Archive: January, 2007

Earlier this week, Microsoft released a study that shows that being in the Top10 is simply not good enough anymore. The paper, “Eye tracking in MSN Search: Investigating snippet length, target position and task types”, examines where MSN users look when viewing search results, and if the length of the descriptive text, or “snippets” found beneath search results influences click rates.

Assigning a series of search related tasks to six 3-person test groups, the researchers found that the test subjects, “… seem to exhibit an implicit trust for the rank generated by the search engine…”. They also found that the length of information snippets shown beneath search results effects click rates, depending on the type of task the research subject was assigned. The published report is full of stats and charts and scientific explanations but it boils down to this.

There were two types of search-task assigned to the test groups. The first was called an informational search, in which a subject was told to find something specific. The second type of search-task was called a navigational search, in which a subject is told to find their way from point A to point Z.

Wired online published a brutal description of bad decisions and misguided management at Yahoo over the past six years. Paralleled against Google’s unprecedented growth, the article paints a picture of corporate indecision and eventual stagnation showing Yahoo as a company in decline. Where Google was able to move quickly based on amazing IT talent, Yahoo deliberated over innovative ideas, debating who had what responsibilities and where they would have them. The five page piece closes on an ominous note stating, “At Yahoo, the marketers rule, and at Google the engineers rule. And for that, Yahoo is finally paying the price.”

In his piece, “How Yahoo Blew It”, Wired Magazine contributing editor Frank Vogelstein appears to assign blame in a number of directions but he focuses much of it directly at Yahoo CEO Terry Semel.

Under Semel’s leadership, Yahoo has missed a number of extraordinary opportunities and has developed turf-driven tensions in the upper management of Yahoo’s various divisions. With a corporate culture of bureaucratic committees, Yahoo was unable to keep up with Google on the search front. Trying to merge Overture’s PPC results into Inktomi’s organic search results proved more difficult than expected, likely because Overture and Yahoo executives were often working at cross purposes or in competition with each other. Yahoo has also mismanaged other initiatives such as the Hollywood based Yahoo Entertainment division established by Lloyd Braun.

The Times Colonist of Victoria BC that is! The original article was published to the paper this past weekend. Please check it out here. It’s very interesting stuff!

Remember how awkward and geeky and freakish you felt in your adolescence and teenage years? Do you recall the nastiness of high school gossip, kiss-and-tell social cliques, and angry aggressive jocks/gangers? Have you come to terms with that weird overarching sense of exstistential angst almost everyone confronts in their teens? If I remember correctly, it sucked.

Flash ahead a decade or so. At age 15, the search marketing industry is acting well, like a 15 year old.

There is always simmering debate in search marketing circles about the value and virtues of SEO. Once in a while that debate flares into flame-wars and cat-calling. In the past, these disputes tended to confine themselves to industry forums and chat-rooms, rarely escaping the inner-world of the search marketing community. It doesn’t work that way anymore.

What might appear to be an adolescent squabble to all but the keenest of observers is in fact the fallout of four years of increasing specialization. You see, the practices of the search engine marketing have changed dramatically over time. Where only a few years ago search marketing meant SEO and perhaps some PPC, today’s online environment demands proficiency in social networking, audio or video editing and constant content management. It is rare to find a search marketing agency proficient in all aspects of online marketing. The SEM sector is factionalizing behind skill-sets, forming cliques who will argue for or with each other like high school kids. Our good growth is being expressed in our latent regressive tendencies.