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comScore today released its first report on the U.K. search market from its enhanced comScore qSearch 2.0 online search measurement tool. The service, which was first launched in the U.K. in September 2007, has been updated to include several local market properties where search activity occurs, such as Rightmove Sites and Bebo.com.

I discussed how this expanded definition of “search” changes the landscape in the U.S. back in March in an article entitled, “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing at SES New York 2008.”

In the U.K., Google Sites continued its reign as the leading search property in April with 74.2 percent of all searches. eBay ranked second with 6 percent, followed by Yahoo! Sites (4.3 percent) and Microsoft Sites (3.4 percent).

Two U.K. properties, Rightmove Sites (0.8 percent share) and Bebo.com (0.7 percent share), ranked amongst the top 10. Popular social networking property, Facebook.com, claimed a 1.8-percent market share in April.

Yes, people conduct searches at social networking sites. It’s not your father’s SEO.

Visual search engine Viewzi has been in private beta for quite some time now, but they’ve just announced they expect to launch to the public this month.

Since it’s visual, a wordy blog post just isn’t going to do this news justice. So I’ve created a screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to leave your reaction in the comments!

Viewzi main search page

Viewzi’s search menu offers several options for viewing results

Video search displays results from popular video sites. Some of the videos are played in fast forward right in the results page. In Viewzi, mouseover an individual result to see the title of the video.

Web screenshot results show search results in a cover-flow style. I like this because you can easily see which pages are educational, shopping or parked domains.

Photo view is similar to video view, displaying image search results in several rows.

Simple text view combines results from Yahoo and Google and looks similar to traditional text-based search results.

Four source view displays website screenshot results from Google, Yahoo, Ask, and MSN. To remove one of the sets of results, just click on the search engine name that you do NOT want to see displayed. Mouseover a result for a larger view.

Celebrity Photo View is not just an image search for photos of celebrities. Instead, it’s the name for the way the results are displayed, which looks like a photo album or scrap book and features a slick drag and drop feature.

mp3 View shows results of mp3 files related to your search. You can even listen to the files in your browser instead of opening additional applications which can use up valuable memory on your computer.

Yahoo is urging its shareholders to use the white proxy card to vote for the current board, which the company has nominated to continue serving for the coming year. Additionally, Yahoo is advising shareholders to read the proxy statement that will be filed with the SEC.

Here’s the statement from the Yahoo corporate blog:

Yahoo! will be filing a definitive proxy statement and accompanying WHITE proxy card with the SEC in connection with the solicitation of proxies for its 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. Stockholders are strongly advised to read Yahoo!’s 2008 definitive proxy statement when it becomes available because it will contain important information. Stockholders will be able to obtain copies of Yahoo!’s 2008 definitive proxy statement and other documents filed by Yahoo! with the SEC in connection with its 2008 annual meeting of stockholders at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or at the Investor Relations section of Yahoo!’s website at yhoo.client.shareholder.com. Yahoo!, its directors, and certain of its officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from stockholders in connection with Yahoo!’s 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. Information concerning Yahoo!’s directors and officers is available in its preliminary proxy statement filed with the SEC on May 22, 2008.

Related Reading:
Yahoo Confirms Icahn Proxy Fight
Microsoft Puts New Yahoo Deal on Table: Full Text

At the All Things Digital conference, AOL announced that it would be joining Google’s OpenSocial. AOL recently acquired social network Bebo, which had already joined OpenSocial. First up will be the adoption of gadgets on myAOL.com.

Writing on the OpenSocial blog, AOL Principal Software Engineer Eric Staats said, “We’re excited to work toward supporting Gadgets and OpenSocial across AOL’s many products, platforms and services. By working with Google and other leaders in the industry to create products based on a more open, uniform standard, AOL and AOL users will be able to safely take advantage of a wide variety of new applications within our products that have been built by developers around the world.

