Google Sued Over PageRank ???

KinderStart sues Google over zero PageRank Score.
This story is almost funny and is not a Halloween prank.

Google's PageRank site ranking system is being thrown into question by lawsuit.
Small website gets demoted to zero PageRank and cries foul.

Google is being sued by a small parenting website, KinderStart, for downgrading the site’s Page rank to a score of: “zero”.

Federal judge, Jeremy Fogel of a US District Court in California, is being asked to determine whether Google defamed KinderStart by leaving it out of its search system, or whether the company is allowed to choose which site it ranks and features.

KinderStart alleges not just defamation, but violations of free speech and libel in its lawsuit.

Judge Fogel, however, in his opening statements, is unsure if the allegations show grounds for defamation, saying, “Assuming Google is saying that KinderStart’s website isn’t worth seeing, why can’t they say that? That’s my question”.

The case isn’t going anywhere fast, as Judge Fogel said that he would need until the end of the year to make a ruling about whether the case should go forward or be dismissed.

Google’s fighting its corner zealously, with one of its lawyers, David Kramer, saying, “This is a case that challenges Google’s very right to operate. It is not a case about KinderStart’s free speech.

On a much related note this site description appears on www.kinderstart.com
"KinderStart.com (http://www.kinderstart.com) is a user-friendly search engine specifically designed for everything related to pregnancy, parenting, child development, work-at-home parents, and young kids. It is the information source for parents, would be parents, teachers, caregivers or anyone interested in young children."

Also kinderstart.com is running google AdWords in the top center of its homepage and it sure looks like one of this search engines primary goals is to secure click thrus on AdWords sponsored links and generate advertising revenues from Google.

The site is hoping users click sponsored links from Google. Kinderstart.com does not seem interested in serving relevant content or useful information to users and it looks as though this website's primary purpose is simply to generate PPC click thru revenues from Google.

Also in a matter of only a few clicks our team finds redirects, duplicate content from duplicate sites and other suspicious website tactics throughout the site.

Rather than call the litigators and sue looking for cash settlements, how about creating a unique website that serves users with anything other than Google sponsored advertising.

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Amazon Ducks Google

Internet Marketing sources are reporting that Amazon is fighting off legal requests from Google and is taking steps to avoid getting pulled into copyright lawsuits challenging the Google Library Project of digitalizing books. Google has made several formal legal requests for internal Amazon documents in recent weeks. Amazon has refused to deliver any documents to date. Google claims the Amazon documents, metal stampings and system data are needed to help fend off new lawsuits from publishers and authors, but Amazon yesterday moved to sidestep the Google requests in court.

Amazon says Google is trying to get confidential information, possibly millions of process documents, on how it sells books and the Amazon searching and indexing functions -- all for a new Google project designed to compete directly with Amazon.

As the Google stock price and profit lines continue to surge investors are rumbling that Google has its sights set on etailing books as a key component of Google's expansion plans. "Google's enthusiasm to sell books stems in part from a belief that continue fueling their rapid rise Google will expand beyond Froogle and online advertising and expand into other, more lucrative markets such as e-commerce, which -- excluding travel and cruise sites -- is expected to pull in $104.9 billion in the U.S. this year alone."

Google continues to deny all rumors related to music etailing or flowers but remains tight-lipped regarding any new ecommerce models designed to sell books online.

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Our Michigan SEO company an occasion publishes Michigan Business News and information. Recent developments and policy revisions are impacting Michigan Business Insurance Coverage. State Representative Peter Hoekstra a Republican senator from Holland, Michigan will host forums for Michigan business owners seeking information on health insurance. The forums will also explain recent changes to the Michigan Medicare program and profile Michigan health insurance plans being offered by Priority Health on the west side of the state of Michigan.

Google Revenue Jumps 70%

original post emailed from adotas.com emarketing newsletter

While competitor Yahoo, reporting a 38% drop in revenue, echoes doubt about the sustainability of online advertising, Google is rolling out the barrel.

Google reports that its third quarter revenue has risen to $2.69 billion.

That amounts to 70% greater than 2005, and 10% more than last quarter, exceeding Wall Street expectations. $1.63 billion of that came from ads on Google-owned sites, while $1.04 came from its AdSense program. 44% of revenue came from non-US sources. The revenue jump caused Google’s net income to increase by 92%.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt attributes the recent success to a number of factors, including strategic partnerships. “We were particularly pleased with the contributions of our international business in a seasonally weaker quarter. In addition, we continued to forge significant partnerships with companies such as eBay, Fox Interactive Media, and Intuit that will be of great value to all involved.”

He also called the purchase of YouTube the “ultimate partnership” in a conference call to analysts and emphasized the importance to Google of video advertising and partnerships with video content providers.

