Pointing to Google is a risky business August 21, 2006
Posted by Rafe in Search.add a comment
Pontiac is rerunning its very strange ads in which it shares branding with Google. Last night I saw one that shows a screenshot of “Pontiac” being typed into Google, with a voiceover saying, “For more, Google Pontiac.” [see ad on YouTube].
Isn’t displaying, “www.pontiac.com” enough? Apparently not for Pontiac, and it’s a decent strategy if you want your potential customer to see the universe of links related to your product. Although in this case, Googling Pontiac gets you a lot of links unrelated to the cars. On the first page of Google results, you get links to the city of Pontiac, the Pontiac Grille in Philadelphia, and Lyle Lovett’s album, Pontiac. So I don’t get the strategy.
And there’s a big risk: a competitor could swoop in and buy out the Google ads that sit on top of the search result. Right now the top ad is indeed from Pontiac. But there’s nothing, except money, to stop Ford, Honda, or another car company from outbidding Pontiac for the “Pontiac” ad word.
Google is a fantastic resource for Web users and for advertisers, but it is not easily controlled. Pontiac is playing with fire here.
More commentary on SearchEngineWatch.
News: Google pledges $900 million for MySpace honors August 8, 2006
Posted by Rafe in Community, Search.add a comment
Google has won a highly prized deal with MySpace.com to serve Web search and advertising listings to the nearly 100 million members of the News Corp.-owned social network, besting rival Yahoo in the bid.
News: AOL leaks customer search queries August 8, 2006
Posted by Rafe in Search.add a comment
AOL’s publication of the search histories of more than 650,000 of its users has yielded more than just one of the year’s bigger privacy scandals.
The 21 million search queries also have exposed an innumerable number of life stories ranging from the mundane to the illicit and bizarre.
Story on News.com: AOL’s disturbing glimpse into users’ lives
News: Microsoft shows off improved search August 7, 2006
Posted by Rafe in Search.add a comment
New techniques for analyzing search relevance–the way users browse and click through specific content–can improve the algorithms used to rank results, according to two papers submitted by a group of Microsoft researchers.
“Most search engines today use a somewhat two-dimensional approach, matching user queries with the content and link structure of Web pages to return a list of results. We’re looking at how to add a third dimension–the users themselves–to improve the search experience,” said Eugene Agichtein, a researcher in the Mining, Search and Navigation Group within Microsoft Research.
Full story on News.com: Microsoft shows off improved search
