The New Google Supercomputer Center

Google Rolls Out New Linux Data Center
in The Dalles, Oregon





Facility lies on the Columbia River, 80 miles outside Portland.

The New Google Supercomputer near Portland, in The Dalles, Oregon, greatly expands Google's networking powers. The keyword search leader is forging ahead, leaving Microsoft, Yahoo and other competitors further behind.

Google has added thousands of new Linux servers across their enterprise, rolling out new Linux server farms in North Carolina and Virginia in conjunction with the release of the new Google Supercomputer in suburban Portland.

These latest moves by Google have caused wild position swings on Google's keyword results pages, leading some Marketing Directors likening the situation to a "wild roller coaster ride" for the last several weeks.

Third Quarter ‘07 is shaping up as of the most turbulent periods in recent Google history
Google is leading the charge by updating their keyword search results; re-sorting their results pages and lexicon databases, fast and furious, since early July 2007. The search engine leader is determined to become even deeper, by expanding the size of the search databases as fast as possible in efforts that help offset a long-pending merger of their two biggest competitors: Yahoo and MSN.

The stars are aligning and sources at all three companies are reporting that Microsoft intends to either acquire or merge search functions with Yahoo. If MSN and Yahoo are to merge together they acquire nearly 30% of all keyword search activity overnight.

Google's counter move has been to add thousands of new Linux servers across their enterprise; and here in the USA, Google has rolled out new server farms in North Carolina and Virginia, and is ramping up developments for the release of the new Google Supercomputer in Oregon.

The Google supercomputer project, code named "Project 02", is designed to greatly expand Google's network trafficking powers and global network capable of processing billions of search queries per day as well as a growing repertoire of delivering online tickets and other services. The new complex is the size of two football fields with cooling towers four stories high.

Google database re-sorts create huge swings in Google search results pages
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Google Ranking Updates - Leave Many Sites Scrambling

The Recent Google Dance of Late summer 2007, has affected thousands of websites as many sites have experienced a substantial change in their Google keyword rankings. Many high profile websites are singing the blues about Google's most recent algorithm change that has impacted their Google natural keyword positions, exposure, traffic, and conversions.

Some companies have gone so far as to issue hastily written, Google angst-fueled, press releases bemoaning their recent setbacks and losses in Google organic keyword rankings.

Google continually updates their algorithms and refreshes their natural search results in an ongoing effot to improve user experiences. Screaming and ranting in press releases rather that analyzing code, content and links appears to sidestep and skirt core causes of keyword position losses rooted in organic site optimization issues. Why waste time and resources distributing 'sad PR' over temporary seybacks when proven solutions and quality optimization resources are an email and phone call away. If your back is that sore over Google rankings contact this Chiropractic Durham NC specialist.

The latest Google algorithm applies slight adjustments that are rooted in code. Our clients, even those with larger, dynamic database powered strutures are not experiencing any Google keyword ranking losses and are maintaining top keyword positions as their code and content is well optimized, relevant, and synchronized with the algorithms powering Googlebot and the major spiders that power organic keyword search results worldwide.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt Appears In Traverse City, Michigan.

Eric Schmidt of Google Says His New Office in Ann Arbor Michigan Office is Doing Very Well.
The chief of Google says the Internet company's Ann Arbor business is "doing very well" and is growing "as fast as we can train people."

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said after addressing the nation's governors about economic innovation in Traverse City that he's convinced Michigan has the educated work force needed to fill 21st Century jobs, including the jobs at the Google advertising sales office in Ann Arbor.

"It's growing very rapidly. We're clearly going to expand it," Schmidt said.

John Burchett, lobbyist for Google and former chief of staff to Michigan Governor, Jennifer Granholm, said the company now has 150 employees. When Google announced a year ago it would open the ad sales arm in Ann Arbor, officials projected 1,000 people would eventually be hired.

Schmidt said Google is finding the work force it needs in and around the University of Michigan campus and hasn't had to import employees.

"There's a physical limit to how fast you can grow," Schmidt said. "You can get the office space but it takes time to train employees."

