Well, day four of the New York Search Engine Strategies conference has passed, and it was another full schedule. Three panels yesterday (Linking Strategies, Link Baiting and Viral Search Success, and CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines) then the 8 hour drive back to Toronto (someone forgot to renew his passport).

One of the interesting tidbits I was reminded of today (in the Bookmarking session) and had meant to blog about earlier was the fact that Google had “quiet launched” Google Bookmarks late last year. Such a launch would not normally be cause for excitement, but I think the implications merit some discussion, as they are certainly likely to impact Google’s search results. Accordingly, this blog posting is not to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Google BookMarks versus Del.icio.us, but rather how Google is likely to use this bookmark information.

As a friend discovered this week, not all Google results are the same.

A search from Toronto and a search from New York will usually resulting in a different set of organic results appearing.

To be clear, using Google.com as your base search and not Google results from Google.ca or Google.ca Canadian specific results will show variations depending on where you search from.

To borrow from George Orwell’s Animal Farm; All searches are equal but some are more equal than others.

The difference of course is about server location, IP and all of that. I’ve long maintained that this is, while probably an algorithm oversight, nevertheless a shortcoming of the search engines.

In October 2005, when Martha Stewart had her own “The Apprentice”, contestant David Karandish didn’t win. He did however, mention that Martha’s site was nowhere to be found in the search engines for the specific term “recipes” and stated if he took over the Internet division, he would fix it.

Alas, David Karandish didn’t get the job.

And it shows. A search for “recipes” on Google and there it is… no MarthaStewart.com. It does show up on Yahoo but not on MSN. A search for “home decor” on Google and MarthaStewart.com results? Nada. Yahoo results? Zip. MSN results? Bupkis.

In a previous life, I ran a Bell project called VoiceNet (today its evolved into http://www.helloyellow.ca/) . Essentially, it was to be the first speech enabled portal of its kind anywhere completely speech enabled. When I say speech enabled, I literally mean that you communicate(d) directly with our computers … no human intervention. The goal was ultimately to speech enable the Yellow Pages to give cell phone users unprecendented access to such listing information without the paper product handy. What a great concept! Unfortunately, it was 10 years ahead of its time, and the general population just wasn’t ready.  Keep in mind, this was when search engines were in their absolute infancy, and Google was still not conceived. This was even before my days with Sympatico-Lycos … and that was quite a while ago. The project has fortunately been kept alive over the years … given its obvious potential.

It’s pretty amazing. These days all you need is a domain name, ranging in price from $2.95 a year to $29.95 depending on where you get them, and that’s it. Point the domain name to Microsoft or Google and you have everything you need and then some.

“Back in the days” you would have web site hosting and your email. With Microsoft and Google you get calendar, note taking, document editing and sharing. It’s a virtual office.

Web site, virtual office: perfect for business. Perfect for small business.

Let me be even more precise: perfect for local business.

(of course substitute .com.au in Australia, co.uk in England, etc.)

Ahhh … a question we get often, and one without a standard answer. Rather, the answer is based on your particular situation. So, take a minute to consider the questions below, and voila, you’ll have an answer.

1)      Is your site on a well established domain?

While often overlooked by the masses, Google, MSN, and Yahoo all give Canadians different search options than Americans when searching the web. Each gives some sort of preference or boost to sites deemed to be Canadian within their Canadian search results, although offer no benefits obviously for ranking in the generic .com results. This means that Canadian companies need to be diligent about ensuring that they appear in the search results of the most used engines in their home country, especially since the advantages realized do not yet appear to be offset by poorer rankings in the generic .com engines.

A couple of weeks ago now, okay, a month ago now… The (SEP) Guy has been busy… Piper Jaffray released its Internet Media & Marketing Report.

One the more interesting findings was the opportunity that abounds and remains untapped in search. More specifically, in Local Search or to put it another way, Niche Search or to put it another way, Vertical Search. Greg Jarboe had an interesting perspective at SearchEngine Watch with Piper Jaffray Maps Out Where the Search Industry is Headed.

Famed adman David Oglivy is usually credited as having said: “Half my advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.” In fact, it was actually John Wannamaker, considered the father of modern advertising.

No matter who said it, ROI (Return On Investment) or in Googlespeak, ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend) has long been the bane of marketers and advertisers alike.

Google was supposed to have solved that but according to ex-Google employee Adam Goldberg, responsible for the $500 million team behind Google Adwords, this may not in fact be the case. According to the ZDNet Digital Markets blog posting by Donna Bogatin, Google clients ‘frustrated’ by unprofitable AdWords buys,

It’s “how to” day.

This is a tremendously easy way to see your Google Adwords Results in cities or countries where you’re not located.

To see Google Adwords Results In Another Country:

Move there

Append the following code to the end of your query: url &gl=country iso code (ISO stands for International Orgzanization for Standarization — why it wouldn’t be an IOS code is quite beyond me, but I digress…). For the very curious, here’s a listing of the various and sundry ISO country codes.

So, a search for dentists on Google http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GFRC_enCA213CA213&q=dentists becomes http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GFRC_enCA213CA213&q=dentists&gl=UK to show dentists in the UK.