Day One

Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Strategies rolled into San Jose this week, bringing an unprecedented four days of search engine marketing advice (SEM) and news to more than 1700 attendees. If you still had reservations about the legitimacy of search engine marketing, one look at the impressive roster of exhibitors, sponsors and attendees would quickly dispel any doubts.

More than 48 companies, including Google and Yahoo, decided to exhibit at the event (the highest number of exhibitors ever for SES) and speakers included representatives from all of the main search engines as well as the top SEM companies.

At the immensely busy registration desk, a buzz was developing with attendees enthused about recent developments in the search engine industry. With Overture, Google and Lycos, just a few of the search engines expected to make some big announcements during the proceedings, the conference was expected to provide a lot more than just “how-to” information.

Day One of the conference had been designated as a “pre-conference” day with the sessions taking on two distinct tracts. Danny had decided to move all the beginners SEM sessions to this day and additionally take the opportunity to provide an annual update on the economics of the search engine industry.

As part of this exclusive insight to the world’s largest SEO conference, I decided to take a seat in many of the search engine economic sessions. A notable exception being my own presentation on “Search Term Research” (which I provided as part of the beginners itinerary).

One of the most interesting sessions of the day was unquestionably the Search Monetization Strategies. While none of the panelists could agree on what “monetization” meant, they all had some interesting information to share.

Sheryl Sandberg, VP of Global Online Sales & Operations for Google was the first to speak on the topic. Discussing the growth of Google, she shared with us that Google is not only the largest search engine property, but is also the fastest growing. Focusing on the “how do make money” side of Google’s operations, she offered that with more than one hundred thousand advertisers, eight-eight different interfaces and products in 11 languages, Google had taken great steps to secure its position.

Sandberg also shared with the audience the great success they had seen with their Google Search Appliance product, allowing any business to purchase an easy and effective search tool for their own website. With companies on board that include Boeing, Cisco and Xerox she confirmed that this is a growing market for Google. She also took the time to showcase the recently launched AdSense service, which allows the average website to display Google’s AdWords campaigns and receive commission on the click-thrus. The success of AdSense is in part due to the fact that Google is able to spider the website of the proposed partner and use an algorithm to determine which ads would be most relevant to the page being displayed. This format was far more accurate than simply asking the website owner which terms they thought were relevant to the page.

Finishing, Sandberg offered answers to audience questions which confirmed the following:

1. Google has no plans to introduce a “paid inclusion” or trusted feed service at anytime in the future.
2. While Google’s AdWords campaign does track the click-thru rates of an ad, they do not track how long a visitor remains on the advertiser’s website.
3. Commenting on eBay’s request to remove any ads that infringe on their copyright, Sandberg confirmed that these requests could be made by any company concerned about trademark or copyright infringement.

While Google is still the darling of the search engine industry, Yahoo has caused quite a stir with their recent acquisitions. Tim Cadogan, VP of Search for Yahoo explained some of the initiatives Yahoo had taken to improve their search offerings. One of the most interesting Yahoo developments has to be their new Product search. While still in beta-testing, this service strikes an uncanny resemblance to Google’s new Froogle service. Perhaps its no surprise that the new service from Yahoo will also include sponsored listings from Overture.

Cadogan also describe some other steps Yahoo has taken to improve user access to search. These included:

1. Showing Yahoo Yellow Pages listings in search results for products or services that also include a zip code. E.g. Pizza delivery 95110
2. Search for Weather or Maps for a location will bring up relevant information not just search results.
3. Including a search box in Yahoo Mail accounts so that a user receiving an email on a product or service can search without leaving their mailbox,

With the addition of Tony Mamone of LookSmart and Jim Diaz from Ask Jeeves, a lot of information was shared. Look for more details in a future round-up of the session.

Another session of interest was the Advertiser Roundtable. This was an opportunity for respected experts in the search engine marketing industry to discuss future developments of the search engine technology, in particular PPC and Paid Inclusion.