Schmidt recently visited his new Ann Arbor AdWords operation and reported "the energy level as pretty phenomenal." He said Michigan is doing some of the things to entice cutting-edge companies like Google to come to the state, including promoting broadband technology and offering a "very searchable" state government data base.

Michigan should take heart, Schmidt said, that even though its economy is languishing and unemployment here is among the highest in the nation, "the barrier to entry for an entrepreneur now is the lowest it's ever been. Smart people here can create new companies and new jobs with less money."

--

Schmidt and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson Spoke at The National Governors Meetings in Traverse City, Michigan.

Both CEOs told the nation's governors: That America's Schools don't make the grade.

The Two titans of the high-tech economy told the nation's governors on Saturday that their states are not doing enough to educate students for technology-heavy jobs or to clear the way for investment by their companies.

"We're not competitive in our education programs," Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive of AT&T, told the National Governors Association.

"Our education system is falling flat."

Stephenson also had tough words for states that he said put up regulatory roadblocks to investment by companies such as his. Asked by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen what role states should play in monitoring or regulating the spread of broadband technology, Stephenson said, "Increasingly, your role is ... to stay out of the way."

The AT&T chief and Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google, spoke to the opening business session of the governors' 99th annual meeting at Grand Traverse Resort in Traverse City - a hotbed of leading tech companies in Michigan - the session focused on how states can boost business innovation and economic growth.

Both had plenty of advice, suggesting that governors' most important role was to boost education and knock down regulatory walls.

Schmidt, a pioneering Internet executive, encouraged states to show more daring in looking for better ways to increase student performance in public schools.

"Almost anything we try is going to give us more information," Schmidt said. "Why not simply try five different things and see what kind of results you get?"

But it was Stephenson, who has held the top job at AT&T for less than two months, who had the toughest words for the more than 30 state chief executives in attendance. He said that an AT&T agreement with its largest union to bring back 4,000 jobs that had been outsourced to India was struggling because of faulty U.S. education standards. "We're struggling to find qualified candidates to fill those 4,000 jobs."

He praised Michigan and other states that have consolidated franchising processes for cable television, allowing companies such as AT&T to work out blanket agreements with state governments rather than individual deals with dozens of cities and counties. But when several governors -- including the Democratic Bredesen, and Vermont Republican Jim Douglas -- asked if states shouldn't establish rules to protect consumers or require companies to extend broadband lines to rural areas, Stephenson pushed back. He said the best thing governors could do to encourage economic growth was to knock down regulatory barriers.

Google Releases New Custom Search Business Edition For Small Business Websites .

New Tools are Cost-Effective and Powerful.

Google launched Google Custom Search Business Edition, a hosted service that lets small businesses quickly and easily add Google search to their Web sites.

A follow-up to the Custom Search Engine Google launched in 2006, Custom Search Business Edition includes site search hosted by Google so small business owners can skip installing and maintain their own costly site search technologies.

While the original Custom Search Engine and the new business version both offer search results customization, analytics, and site traffic reporting features about visitor behavior, the Custom Search Business Edition has some key differences. These include the option to turn off ads, e-mail and phone support from Google's Enterprise Search, and business integration features through an XML API.

The goal of Google Custom Search Business Edition is to alleviate the pains many small businesses face in trying to allow customers to search their Web sites to get information or buy products.

Many of these businesses are spending money on AdWords search advertising and google search engine optimization to help in-market customers find their websites, but once customers find them, navigating among the unfamiliar products or services can be a chore.

Google is positioning the Custom Search Business Edition as a salve for the navigation issues. Search rivals Microsoft and Yahoo are also targeting this dilemma. Nitin Mangtani, product manager for Google Enterprise Group, said the original free Custom Search Engine "doesn't completely appeal to every small business web site."

"There are a lot of legitimate businesses which spend money on bringing visitors to the web site and they want search results but no ads," Mangtani explained. "And they want support. They need somebody to talk to, especially companies with no IT."