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Additional Thoughts

Google remains dedicated to keyword search. The design of the Google homepage remains primarily dedicated to keyword search. Google continues to be rewarded for this exclusivity and for delivering users what they want uncluttered, content-relevant search results.

Yahoo, MSN, and so many other so-called leading search engines are still too busy trying to be all things to all users. Their homepage design is cluttered and crowded and their search results delivery systems are still quite weak, in comparison to Google.

Google embraced search and grew with the second most popular internet activity. Other players in the online marketing industry are still scrambling to connect with millions of users.

Google’s dedication to keyword search, the most effective form of online advertising and quite possibly, the most effective form of all advertising mediums is the glue to their success.

Dedication to and understanding of the keyword search medium, factored with confused and strung out competitors, could make Google the top company in the world.

That said, every company has a downside, even Google, as Click fraud continues to escalate. Senior executives at Google have to address click fraud and suspect web advertising activities from many of their partners, sooner rather than later. The days of ignoring click fraud and sweeping it under the rug are rapidly coming to a close.

As budget allocations increase expectations and requirements also rise. Google clients need new click fraud quality controls that protect their ROI and ensure that recent SEM budget windfalls are sustainable for years to come.

Posted by Jack Roberts | 2:21 pm on October 20, 2006

Click Here to View the Original Blog Post

Yahoo Panama Update Continues to Roll Out

The long rumored Yahoo Panama update is gradually rolling out at Yahoo search. The Organic SEO engineering team here at Peak Positions has noticed many irrelevant organic/natural search results in the Yahoo results over the last 10 days. The Yahoo search engineering team has confirmed that they are working hard on converting the organic Yahoo search results pages over to more of a robot-spider controlled search system. The organic search conversion involves moving further away from the old Yahoo directory listings and this Panama Quality Purge is expected to take at least a few more weeks for all of the Yahoo search datacenters to fully synchronize to a cleaner, more accurate and content relevant, keyword query search system expected to fully resolve out: on/or about Nov 14, 2006.

More confirmation that Yahoo Panama is underway here in 4th qtr. 2006 versus many earlier reports that Yahoo would wait until 1st qtr. 2007 arrived in a Yahoo press release tonight. Yahoo has to move aggressively on many fronts in a rapid effort to stem click fraud, curb Google's market share dominance, legally respond to the recent CheckMate PPC lawsuit settlement, and also to combat their falling share price.

In short, Yahoo has peformed poorly for shareholders most of this year and needs to finish 2006 on an upbeat note to calm the stromy seas and stunt the negativity movement in Sunnyvale and senior management's hopes are that this Yahoo Panama project can ignite some much needed postivie buzz for YHOO in the holiday months and hopefully carry over to kick start 2007.

We have posted the latest upgrade announcement from Yahoo paid search below:

Earlier this year, we announced that a completely redesigned marketing platform is on its way, full of advanced, easy-to-use features that will help you better connect with Yahoo!'s vast and valuable audience. We wanted to take a moment to provide you with an update on the availability of the new Sponsored Search.

We've begun inviting U.S. advertisers to upgrade their accounts. We've been thoroughly testing our systems to help ensure a quality experience once advertiser accounts are upgraded, and we are now beginning the process of inviting advertisers to upgrade their accounts.*

Invitations will be sent in stages to U.S. advertisers over the remainder of the year and early next year. You'll also be able to access a preview of what your account will look like after the upgrade. This preview can help you become familiar with the features and the layout of the new control panel, called the Yahoo! Marketing Solutions center. If you're happy with your preview, we encourage you to upgrade your Yahoo Paid Search account as soon as possible. This will help ensure that your upgraded account closely resembles the preview. Advertisers that are invited to upgrade before the end of the year may choose to do so after the holidays, to avoid any disruption during this important time. If, however, you can't wait to get your hands on the new Sponsored Search, you can request that your upgrade date be scheduled as early as possible by filling out the Online Request Form.

Many resources will be available to help you make a smooth transition. We've created an extensive Upgrade Center to assist you during the transition. Full of tips, tutorials and FAQs, the Upgrade Center will walk you through all of the new features within the Yahoo! Marketing Solutions center, as well as the best practices for managing your new Sponsored Search account. We'll also be launching the Yahoo! Marketing Solutions blog soon, to provide you with timely information about the new Sponsored Search, as well as inside tips from our own online marketing specialists and much more. You can find all of these resources by visiting the Upgrade Center.

The bid information displayed within your current account will soon change. As advertisers upgrade their accounts, their bids will no longer be reflected in the current system. To ease this transition and help provide you with accurate bidding information, in approximately six to eight weeks (approx. Nov. 14) you will see two new data points on the Manage Bids page: First, you will see a bid range for prime placement. This bid range will tell you what advertisers are currently bidding for the spots at the very top of the search results page for each keyword (Example: $8.75 - $6.25). Second, you'll see an estimate of your average position for each listing. Each time you enter a new bid this estimate will change, so you'll be able to tell where your listing is likely to appear for a given bid. Once these two new pieces of information become available, you'll no longer see the Top 5 Max Bids column displayed in your account.

