Omar Kattan - search in a nutshell

Do you optimise for universal search?  I should probably first ask if you’ve heard of universal search.  If you haven’t, here’s a quick run down.

Universal Search is what most engines seem to be experimenting with these days.  Universal Search has to do with the sort of results being fed back to a users when they perform a search query.

To clarify further, if you search for London Hotels on Google, Yahoo, MSN or ASK you would be presented with results that include not only text and pdf documents but also images, videos, blogs entries, rss news feeds, podcasts, social topics, wikipedia definitions, etc…

Universal search is still in its infancy but it seems like its creeping up on us.  Currently Ask seems to be the only engine currently fully adopting universal search but Google has also been secretly experimenting with it for a few years now and slowly introducing it to us, allbeit - in a much more subtle way.

So back to my original question, do you include universal search as part of your seo strategy?  If you don’t then its a good idea that you start, otherwise you will lose out to your competitors in the SERP war (rankings).

How to perform SEO for Universal Search

1- Think Content

To optimize for universal search first you need to think about your (or your client’s) content and think about what sort of content is currently used and what sort of content can be introduced. 

Traditional content includes:

• HTML

• Flash

• PDF

• Images

Untraditional Content might include:

• Videos

• Podcasts

• RSS

• Maps

2- Optimize traditional & untraditional content

Now that you thought about your content, make sure you not only optimise your traditional content but also optimize/introduce your untraditional content too.  This will enable you to be in a better search engine position for more/all content when a user performs a query.

I will discuss how to optimize untraditional content in future posts.  

MySpace has announced that it will upgrade the video service it currently has offers on its site.  The upgrade will include a move to a seperate domain (MySpaceTV).  The new site is supposed to rival YouTube in terms of service, presentation and content.  MySpaceTV will be available to all MySpace users wether or not they have a MySpace account. 

What I want to focus on here is the incestious relationship that exists in this industry.  Let me clarify…

MySpaceTV is owned by NewsCorp founder Rupert Murdoch (owner of MySpace).  The same Rupert Murdoch recently signed a 5-year billion dollar deal with Google (owner of YouTube) to be the exclusive supplier of text ads onto the MySpace site. Now if that isn’t incestious I don’t know what is, I wonder if the relationship will extend to MySpaceTV.

FYI, according to HitWise, the top Video Sharing Sites by market share on the net are…

1. YouTube - 65.04%
2. Google Video - 7.73%
3. MySpace Video - 7.40%
4. Google Video UK  - 6.18%
5. MetaCafe - 3.26%
6. Yahoo! Video Search - 2.36%
7. AddictingClips - 2.14%
8. AOL Media - 1.85%
9. Break.com  - 1.40%
10. Singingfish - 1.35%

Will MySpaceTV topple Google’s YouTube? Only time will tell…

Are you a gadget developer?  If you are then you’ll be happy to learn that Google has, on its official blog , decided to invest $5,000 grants for gadget developers who want to invest time making their already successful gadget even better.  Google has also decided to pledge $100,000 seed investments for new gadget-related businesses.

For now, applications are restricted to gadget developers who have more than 250,000 pageviews per week on their gadget.

I’m glad that Google has decided to pledge financial  support for the developers that have helped it improve its iGoogle personalized homepage through the Google Gadgets API.  This is what will make people fall in love with Google all over again.

Well done G!

For more info visit the Google Gadget Ventures homepage.

In April of this year, Google announced that will purchase DoubleClick, much to the dismay of Microsoft who fought this move with all its might.

What is Adserving?

Adserving is basically the procees by which banner ads are served on the internet.  DoubleClick was the first and now biggest adserver company which explains why they were bought out by Google.

Why would Google want to purchase a company like DoubleClick?

Its all about control and dominance. Text Based ads account for approximately 40% of total ads on the internet while banner ads account for another 40%.

As Google’s main revenue source is advertising.  By acquiring Double Click, Google ensures that it not only controls the bulk of the market share in text-based ads but also the bulk of the banner ad market so in total it will control the bulk of the 80% of ads served on the internet.  et voila. the GOOG shareholders are all happy and satisfied.

Here are the official reasons Google are giving as a rationale for the DoubleClick purchase:

1. DoubleClick’s products and technology are complementary to our search and and content-based text advertising business, and give us new opportunities to improve online advertising for consumers, advertisers and publishers.
2. Historically, we’ve not allowed third parties to serve into Google’s AdSense network, which has made it hard for advertisers to get performance metrics. Together, Google and DoubleClick can deliver a more open platform for advertisers, and provide the metrics they need to manage marketing campaigns.
3. By combining Google’s infrastructure with DoubleClick’s knowledge of agencies and publishers, we can create the next generation of more innovative ad serving technology, one that significantly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of online advertising.
4. To manage ad inventory, some of the largest publishers use DoubleClick DART for Publishers – but a good portion of it goes unsold. It’s our view that the combination of DoubleClick and Google will help these publishers succeed by monetizing their unsold inventory.

Do you buy it?

In an effort to reverse the decline in its ad revenue, Yahoo has decided to merge its display advertising sales business with its text based search ad business.

This is a bold move by Jerry Yang who recently assumed the top position at Yahoo following the departure of ex-CEO Terry Semel.

Yahoo’s move is aimed at streamlining the way it sells advertising to customers who increasingly want to buy ads across a variety of formats, from being linked to search terms to popping up as a graphical display to being shown as video.

Is the merging of display and search a smart move?

Lets put it this way … something drastic had to be done to maintain the enthusiasm of Yahoo investors.  Is this the right solution?   I’m not so sure but only time will tell.

In the meantime here’s an interesting discussion over at WebmasterWorld about Yahoo’s merging of display with search.