Custom Search Business Edition starts at $100 a year for searching up to 5,000 pages, and extends to $500 for 50,000 pages. Google will support larger volumes of pages through its enterprise sales group for businesses that require it.

Mangtani also explained Google's cost-effective pricing scheme. "For us to go after the millions of sites with just 500 or a thousand pages, we needed a product with a very low total cost of ownership; $100 per year makes sense. You can only offer that price point with a hosted solution. That's why the need for creating a business solution which is in between the free and business appliance product line."

The appliance product line Mangtani referred to includes search offerings from the Google Enterprise group, including the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini, both of which offer more control over security, as well as search crawl depth and timing.

With Custom Search Engine, Custom Search Business Edition and the appliances, Google's enterprise search portfolio covers anything from mom-and-pop shops to small business sites and large companies.

Which is exactly what the search giant needs to better compete with Microsoft, which recently updated their small business hosted search program.

Microsoft said it has added Ask.com's Sponsored Listings to its adManager Beta search advertising service, which enables small businesses to purchase and manage search-based keyword advertising from the Microsoft Office Live platform.

Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL), an automated, auction system that allows search marketers to purchase, manage and optimize pay-per-click and contextual keyword advertising campaigns, will join the MSN network and Live Search as distribution sources for Microsoft Office Live customers' search ads. Ask.com claims they are reaching over 59 million monthly unique users.

Google, MSN, and Yahoo Asked to Modify Retention of Personal Search Data.

Developments occurred in China this week regarding keyword search and retenion of personal search data by search engines.

The Taiyuan University of Technology is testing software agents that crawl through any search engine looking for searched keyword results as well as any personal data that's been collected about the searcher. Recap of InformationWeek story.

As regulators in the European Union press the major search engines like: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to modify their policies for retaining personal data, scientists at China's Taiyuan University of Technology are researching new ways to collect and correlate data about Web surfers to provide more precise keyword search results.

The Taiyuan University of Technology research is testing software agents that crawl through any search engine looking not only for searched keyword results but also for any personal data that's been collected about the searcher.

The goal is to use information about the surfer's background or interests, blended with search history information and filter search results accordingly.

While this research may still be in the workshop in China, it's not likely to sit well with European regulators. The E.U.'s Article 29 Working Group, a collection of national officials from European countries that advises the European Union on privacy policy, is already investigating the privacy policies of Google, Yahoo, and MSN and evaluating their data protection issues.

Google is the first major search engine provider to offer some visibility into its data retention policies, but the Article 29 Working Group wants the search engine to go further. Google in May provided the group with information about how long it stores server-log information.

The company's policy is to "anonymize" server logs that are older than 18-24 months, a practice that the group said, in a letter to Google Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer. Google will not specify the purposes for which server logs are kept.

The group does like Google's plans to use more anonymous data, but notes that even "anonymized" data can still contain the user's network prefix. There are also concerns that Google can reverse the process used to make users anonymous when it wants more info about a surfer. The group has pointed out that, even though Google is based in the United States, it is legally obligated to comply with European privacy laws.

The same applies to Google's competitors in the search market, including Microsoft and Yahoo, neither of which has specified any time limits on the data that they hold on users.

More than 60% of all keyword searches are conducted using the robot powered Google search engine, while Yahoo is used about 21% of the time, and Microsoft MSN/Windows Live Search is tapped about 8%, according to the Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search report.

Search data privacy concerns are likely to be perceived differently depending upon many variables, in general baby boomers have a greater expectation of that a Web site or search engine will keep their information confidential, unless the user explicitly gives permission to share that information. Indeed, user demographics are likely to play an important role in the future of privacy on the Web when permissive data sharing is involved.

The E.U. is more concerned with the subtle aggregation, requirements management software and sales of search data, and it's going to continue to press the major search engines until they come clean.

Ask.com and Google Advance Design of Search Results Pages.

original article by Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

Website Owners make sure to fully optimize press releases and images as Google and Ask are both about to expand their search results pages with images and related news files to further serve users with relevant and helpful links.

