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february 2009 search engine news
What's New in Search - February 2009
Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Now Support a Way to Specify Preferred URLs
Many sites have multiple URLs for the same page of content due to tracking parameters, session IDs, and/or category navigation appearing in the URLs. These variations leave the search engines to guess which URL to display in their search results. Now, the top three search engines are enabling websites to specify which of these URLs the site would like to appear in the search results with a new link tag that should appear in the head tag of the duplicate URLs. For more details on how to properly format this tag, see the Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft blog posts on the subject.
Is Google Forcing AOL to Go Public?
Time Warner recently disclosed that Google has exercised its contractual right to force AOL to go public or have Time Warner buy back Google's 5% share in AOL. Time Warner's CFO John Martin stated "options include proceeding with the request, delaying the decision for some time or we can move ahead to potentially buy back Google's stake at an appraised value, which would obviously be well below the value that was placed on it at the time of the original investment." There is some speculation in the industry that this could be a way for Google to put pressure on AOL to amend the revenue sharing deal the two companies have in place for AOL's search engine. However, AOL has said that it does not consider the two agreements linked to one another at this point in time.
Google to Phase out Radio Advertising Program
Google recently announced that it will be terminating its radio advertising program in May 2009. Google launched the program in 2007 after buying the dMarc, a radio advertising company, for more than $100 million. Google says that it will now focus on online audio ads instead of radio, but this strategy may just be lip service since Google is laying off 40 personnel that were attached to the project while transferring an unknown number of employees to new positions. This news comes shortly after Google's announcement that it would shut down its print advertising unit in February. That leaves Google's fledgling TV ad business as the only service the company has in traditional media advertising.
Google Launches Google Earth 5.0
In early February, Google launched the latest version of its Google Earth software and added many new features to the program. New features include ocean imagery, historical satellite imagery, user-narrated tours, Google Mars 3D, GPS tracking, and compatibility with 15 new languages. To try these features yourself, visit the Google Earth site.
Yahoo! Tests New Search Pad Feature
Yahoo! is testing a new feature called Search Pad that helps users perform research using Yahoo!'s search engine. According to Yahoo!, Search Pad will "intelligently detect users' research intent, automatically collect visited sites, and provide simple tools for users to organize and add notes." Search Pad is currently in an early testing phase and is only visible to select users via their Yahoo! accounts. Learn more by watching a video demo of Search Pad.
IAC, Ask.com's Parent Company, Shifts to Vertical Search Strategy
A few weeks after forming a search partnership with NASCAR in January, IAC officially announced that it would change its strategy to target vertical search markets. IAC plans to form eight to ten new vertical partnerships in 2009. Ask.com will attempt to serve these niche audiences better than other search engines via its improved semantic search technology that specializes in answering queries from structured data. Thus, queries such as "What kind of car does Jeff Gordon drive?" and "next NASCAR race" are immediately answered at the top of the search results. While this new service is very helpful to Ask users and a solid differentiator for Ask, the drawback is that users also spend less time on Ask performing searches and seeing/clicking on search ads which generate revenue for Ask. It remains to be seen whether the new technology will pay off in the long run by creating new loyal Ask users who use the search engine for queries not related to these vertical markets.
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