We always say it, the next search engine is just a click away, but we hardly ever believe it. Your next click away to Exalead may very well turn you into a believer.

Established in 2000 in France by Francois Bourdoncle, Exalead features everything a mature search engine needs and then some. Google might run away with the news headlines but Exalead had many of its newer features before Google did.

Exalead has some very strong searches such as search within results (handy!), proximity search using the NEAR operator (something Matt Cutts keeps explaining we want but really don’t need…), regular expressions, wildcard and phonetic search. To name just a few.

Hi, my name is Tom Tsinas and I’ve been a V.P. Business Development at Search Engine People for three weeks now. Being new, I should tell you about myself. I had been with the world’s original search engine, the Yellow Pages Group, for 10 years in variety of roles ranging from Marketing, Business Development, Product Management, National and Local Sales.

In the last few years, I noticed that local advertisers began asking me about search engine positioning, pay per click advertising and advice on how to improve their websites. For small businesses, their Yellow Pages team function as their chief marketing officer. As a result, I began to investigate what all this SEO SEM fuss was about.

If there’s one thing we cannot get enough of in SEO it is links. We need to have them, need to get them, need to keep them. It was link exchange first, directory building later on and right now the drum beats “social media”. Social media is it.

And that’s true, more or less. Social media is the equivalent of real-world store’s word of mouth. Thing is, you can’t have word of mouth without something to talk about. Word of mouth, social media, is the vehicle, the means; it’s not the ultimate end goal.

I’ve been watching with great curiousity the, ummm, tension between Google and ebay with great interest.

Who hasn’t?

To wit: Ebay holds annual ebay live convention, Google announces competing party with the unstated goal of having ebay/Paypal users force inclusion of Google Checkout.

Ebay gets, oh, what’s the word? PISSED Mildly annoyed. Ebay cancels all paid advertising on Google. How much? In excess of $100 Million annually or about 1% of Google income. Um, ouch.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

We’re off to Search Engine Strategies Toronto to set up the booth today because we’re sponsoring it. (The conference, not the booth.)

For those of you in Toronto, we hope to see you there.

For those of you visiting Toronto, we hope to see you there.

There look to be some interesting panel sessions not the least of which include the opening panel with Andrew Goodman and Chris Sherman, and Seth Godin’s keynote.

Eric Ward will be there. As will Mitch Joel, Adam Lasnik and Jake Baillie.

Our resident PPC dude, Sasha was wondering hither and yon over Google today and came up with this little nugget on a search for “business cards Toronto”.

This is everything that appears above the fold and if you look very, very carefully, very, very carefully and you’ll see it waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy at the bottom.

Why it couldn’t be, could it? An organic listing. A single organic listing.

There’s been a lot of chat regarding whether this is a good Google or a bad Google thing.

The buzz around the productivity sphere is the recent Associated Press poll which shows 1 in 5 bringing their laptop along on vacation.

Besides using that laptop to offload digital photos from the camera or watch a DVD or two, we do quite a bit of communicating on that vacation laptop.

Put on your site

1 in 5 of those who bring their laptop stay connected to work somehow. They check email, check work messages, work. And a whole bunch of course check our personal messages.

Peter Fleisch, Google’s global privacy counsel, while defending Google’s privacy policies, has admitted to the BBC that Google’s privacy policy is vague at at least two points.

“The general principle is that we are going to maintain the privacy of our users; that is pretty fundamental.

We will never transfer to third parties, including advertisers, any personally identifiable information about our users.

Our goal is to be as transparent as possible with our users when it comes to privacy. That transparency builds trust and we will succeed or fail on whether our users trust us.
– Peter Fleisch

Wow, what a difference 24 hours makes.

Suddenly 3 and 4d is all the rage. From the CAVEman above, to Google, Microsoft and Everyscape all releasing 3D mapping.

To Microsoft’s new table top computer.

Talk about a change in perspective.

Have a good one.

~The (SEP) Guy

Red Herring today features a story on Everyscape, a photo based 3D Search company.

It’s an intriguing proposition.

A virtual walk-through of a neighbourhood you’re considering moving to. A walk-through by day might differ from a walk-through might differ dramatically from a walk-through by night. A 3D tour of the restaurant you’re thinking of going to? The food may look particularly good, but other factors also begin to enter the equation… by example are there any people actually in the restaurant.

While still in beta mode, Everyscape is compelling inasmuch as it quite literally adds depth to search. Talk about geotargeting.