Thread Title: Msn, Yahoo/inktomi/overture Trusted Feed, And what happens to Organic Crawl data Thread Url: http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10332&hl= Thread Description:

This is an interesting thread, as it shows that even in the minds of some of the more experienced practitioners such as Jill Whalen and ProjectPHP their still exists a degree of uncertainy and cloudiness when it comes to this PFI program. The main question is whether or not you reappear once your budget has expired, based upon your original 'natural' crawl position. Lots of 'possibly's', and 'should's' from David at Trellian, along with a few helpful suggestions.

Sitematch was launched back in May sometime. At the time I read various threads at WMW from confused webmasters grappling to get to grips with whether it was a good or a bad thing.

Questions like

If you submitted to sitematch, what would be the position once your budget was exhausted.

Would sitematch be the kiss of death for an affiliate content website.

What about a site that had an INK penalty, would they be considered under this scheme, would they be included whilst their budget was active this wmw thread threw up all sorts of issues.

I haven't really looked at Sitematch for a while, I dont know if its changed, improved or gotten worse even. At this moment in time, natural crawls (for me at least) seem to cut the mustard, I don't see a need or requirement for it and I don't entirely trust it either. Can anyone point to a definitive position? Is sitematch dead in the water, or has it undergone some mysterious not very well publicised rebirth?

Thread Title: What's the best frame-breaker? Thread Url: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum91/2831.htm Thread Description:

Threadwatch member encyclo asks for the best way to break out of a mailicious frameset (where another site frames your pages) over at the wmw forums.

A technical discussion of the various javascript snippets that can do this follow and it makes for damn good reading!

Thread Title: MSN Beta Slowly Propagating to Non Beta MSN Search Thread Url: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum97/266.htm Thread Description:

Barry Schwartz is reporting on the wmw thread threadlinked above were members appear to be seeing the msn beta search moving to the main search.

ADDED: Looks like the real deal from where I sit...

What do the Threadwatchers think?

Thread Title: Vertical, Vertical, Vertical Thread Url: http://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/archives/005249.html Thread Description:

Nice post by Jupiter boss Alan Meckler on, yep, you guessed it - vertical markets..

The fact is that this trend has been going on for years. But it is only in the previous few months that the business press is realizing that vertical "is in." Just as Danny Sullivan is predicting that vertical Search Engines might well be the next wave of Search, vertical shopping is already the next wave of etailing. We are even seeing this in the verticality of auctions sites, event ticket sites, travel sites and and a host of other fields.

Verticality is what has made our JupiterWeb sites more significant than the tired horizontal tech trade print magazines. Going further, our searchenginewatch.com owns the editorial side of the Search ad industry -- an honor that 5 years ago would have been part of the industry weekly Advertising Age

Interesting if not entirely new stuff...

Thread Title: Dot MP Up and Running Thread Url: http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008191.html Thread Description:

Domains speculaters, get your CC's out and start buying!

What is .mp? What you get How it works

I got nick.mp for $50 and im afraid i knee jerked and bought moblog.mp for $300 (commercial) without having a clue what to do with it... maybe i'll sell it :-)

Casino, betting, pills etc - all gone, but it's VERY early days...

Have fun...

Thread Title: windy city december search conference [WMW Subscribers Only] Thread Url: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum78/7299.htm Thread Description:

Forgive me for posting a link to a "Supporters Only" thread, but I felt it was something worth bringing up.

When I decided to leave WebmasterWorld, I made the decision to go as quitely as possible, but this thread is making that decision a bit hard to stick to.

Sometime yesterday, long time WmW member (and conference speaker) Chicago posted a thread intitled

SES Chicago - who's going?

(Very similar to this thread: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2744)

At last year's Chicago SES, Chicago hosted a nice private party for WmW members. His reason for posting the thread in the Supporter's section was to try and get an idea of how many members would be in town, so he could plan another party.

Someting today, a Supporters forum Admin changed the title of the thread to read

windy city search conference (without sending a sticky to Chicago)

When I first saw it, I thought it was a new thread announcing PubCon 7.333, but it turned out to just be the SES thread with a new title. Apparently, it isn't appropriate to promote Danny's show in that way. Letting that title stand might result in some WmW members deciding to attend.

I can't even begin to explain how dissapointed I am. Taking such a stance is probably the most disrespectful, rude and childish thing I've ever seen BT do.

Thread Title: New Applications for Behavioral Targeting Thread Url: http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/stein/archives/005233.html Thread Description:

There have been a couple of good posts about behavioral targeting today, i've linked to Jupiter analyst Gary Steins one. The other is this clickz piece by Dave Morgan.

Gary says:

Behavioral Targeting is in a pretty interesting space right now--it has becoming a category in its own right. That means:

More than a few vendors have developed sophisticated systems Publishers of note are integrated the systems The challenges--such as audience standardization--have been identified and solutions are making their way into the marketplace

Now that the systems are in place, its time for them to be used. That is, time for advertisers to begin to not only understand how the systems work, but also what they can be used for.

