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Monday, May 14th, 2012
Search engine Yahoo! has parted company with CEO Scott Thompson, amid claims he embellished his CV.
It is the second high-profile departure from Yahoo! in recent months. The firm is now looking for its third CEO in three years.
Former CEO Carol Bartz, hired in January 2009, was fired in September 2011.
Her replacement, Scott Thompson, a former president of PayPal, was appointed in January this year. Just four months later, Thompson is gone.
Yahoo! is now hoping to find some stability. A veteran online entity, it still has popular portal sites focussing on entertainment, horoscopes, sport and health.
But Yahoo! has lost major ground in the search industry, thanks to Google. Despite being one of the first major search engines, Yahoo! has failed to capture the same user volume of Google – which now controls the lion’s share of the search market.
Thompson was already under pressure, as some Yahoo! shareholders felt the company wasn’t doing enough to catch up – whether that was improving its Internet marketing options, increasing paid ad revenues or capitalising on traffic to its other sites.
Thompson had started to make changes – with planned job losses and rationalisation to cut costs.
He won’t get to see through what he started though.
The problems arose after tough questions from board members about Thompson’s academic history seemed to show an anomaly.
Thompson’s online biography, on Yahoo!’s website, stated that he has a computer science degree. As did information submitted as part of regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
He has since admitted that he does not have such a qualification.
Reuters is now reporting that Thompson maintains he didn’t actually submit the erroneous info to the Yahoo! board. The error was included in his PayPal bio – with claims now that the info was simply lifted, but not checked, by either Yahoo! or their executive recruitment agency. Reuters reports these claims are still being verified.
The revelation that Thomspon’s academic history may have been skewed was first unveiled by ‘shareholder activists’ on Yahoo!’s board, who had been waging a proxy battle to get more of its members into board seats.
Thompson finally stepped down on Sunday, May 13 – just ten days after shareholder Daniel Loeb first claimed he’d ‘touched up’ his qualifications.
Yahoo! has since moved to appoint Ross Levinsohn as interim CEO. Levinsohn has a chance of getting the role permanently.
Daniel Loeb’s hedge fund group, Third Point, was also given new seats on the board in what one analyst called a “big victory”, according to Fox News. BGC analyst Colin Gillis told Fox: “It’s going to increase Third Point’s ability to shape the direction of the company.”
Loeb is said to have been frustrated with what he saw as an inability by the board to maximise Yahoo!’s potential revenues. A Yahoo! statement quoted him as saying: “We are confident this board will beneift from shareholder representations and we are commited to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo!’s significant potential and value.”
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Tags: Carol Bartz, ceo, computer science, cv, daniel loeb, degree, fired, fluff, quit, resigns, ross levinsohn, Scott Thompson, search engine, third point, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Friday, May 11th, 2012
Microsoft’s search offering, Bing, has undergone another revamp. And with a huge focus on social, Bing may have found a way to begin to oust Google from search dominance.
After joining a ‘search alliance’ with Yahoo!, the “New Bing” will try to usurp Google by offering things it currently can’t.
Of course, Bing will still return normal organic search results and paid ads, just like it used to.
But now its social annotations, scraped from public information across a variety of social networks, are being lumped into a special sidebar, giving you the chance to interact with social friends.
The sidebar will pull information from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare and even Google+.
Google has already fallen out with Twitter, and, to a lesser extent, with Facebook. It can’t return Twitter profiles in its search results, because the microblogging site has blocked their spiders.
Not so with Bing.
Whereas Google has faced accusations of throttling social results – leading Facebook and Twitter to publicly demand “Don’t be Evil” (a cheeky nod to Google’s original ethos) whilst falling out with the search giant – Bing isn’t discriminating.
Google isn’t going to be able to pull info from Twitter or public posts from Facebook until relations are mended. In the meantime, Bing has a big open deal which could allow it to steal a march on Google.
The ramifications of this social focus, on both search engine optimisation and pay per click campaigns, could be huge. It would see an integrated Internet marketing approach, where search marketing and advertising is combined with social media.
Friend recommendations could become key selling tools, for instance. Group discounts for social groups with similar interests could be offered. It’s still early days, but the potential to create more joined-up marketing campaigns certainly exists.
Bing has been quick to point out that in a blindfolded taste test – much like those undertaken during the 1980s cola wars between Coke and Pepsi – search users preferred Bing’s search results to Google’s.
“We regularly test unbranded results, removing any trace of Google and Bing branding,” they said. “When we did this study in January of last year, 34% preferred Bing, whilst 38% preferred Google.
