So I don’t know if you recall in the past when I mentioned that I believed Live to be the branding where Microsoft planned on competing with Google.  (See Virtual Reality - Microsoft Office Live).  Well, we should look at some of the things that they are doing from the User perspective.

Nice and clean, free of advertising, and links to other Microsoft places of possible usefulness. It’s very familiar, don’t you think?  Ever seen anything like it before from any other extremely successful search engines?

Warning! Reality Check in progress..you will be returned to regular programming shortly.

Ok, so you say you know what PageRank is and how it applies to search optimization, but do you really? One thing is for certain…. A great many SEO’s, site owners and webmasters don’t seem to truly grasp the concept…so lets take a look shall we?

Hi there kiddies, Dave here (aka theGypsy) as the fine folks at Search Engine People have kindly asked to pinch hit this week, hopefully I can keep you edu-tained ;0)

It was an interesting week in the business of online video with news coming from both major search engines.

Google announced that you can now embed YouTube videos in business profile pages in Google Maps. Videos are displayed in the “Photos & Videos” tab in the extended listing tab that appears when you click on a listing.

The Google blog points to the following example:

According to Google, Local business owners can “easily” add YouTube videos, although I would argue that some will need help to fully take advantage of the opportunity. Long term though, Google plans a plug and play version accessed directly from the Local Business Center.

Image courtesy of rapidsharecinema.blogspot.com

According to the ComScore figures, growth in paid-search clicks happens to be slowing down.  Is it because of the economy?  Is it because of the “R” word that is being used in the United States?  Don’t know, but there was still growth in Google.  Certainly it may not have been huge growth like the numbers we are used to being reported, but still almost 3% growth year over year is substantial compared to the losses evidenced by the competitors Yahoo and MSN.  Yahoo paid clicks went down by about 3% year over year and MSN went even further in the wrong direction by a note-worthy 12%.  It all really does make that 3% growth in Google clicks stand out that much more, and lends that much more credibility to their reputation.

With the flurry of news stories running rampant over the past 24-48 hours, poor Scarlett Yahoo must be exhausted. Who indeed to take to the cotillion? There’s that awful Rhett MSN or that nice Ashley Wilkes Google.

Frankly, I’m reminded of the opening scene with Scarlett on the veranda cloying with prospective suitors and the saga is all a little exhausting. Makes me want for a nice Mint Julip and a nap until this whole silly thing blows over

Afterall, tomorrow is just another trading day.

Image Courstesy Businessweek.com

HOLY SMOKES!  I am completely blown away by the moves of Yahoo this week, in an effort to stave off the Microsoft takeover.  As of yesterday for a two week trial, Google will handle advertising for a tiny piece of the searches carried out on Yahoo.  In fact, Google will place ads alongside 3% of the U.S. queries on Yahoo’s site.  GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS ON YAHOO!!!  It would appear that instead of being eaten by the lion, Yahoo would prefer to throw itself into the dragon’s mouth!  I’d LOVE to hear what you all have to say about that, or what your thoughts on this maneuver are!  Doesn’t that actually reduce Yahoo’s perceived value as a search engine, having results served up by the competition?  Wouldn’t that also drive down the stock price, making it even easier for Microsoft to be able to pick it up?

The auditorium is packed with spectators there to cheer on their favorite contender!  In one corner, weighing in as the largest search provider the world has ever seen, with creative genius that seems to never falter, and a “the sky is the limit” develop and deploy stance that has seen them through to the development of robust search tools, you have Google - The search engine that would, could and did, also known as the search engine that will, can and does!

Image Courtesy of ahajokes.com

One of my New Year’s Wishes for 2008 was that Google would introduce a negative market option, much like negative keywords.

In short, I want all of Ontario, but not Ottawa.

Well, the new Google geo-targeting tool comes close, so I guess it’s only a matter of time.

I had the opportunity to use it to day, creating a North American campaign… Well, North America sans Mexico. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Mexico, just not part of my campaign needs.)

Click on North America bundle and viola! Canada, United States and Mexico. Click on Mexico and viola! There it is. Gone.

Did you know that Google played favourites (Canadian spelling eh?) for a long time?

Its true! For the longest time, American companies were not really given a fair shake in the search results. It wasn’t intentional, rather was just the byproduct of legacy infrastructure, and competing priorities. And don’t get me wrong, this is in no way Google bashing. I certainly understand the problems associated with their dilemma, and why it took so long to rectify.

Let me explain. Being Canadian, we’re obviously very aware of our neighbours (yes I spelled that with a ‘u’, eh) to the south. Until very recently, we understood that there were 3 different sets of Google search results applicable to us:

So how many of you are familiar with Enterprise tools such as Google Search Appliance? Google Mini Search Appliance for example, starts at $2,990 for searching up to 50,000 documents with a 300,000 max document capacity. Google Search Appliance starts at $30,000 for searching up to 500,000 documents with a 30 million max document capacity. (By the way, these are tools used for internal development of infrastructure and intranet and to enable maximum efficiencies between the internal world of information and the internet, among other things, for those of you wondering.)