Search Engine People

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Connecting The Google Dots

by The Guy.

In his post Google & Behavioral Targeting on searchnewz.com, Anil Batra makes a compelling article about just how much information Google has, and from where.

It’s a fascinating read that makes perfect sense.

As Batr points out, while MSN and Yahoo are exploring behavioral targeting based on user generated data from their own sites, Google has it’s footprint in so many other places, and is cutting a much, much wider swath.

Tainted Pet Food

by The Guy.

Tainted pet food may seem like an odd subject for a search engine blog but it’s an opportunity to talk about seasonaliy, habituation and patterns in search. It is also, oddly enough, an opportunity to talk about Google’s new cost per action in action.

When it comes to patterns in search, I know of no one more informed on the subject than Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research at Hitwise.

Video Blog Shameless Plug

by The Guy.

Yippee! It’s shameless plug day.

Someone (No names mentioned, well, except in the press release — you’ll have to watch the news below to find out.) in the Search Engine People office was searching his own name today — and it wasn’t The (SEP) Guy. To his surprise, he found out he was on a webpronews.com video blog, and in a good way!

And here it is…

Have a good one.

~ The (SEP) Guy

Google - Blue Skying

by The Guy.

Today’s post is about Google. Sure, I could have been a little more descriptive and site its about the Google rollout of its pay-per-action beta test. Pay-per-action. That’s just another pretty word for affiliate marketing.

So, Google monetize’s organic search with paid search. And then it monetizes paid search and let’s face it, GoogleBase and Froogle with Google Checkout and then it monetizes Google Checkout with pay-per-action. And along the way, it’s got user behaviour with Google Analytics and marketer behavior with Google Analytics.

So, what’s searched, how it’s searched, how it’s priced and it’s market value.

The Right People At The Right Time

by The Guy.

Partnership marketing can be summed up in one word. Synergy.

Connecting the right corporations with the right products and putting them in front of the right audience at the right time.

It sounds at first a little bit like product placement and to a certain degree it is. Looking for that coat Carrie wore in Season One of Sex And The City, do a search on eVisure.com.

While the devil may wear Prada, your average executive assistant can’t afford to. And that is where people like Ron Kunitzky of Geyser Marketing come into play, by creating partnerships that have a context that makes sense.

target=”_blank”

by The Guy.

There are days when I don’t know whether to curse or to thank those who don’t open new browser windows when they link out in their articles or posts.

A blogger could get lost. Maybe it’s ADD but I prefer to think of it as an insatiable curiousity. I sat down to start this post literally over two and a half hours ago. Who has that kind of time? Fortunately, I do but only because I’m off the clock so technically, it’s my time.

My boss is less than enthused when I blog in the first person but in being that this was my Internet adventure today, I’m hoping I’ll be forgiven.

Cool Tool - Tracking Buzz

by The Guy.

Money Magazine Online had an interesting article today, “Policing The Online Buzz“.

In short, an innovative and affordable buzz tracking tool about to be launched by Buzzlogic. According to their site…

Influence moves markets. It’s a basic tenet of marketing. But until now, it’s been impossible to understand influence — and who wields it — within specific conversations taking place in social media.

BuzzLogic changes this dynamic by uniquely defining and measuring influence in social media, and by surfacing the key influencers who are shaping and defining markets, issues and reputations.

….which all sounds good until things go horribly, horribly bad.

Search Engines In The News

by The Guy.

There’s an interesting story in today’s Globe & Mail regarding Canada’s green initiative.

It seems the federal government has in essence, hijacked the name of an existing non-profit, environmental organization in British Columbia. The government program, Canada EcoTrust tramples all over EcoTrust Canada.

In fact, type CanadaEcotrust.com in your browser and it redirects to Ecotrust Canada. Search for Canada Ecotrust in almost every available search engine and the first or first and second result tends to be Ecotrust Canada.

Ultimately, this is a story about due diligence. A simple search of any search engine would have raised flags.

Search Results In Search Results posts

by The Guy.

Two very interesting online posts today around Matt Cutts’ comments regarding search results of search results showing up in Google. One from SEORoundTable and the other from Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.

In his example, Danny used “dvd players”. Curious, I scratched around the longtail terms, searching dvd players by brand names like “Sony DVD players” or “Panasonic DVD players” and I’m even more intrigued by the prospects. Not only will sites like Amazon.com and Bizrate be affected, but so will a couple of other lightweights like, oh, say MSN Shopping and Yahoo! Shopping who also show up in Google results.

Underused Free Competitive Intelligence Tools

by The Guy.

There are myriad free tools abounding on the Internet, some more useful than others.

Deserving of a mention, in my estimation, are Yahoo! Search Suggestion Tool (formerly Overture) and the recently unleashed KeywordDiscovery.com Tool.

But there are other equally interesting and informative tools that can provide hours of fun for the whole family. Okay, well maybe not for the whole family. But the hours of fun part, that’s true. Hours. Seriously.

Today, Google Trends, which is one of those tools that should be mentioned a lot but seems to be woefully underused. And it’s free!