“The same unbranded study now shows that Bing search results have a much wider lead over Google’s. When shown unbranded search results, 43% prefer Bing, whilst only 28% prefer Google results.”
Of course, internal market research is hard to qualify. And Bing still needs to convince people to leave the relative comfort zone of Google and try something new.
If that works, though, then Google could face a real fight to maintain its position.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Bing, facebook, Google, LinkedIn, online marketing, optimisation, PPC, results, search, SEO, social, twitter, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
Ailing search company Yahoo! is set to go head-to-head against the world’s most popular social network after filing a lawsuit against Facebook.
Yahoo! claims that Facebook has infringed on ten different patents relating to Internet advertising, privacy and data.
It filed a complaint at a Californian federal court on Monday (March 12), which demanded that Facebook cease infringing on Yahoo!’s patents, and pay the firm massive damages.
Yahoo! started out as a huge player in search engine marketing, but has slowly seen its position deteriorate as Facebook – and more notably Google – rose to prominence. Despite its relatively minor search stake, Yahoo! still has the most visited homepage in the States, with regular news and entertainment updates drawing millions of users a day.
According to a report on BloombergNews.com, Yahoo! may be looking to use the litigation to help boost flagging profits and rejuvenate its growth.
The lawsuit is the latest in an escalating number of “patent wars” between the main protagonists of Internet search, social media sites, and those creating hardware, such as tablets and smartphones. Apple, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Samsung and HTC are all currently caught in a cross-fire of litigation relating to patents for interface features, website displays and storing user data.
“For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first,” the lawsuit states. “Facebook’s entire social media model… is based on Yahoo!’s patented social networking technology.”
Despite retaining popularity as a portal, Yahoo! lost its top spot for display advertising to Facebook last year.
Some commentators questioned whether the timing of the lawsuit might impact on Facebook’s stock market flotation: though many believe it won’t affect the bidding.
Facebook questioned Yahoo!’s “puzzling actions”, adding it only found out about the suit when the media did.
The network said it would fight Yahoo!’s claims, adding it was “disappointed” with the way Yahoo! had acted.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: facebook, Google, IPO, lawsuit, patent, SEM, Social Media, sue, technology, yahoo
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
The long-awaited migration of Yahoo! search marketing accounts into Microsoft’s adCenter is set to begin today, as part of the search alliance originally formed by the two in 2010, according to an article published by New Media Age.
Search traffic for Yahoo! will also be powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine as a result of the migration – which has already launched in America, Canada and India.
Scheduled for completion at the end of April, the migration will allow search engine marketing professionals to purchase ads for both Yahoo! and Bing via adCenter.
Microsoft’s UK marketing manager, Cedric Chambaz, commented on the launch of the alliance.
He said: “Starting around 19 March, we expect to progressively start serving adCenter ads to Yahoo! searchers. The entire Yahoo! paid search volume is expected to be transitioned to adCenter within approximately two weeks from that date.”
More about the transition can be found on the Microsoft adCenter blog.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: adCenter, advertising, Bing, Microsoft, Search Alliance, search engine, Search Engine Marketing, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Monday, February 13th, 2012
A popular platform for search engine marketing initiatives, Bing has consolidated its position as the second most used search engine in America during January, according to comScore data, cited in an article published by Search Engine Watch.
Having overtaken Yahoo! in December, the Microsoft search engine saw its share of the search engine market increase by .1 per cent – rising from 15.1 to 15.2 per cent.
Yahoo! suffered further decline, with their share of the market falling from 14.5 per cent to 14.1 per cent.
Google, meanwhile, saw their share of the market grow by .3 per cent from 65.9 per cent to 66.2 per cent – their highest market share since December 2010.
The amount of searches conducted was down by 2 per cent from December, with 17.8 billion searches made overall.
Google conducted 11.8 billion searches, while Bing carried out 2.7 billion searches; both saw the amount of searches they conducted down by 2 per cent when compared to December’s figures; the amount of searches conducted by Yahoo! was also down – this time by 5 per cent.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: Bing, ComScore, Google, January 2012, market share, search engine market, Search Engine Marketing, statistics, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Friday, January 27th, 2012
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.
Tags: Microsoft adCenter, Panama, PPC advertising, PPC marketing, yahoo
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Thursday, January 19th, 2012
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.”
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Tags: David Filo, Jerry Yang, resignation, Scott Thompson, search engine, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Monday, January 16th, 2012
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.
Tags: Bing, ComScore, December, Google, market share, search engine market, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Thursday, January 5th, 2012
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.
Tags: Carol Bartz, paypal, Scott Thompson, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Friday, December 30th, 2011
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.
Tags: facebook, Google, nielsen, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