Dave points out that the the figure for marketers using behavioral targeting in 2004 is around 16% which seems high to me but he also says, on the subject of: Has behavioral targeting arrived yet?

My answer and those of most people I talk to are the same: No. Today's behavioral targeting applications are still a long way from fulfilling that elusive promise we all signed up for in helping build the marketers' "perfect medium."

and goes on to point out the major disciplines in BT that should see growth in 2005:

Look alike targeting and Life stage targeting

Go check out his article for the full details...

Thread Title: NewsGator rakes in VC money, Bloglines stays cool Thread Url: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2004/12/02/newsgator_rakes_in_vc_money_bloglines_stays_cool.html Thread Description:

I practically live on a diet of Bloglines these days and they still havn't accpeted any VC funding despite many offers.

Newsgator on the other hand, a desktop app rather than web based have just taken their 2nd round of VC $$$'s

The news story linked is a poor excuse for me to open this question up: Have you gone RSS yet?

Personally speaking, it has to be an absolutely stunning site for me to bother with it if it doesnt have a feed these days...

Thread Title: Lycos Screensaver Site Blocked by Internet Backbones Thread Url: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/12/02/lycos_screensaver_site_blocked_by_internet_backbones.html Thread Description:

News just in: Lycos have been told (figuratively speaking) to f**k right off by internet backbone providers:

Some major internet backbones are preventing access to the new Lycos "anti-spam" screensaver web site at www.MakeLoveNotSpam.com. This controversial site provides Internet users with the ability to participate in distributed attacks against web sites used by spammers, leaving the spammers with slow connections and high bandwidth costs.

We have been talking about Lycos's DDoS attack scheme and how later it was hacked recently and i must say that im glad to see it failing - what a stupid little stunt...

Thread Title: Viewpoint to Aquire Unicast Thread Url: http://hive.jup.com/analysts/elliott/archives/005223.html Thread Description:

News just in - Viewpoint is to aquire Unicast - a serious development in the ad biz.

Here's the press release

Marking the first true consolidation in the Rich Media space, Viewpoint Corporation is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement to acquire Unicast Communications Corporation. The acquisition creates the first company that offers advertisers, agencies and Web publishers every major form of online advertising - from video to Macromedia Flash™, streaming to pre-cached, full-screen to in-page, interactive 3D to high-resolution 2D - all with full creative and campaign management and next-generation tracking and reporting.

Viewpoint currently serve MSN, Yahoo and AOL - there is a pdf to download here

Thread Title: PPC and Online Advertising Guru Shak resigns at WMW Thread Url: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum81/3986.htm Thread Description:

What can I say? It's sad to yet another very good friend leave the community where so many relationships have be formed over the years.

Neither Google, WebmasterWorld or I am the same as we were a few years back. change is guaranteed and is a good thing (imo)

Knowing Shak, I'm certain that was the right thing to do. Maybe he'll find a new home here at TW? :)

Stay in touch will ya?!

Thread Title: Google Sandbox: solved? Thread Url: http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2004/12/google_sandbox.html Thread Description:

Brian over at Platinax thinks he may have solved the riddle to sandboxing - Im not convinced, but then to be fair, neither is he :)

It's a long, detailed post that essentially boils down to this: High PR links from a wide range of IP addresses will avoid sandbox.

Ultimately, the issue becomes one of considered linking, and attempting to get links on pages according to PageRank value, rather than sheer numbers - or even topic - first.

This, of course, is precisely what Google wishes to frustrate - so until we can reliably gauge PageRank values of specified pages, then it's going to have to be for webmasters to gauge the value of pages for linking purposes based on a combined judgement of old PageRank data - along with some common sense and creative thinking.

Is the Google Sandbox solved by this hypothesis? I'm not convined it would be wise to claim so - but I do suggest the idea to the wider SEO community as some way to explaining what is actually going on, in a way that makes sense to all SEOs when we use the term "Google Sandbox" and "sandboxing".

As im not a techie seo i'll rely on the good boys and girls at Threadwatch to voice their opinions on this one, go have a read then please tell me what you think?

Thread Title: Let's Test Hijacking A Google Listing Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=25241&postcount=51 Thread Description:

In a surprise move on the SEW forums Googles unofficial representative and Threadwatch member GoogleGuy, a well known figure on some of the bigger search marketing forums has granted Amnesty to Spammers in order to get help.

Google have called for examples of the now infamous Google Results Hijacking scandal that has been buzzing through the Search community this week and last. In a thread where members have tried to get help with this problem the unnamed Google search engineer said:

I'll promise that no spam-related action will be taken based on the reports. If months later, the domain comes up for review for an unrelated reason, then that's a different matter, but I'll instruct whoever collects the feedback to only use it to check out how we pick canonical pages.