Please note that there will be no change to the way listings are ranked for the remainder of 2006; they will continue to be ranked by bid as they are today. Early next year, we will change the way ads are ranked, taking ad quality into account (by spidering PPC landing pages for content relevance), as well as by bid. More detailed information will be provided regarding this change before it occurs.

New Terms and Conditions will take effect once your account is upgraded. Once you've upgraded, your account will be governed by a new set of advertiser Terms and Conditions. Review the new terms and conditions.

We hope you are as excited about the new Sponsored Search as we are. Bringing this powerful new marketing platform to you is just the first step towards helping you better connect to the Yahoo! audience. So please be on the lookout for more information about this important change and be sure to visit the new Upgrade Center to learn more. You may also contact us at www.yeahoo.com - Tel: 866-YAHOO-98 (866-924-6698) if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Your Partners at Yahoo! Search Marketing

*The new Sponsored Search will roll out to advertisers in the U.S. market first. Details regarding international availability of the new Sponsored Search will be made available at a later date.

Peak Positions encourages many sites, especially Ecommerce sites to consider upgrading their Yahoo Paid Search account in the coming days for maximum exposure in the 2006 holiday shopping season.
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Google Makes Stock Purchase of YouTube

Google agrees to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion

Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock in a deal that unites one of the Internet’s marquee companies with one of its rising stars.

The deal would be by far Google’s most expensive in its eight-year history. The lofty price underscores how important Google expects online video to become as more viewers and advertisers migrate from television to the Internet.

While it has been able to extend its lead in the lucrative search market, Google hasn’t been able to become a major player in online video.

“This gives Google the video play they have been looking for and gives them a great opportunity to redefine how advertising is done,” said Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.

Several other suitors, including Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and News Corp., reportedly have discussed a possible YouTube purchase in recent weeks.

“This deal looks pretty compelling for Google,” said Standard & Poor’s analyst Scott Kessler said. “Google has been doing a lot of things right, but they are not sitting on their laurels.”

Google’s YouTube coup may intensify the pressure on Yahoo to make its own splash by buying Facebook.com, the Internet’s second most popular social-networking site. Yahoo has reportedly offered as much as $1 billion for Palo Alto-based Facebook during months of sporadic talks.

“Yahoo really needs to step up and do something,” said Roger Aguinaldo, an investment banker who also publishes a dealmaking newsletter called the M&A Advisor. “They are becoming less relevant and looking less innovative with each passing day.”

Selling to Mountain View-based Google will give YouTube more technological muscle and advertising know-how, as well as generate a staggering windfall for a 67-employee company that was running on credit card debt just 20 months ago.

Since 20-something buddies Chad Hurley and Steve Chen founded the company in February 2005, YouTube has blossomed into a cultural touchstone that shows more than 100 million video clips per day. The video library is eclectic, featuring everything from teenagers goofing off in their rooms to William Shatner singing “Rocket Man” during a 1970s TV show. The clips are submitted by users.

While most videos posted on YouTube are homemade, the site also features volumes of copyrighted material (illegal distribution of copyrighted material) — a problem that has caused some critics to predict the startup eventually would be sued into oblivion, much like the once popular music-sharing site Napster.

But Hurley, 29, and Chen, 27, have spent months cozying up with major media executives in an effort to convince them that YouTube could help them make more money by helping them connect with the growing number of people who spend most of their free time on the Internet.

That trend propelled YouTube’s worldwide audience to 72.1 million through August, up from 2.8 million a year earlier, according to comScore Media Metrix. How do these usage numbers compare with Napster and Baidu who provided free downloads of copyrighted music?) YouTube’s conciliatory approach with major media has recently yielded several licensing and promotional agreements that have eased some of the copyright concerns while providing the company with some financial breathing room until it becomes profitable.

To conserve money as it subsisted on $11.5 million in venture capital, YouTube had been based in an austere office above a San Mateo pizzeria until recently moving to more spacious quarters in nearby San Bruno.

As its negotiations with Google appeared to near fruition, YouTube on Monday announced new partnerships with Universal Music Group, CBS Corp. and Sony
BMG Music Entertainment. Those alliances followed a similar arrangement announced last month with Warner Music Group Inc.

The truce with Universal represented a particularly significant breakthrough because the world’s largest record company had threatened to sue YouTube for copyright infringement less than a month ago.

Li and Kessler expect even more media companies will be lining up to do business
with YouTube if it’s bought by Google as more revenue channels develop.