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Following the much publicised Search Alliance formed back in 2009, Microsoft’s adCenter is set to power PPC marketing campaigns and results on Yahoo!, according to an article published by Search Engine Watch.
Writing for SEW, Duncan Parry, has produced a list of steps that should be taken to prepare for the switch – set to take place during the second quarter of 2012.
Here are just a few of those steps in a summarised form:
Shorten your Yahoo! ads by February 1 – The Panama system, currently used for Yahoo! ads, allows adverts that are much longer than those allowed on Microsoft’s adCenter.
Parry states: “All new or modified ads on Panama are required to have an ad title of 25 characters (instead of 40) or less, and a display URL of a maximum 35 characters on February 1.”
He also adds that descriptions need to be shortened, by just one character, to 70. Any ads that aren’t altered will simply be paused when the migration takes place.
Take the time to learn the difference between Panama and adCenter – Panama and adCenter are very different; therefore time needs to be taken to learn how to use and adapt to the new system. There are a number of webinars and training videos featured on the Search Alliance website, according to Parry.
Adjust bidding and budget strategies – The minimum bid on adCenter is much higher than on Panama – £0.05 compared to £0.01. This will mean that you’ll need to set a revised monthly budget that incorporates this increase.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
The co-founder of the search engine Yahoo!, which first appeared back in 1995, has announced his resignation, effective immediately, according to an article published by Search Engine Watch.
Jerry Yang owns a 3.6 per cent stake in the Yahoo! – a popular platform for search engine marketing initiatives – and has been on the board of directors since March 1995. He also acted as the company’s CEO between June 2007 and January 2009.
Writing in a letter to Yahoo! board chairman, Roy Bostock, Yang said: “My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life.
“However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as chief executive officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
New figures have shown that Yahoo! has finally been overtaken by Bing in the US search engine marketing, according to an article published by Search Engine Watch.
Having launched just over two and a half years ago, Bing now has a 15.1 per cent share of the search engine market – compared to the 8.4 per cent on its launch.
The figures, released by comScore, saw Yahoo! slip into third position during 2011. Its share of the market fell from 15.1 per cent to 14.5 per cent.
Google – a site popular for search engine marketing initiatives – built on its lions share of the market, with 65.9 per cent of searches made in the US conducted via the site – representing an increase of 0.5 per cent.
Meanwhile, 18.2 billion searches were made during December – an increase of two per cent compared to November’s figures.
Google conducted 12 billion of those searches; Bing 2.7 billion with Yahoo! coming in just behind with around 2.6 billion searches.
Ask and AOL conducted 531 million and 287 million searches respectively.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Yahoo! – one of the longest-running places for running online search engine marketing initiatives – has finally appointed a new CEO, having previously sacked Carol Bartz back in September, according to an article published by ClickZ.
Scott Thompson, the former president at PayPal, will take the role. The move will see Tim Morse, who acted as CEO during the search for Bartz’s replacement, resume his previous role as chief financial officer.
Speaking during a conference call, Thompson stated that his previous experiences with PayPal – in maintaining a fine balance between the needs of customers and merchants – would be key to his new position.
He said: “We need that at Yahoo! – balancing value between consumer experience and the advertisers.”
Providing a possible insight into the areas that could provide Yahoo! with the best opportunities, Thompson revealed: “Data is a very hard concept to understand unless you’re in the middle of it. There’s tremendous value if you can organise and interrogate data at the scale Yahoo! has.”
Yahoo! recently revealed a revenue of $1.1 billion for the third quarter of 2011 – a decline of 5 per cent when compared to the same period of 2010.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
A platform popular for search engine marketing initiatives, Google has been named the most visited website in 2011, according to a study cited in an article published by BBC News.
Market researcher Nielsen’s latest figures have shown that the search engine giant received 153 million unique visits each month.
Based on a collection of data gathered between January and October, Facebook was found to be the second most visited site – with just over 137.5 million visitors per month.
Yahoo rounded out the top three with around 130 million unique visitors per month.
Analysts have warned that Yahoo could see its visits drop significantly if younger users continue to move away from using web-based email.
A recent Comscore study found that younger users of the Internet were gradually moving away from using emails to communicate.
Ian Maude from Enders Analysis, referencing the Comscore study, said: “Yahoo’s basic problem is that people are no longer looking for an all-you-can-eat service and instead want best-in-breed.
“For Social networks that is Facebook, for search it’s Google,” he added.
“Email is a front door to Yahoo and if people are no longer using their service it will affect them more broadly. If Comscore’s data is an early indicator of a growing trend they have a major problem.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Search engine giant, Yahoo!, has announced that its social news sharing tool, Yahoo! Activity, will now be available to use in the United Kingdom and Europe, according to an article published by New Media Age.