Google and other search companies have made major, continual advances under the hood in recent moths, improving the way they store and gather relevant content and information. But far less progress has been made in the way these search results are presented to users.

Google has made the occasional minor tweak but until recently, its search-results pages looked a lot like they always have. Its upstart competitor, Ask.com, took greater strides last year with cool features such as previews of the pages it listed, lots of summary information at the top of the page and prominent suggestions for narrowing or broadening keyword searches.

Now, Google and Ask each have rolled out new ways of presenting search results. Google's approach, which it calls "universal search," is a modest thing, a first step in what it says will be a long effort to break down barriers between different types of information a user may be seeking, such as Web links, images and news.

But Ask's new system, called "Ask3D," is a much bolder and better advance in unifying different kinds of results and presenting them in a more effective manner. It shows, once again, that Ask places a higher priority than its competitors do on making search results easy to navigate and use.

Both new expanded keyword search results systems are now the defaults on the search sites. You don't have to do anything special to use them. Indeed, Google's change is so subtle you may not even notice it for some searches.

Both of the new systems are designed to spare users the extra steps needed in the past to view different types of content related to the same keyword search query. But Google combines these different types of content into one list. Ask puts them on one page in separate sections, which I find to be the superior approach, because each type of result is displayed more effectively; it's easier to see at a glance what you have.

In the old systems, if you were searching for, say, "Red Sox," you'd have to do separate searches for Web pages, news, images and so forth. To make this simpler, Google's universal search now groups these different kinds of results within its single, familiar main list of results; a Google search for "Red Sox" includes not only Web links, but also an entry called "News Results for Red Sox" with the latest headlines about the baseball team and a news photo. At the top of the page, under the Google logo, are the two most relevant search categories -- in this case, Web and News -- if you want to separate types of results, like retire in costa rica.

A Google universal search for a prominent person (like world famous: Raleigh Realtor Ann Davis might bring up images at the top -- something Google has been doing for a while -- but also a video, which can be played without leaving the search page, a very nice feature. To see an example, search on "I Have a Dream" to view the famous Martin Luther King speech without leaving the page. At the bottom of the page is a list of related searches.

But Ask3D goes much further. Instead of sticking with a single list of search results that mixes various types of material, it now presents results in a page divided into three panels. The largest, middle panel still contains Web links (and a few ads). But it is no longer topped by the search box and links to other sections of the search engine. Instead, where possible, it is topped by a set of salient facts or direct links to salient facts.

The thinner left panel contains the search box and links to other sections of Ask, but mainly it displays suggestions for refining your search, or for making related searches. A somewhat wider right panel contains search results that go beyond Web links, such as images, news headlines, encyclopedia articles, videos, weather information, local time and, where relevant, music clips you can play without leaving the page.

A search for "Red Sox" in the new Ask3D, for example, has a summary box at the top of the main panel with direct links to Scores, Schedule, Stats and more. In the right panel, there are general images, news photos, an encyclopedia article on the team, videos and headlines. As always, the left panel shows suggestions for how to narrow or broaden the search.

If you hover over the image thumbnails, they enlarge. If you hover over the video thumbnails, they play, albeit without sound. For each of the right-panel content categories, you can even launch a further search (like: luxury cruises ) without leaving the page just by clicking on a magnifying-glass icon.

If you search Ask for "James Taylor," you get a biography at the top and, at the right, playable clips from "Fire and Rain," "You've Got a Friend" and "Sweet Baby James."

Ask also now gives you larger previews of the pages it lists, visible by just hovering over a binocular icon. And you can now get to the advanced search panel without leaving the page.

Google deserves credit for universal search (try phase converters ) , which is only bound to get better in the coming months. But Ask's new design is much more compelling and well worth a try.

Terry Semel Leaves Yahoo.

Microsoft Takeover Looms Large as The Panama Project Continues to Implode.

Jerry Yang Returns as Yahoo CEO - Susan Decker Named President.

Yahoo! announced that Terry Semel will resign as CEO and pass the torch back to co-founder Jerry Yang.