The reason for the amnesty is due to the fact that when GG called for examples of the hijack problem none were forthcoming - the technique is known to but a few and is being used almost exclusively in highly competitive categories such as pharma and casino. Nobody in that industry plays by googles guidelines as to do so would be a waste of time in such a cut throat environment.

The results of a page hijacking involve the victim site's position in Google being taken over by another competing site through use of 302 redirects and meta refreshes.

We will update you the story unfolds.

Thread Title: MSN Spaces will make blogs communication tools Thread Url: http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/2004/12/msn_spaces_will.html Thread Description:

MSN's new blog service has launched whilst I was sleeping and although it seems you're kind of stuck with their templates I must say it looks pretty damn slick..

I set up a Test Blog for Threadwatch! - please go spam the comments, i want to test it out some more. Does anyone know if this integrates with Messenger in any way?

Forresters Charlene Li has all the details and some interesting commentary on what this will mean:

Notice a trend here? There’s heavy integration of Spaces into the whole MSN communication suite of email and instant messaging. I think this is very smart, especially as MSN hopes to attract a new audience group to blogging. The next wave of bloggers is going to look very different from today’s blogger – their motivation will be on sharing experiences rather than having a place for their ideas and opinions. The integration puts the blog in context of other communications, such as email and IM. If you’re about to email me, you’ll see my latest post/photo – instant context setting and traffic generation to my blog. If you mention the blog posts in an email/IM, I’ll have even more incentive to keep blogging. That integration distinguishes MSN Spaces from other services like Lycos’

Now blogging is going to seriously hit the mainstream and we will indeed see blogs used for an entirely different purpose - to me it's all good, but I can hear the beginnings of outrage out there in the jungle as blogging is opened to the MSN'ing hordes...

Thread Title: Building a Metadata Based Website as Opposed to Traditional CMS System Thread Url: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/building_a_metadatabased_website.php Thread Description:

A real nose bleed job if ever i tried to read one at 1am when i really should be tucked up in bed. This lengthy article serves as both an introduction and tutorial in metadata based IA and site design. Not everyones cup of tea for sure but an interesting read for some Threadwatchers i reckon. Enjoy...

Thread Title: How Much Money in Search? Thread Url: http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2004/11/29/snap_the_future_of_transparency.html Thread Description:

"We caught up with Bill Gross earlier this month to see how his interesting new search engine is coming along. Gross unveiled Snap at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco in early October ....

- They've served 2.6 million searches since they first launched. - They made $55.88 yesterday. - They have 1,235 advertisers. - And they had 624 clicks on ads yesterday that generated revenue."

That's not a typo, yes that really is $55.88.

Thread Title: Google Pagerank for entertainment purposes only?!?! Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3054 Thread Description:

I know Google PR has been pretty wonky now more than ever, but for entertainment purposes only? This comes from a thread over as SEW

"The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because is it not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old. If the toolbar is showing a PR of zero, this is because the user is visiting a new URL that hasn't been updated in the last update. The PR that is displayed by the Google Toolbar is not the same PR that is used to rank the webpage results so there is no need to be concerned if your PR is displayed as zero. If a site is showing up in the search results, it doesn't not have a real PR of zero, the Toolbar is just out of date"

Thread Title: In Chile, instant Web feedback creates the next day's paper Thread Url: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1201/p01s04-woam.html Thread Description:

In Chile there's a big media buzz over a 100yr old boring middle of the road newspaper that has been using click stats to determine what the following days edition will contain. THe LUN is currently Chile's most popular paper.

Essentially, clicks are counted per story and the what proves most popular helps decide the next days topics. Clearly any intellectual or stimulating content goes right out of the window with such a system as it quickly devolves to the lowest common denominator - in a week where world leaders gathered in Santiago for a trade meeting the newspapers ( http://www.lun.com ) readers were reading about what Colin Powell had for dinner and about a scantily clad waitress.

Sounds okay to me...

Pop media driven by the people, pretty neat idea i think though the paper insists it's not a tabloid. Story came in via techdirt

Thread Title: Google News: Bush Arrested Thread Url: http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2004_12_01_index.html#110192063491930684 Thread Description:

G blogoscoped have some screenshots of a new Google News Bomb featuring Pres. Bush arrested for war crimes...

This broadcast was bought to you by Algorithmic News! - It's not our fault!

Thread Title: Where is IA headed? Thread Url: http://www.digital-web.com/extras/futureia113004.pdf Thread Description:

Christine Woodtke has a cool presentation titled "Where is IA headed?" threadlinked above.

Dont panic, it's all in bite sized little chunks with big writing and pictures! - scared the crap out of me to start but I really enjoyed it :)

It takes a look at all manner of things, kind of like a guided tour of past present and future with short but specific bytes of info on SE's like Clusty and ASK and Google.

Link via DWM