Yahoo and Microsoft have announced confirmation of a long-rumoured internet search deal that will help the two companies take on chief rival Google.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft’s online offering.

Yahoo has been struggling to make profits in recent years, but last year it rebuffed several takeover bids from Microsoft in an attempt to go it alone.

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer said the 10-year deal would provide Microsoft’s Bing search engine with the necessary scale to compete.

“Through this agreement with Yahoo, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Mr Ballmer.

“Microsoft and Yahoo know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search,” he added.

In return for ceding control of its search engine, Yahoo will get to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell adverts on some Microsoft sites.

‘New era’

Yahoo said the deal would benefit Yahoo’s users and advertisers.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of internet innovation and development,” said Ms Bartz.

“Only a Yahoo outsider like Ms Bartz could do such a deal,” said Tim Weber, business editor of the BBC News website.

“She has no sentimental attachment to what was once the core of Yahoo, its search business. Microsoft was helped by the fact that at long last it managed to develop a search engine – Bing – that is a credible alternative to search giant Google.”

Technology analyst Rob Enderle said: “This move makes up for a lot of the stupid mistakes made by the preceding [Yahoo] administration”.

The tie-up will give Microsoft and Yahoo a combined market share in the US search ad market of about 30% with Google still the dominant force with a share of about 65%. In the UK, the Google share is even higher (around 85%).

The deal ends years of back-and-forth negotiations between the two companies.

With Microsoft bringing their new search engine Bing to the fore in recent months, it’s interesting to know which engine actually provides the best results.

Recent statistics show that a considerable number of users HAVE started to use Bing, with Statcounter reporting that Bing has overtaken Yahoo! as the number two search engine in the U.S! But do the users stay there & what are the results like? Could they be better (i.e. more relevant) than Googles?!

Most people will quickly dismiss the idea because Google has almost been seen as the only search engine for such a long time. But, if you were subject to a blind test, an unbranded comparison between Bing, Google and Yahoo! – would Google still come out on top?

There’s a great new tool that’s available to test this for yourself: http://blindsearch.fejus.com

Type in a search query, hit search then vote for the column which you believe best matches your query. With each search you’ll be presented with 3 unbranded columns of search results and you simply pick which one you think is most relevant to your search term. The columns are randomised with every query.

The goal of this site is simple, to see what happens when you remove the branding from search engines & how you’ll perceive the results without knowing where they came from!

After you choose, you’ll then be told which search engine provided the results. Try it with a number of searches, keep score & see which search engine came out on top! You may be surprised!

I’ve tried a few searches myself & have to say that Google provided the WORST results each time!!!! Out of the usual 10 results, they had more irrelevant entries…..for example, online mature dating sites actually produced an adult dating website & dating website review sites amongst the top 10, rather than online mature dating sites which, after all, was what I was searching for! Yahoo actually returned the best results in my test searches, but it will be interesting to know what results other people get!

Search engine optimisation can be very time consuming for small business owners, not to mention often expensive if you outsource to professional SEO companies. I’ve recently been quoted a price of £500 per month, for a period of 12 months, to promote just one of my sites, which is way above my limits!

Google says it understands that many small business owners and webmaster don’t have the time or funds and are offering some quick DIY tips.

“Google Guru” Matt Cutts has put his top SEO tips into a video. It’s not particularly long but does give some good tips for webmaster or business owners new to SEO.

Here’s the video:

Got this e-mail from Google today:

***Important news regarding your account***

Hello,

We’re writing to let you know that your AdWords account will be upgraded to the new AdWords interface within the next few working days. After that time, you’ll no longer be able to switch back to the previous AdWords interface to manage your campaigns. The new interface doesn’t change how ads run, so bidding, ranking, Quality Score and the rest of ad serving will remain the same after the upgrade.

We think that you’ll like how AdWords has changed to meet your needs. Campaign management is now more efficient, with tools and reports that are easier to find and use. We’ve continued to add features and controls based on advertiser feedback and now the new interface is ready to be used exclusively.

We know that it can often be time-consuming to learn a new interface, so we’ve developed help materials to make it easier for you. To quickly familiarise yourself with what’s changing about campaign management and to watch videos about the new features, visit our new interface website: http://www.google.com/intl/en_GB/adwords/newinterface/

Should you have any questions as you’re getting up to speed, you can also use our full Help Centre (or simply look at the Help box in your account): http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/?hl=en_GB

We hope that you find the new interface easy to learn and we hope that the improvements have a positive impact on your business. As always, thank you for advertising with AdWords!

Yours sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

So, the fact that I told them I hate it & haven’t seen many people complimenting it for it’s speed or usability, they’re just going ahead anyway. I’m starting to expect this from the Google Empire – marching on its way to world domination!!

