Search Engine News

Yahoo Inc. has been sued by a group of Chinese political activists who claim that the company aided the Chinese government in tracking the online activities of political dissidents. This marks the second such lawsuit against Yahoo in recent years. Yahoo was sued last year by two Chinese journalists who claimed that Yahoo provided the Chinese government with information that ultimately led to their capture, imprisonment, and subsequent torture. This case was settled in November 2007. However, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was summoned before the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee, where he was reprimanded for Yahoo’s role in the journalists’ imprisonment.

More from www.searchenginejournal.com…

The head of Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform Services group offered late Wednesday an early description of services and tools that Microsoft will release at next week’s Mix08 Web conference. Dave Treadwell is part of a team assembled by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and chartered with building a …

More from www.news.com…

It’s been a busy week for the Google Health team. Last week we announced our partnership and pilot with the Cleveland Clinic. This week, the team has been at the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) conference in Orlando, Florida, where EricSchmidt gave the closing keynote. Eric’s keynote marks the first time we’ve talked publicly about the product we’ve been designing and building. His talk also offered a deeper view into our overall health strategy.

More from googleblog.blogspot.com…

Following Andy’s observation about Google: “You can tell which acquisitions are important to Google’s bottom line and which are more speculative. All you need do is measure how long it takes them to start integrating the service with existing Google offerings.” By that standard, JotSpot hasn’t been a priority to Google since it was acquired over a year ago – in October 2006. JotSpot provided free, enterprise-level wikis. Google immediately stopped new signups and we haven’t heard much since. Until today when Google announced that JotSpot will be integrated into Google Apps and will be resurrected under the name Google Sites.

More from www.marketingpilgrim.com…

On Wednesday in the company’s annual report, Yahoo admitted that its executives have been distracted by Microsoft’s unsolicited acquisition bid, and indicated the possibility that advertisers might cut and run in light of the uncertainty. The unwelcome bid, which was ultimately rejected, might not just cause advertisers to leave, but perhaps even employees. Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid which was rejected two weeks ago, has caused the company to shift their focus and may have considerable impact on the company. According to Yahoo, at minimum they’ve spent considerable time and effort evaluating the proposal, and at most advertisers and publishers, as well as key employees, might not stick around to find out the company’s fate.

More from www.searchenginejournal.com…

Here are 8 methods you can use for tracking phone orders that were initiated by Search. 1) Create a unique landing page with a unique 800# for Google, Yahoo, MSN respectively. 2) Generate a unique “promo code” by placing all your keywords in a database and assign them an individual ID. Then when the user clicks on the Google url, it will attach a string to the URL like: keyword=12345. The unique ID can be the promo code that appears on the webpage. 3) By adding a unique customer reference code (promo code) on the page, and the reps on the phone can ask for that number. Train the sales reps to record and report the “lead source”.

More from www.shimonsandler.com…

Google’s Webmaster Central is giving you a new way to access the diagnostics and stats for your sites. Rather than log into your Webmaster Tools account, you can add the Webmaster Tools gadget to your iGoogle page and access information from there. You can choose what components to display on your iGoogle page.

More from searchengineland.com…

Video is easier to digest than ever before. High speed wired and wi-fi services, iPhones and other video-enabled mobile devices are helping hungry users scarf down a smorgasbord of video treats.

And publishers are going back to the kitchen to serve up more and more. So how do publishers scale their operations to meet this seemingly insatiable appetite? And, how do they bake search engine friendliness into every serving?

More from searchengineland.com…

Jason Calacanis talked at Gnomdex 7 in September 2007 about the days on the internet when only a handful new site appeared on the web every day and could be announced via an email newsletter and checked out by everybody every day. The sites were generally good and rich on content. Junk was the exception, so was email spam, comment spam and other worthless content. Yes, everything is nice and clean, if it is small, non-mainstream and not commercially exploited. It is also easier to manage, organize and to know each other. If you can list everything there is on one page or even a few pages, you don’t get problems. The page evolved to a directory with more and more categories. The directory was called Yahoo! and it worked fine for a long time until the growth of the internet was faster than it was possible to keep up with it and list everything in a directory. It also became harder and harder to find anything that you are looking for as a user in this giant directory with hundred thousand and more listings. The Dmoz directory was able to keep up for a while due to its open nature and vast number of volunteer editors, but even that was not enough at some point in time anymore. (more…)

More from www.searchenginejournal.com…

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras is set to resign next month, and now that she’s leaving, privacy advocates unhappy with the FTC’s approval of Google’s DoubleClick acquisition want the commission to cough up the Majoras papers, pronto. Center for Digital Democracy’s Jeff Chester is reminding the press of his group’s request that the FTC hand over all documents related to Majoras’ role in the acquisition case (through the Freedom of Information Act). Basically, the law firm where her husband works, Jones Day, has been involved in representing DoubleClick, which on its face, makes her involvement with the FTC decision on the merger seem ethically challenged.

More from blog.clickz.com…