to you: the search engines are becoming more like car dealerships where certain models can be sold under the same roof. Facebook and Google will form their alliances and consumers will lose out.

The full text of the Facebook “Dear Google” blog post is after the jump.

Click to read the rest of this post…

Yesterday I published a post on the Search Engine People site titled 50+ Sites to Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!.

While the tactics mentioned may be enough to push some negative online mentions of you or your business to the second page of the search results or lower, in other cases they will not. The question then becomes; what else can you do when the initial tactics themselves aren’t enough, and you’ve got a negative piece about you ranking in the search results for an important phrase. Burying your head in the sand and hoping it goes away isn’t really a viable option. The answer … LOTS can be done!

Lets start with our goals … they’re progressive.

Progressive Goals:
Goal #1: First … bump the listing below the fold asap
then
Goal #2: Bump the listing off the first page of the search results for the given term(s)

With goals in hand, we can now consider tactics.

Tactics:
To Achieve Goal #1:

a. select the strongest 3-5 of those 50+ sites, where strong is a subjective assessment based on many factors. My personal assessment would be:

b. establish a profile on each, where the profile name is the term/phrase the negative piece ranks for
c. get lots of friends on each of those sites … the more the better. It works best if you take an active role and participate. Each friend will result in an internal link back to your profile on that site, making it stronger.
d. within each site, you can see which profiles are the strongest in the offending engines’ eyes … the search engines themselves with rank them in order of importance given a simple search query (eg. site:twitter.com). Try to secure links from the strongest profiles first … they pass the most value.
e. join groups where possible too … often these will pass link power to your profile as well.
f. possibly create a social profiles menu on your site(s), and link to each of these profiles.

To Achieve Goal #2:

a. determine how far down you actually wish to push the piece. Beyond the first page will take a great deal of time and energy.
b. assuming you’ve already bumped the offending post below the fold, you need to select the number of sites you will need to use from the 50 + listed in the 50+ Sites to Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company! article.
c. follow the steps outlined above for each
d. within each (where possible) include links to all your other profiles on the other sites

Following these steps should be enough to push most negative mentions to the second page. If not, or if you don’t have the time and energy, do engage the services of a professional with experience in the space. Aside from the obvious value … its not a bad idea to take out profiles under your name anyway, just as a pre-emptive measure.

Please note … these tactics are by no means comprehensive or advanced. They’re just a relatively quick and efficient means for burying negative online mentions. Much more advanced tactics exist, which I will not delve into here.

Other great reference posts about reputation management include:
Glen Allsopp - What Is Online Reputation Management
Andy Beal - Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide
Todd Malicoat - Reputation Management Emancipation PRoclamation - 10 Ways to Own Yourself Online
Lee Odden - Basics of Online Reputation Management
Marty Weintraub - 9 Essential Tactics for Reputation Management in Social Media
Andy Beal - Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Buzz Tracking Tools
David Wallace - Using Social Media to Help Manage Online Reputation

So many Europeans use Google for search, you have to wonder if they know that other search engines exist. A whopping 79% of searches were conducted on Google in the month of March, according to comScore. That amounts to 19 billion. No wonder European regulators are so wary of a Googleopoly.

Coming in second was eBay with 3.1% followed by Russian search engine Yandex with 2.2%. Yahoo came in fourth at 2.0% with Microsoft rounding out the top 5 at 1.9%.

Google’s overwhelming dominance didn’t prevent the EU from approving its acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this year.

Related Reading:
European Group Wants to Cut Search Engine Data Storage
comScore launches Video Metrix in Canada, France, Germany and UK
Google on Global Search Standards: Thanks, But No Thanks

Click Forensics has released data showing a decline in click fraud rates in the first quarter of 2008. The overall industry number came in at 16.3%, which is down 16.6% quarter-over-quarter but up 14.8% year-over-year.

Search engine content networks saw a higher average click fraud rate at 27.8%, which is down 28.3% from last quarter but, again, up from last year by 21.9%.