Related Reading:
Google, Yahoo & MySpace Team Up for OpenSocial
Microsoft Tries to Compete with OpenSocial

Kate Kaye at Clickz has done some in-depth analysis of the online ad spending of Democrat Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. The Illinois Senator has spent $3.47 million this year in online advertising.

Of that, $2.8 million went to Google while Yahoo received $180,000. Smaller amounts also went to Facebook, CNN.com, Gothamist, and Politico.

Google, of course, dominates the online advertising market, so it’s a smart play by anyone to spend with them. But Google just happens to be number 13 on OpenSecrets.org list of top donors. The list compiles monies donated by corporate political action committees and individuals (who must report who they work for when contributing).

Related Reading:
Presidential Candidates Need Some Help with their Reputations
Clinton, McCain, Obama: Drilling Down on Local in Campaign ‘08

If you’re seeing a shift in your Yahoo rankings, you’re not alone. Yahoo has announced that it is rolling out updates to its search index.

Writing on the Yahoo Search blog, Priyank Garg and Sharad Verma said, “We’ll be rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days, but expect the update will be completed soon. As you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.”

Have you noticed a difference? The last time website owners noticed a difference in Yahoo was the middle of April. Let us know what you’re seeing in the comments.

Google has released the results from a study on query suggestions for mobile search. The study tested search queries for phones with a numeric keypad. Typically, a 15 character query requires approximately 30 key presses to perform, according to the study.

But when query suggestions are added to the mix, workload and key presses declined while enjoyment increased. However, the suggestions did NOT decrease the amount of time spent querying a search.

Google has already implemented query suggestions for the iPhone.

Related Reading:
YouTube Adds Query Suggestions for Search
Yahoo Unveils Upgrades to Mobile Search Platform
Firefox To Add Search Suggestions To Search Toolbar

A thread over at WebmasterWorld has reported that Yahoo will be increasing its charges for domain registration as of July 1, 2008 to $34.95. Now I have not heard that the major domain registries have increased prices so is this another way Yahoo thinks it can help increase revenue?

Most companies charge about a third of the new price so it looks like Yahoo will be losing a lot of that business. Guess the ones left will pay extra and Yahoo can cut back on staff.

This is not a smart move given all that is happening right now. Almost looks like they don’t want to do it any more and figure to just boost the prices to a level where everyone leaves.

The price seems to include a starter hosting package. Curious would this have a spill over effect on visitor counts to Yahoo? Does it force sites to include Yahoo links or advertising?

I know gas prices are increasing a lot of goods and services but there is no gas needed to do this service.

Yahoo may want to reconsider this move. Sounds like desperate measures.

Google co-founder Larry Page was in the nation’s capital making the case for white spaces when the conversation inevitably turned to Microsoft-Yahoo. According to several news outlets, Page said, “Now, if you put 90% of communications all in one company … that’s really a big risk, especially one (Microsoft) that has a history of doing bad stuff. So if you want to have good products you need to have some degree of openness.”

There are obvious problems with Page’s statement. One is, why is Page acting threatened? Google more than dominates search engine queries and advertising.

Another is, if a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would produced closed products, and if good products require openness, then what in the world is Page worried about?

Besides rethinking his logic, Page may also want to do some number crunching. USA Today pointed out that comScore predicts that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal would combine to have 70% of email and instant messaging market share in the U.S.

During the same speech, Page said that a Google-Yahoo ad deal would pass the antitrust test. Together, Google and Yahoo dominate 80% of the search ad market.

Yeah, you read that headline correctly. In a statement that no one believes, Steve Ballmer said in Moscow today that the bid for Yahoo was ‘never strategic.’

Ballmer has been going around saying that Microsoft wants to catch Google in the search game, which was the reason behind their Yahoo bid.

strat·e·gy noun - a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result (via Ask.com’s recently acquired Dictionary.com)

The Microsoft CEO is now boasting that it has $50 billion to spend on all sorts of acquisitions. Not that they’re strategic or anything.