Yang an original co-founder of Yahoo will remain on Yahoo's Board. Susan Decker, Yahoo's former head of Advertising has been named President. The changes culminate a dramatic sequence of events at Yahoo as the Panama Project continues to sink the ship taking many senior level managers and executives with it.

The Chief Technology Officer at Yahoo had resigned a couple weeks earlier and Semel just completed annual shareholder meetings that left the majority screaming for his resination.
Yahoo has faced mounting internal and external criticism in recent months as the Panama search project continued to flounder.

Panama has failed to increase revenues and is not helping Yahoo boost its shrinking share of the keyword search pie. Yahoo has reported poor results to date in 2007 with no end to the downward profit trend in sight.

Yang, 38, founded the company in 1994 with David Filo and serves on the board of directors, in addition to holding the title of "Chief Yahoo" overseeing the company's strategy and technological vision.

In a conference call with analysts held Monday afternoon, the company said it is seeing slower growth in display advertising --which include banner ads, website design and videos -- but better-than-expected performance from its recently re-tooled search advertising business.

Proposals opposed by the board that aimed to tie executive pay to competitive performance and challenge the company's human rights policies in China were defeated.

CNBC is reporting that Yahoo may need to explore strategic alternatives. Micorsoft has been knocking on the door for several months looking to join forces and give Google a tougher fight in keyword search.

"Yahoo is in a tough position of weakness so I think there are some people circling around it," Jim Friedland, an Internet analyst with Cowen and Co. "Given the weakness Yahoo has been experiencing, I think now is the time those talks become more real."

However, the analyst noted that forging a strategic deal with the likes of News Corp., Time Warner or Microsoft may not be in Yahoo's best interests.

Addressing such speculation, Jerry Yang said Monday the company's board believes Yahoo should remain independent.

For a full update visit - The Jerry Yang Blog


Some highlights from Jerry include:

Yahoo! has an incredibly bright future and I make this move with deep conviction and enthusiasm. I’ve partnered closely with our executive teams for 12 years to steer our strategy and direction and today I’m ready for this challenge.

Terry has given Yahoo! six of its best years. He delivered great value to our users, advertisers and shareholders. Terry refocused the company on key strategic priorities, and in so doing, helped Yahoo! increase our revenues nearly nine-fold from $717 million in 2001 to $6.4 billion in 2006; boost our operating income from a loss in 2001 to nearly $1 billion last year; and create more than $30 billion in shareholder value during his tenure. He helped grow our audience from 170 million to more than 500 million users globally, and he oversaw the expansion of our base of talented employees from 3,500 to nearly 12,000.

I will always be grateful for the incredible achievements under his leadership — and for his mentorship and friendship. We’ll continue to benefit from his support and guidance as he transitions to his role as our Chairman.

I also couldn’t ask for a better partner in Sue Decker as our new president. In addition to knowing this company inside and out, Sue has incredible talents, leadership abilities, a fierce focus on winning, and intense dedication to this company and its people. I look forward to teaming more closely with her as we pursue our joint vision.

What is the vision of Yahoo?

A Yahoo! that executes with speed, clarity and discipline.

A Yahoo! that increases its focus on differentiating its products and investing in creativity and innovation.

A Yahoo! that better monetizes its audience.

A Yahoo! whose great talent is galvanized to address its challenges.

And a Yahoo! that is better focused on what’s important to its users, customers, and employees.

The past year has obviously not been an easy one for us. But we’ve taken important steps to address the challenges we face, and we’re starting to realize some of the benefits – especially with the successful launch of Panama, which continues to receive positive feedback from advertisers and is exceeding our expectations.

By the way, that’s directly attributable to the operational excellent mentality Terry has instilled and is a clear sign one of his most critical initiatives is succeeding.

We have incredible assets. This company has massive potential, drive, determination and skills, and we won’t be satisfied until the external perception of Yahoo! accurately reflects that reality.

I have absolute conviction about Yahoo!’s potential for long-term success as an Internet leader.
Yahoo! is a company that started with a vision and a dream and, make no mistake, that dream is very much alive.