What makes a world dominated by Google, any more attractive than one dominated by Microsoft?! There’s no room for the little man & basically you “get what you’re given”! The new interface is going to be imposed on users despite the fact that it’s slow, clunky & for me, unusable!

Along with the ridiculous PPC prices, it’s one more reason to stay off of Adwords!

I received an e-mail from Google, telling me about their new search-based keyword tool!

They state “the Search-based Keyword Tool compares the content of your website against actual Google search queries to provide a list of relevant keywords which you don’t currently have in your AdWords campaigns. This new tool can help your business to grow and innovate on your keyword choices by taking the guesswork out of the process. Rather than adding keywords to an ad campaign based on what one thinks a user might search on, this tool enables you to manage your keywords based on what you know users are searching on.”

I visited the tool & was presented with a list of over 800 keyphrases, which Google says have been searched for & appear on relevant pages in my site. I decided to pick all the phrases that had a suggested cost per click up to and including £1.00 (246 of them).

I’ve spent the last 4 hours adding the phrases to my AdWords campaign, targeting the landing pages to the ones indicated by the Tool & using the suggested bids. However, as soon as I checked the keywords, all bar one are not displaying due to the bid amount being too low (even though it was the one suggested!). The quality score of the landing pages are also deemed poor, despite them being the ones that sparked off the whole process!

So, thanks Google; for suggesting I use your new tool; only to find that despite following all your suggestions, you STILL don’t display any of my ads unless I bid some ridiculous amount per click! I’ve just basically wasted an entire afternoon on this nonsense & on top of it, the new interface is rubbish! It’s slow, jerky & very frustrating to use.

What on earth is the point in giving me this information, which appears to be totally useless? Their e-mail ended:

“The Search-based Keyword tool actually found 2954 recently-searched keywords related to your site. For each suggested keyword, the tool will also show you:

• The average number of searches per month
• The competitive bidding level for each term
• The estimated bid to appear in the top three ad positions
• The suggested landing page for each keyword

To see all 2954 new keywords and decide which ones to add to your campaigns, go to www.google.com/sktool, sign in to your AdWords account, and enter your website URL. We hope that you find the Search-based Keyword Tool useful in driving even more business to your website through Google AdWords!”

Errrrrr! No it isn’t useful, has wasted my time & has not given me any new (& reasonably priced), keyphrases that I can bid on!

I will definitely not be returning to AdWords any time soon!

I’ve been blogging recently about the complete disappearance of my site from Google SERPS, for most of my targeted keyphrases. As suspected, there has been a Google algorithm change which seems to be favouring big brand ranking on prime category keywords.

Google has confirmed the “change” to the their algorithm which is giving big brands a helping hand in their SEO efforts. The confirmation and explanation coming via a video from Matt Cutts.

Google aren’t promoting the algorithm tweak as an update, but rather just a change to enhance the value of ‘trust’ factors. As he says in the video:

“Inside of Google, at least inside the search ranking team, we don’t really think about brands. We think about words like ‘trust’ ‘authority’ ‘reputation’ ‘PageRank’ ‘high quality.”

And apparently it’s adjustments to these elements in the ranking process that are the basis of the ranking changes we’ve noted over the past few weeks. However Matt’s quick to assert that the changes are only visible on a relatively small number of queries(!!!!). Matt states, “there’s nothing in the algo change to radically impact your current SEO plans and strategies – just more the same fundamentals.”

Not from what I’ve experienced over the last few weeks Matt – the complete decimation of the last years SEO work, content writing & link building! And now I’m told to continue doing these things that seem to have been slapped down as not good enough, whilst the big brands get a helping hand. Google – on the side of the little guy!!!

This has happened before, but never over such a prolonged period of time & now I’m starting to get worried!

Cashback Shopper is not ranking at all for 99% of my search phrases, but is still shown when searching for Cashback Shopper, so it’s still indexed.I have no idea why this sudden disappearance has happened & I’m not sure what to do about it. The site was showing in top 30 positions for dozens of key phrases & now they’re not even in the top 100!

This is only the case in Google, Yahoo rankings are still ok, although they’ve dropped a bit recently. Possibly as a result of the drop out of Google, my traffic has fallen considerably according to Google Analytics & the sites Alexa ranking is falling, down 66,000 places! (

Why have my Google positions vanished? There seems no reason for it, although the site design has been changed to match the new edeals look, does Google therefore think my site is duplicate content? This has never been a problem before though!!!

Maybe it’s a sneaky Google ploy to force me to pay £5 per click through Google Adwords instead – again, I start to think Google has too much control  & there needs to be some decent cmpetition in the world of search. I won’t be holding my breath though!

I’ve just run a ranking report for Cashback Shopper & all my results have completely vanished from Google!