Botnet click fraud traffic was up 8% year-over-year.

Search engines are addressing the click fraud problem head on. Yahoo recently announced the provision of Click Filter Reports, which show advertisers the number of discarded clicks in their PPC campaign. The Sunnyvale search engine also announced a partnership with Click Forensics to address their click fraud woes. Lycos has announced a similar deal with Click Forensics.

In the previous post, we took a look at gray hat SEO techniques in general. This time, let us take a closer look at these practices and be a bit more specific.CloakingCloaking is the practice wherein the web site owner provides information to the search engines which is different from what the site actually [...]

Clickable is the latest Software-as-a-Service offering for Search Engine Marketers. SmallBusinessComputing.com’s Gerry Blackwell had the chance to get insight from one of the private beta testers selected to test the product.

Pam Emery, marketing specialist at outdoor gear supplier Backcountry Edge, found that Clickable streamlined her SEM efforts, which are just a part of the four-year-old companies’ overall marketing strategies. Emery engaged in a learn-as-you-go method when it came to paid search advertising. But now she’s finding that Clickable helps her manage PPC campaigns with ease.

Clickable is able to explain tricky paid search analytics in plain English. It can make suggestions such as “Bidding more for this word will improve your return.â€

Emery says that instead of dealing with different interfaces for different search engines, she can now rely on just one – at least for Yahoo and Google. Clickable has a plugin for both of the top two search engines with one for MSN on the way.

Clickable’s interface is web-based and uses the company’s servers, relieving customers of additional IT burdens. Emery told SmallBusinessComputing.com that it’s too soon to tell if Clickable improves sales over her previous efforts, but it has given her confidence in her newly gained paid search strategies.

Related Reading:

SalesForce, Google “Deep Integration” May Improve Google Analytics
Widemile Goes Into Beta, Picks Up 13 Partners

If you want to “go green†while conducting your searches, then a new search engine is right up your alley. Echocho promises to grow up to 2 trees for every 1000 searches. The search engine allows users to choose whether they wish to conduct searches on Yahoo or Google.

As of this post, Ecocho had planted 2,873 trees which they say offsets 1,436,710 kilos of C2. The trees are purchased using 70 percent of advertising revenue. Echocho also has a toolbar which is available to download for Firefox or IE6 and IE7.

The design of Echocho features a white background, which may prove controversial for some eco-evangelists. Last year, Blackle launched as a Google custom search engine with a black design, which they said would reduce the amount of watts used during searches. As of this post, Blackle claims to have saved the earth 567,579.120 Watt hours.

The “big†search engines are no stranger to green initiatives. Last summer, Yahoo was trying to find the “Greenest City in America†while Google hosted a “Summer of Green†site that listed environmentally-friendly hotels and vacation destinations.

via The Daily Telegraph

Yahoo’s two week test of Google’s search advertising has proved successful, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter.†As a result, a partnership between the two search engines is increasingly likely.

Earlier this week, SearchIgnite released data that Yahoo made gains on Google in the search advertising game. But Yahoo has a long way to go in making significant strides in the search ad game, and they have more immediate issues at hand, namely Microsoft’s unsolicited bid to acquire the company.

A partnership with Google appears to be one of many moves in what appears to be an attempt by Yahoo to fend off Microsoft in its unsolicited bid for the company or to raise the offer. Previously, Yahoo released positive revenue projections for the next three years, talked with AOL about a merger, and teamed up with Google to form the OpenSocial Foundation.

For its part, Microsoft began to grow tired waiting, and issued Yahoo an April 26th ultimatum, despite receiving a “no†from Yahoo shortly after the bid was made. And Microsoft may be feeling the pressure, as it has reportedly been talking to News Corp. about assisting in the hostile takeover.

Yahoo releases its first quarter earnings next Tuesday, April 22 at 2pm EST. Google releases its first quarter earnings today at 4:30pm EST.