I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to transform Yahoo! into an even greater success in the future.

The time for me is right.

The time is now.

The Internet is still young, the opportunities ahead are tremendous, and I’m ready to rally our nearly 12,000 Yahoos around the world to help seize the opportunities.

Go Yahoo!

Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo

Yahoo's Chief Technology Officer Resigns ... Jerry Yang Returns !

Yahoo Inc.'s chief technology officer is resigning after nearly a decade on the job, creating a management void as the Internet icon tries to mine more profits from a recent upgrade to its system for delivering online ads.

Farzad Nazem's plans to leave the Sunnyvale-based company were disclosed Wednesday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing and a posting on Yahoo's Web site.

The resignation becomes effective June 8, 2007, only six months after Yahoo named Nazem head of the company's newly created technology group as part of a management shake up. He had already been Yahoo's chief technology officer since April 1998, two years after he first joined the company as senior vice president of product development.

While Yahoo searches for Nazem's replacement, company co-founder Jerry Yang will return to daily tasks and oversee the technology group as interim "executive sponsor." Fellow co-founder David Filo also will continue his focus on technology, the company said in statement.

In the posting on Yahoo's Web site, Nazem, 45, said he simply wants to retire. "After spending the last 26 years in this fast-paced technology industry, I've finally decided it's time to slow down," wrote Nazem, who also worked at business software maker Oracle Corp. before joining Yahoo.

Nazem's departure comes at a pivotal time for Yahoo. After suffering an 11 percent drop in its first-quarter profit, Yahoo is banking on long-awaited improvements to its pay per click advertising platform to boost its fortunes during the second half of this year.

In the Web posting, Nazem said he delayed his retirement until the new advertising formula - known as the "Yahoo Panama" project - was completed and he felt confident that his mission had been accomplished.

"With all this in place now, I know I'm leaving a strong, dedicated, and focused organization that is ready to define the next wave of the Internet revolution," Nazem wrote.

Yahoo parted ways with another of its top executives, former Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig, at the close of March, 2007. Rosensweig left as part of the management shake up announced in late 2006. Yahoo is still looking for a new executive to oversee the "audience" and virtual tour entertainment group that was formed as part of that reorganization.

Nazem will walk away from Yahoo as a wealthy man, having made millions by exercising the stock options that he accumulated during his tenure. In the last four years alone, Nazem has realized $213 million in gains by exercising some of his stock options, according to SEC filings. Under his separation agreement, Nazem will retain the rights to another 2.97 million stock options with exercise prices ranging between $20.58 and $34.75 per share as long he adheres to certain restrictions, including a three-year prohibition against taking a job with Yahoo rivals Google Inc. or Microsoft Corp.

Yahoo also will pay Nazem the balance of his $500,000 salary and accelerate the vesting rights of his restricted stock in the company, according to SEC documents. Most of Nazem's stock options are currently worthless because Yahoo's market value has sagged since the end of 2005. Yahoo shares dipped 20 cents after the disclosure of Nazem's resignation.

Turmoil Continues at Yahoo

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel Facing Backlash as Yahoo's Director of Technology Resigns.

Just before Google Inc. went public nearly three years ago, Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel assured a roomful of securities analysts and money managers that his company would remain the Internet's brightest star. To punctuate his high hopes, Frank Sinatra's "The Best Is Yet to Come" played in the background.

Google has so thoroughly eclipsed its rival since then that a growing contingent of Yahoo shareholders believes the company would be better off without Semel, who could face a chorus of discontent when he takes the stage at Yahoo's annual shareholders meeting in July of 2007.

Even as it has struggled, Yahoo has continued to pay Semel like a rock star (Semel enjoys the highest salary in the world) - yet another sore point for frustrated Yahoo shareholders.

"Yahoo is drifting," said Eric Jackson, who intends to confront Semel during the meeting on behalf of about 80 Yahoo stockholders who own a combined 2 million shares in the Sunnyvale-based company. "And Yahoo's problems ultimately lie at Terry Semel's feet."

