How do you turn a competitive field into silos?
Utah is still at the "forefront" of Internet legislation by creating yet another repository of protected things within the state's borders that need to be checked. This time it focuses on keywords, you know those terms used to link consumer searches with relevant offers, even comparative ones.
It seems that the legislature thinks giving consumers choice is a bad thing. It's unclear who can register terms but local companies like Overstock and 1-800-Contacts are in the mix. From the article:
"...if you type Overstock.com into Google's search engine, you will get sponsored links to SmartBargains.com, Buy.com and webspawner.com. Under the new law, Overstock could sue the search engine and the competitor if such ads show up in Utah-based Internet searches. "
For a legal review see Eric Goldman's comments.
If this prevails, are tags next?
Showing posts with label Search. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Search. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Understanding Search
Where can I find how people find my site?
Hittail is a tool for understanding search traffic put together by the folks at Conner Communications. It is elegant in its simplicity -- it takes search strings, parses them into key words, ranks them into the head and tail, and then makes suggestions about how to improve traffic to a site.
It's a hosted site and all that is required is placing a snippet of code on a site. Free for small sites, reasonable for the rest of the world.
Very useful indeed.
Hittail is a tool for understanding search traffic put together by the folks at Conner Communications. It is elegant in its simplicity -- it takes search strings, parses them into key words, ranks them into the head and tail, and then makes suggestions about how to improve traffic to a site.
It's a hosted site and all that is required is placing a snippet of code on a site. Free for small sites, reasonable for the rest of the world.
Very useful indeed.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Social Search
Why can't I find what I'm looking for online?
On the heels of today's earlier post "Finding Optimal Relevance" Google has released personalized results. The 'one page fits all' model has been replaced with a collective understanding of what you do and possibly who you are in order to improve results.
Not surprising, optimizing for Google tools is recommended. A bit more interesting is "Social Search" - using the searches of others to find results; not unlike collaborative filtering for books.
Maybe I will find that SEM doesn't mean scanning electron microscope.
On the heels of today's earlier post "Finding Optimal Relevance" Google has released personalized results. The 'one page fits all' model has been replaced with a collective understanding of what you do and possibly who you are in order to improve results.
Not surprising, optimizing for Google tools is recommended. A bit more interesting is "Social Search" - using the searches of others to find results; not unlike collaborative filtering for books.
Maybe I will find that SEM doesn't mean scanning electron microscope.
A New Acronym: FOR - Finding Optimal Relevance
What does relevance have to do with technology?
One of the current threads on the marketing blogs is around the value of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A recent debate is whether it is 'rocket science' or not.
Once again I feel that the tail is wagging the dog and a specialty is taking over the controls of the big picture.
As a searcher, I'm looking for results that match my current intent. (Which is sometimes date dependent and sometimes not; causing a lot of frustration.) So all that matters is relevance. Instead of trying to game the system and optimize around the internal machinations of search engines, why don't we work on Finding Optimal Relevance (FOR goodness sakes). This is a much bigger opportunity than the current SEO landscape.
One of the current threads on the marketing blogs is around the value of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A recent debate is whether it is 'rocket science' or not.
Once again I feel that the tail is wagging the dog and a specialty is taking over the controls of the big picture.
As a searcher, I'm looking for results that match my current intent. (Which is sometimes date dependent and sometimes not; causing a lot of frustration.) So all that matters is relevance. Instead of trying to game the system and optimize around the internal machinations of search engines, why don't we work on Finding Optimal Relevance (FOR goodness sakes). This is a much bigger opportunity than the current SEO landscape.
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