The domain itself is still indexed, so the site hasn’t been dropped completely; I can only assume they are going through another one of their reshuffles /

It’s really annoying as a rankings check a few weeks ago revealed the same thing, only for all the positions to be back when I checked a couple of weeks later.

What is going on with Google? Are these shuffles going to be happening on a more regular basis & if so, how much business do we lose whilst our ranking vanish?

The dominance of Google is not doing us any good when things like this happen – I do wish Yahoo or Microsoft could come up with some other killer application that might swing some searchers back to them instead……a monopoly does no-one any good at all!

As the recession has now been officially confirmed & the squeeze is on for businesses, many will be looking at areas where they can cut costs and these are often made in marketing strategies.

For many, search engine optimisation (SEO) is often a cost that’s cut, as perhaps it’s perceived that the benefits take longer to realise and are less tangible. However, dumping SEO can mean missing out on a fantastic cheap growth opportunity!

If you’re one of the businesses re-evaluating the future of your marketing strategy, consider the following before making your decision:

1. Ongoing Returns.
The value of SEO continues well after the actual optimisation has finished. Unlike other marketing, (PPC) where the value diminishes quickly after a campaign, SEO continues to generate results, at no additional cost!

2. The traffic is “free”.
While we understand the allure of PPC (fast, guaranteed, qualified traffic), it does cost for each visitor you receive. If you stop paying, your traffic stops. SEO, on the other hand, provides free traffic so your costs are easier to control. Plus, Internet searchers PREFER the natural search listings – 65% of users click on natural results in preference to PPC.

3. Go against the trend
While other businesses might shy away from SEO, or fail to understand it’s importance or benefits, it’s a great chance for businesses to capitalise on marginally lower competition. It could help generate quicker results.

4. Untapped Opportunities
There are still many untapped niches in terms of SEO, especially within localised and specialist industry sectors. Again this offers great growth opportunities for smart business operators, who can quickly climb to the top of their niche market.

5. Leverage the money saving trends online
Consumers ARE being more frugal with their spending and the online space is where they’re doing their comparison shopping. It’s vital for your business to be visible to them, which is why SEO is critical. Google is where the comparison shopping begins and where you need to be found – specifically within the first 30 results!

Given the above benefits and the fact it’s much cheaper than other online marketing initiatives, it seems only logical that SEO should actually be the last option you cut in your marketing plans.

If you’re looking for help with promoting your website, FreshWebz can discouss your SEO options with you.

According to metrics and research firm ComScore, the internet population (users over the age of 15) has now reached 1,007,730,000 visitors. The first time it’s broken the 1 billion visitor mark; and in news that will surprise few, Google sites were the home of most of these internet visitors providing access to an astounding 77% of the market.

I’ve been researching how to increase the amount of visits to my blogs – bearing in mind I now have 5 – and hopefully increasing the take up of the offers on the 4 shopping ones:

• www.freshwebz.co.uk/blog/
• www.cashbackshopper.co.uk/blog/
• www.loveyourpets.co.uk/blog/
• www.ukshoppingspree.com/blog/
• www.mytravelextras.co.uk/blog/

The first step I’ve taken is to create a profile at Technorati & “claim” all my blogs.

Technorati was founded to help bloggers to succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the online global conversation. As the leading blog search engine and most comprehensive source of information on the blogosphere, we index more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time and introduce millions of readers to blog and social media content.

Any updates to the blogs will be updated on Technorati automatically, so this will hopefully increase potential readership, provided I have something interesting to say!!! There are a number of other steps I am currently investigating, so I will add them to this post as I go along.

I’ve now set up feeds with Feedburner which can be subscribed to for RSS updates via Feedburner (which is now part of Google) rather than just directly from the blog itself:

• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ CashbackShopperOffersBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ MyTravelExtrasBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ LoveYourPetsBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ UkShoppingSpreeOffersBlog
• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ FreshwebzWebDesignAffiliateMarketingBlog

Feeds are a way for websites large and small to distribute their content well beyond just visitors using browsers. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. Feeds also make it possible for site content to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major news/sports/weather/whatever headlines just about anywhere.

As Feedburner has been taken over by Google, it’s also possible to incorporate Adsense ads in the feeds – whether this is a good idea depends on what you ae advertising….having ads for your rivals in your own feed doesn’t seem like a good idea to me!

However, Feedburner states that it can help promote blogs in the following four ways:

1. Publicize your content and make it easy for people to subscribe.
2. Optimize distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be consumed by subscribers wherever they are.
3. Analyze your traffic to learn how many subscribers you have, where they’re coming from and what they like best.
4. Make Moneyitize by participating in the FeedBurner Ad Network. Why not reward yourself for your effort?

I’ll be returning to Feedburner to work on these four features once my blogs are “settled”.