Although the stake held by Jackson's group represents less than 0.2 percent of Yahoo's outstanding stock, the shareholder misery is widespread, said Standard and Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler.

"A lot of people are wondering what is going on and what Yahoo management is doing to get the stock moving in the right direction again," he said.

Yahoo Shareholders are exasperated largely because Yahoo has seemed to be meandering while online search leader Google has been stampeding farther ahead.

In the last year alone, Google has trumped Yahoo in the bidding for online video pioneer YouTube Inc. and Internet display ad service DoubleClick Inc. while widening its lead in the lucrative field of search. Google has established such a commanding advantage that the Mountain View company makes more money in a single quarter than Yahoo does in an entire year.

It's a humbling descent from the days when Terry Semel was singing a happier tune. After Google completed its August 2004 initial public offering, Yahoo was still the larger and more valuable company.

The IPO gave Google a market value of $23 billion compared with $39 billion for Yahoo at the time. Google's stock price has increased by more than sixfold since then, creating nearly $140 billion in additional shareholder wealth. Meanwhile, Yahoo's stock price has fallen by about 4 percent during the same period, leaving the company with a market value of $37 billion.

Semel, who ran a movie studio before becoming Yahoo's chief executive six years ago, isn't the only senior management executive at Yahoo on the hot seat. Besides pushing for Semel's ouster, Jackson's group believes six other directors on Yahoo's 10-member board should be bounced: Roy Bostock, Ron Burkle, Eric Hippeau, Arthur Kern, Robert Kotick, Edward Kozel and Gary Wilson.

Only Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Hewlett-Packard Co. printing executive Vyomesh Joshi and Ed Kozel, CEO of Silicon Valley startup Skyrider Inc., have done enough to remain on the board, Jackson contends.

Although still difficult to do, removing Yahoo's directors has become a more realistic option for shareholders because of a new policy adopted this year. The rules now require each Yahoo director to be approved by a majority of the votes cast. Previously, Yahoo directors only needed a single supporting vote to prevail in uncontested elections, no matter how many shareholders may have been opposed. This system - known as a "plurality" vote - still governs most publicly held companies.

Despite the change to majority vote, Yahoo's board still can refuse to accept the letters of resignation each director must submit under the new rules. The resignation letters are supposed to ensure the directors can be removed if they don't win majority support, but the guidelines give the board the discretion to overrule the shareholders.

Three shareholder advisory firms - Institutional Shareholder Services, Glass, Lewis & Co. and Proxy Governance - have all recommended opposing three directors who sit on Yahoo's compensation committee. They are: Roy Bostock, a veteran advertising executive; Burkle, a billionaire best know for his investments in the supermarket industry; and Kern, a former radio broadcast executive.

The firms concluded the trio should be punished for too richly rewarding Semel despite Yahoo's recent struggles. In 2006, Semel received a compensation package valued at $71.7 million - more than any other CEO at the 386 publicly held companies covered in an Associated Press analysis of nation's top corporate paychecks.

Most of Semel's pay consisted of 6 million stock options given to him in exchange for agreeing to reduce his annual salary from $600,000 to $1. The committee awarded Semel another 800,000 stock options in February as his bonus for 2006 - a year in which Yahoo's stock price fell hard by nearly 35 percent.

The latest awards will give Semel an opportunity to build upon the nearly $450 million in gains he has already realized by exercising stock options Yahoo gave him in previous years.
"Semel is rewarded when times are good ... and when times are bad," wrote ISS, the largest of the three advisory firms.

Yahoo believes Semel's pay package is in the company's best interest because it's structured to give him a strong incentive to boost the stock price.

That's because stock options only yield profits when their exercise price is below the underlying shares' market value. For now, at least, the options that Semel got last year are worthless because their exercise prices exceed the stock's market value, which was hovering around $27 last week.

In its analysis, Proxy Governance questioned whether Semel needed any more incentive to boost Yahoo's stock price. As of April 1, Semel held 17.7 million stock options eligible for exercise and 7.1 million stock options that hadn't fully vested.