Most of the panelists agreed that there needed to be a lot of improvements made to PPC or paid inclusion if the search engines wish to see marketers continue to use these mediums. Dana Todd of SiteLab International made a valid point when she complained that with all PPC solutions an advertiser must pay the same click-thru rate whether their ad was shown on one of the top search engine partners or on some lowly unknown search engine. She suggested that a model would need to be developed which would provide for different costs per click depending on the quality of traffic.

Kevin Lee of Did-It.com offered that there are two types of company that place high bids for search terms. Those that are very smart and those that are incredibly dumb. The smart bidders are the ones that track traffic and understand the value of their visitors, while the dumb ones simply keep increasing their bids without knowing if the high bid brings a ROI.

Asked whether PPC and paid inclusion would overtake Organic SEM, Frederick Markini of iProspect suggested that there would always be a need for a balance in online marketing. With PPC there is always a risk that a company will run out of money or no longer be able to keep up with escalating bids, he argued that organic SEM did not suffer from these factors.

The Industry Analyst Roundtable session brought together some of the industry’s best know analysts. Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch were joined by Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com and Greg Notess of Search Engine Showdown.

This open forum took on a simple format with audience members interacting with the panelists. Some topics discussed, of which I will bring further details of after the conference, included:

1. Anecdotal evidence that simple paid inclusions did offer some assistance with obtaining better search engine ranking despite claims to the contrary by the search engines themselves.
2. The limitations of PPC; advertisers are limited to only being displayed for search requests that they have identified and bid on. Many search terms have no PPC bids on them.
3. The constant evolution of search engines. Google replaced AltaVista, will Nutch replace Google?
4. Should XML Trusted feeds be labeled as such, clearly identifying their placement in search results?

Day Two of the conference will revert to the normal format expected from SES and with three distinct tracts being offered, there should be lots of varied information to report back. In the meantime, please excuse me while I prepare for tonight’s “Google Dance” a soiree taken place at the Googleplex where I hope to track down a Google employee and find out exactly what is happening with their PageRank these days.

Day Two

Day Two of Search Engine Strategies, San Jose promised to step up the pace with the offering of three separate itineraries for search engine marketers to choose from. While many attendees were recovering from the Google Dance the night before (which should probably be re-named “Googlepalooza” as the open air event offered a soundstage with DJs, marquee tents, Segway rides and massage chairs all designed to sweep attendees up in further Google hysteria), they soon got down to business when Danny Sullivan took to the podium to give an unprecedented keynote address on the state of the Search Engine Industry.

While Danny started off his address with a comical look at the recent acquisition upon acquisition, he soon got down to the nitty-gritty of the future of search. With over 5 billion searches conducted in the month of June, he confirmed there is no doubt that the search engines are here to stay. Danny decided to look into his “crystal ball” and made some predictions of what is to come. Some important observations included:

• Yahoo will launch its new search engine sometime in 2004 with a combination of Inktomi, AltaVista and AllTheWeb technologies.
• MSN should also be ready to launch their own crawler in 2004, with the possibility of purchasing any of Ask Jeeves, FindWhat, LookSmart or even Google, to help speed up the implementation.
• AOL is likely to continue its partnership with Google as this remains a non-competitive relationship for them.

Moving on to audience reach of the search engines, Danny explained how Google’s current reach of 76% of all searches would be diminished in 2004. He predicted that Google’s total audience would reduce to around 51% with Yahoo at 25%, MSN at 15% and the other engines making up the remainder.

Discussing the future popularity of the search engines he suggested that Google might become a victim of its own popularity with both reporters and users experiencing “burn-out”. With tongue-in-cheek he predicted that Ask Jeeves would make valiant attempts to become the “Avis of search engines” by positioning itself as the #2 preferred search engine. He also believed that LookSmart would position itself as the most popular supplement to primary search results, continuing its current trend of being a provider to other search engines.

