Yesterday, I mentioned to my staff that I think it was a great day for our business, the search engine industry and for those companies who truly understand all aspects of search. From an industry point of view, the two-horse race is now on, and it will push both companies to stay innovative in the search arena. I often felt that if Microsoft didn’t fully get behind search marketing, it would be only a matter of time before Google was the only player in the space. And we always see a lack of innovation when this happens. Most companies feel are reliant on Google for the vast bulk of their ad spend, but that’s not the most ideal situation to be in. It works, but when you have another larger player like MicroHoo, you potentially have another large entity to rely on.

I realize some people might be saying that the volume of search inventory will be the same; it will just now be combined in one interface. And that is true. Microsoft adCenter has been showing a lot more progress then Yahoo!’s Panama, which will show a marginal benefit at first. However, paid search is not the only place I foresee benefits.

Paid Inclusion
Paid inclusion (PI) will be gone. PI is a way for companies to pay their way into Yahoo!’s natural results. Google and Bing do not offer PI, and this is where I see a great opportunity for companies who are proficient in search. Some keywords are almost impossible to get on the first page of Yahoo! without paying a CPC price. With Yahoo! changing to Bing’s algorithmic search engine, ranking will go to those with better SEO skills.

Content Network
MicroHoo will align two of the largest trafficked content networks on the web. On their own, neither company has been able to really make an impact in the marketplace with a self-served system. Now, the inventory that can be started and stopped by a flip of a switch (a la AdSense) will be a powerful network, as long as adCenter progresses. All those (eventual) advanced-targeting capabilities in a self-serve application will give companies a great opportunity to generate a large amount of targeted traffic. Google relies on domainers and other content sites for distribution, but MicroHoo is poised to monetize both networks with adCenter. This will be their major advantage, because they own the content as well as the ad serving.

In the end, it comes back to the realization that Microsoft is a great technology company. Its major downfall has been the lack of scale needed to really test its software effectiveness on search traffic. Knowing that they have such great content and an extensive user base, I always felt that Microsoft, as the third largest search engine, could develop the technology needed to compete with Google. It just needed a much larger sample of search queries running through its network. With this search alliance, MicroHoo may just have the search volume it needs to legitimately battle Google.

After 18 longs months of negotiation, Microsoft and Yahoo! have come to an agreement and are now search partners. As we stated on Monday, it is not a complete buyout. Instead, Yahoo! will be powered by Microsoft’s Bing technology and will received 88% of revenue that Microsoft earns from searches on Yahoo!’s sites. Microsoft may also integrate parts of Yahoo!’s technology into Bing if it so chooses.

Read more about it here. We are very excited for this deal and look forward to working with the changes it brings about. What do you think?

Today, AdAge reported that the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! is very near; the announcement is expected later this week. Merger, partnership, whatever it ends up being called–the deal will ultimately mean that Yahoo! results are powered by Bing’s search technology and allow the two companies to better compete wtih Google (although at a combined 30% share, they still have a way to go to reach Google’s 65%).

For us search marketers, the issue isn’t “Can they compete with Google?,” but rather “How will this change search results?” Regarding paid search: The majors differences we foresee are with regards to ranking and targeting. Bing and Yahoo! use different variables when determining paid positions–Yahoo! will likely begin to resemble Bing and take on the same ranking factors.  Currently, Yahoo! uses search data for their behavioral targeting capabilities. If Microsoft does not provide this data to Yahoo!, they will no longer be able to target people based on searching habits.

Concerning SEO: What will become of Yahoo!’s search index—will it be replaced by Bing’s? And what about paid inclusion—will this deal be its demise? Right now, all we can do is speculate on the affects to paid and organic search, and patiently wait until the switch happens.

Stay tuned in the coming days (weeks? months?) to find out just want the deal means for search marketers. And let us know what you think about this deal.

