SearchEngineZ

Very post-modern naming it after its status, Yahoo Alpha was developed in Australia - it's a new personalized meta-search featuring Yahoo search results, but adding some from Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia etc.  Ask.com have done it better and sooner.

Google went up in search market share, Yahoo stayed steady, and Microsoft dropped to just 9% in April, down from 10.1%  in March.

I hope they aren't relying on Windows Vista default settings to help - computer users are too savvy to fall for that these days!

The following operators can no longer be used:

link:
linkdomain:
inurl:

Microsoft say that too many automated queries are the reason. Why not just do what Google do, and offer API access and ban any IP address that makes lots of automated queries? Surely that would be a better option than removing functionality from genuine users.

Rash acts like this are often signs of the beginning of the end....

According to a leak published by Wired, a Digg-style news service is in the works, and my guess is that it will take off. The My Space demographic is probably the one that reads the news the least, because news isn't cool. If Newscorp can make news cool for young folk, they'll make a whole heap of cash.

MySpace News will automatically collect news items from various news sites and blogs. MySpace users will then be able to discuss and rate each story on the site, and the stories will change position on the page based on popularity. The portal is rumored to launch during the second quarter of 2007.

Amazon's millions, and the Wikipedia founder's belief in people power could create a wonderful search engine, as detailed here.

Engines that allow searchers to vote for pages have come and gone many times. If he can pull it off, he is a genius. Qualities required:

- must stimulate users to contribute
- must be tamper-proof, to stop webmasters green-lighting their own sites
- must be fast
- must have a good algorithm

Good luck!

This is why I am sticking solely with Google Adwords for the time being. Quoted from an affiliate forum:

Ms. Dewey. What a load of wank! If this is the future of MSN search, there must be a lot of folk who are easily amused. Wait a sec, there are, and I know this because Something About Raymond or whatever it is called, is a hit. Hmmmm. Microsoft, genius!

An article at Revenews shows a Yahoo search result that provides coupon codes for Kodak Gallery. It appears that Yahoo has joined the Kodak Gallery affiliate program via CJ.com, and will get a commission from any sales that occur from folk clicking on the link.

Two thoughts:

1) Easy way for search engines to make huge products
2) Most merchants couldn't afford to pay commission on all the sales that come via organic search results

Prediction:

Most affiliate programs will either ban major search engines from joining, or give them a much, much smaller commission.

It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends’ medical ailments and loves her three dogs. “Those are my searches,” she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her.

More at NY Times

An act of generosity (releasing the search histories for 658,000 users) has turned sour, because the searches included AOL usernames, disguised by a number. But you could still see all the searches each person made, and many people search for their own name...

"it apparently took The New York Times less than three days to track down Thelma Arnold, formerly known as "User No. 4417749," interview and photograph her--and she was just one of many thousands the paper undoubtedly could have unmasked"

Oh dear....

Attention all staff. Do not release anything to the public, not even a support email, without our legal team vetting it first!

When considering a service like a web host, factor in if they have a high PR page that mentions testimonials - or even try and get your testimonial onto their homepage. The more impressive your site is, the more likely they are to use your quote to prmote their product, and in doing so link to your site.

Doing so is real easy, and a great way to get a non-reciprocal link. Here's two examples that took me a brief email each to achieve:

http://www.routhost.com/testimonials.php - PR3
(my site is GoogleFan.com)

http://www.phpwebhosting.com/sc.html - PR6
(searchenginez.com)

This technique is applicable to any web services, not just hosting. Another angle is free products/services that list customers who have made donations. A $20 donation is a nice gesture, but is also a very cheap link if the PR is high.

Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Looksmart have formed an alliance, to work out guidelines on what Click Fraud is, and how to combat it.

More at the Boston Herald

Not only can affiliates not have pornographic sites, the wording is:

"obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit or similar activities...."

And yet, as pointed out by Shmuly Tennenhaus, Linkshare has two programs that fit these categories - Playboy (yep, THE Playboy) and Booty Parlor, a site that sells sex toys. And for 8 years there has been a merchant that sells the extremely sexual "eroscillator".

Double standards! Sites can promote sex toys and porn on behalf of Linkshare merchants, but can't mention such things on their site...

Ever wanted to own your very own search engine? Read about DigForIt.com here. It is real, it is very good, and the last bid I saw at eBay was for $15K

Let's hope this will inspire Google to improve their engine, which, as good as it is, has not improved in many years. More...

Zeal are closing at the end of the month. Bad luck to the 215,000 Zealots who endured the painful membership processes just to list their own site (250,000 sites listed - you do the math!).

Owners Looksmart just can't get anything right, it would seem...

According to Google, people of different countries are best known for certain things. See an interesting sample of what the internet consensus opinions of countries are with the Prejudice Map

The new MSN adCenter does not work with FireFox. Personally I think this is childish and ridiculous. Imagine if your Sony DVD burner only worked with Sony DVDs, or if your Chrysler only took Chrysler petrol...