Google Site Seach In Organic Results

I'm wondering if I've been hiding under a rock or just completely missed the whole google "site search box" magically appearing under selected websites "site links" in Google's organic results. At first it feels a bit confusing that there are now 2 search boxes within pixels of each other - but then I start to see this is an ingenious idea - saving users considerable time and effort. But, is it only for affiliated Google sites like Wiki and Dmoz? Because I don't see this same functionality for websites that are used almost exclusively for search like Yellow Pages...?

Microsoft Bids To Buy Yahoo! Inc

Google's D-Day is nearing, well - at least a day in which there may be an actual "competitor" in the market place for them to compete with. So Microsoft have finally done the inevitable - launching a takeover bid for Yahoo! Inc.

You'll see in my previous post some time back - "Microsoft to become a real Google competitor" that I was predicting the only company to possibly challenge Google, would be a Microsoft Super Company... Buying out the likes of Yahoo! & AOL.

So here is it, the official press release and $31 per share offer to buy out Yahoo! Inc. Official Microsoft Press Release - To Buy Yahoo!

What will the future now hold? Well if this goes through, then microsoft will be officially the largest "by far" super company in the world. The power that a company like that brings to the table is enormous, but will they have the smarts to out play Google?

Google Maps Hurting Webmasters

With the latest Google update many will really start to question Google's promise to "do no evil", it's been increasingly one of the most asked questions at seminars, forums and cafes alike! Is there some evil creeping into Google? Or is this just lawful market domination?

Never the less, in the latest Google update we see something REALLY stick out, and that's the huge jump in Google Maps advertising & positioning. This is something that has webmasters and SEO experts asking for Google blood.

Lets take a really good example a good friend thrust upon me.
If you search for "Terrigal Accommodation" in Google, you'll get a result like the screen shot below & you'll notice how prominent the Google Maps positioning is:

So if your're not advertising with Google, chances are your clickthrus will suffer because you've just had the "oh so pretty" Google Maps sponsors thrust upon you! Users will more than likely be drawn to the nice Google Maps image and small sponsored listings.

Now what you probably don't know, is that Google gets it's local business listings through a partnership with TrueLocal.com.au. So if you have not paid for a listing on their website, you have much more work ahead of you to come up under the Google Maps listing here. Shouldn't everyone get the chance to optimise their site and come up under local business listings on an even playing field? Seems Google thinks not.

Sure, you can goto their Local Business Center, insert all your details, locations and even store photos, but you won't be magically featured in the Google Maps inserts at the top of Google search results, sure, you're store locations page probably gets crawled and ends up in Google Maps, but at what point does your business get promoted to the search results map, and how do they rank the importance of your location to feature on the results map?

Must you have paid for a listing on TrueLocal? I'm not sure.
So is this fair? What happened to the left hand side is for natural ranked pages only? Now i'm a pro-google kinda guy, but this really gets to me. It's guaranteed to reduce traffic to natural ranked sites who will now site below the huge Google Maps promotion. Would love your comments!

Oh, and I'm sure that Stayz.com owners - Fairfax Digital - wouldn't be happy at all. They would be experiencing a huge reduction in traffic to their previously number 1 ranked search term "Terrigal Accommodation".

Google Faces Court In Australia

In breaking news this afternoon, The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed action against Google in the Australian Federal Court. With allegations that the search engine has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.

We are told that Google has breached the Australian Trade Practices Act. This has come from Google failing to "adequately distinguish between sponsored links on its search results and "organic" search results."

The word is that Google has denied the claims, and will fight them in the courts and win, because the claims are with out merit. This is the first claims of its kind in the world, one that if won - might create a precedent world wide for future claims.

Google will appear in court in Sydney, some time in August.
View the Report here, on the ABC's website.

It's an interesting scenario, one which might open them up to some amazingly large lawsuits if this case is won. However, I'm sure Google will pull in every layer in town to secure a win here.

Update: ZDNET article.

New Blogger Goes Live

Well the new version of Google's Blogger Blogging tool was released from beta today. With it's host of new features, templates and more... So go on, check it out and if your stuck in thefirst version of blogger, upgrade now. (it's stable!)

Yahoo to Re-Structure

Big news? Let's try huge news. Yahoo has released a press statement explaining how they will organise the company into 3 sections - Audience, Advertiser/Publisher, and Technology.

Yahoo seem to be looking for a new way to compete with Google.
By splitting into 3 major sections, Yahoo will hope to re-focus it's core business and promiss to build a more customer focused business that can push forward with new, more robust technology. They also want to try and dig into what Yahoo calls their "deep audience" to create a new advertising network.

So if Yahoo re-structure and re-build from the ground up, will they have a more technologically advanced and strategic business that can drag back a percentage of the global search monopolly that Google is?

Probably not.

Yahoo Releases New SEM Platform

At this year’s Las Vegas PubCon, Yahoo! unveiled its new “Panama” search marketing platform. Project Panama will become Yahoo's mainstay sponsored search product. Panama promises advertisers a much more relevant and strategic use of their ads.
WebProNews had a quick chat with Mona Elesseily at PubCon on what's new in Panama. Check it out here on my videos and interviews page.

But will it be a positive step for yahoo Search marketers?The Yahoo Search Marketing blog gives me mixed feelings, from my point of view they are trying to simulate Google by removing the "Top 5 Max Bids," "Position" and "Your Cost" columns from the current account interface. This means your now flying in the dark - just the way Google is harvesting it's money trees. So basically you're now bidding more because you can no longer see the top bid prices.

For Yahoo, this means Search Engine Marketers will now probably over bid to ensure they are higher than their competitors, meaning more revenue increases more often!

Now, you'll see two new columns on the Sponsored Search Manage Bids page: 1. Estimated Average Position. This column provides an estimate of the average position in which your ad may be displayed on the results page, based on your max bid and the bids of other advertisers.
2. Bid Range for Top Positions. This column displays the bids for the positions at the top of the search results page for each of your keywords.