Launched in September, the tool uses Facebook’s Open Graph to allow users to share the content they’ve been reading on their Facebook accounts.
To use Yahoo! Activity users are simply required to login to Facebook via the tool; it will then automatically do the sharing.
Yahoo! – a popular platform for search engine marketing initiatives – has revealed that the application has attracted 11 million users in the US already, and are hoping to see a similar kind of success in Europe.
Yahoo!’s UK MD and VP of sales, James Wildman, spoke about what Yahoo! Activity had bought to Facebook so far.
He said: “When Facebook recently unveiled its most-shared stories in 2011 in the US, of the 40 most shared, 12 came from Yahoo!.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Yahoo! has announced an update to its image search results. An idea previously implemented by rival Google and search partner Bing, Yahoo! search now features an infinite scroll, according to an article published by Search Engine Results.
Users will also be able to share any image that catches their attention via both Facebook and Twitter, as part of the update.
Infinite scrolling has become a common feature in image searching but has not yet made the transition to standard search results – though it has been rumoured and could have a potentially massive impact on SEO.
Rather than featuring pages of results, infinite scrolling – as it suggests – simply allows users to scroll down the page.
Yahoo! has also revealed that other features in image search will remain as they are when the users is scrolling down the page.
Although a positive move by Yahoo!, the move has widely been considered as being implemented too late.
Bing have had the feature in place since 2009, whilst Google implemented the feature into their own image search function last year.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Search engine giants Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing, are reportedly looking to attract smaller businesses to their platforms by attempting to demystify search engine marketing and PPC advertising, according to an article published by USA Today.
All competing in a market which is set to reach $17 billion by next year – according to figures released by eMarketer – Google, Yahoo! and Bing are looking towards small businesses as a revenue generator.
However as the two disciplines can leave many bewildered, the search engine giants have tried to simplify the process; for example, Google recently released AdWords Express, which sees local businesses’ PPC ad campaigns managed by Google.
Meanwhile Microsoft have launched a loyalty program to encourage advertisers to make the switch to Bing adCenter – a platform that supports ads on both Bing and Yahoo!.
CEO of search consultancy firm, Didit, Kevin Lee, emphasised the importance of local businesses for search engines.
He said: “Small advertisers are critically important, not only because of the huge revenue opportunities, but also because a broad spectrum of local advertisers provides a better user experience.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
With rumours of a possible sale intensifying, Yahoo! is being sued by its investors who claim that members of the board aren’t partaking in their duty to seek the best price for the search engine giant – if it is indeed sold – according to an article published by Bloomberg.
Yahoo! are said to have implemented bidding rules that would discourage a purchase that would lead to the replacement of the company’s current directors – which include the search engine giant’s co-founder, Jerry Yang – according to the lawsuit filed by M&C Partners III in Delaware Chancery Court, Wilmington on December 1.
M&C have also claimed that the company “has adopted a confidentiality agreement” for potential bidders, which prevents them from speaking with other bidders and confines “themselves to a bid for only a minority stake,” according to court papers.
They also allege in their lawsuit that this confidentiality “constitutes an unreasonable anti-takeover device” and “tilts the playing field” in favour of co-founder, Yang, who they state wants to have “a disproportionate influence” over the Yahoo!’s affairs.
According to Bloomberg News sources, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Softbank Corp are said to be in talks with Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC with regards to making a bid for the whole of Yahoo! – a popular platform for search engine marketing.
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Rumours surrounding the potential sale of Yahoo! have been circulating for a considerable period of time; however, it has now emerged that private equity firms, Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, along with Asian partners are in the process of preparing a fresh bid for the search engine, according to an article published by the Guardian.
Microsoft had put forward a bid as part of a consortium worth around $20 billion – lower than another received bid.
The new consortium’s bid could value Yahoo! at $25 billion, according to a Reuters source.
The new consortium would feature prominent Asian businesses including Alibaba Group from China and Softbank Corp from Japan – though final plans have yet to be confirmed.
Spokesman for Alibaba Group, John Spelich commented yesterday, stating: “Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole company bid for Yahoo!.”
It is believed that Alibaba Group are primarily interested in buying back a 40 per cent stake currently owned by Yahoo! – a popular platform for search engine marketing initiatives.
Dick Wei, an analyst at JPMorgan commented on Alibaba’s intentions, adding: “Alibaba definitely wants to get its stake back from Yahoo!, so whatever that can make that happen, they will try for it.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