With paid search, performance has a lot to do with the ad copy and getting your message across to the consumer as they decide which search listing they want to click on for more information or to purchase a product. Meta descriptions are essentially the same for organic search; if your “snippet” for your organic listing doesn’t have a compelling message, the consumer will choose other listings to get their information from. That is why the meta description is so important to SEO efforts, as the search engines display this description on their result pages.

We normally suggest optimization of the content to about 150 characters, so there is no cut off from the search engines, and to make most pages on the site have unique descriptions as well. Unlike paid search ad copy, we do not suggest making these changes on a daily or weekly basis, but as a time-to-time change to keep the site description fresh. One strategy we like to use for meta descriptions in SEO is to include a phone number if the client is trying to drive calls, which is important for businesses targeting consumers in a local region.

As I analyze different placements for phrases we are working to achieve higher rankings on, I notice the same descriptions are in place for most sites. This is a lost opportunity for a lot of marketers to increase their click through rates on organic listings and, in my mind, is one of the biggest over sights by SEOers.

The final touches on my presentation are now put in place for day one. My session, PPC 101, takes place on Tuesday at 11:35, and my focus will be “Tools for the Search Engine Marketer.” If you’re spending the money on cost per click-modeled programs then you might as well track and understand your return from that investment on various search marketing programs. I have never met my fellow panelists Christine Churchill and Mona Elesseily before, but they are highly regarded in the industry and I look forward to learn from their experiences.

I’m getting into town Monday December 3rd around 3pm, and staying at the fabulous Wynn Las Vegas Resort in their Salon Suite! If you haven’t been to The Wynn, I highly recommend staying there if you are attending the conference, as it’s the only casino resort in the world to have Mobil 5 Star and AAA 5 Diamond Rating. I hear all the search marketing celebrities, like Matt Cutts and Joe Morin, are staying at The Wynn this week!

Alex Porter, my colleague at SearchAdNetwork, is going to be speaking on day two. His session takes place on Wednesday at 10:15, focusing on local and mobile search. Alex has a great session planned with helpful information on local search trends.

I’m looking forward to meeting old and new friends this week at PubCon, so please approach me if we have never met and we might possibly be able to do some business together.

SearchAdNetwork is proud to be honored as one of three finalists for the Denver Chamber of Commerce Emerging Business of the Year. Winners will be announced next Wednesday (May 16th) during the business awards luncheon. We are going up against Mad Greens and The Ash Group, whom we met at the Chamber’s celebratory awards happy hour last night. Both companies seem to have good business models, and I am sure the decision was not as easy one for the judges. We will know in exactly one week!

Google buys DoubleClick, Yahoo buys Right Media and now there are talks of Microsoft purchasing 247 Media, as reported by Search Engine Land. It’s amazing how Google is dictating the marketing—every move they make with regards to internal development and acquisitions, their competitors follow with similar decisions. Microsoft going after 24/7 Media will provide an ad serving solution and relationships with many publishers for their eventual contextual ad network. It’s a good answer if they are following exactly on the moves of Google.

I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher last week, when guest Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer started referring to Mr. Google and its ability to be “big brother” by tracking consumer behavior, and I was wondering if he knew that Google is about to get its hands on an enormous amount of non search consumer data. I am referring to Google’s $3 Billion purchase of DoubleClick last week, and its now clear ability to link up Search and display data from 2 companies that have 10 years of tracking and monitoring of what, where, how consumers are interacting with the Web.

I was working at DoubleClick in Ireland when they purchased Abacus in 1999, which they tried to link up online and offline data to do the same thing Google now wants to be able to do, which is deliver the most targeted advertising to consumers. The reality is that Google’s purchase of DoubleClick is no different then the DoubleClick purchase of Abacus, in the sense that data is going to be matched up, and eventually consumers anonymous profiles on the Web will now be identified and their browsing history known to who ever wants it.

The Privacy groups have already started their complaints as they did the with old DoubleClick/Abacus deal: http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3673291

Andrew