Organic SEO Blog

Just came across this post on Email from Spammers, and I couldn’t understand as to why those third-rated link exchange guys keep blasting spam emailers, and am not clear about what they achieve for their clients by doing this. I’ve even had people instant messaging me asking if I’m interested in any link exchanges.

In general, all major search engines can identify exchanged links from natural links, and in these days of Search2.0, I don’t understand why people often exchange links with pages like these…

It is better that they read more about linkbaiting, understand what back links is all about and start working towards building natural links, which can have a significant effect in the site’s search ranking in the long run.

Sometime back, Yahoo raised its minimum bid from $0.05 to $.10, and those current bids under 5 and 10 cents, which its users had been using earlier were called Grandfather Bids and so on. And now, they are trying to follow Google’s policy of no minimum bids….. Following is the official notification from Y!

Starting in the next several weeks(we are not sure about ourselves), the minimum bids for a number of Sponsored Search keywords will no longer be fixed at $.10. Your new minimum bids can be lower or higher than $.10. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at $.10(why so? and who used them?).

This update is intended to align your minimum bids with the value and quality of your keywords(just like google, we used to follow them always). It also is designed to help improve the overall search user experience by rewarding advertisers for better quality with lower entry points into keyword markets.

The amount set as your minimum bid on a keyword in Sponsored Search can vary depending on multiple factors, such as(blah blah blah):

• The relevance of your keywords (as measured by the quality of the ads associated with them)
• The number of bidders and bid amounts in the particular keyword market.

A keyword term becomes “active” — switched “on” in the system (again we are copying google as such) and eligible for display — when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. If your bid falls below your minimum, your keyword will not be displayed. You’ll be notified of such changes and will have some time to adjust your bid.

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the search marketplace. Google Sites marginally extended its share of core searches to 58.5 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.2 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent).

comScore Core Search Report* - January 2008
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0Share of Searches (%)

Core Search Entity              Dec-07          Jan-08            Change
Total Core Search                  100.0%          100.0%            0.0
Google Sites                        58.4%           58.5%            0.1
Yahoo! Sites                        22.9%           22.2%           -0.7
Microsoft Sites                      9.8%            9.8%            0.0
AOL LLC**                            4.6%            4.9%            0.3
Ask Network                          4.3%            4.5%            0.2

*  Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
cross-channel searches.  Searches for mapping, local directory, and
user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
search engines are not included in the core search numbers.
** In January 2008, Time Warner Network was split into two distinct
properties: AOL LLC and Time Warner Network excluding AOL, with AOL LLC
representing the core search business.

Global giants including Apple and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are believed to be considering rival bids for the internet company Yahoo, which has received a $44.6bn (£22.6bn) offer from Microsoft.

The conglomerate InterActiveCorp was another company named as a potential bidder for Yahoo, which is said to be unwilling to give in to Microsoft without a fight.

After Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer made the offer in a letter on Thursday, it emerged that Yahoo had rejected a similar takeover attempt by Ballmer’s organisation a year before.

Yahoo chief executive and co-founder Jerry Yang is understood not to be Microsoft’s greatest fan, and would be prepared to line up another ‘white knight’ rather than concede to Ballmer.

It is believed he would be particularly open to a rescue bid from Steve Jobs’ Apple Corp, having openly expressed his admiration for the firm in the past.

Although Microsoft is still the leading technology company in the world, it is believed its position could soon be threatened if it doesn’t turn around its loss-making internet arm and increase its share of the online advertising market.

Recent figures show that Google dominates 66% of the global web search market. Yahoo and Microsoft are leagues behind with just 13% and 4% of the market respectively.