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Bing and Big Think are hosting”Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box,” a four hour event today in San Francisco looking at the future of search. We’ve got various luminaries lined-up. Google will be on a panel. There’s that whole Google says Bing is copying them thing that just happened. Plus, Blekko’s here — and it just rolled out a new spam filter seemingly aimed at search enemy number one these days, content farms. Should be a fun day. See our previous post for the schedule. Live webcast will happen off the Big Think home page. Buckle up, and my live blogging begins at 10am Pacific. And here we go. Victoria Brown is welcoming us. She’s from Big Think, talking about how she talked with Stefan Weitz from Bing some time ago about doing this session. Now Vivek Wadhwa is up. Talking about how search hasn’t really changed — you enter words and get links. The main change is, he says, the web has been overrun by spam. Does no one remember … [Read more...] about Live Blogging Bing’s Future Of Search Event

I have to say I wasn’t expecting the impassioned responses to my last article, 36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To. But that’s okay, as I wasn’t expecting all the positive buzz and re-tweets either (1,153 and still counting — how exciting!) In this follow-up, I’d like to revisit some of the most fervently defended myths, clarify any potentially vague statements, and provide the occasional caveat. Myths are born when folks mistake correlation with causation. And when they make inferences and draw conclusions without rock-solid data or methodology. Next thing you know a “feeling I’ve got about this” is espoused as fact. It’s the nature of myths that they aren’t easily dis-proven or dismissed. So the myths persist. And as Rand Fishkin so astutely recognized, there is strong incentive for someone to defend a myth if they had advanced that myth previously to a public audience, boss, client, etc. It’s … [Read more...] about SEO Myths Reloaded: Clarifications, Consensus And Controversy

In paid search the more accurately we can gauge and react to the “true value” of the traffic for each ad the better the performance of the program. And to understand true value, it matters which metrics you pay attention to. Conversion rates are a pretty poor proxy for value. A $200 order is probably worth more than a $20 order, but they’re both “conversions.” In lead gen a “mortgage refinancing” lead from Beverly Hills is probably worth more than a lead from that same keyword in Middle-of-Nowhere, Mississippi. Teasing out these important differences is a good first step towards improved performance. But just as sales per click is a better proxy for value than conversions per click, margin per click is better than sales per click. Any retailer knows that all $100 orders are not equal because the cost-of-goods can vary dramatically. Tying the paid bidding to the actual margin driven is tremendously important for any business with significant … [Read more...] about Do You Know The True Value Of Your Paid Search Traffic?

Tomorrow in San Francisco Bing and Big Think are hosting a gathering of high profile industry leaders, thinkers, academics, investors and executives to talk about the future of search. Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box seeks to answer the question of whether the search industry locked in a race to the bottom or whether conditions ripe for a breakthrough. The event will stream live tomorrow from Big Think. It’s an impressive lineup, with opening remarks from Harvard professor and Business week columnist Vivek Wadhwa, who will also emcee the rest of the day’s events. The keynote speaker is PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel on “The Future of Search.” The first panel is a “Search-Tech Showcase”—How do you create a niche user experience? Entrepreneurs will present a challenge they identified in search, their solution, and how it works. Presenters include: Blaise Agüera y Arcas, architect of BING maps Esther Dyson, … [Read more...] about Luminaries To Discuss The Future Of Search At Bing Event

Google seems to be making a regular habit of acquiring patents from IBM, with a new acquisition of 39 granted patents and two pending patent applications on September 30th, recorded at the USPTO today. Like the earlier transactions this year of 1,030 patents tranferred in May, and 1,023 patents assigned in August, there’s a wide range of technology included in the transaction between Google and IBM. The list of patents includes one filed in 1996 involving the use of an API and a java applet, which sounded pretty interesting (I listed it first), especially considering the ongoing Oracle-Google litigation involves java and APIs. Some of the other patents included are listed in that patent as being related to it. Other inventions include such things as file archiving approaches, distributed database information systems, encryption, user authentication, and managing configurations of computer systems. Google and Oracle are set to go to trial on October 31st on claims that Google … [Read more...] about Google Acquires More IBM Patents In September