Turning to paid placement and paid inclusion, Danny expected to see growth and development in this side of the industry as search engines look to increase their Advertising revenue from their search results. Citing results from an IAB survey, Danny didn’t believe that search engine users would object to paid advertising as 64% of them are already aware that it exists and 52% of those do not care, so long as the paid advertising is relevant to their search. Drawing from his previous journalism experience, he estimated that in the coming years search engines would increase the amount of paid advertising shown on a search results page from an average of 25% to around 70%.

Danny wrapped up his keynote address by answering a question on everyone’s mind; “Will SEO still be important?” He strongly believed that search engine optimization (SEO) would still be a dominant part of the industry as there will need to be a balance between paid ads and organic listings.

While the Search Engines & Trademarks session concentrated on information that would be of interest to those involved with the legal aspects of a company’s campaign, there were some interesting comments that stood out.

The recent incident where eBay asked Google to remove any sponsored ads that included their trademarked name, drew claims of hypocrisy from the panelists. They pointed out that while eBay did not want companies to bid on the word “eBay”, one could go to Google and search for trademarked names such as “Barbie” and instantly see paid ads for the product on sale at eBay.com. The panelists also touched on cases that are currently working their way thru the legal system. They suggested that, while it is fair for a company to use trademarked names in comparative examples, the waters become very murky when simply bidding on a competitor’s brand name. The best advice from all of the panelists was to seek legal advice before bidding on the trademarks of any company.

A new topic to SES was “Cleaning up the Mess”; a look at how to clean-up spam that had been left by another SEO company. Many of the panelists discussed techniques for identifying spam including viewing Google’s cache of the site and the source code. In addition, Matthew Bailey of The Karcher Group offered an assortment of techniques for spotting spam and rectifying it. Some of these tips included:

• With Google’s PageRank fluctuating wildly over the past couple of months, he urged SEOs to not automatically assume that a low or zero PageRank meant a penalty on the website.
• However, if you do determine that a site has been banned by Google, fixing the problem and then sending an apology email to Google outlining the problems fixed and promising not to do them again, was the best approach to getting a ban lifted.
• Bailey also suggested viewing the website with a text viewer such as the one located at http://lynx.browser.org to determine how a spider might be viewing the site.

Shari Thurow of GrantasticDesigns.com also suggested some things to keep an eye out for when reviewing a website. She pointed out that a site might not be banned, but may be using techniques that were preventing it from getting listed. These included:

• A recently redesigned site that had switched from static content to dynamic.
• A newly implemented Robots.txt file might also have an adverse effect on a site’s ranking if not correctly formatted.
• The new use of cookies or session IDs might also be to blame for a websites sudden drop in ranking.

All of the panelists suggested that businesses should review the contract of any SEO firm being considered to ensure that they would not be taking any risks. A clearly outlined “anti-spam” policy was considered to be among the top things to look for when choosing an SEO. With the use of doorway pages being viewed one of the worst things an SEO could implement in an “organic” optimization campaign. However, as Danny Sullivan pointed out, using doorway pages for PPC was totally fine and acceptable. Although, he confirmed that using them for “crawler” listings would be bad for anyone’s website.

It seems that a new search engine statistic or survey is released every week. The Search Engine Ratings session promised to shed some light on exactly where all of this data is coming from. Up first was James Lamberti of comScore Networks to provide details on how his company collects information and what they know about search engine use. Lamberti explained that comScore uses data collected from more than 1.5 million online consumers who agree to have their Internet activity monitored passively. Unlike some consumer rating companies, comScore is able to track various types of Internet activity including searches, click-rates and conversions.

They are unique in that they are able to track online activity in addition to asking the normal consumer survey questions. The benefits of this were apparent when Lamberti offered two stunning statistics.

1. 15% of Google visitors do not actually go there to search. He gave an example that many people have Google set as their homepage when they launch their browser. This registers a visitor for Google even though no actual search was c