"Based on his ownership in the company, Semel already should have the proper incentives ... to work toward building long-term shareholder value," Proxy Governance wrote.

Yahoo says its confidence in Semel hasn't wavered.

"Under Terry's leadership, the company has a clear strategy to create stockholder value, and the company is well-positioned to capitalize on the substantial growth opportunities ahead for the Internet," Yahoo spokeswoman Helena Maus said in a prepared statement.

But Semel, 64, may be on a short leash after Yahoo suffered an 11 percent drop in its first-quarter profit while Google's earnings soared by 69 percent. Many analysts believe Semel will face even greater pressure to surrender the reins unless Yahoo's profits accelerate during the second half of this year.

A pivotal upgrade to Yahoo's system for distributing text-based ads alongside search results and other Web content is supposed to start paying off by then. The improved formula - dubbed "Yahoo Panama" because it's supposed to open new moneymaking corridors - adopted many of the measures Google has been using for years.

Semel also is counting on recent advertising partnerships with more than 260 newspapers and Viacom Inc. to revive earnings growth.

Jackson, a Naples, Fla. management consultant who owns about 100 Yahoo shares, doubts that Yahoo will regain its stride as long as Semel is calling the shots. That's why he turned to the Internet earlier this year to recruit Yahoo shareholders to support a plan to shake up the company. Besides gaining the support of 80 shareholders, Jackson said about 25 current and former Yahoo employees disillusioned with the company's direction have contacted him to support his cause and have been working in phase converters and many management overhaul specialists.

Besides finding a new CEO, Jackson wants Yahoo to close its entertainment and news division in Santa Monica, lay off employees with overlapping responsibilities and institute a cash dividend.

Jackson also thinks the board should be more open to takeover overtures, particularly since last month's media reports of a possible bid by Microsoft temporarily lifted Yahoo's sagging stock. But first he would like to see what a new leader could do with the tarnished Internet icon.

"It's frustrating because you can see so much unlocked potential in the company," Jackson said. "If it Yahoo were managed in the right way, it could be worth $150 billion."

Google Universal Search.

Google has released new data and information on their continuing efforts to deliver comprehensive search functionality across all stored content. Here's an update on new developemtns in the Google universal search effort.

In striving to give users the best results to your keyword search queries, Google acknowledges that often times the best information can take on many different forms.

Google continues to introduce new steps that move closer towards universal search in order to deliver a more holistic search experience on Google. Until recently, users could typically find the best results for searches within separate and distinct Google properties (e.g., web, images, maps, videos, books) by clicking links above the Google search box.

Using a universal search approach, Google technology searches across all of the stored content sources within Google databases, integrates, and then ranks the results for the best answers. So depending on the keyword search query, search results could be delivered from news, images, videos, local, or books integrated within the traditional Google search results.

Google has also introduced new contextual navigational links so that you can click to see more results from a suggested type of content. Google has also added a new Google navigation bar to the top of their homepage and search results pages to provide easier navigation to the many new Google search products available in their system.

Google Street View gives users navigable 360-degree street-level satellite imagery in Google Maps for selected cities. You can see satellite images and coordinates for specific spots within major markets and take virtual walks along city streets.

Google Street View allows users to find most anything within any major market. Imagine locating the perfect outdoor cafe for lunch with clients or take an overhead glimpse of a specific the neighborhood or home community, ideal for real estate transactions, such as: Raleigh Relocation if you are considering relocating, use Google Maps to see what the market actually looks like prior to arrival, as if you were actually physically touring the market area.

Google Street View imagery is now available for the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver; with launches expected for Philadelphia , New Jersey and many more major metros soon.

Click Here To Demo: Google Street View

All of these new tools launching from the Google Enterprise Search project will play a profound role in Google search engine optimization in the coming months. Webmasters and website owners need to consider these applications and incorporate these new search tools and related functionality as it pertains to the content(s) of their website.

Microsoft to Buy Yahoo

Microsoft and Yahoo Talk Merger.
Many recent talks have taken place between Microsoft and Yahoo on joining forces to better compete in the future versus Google. Microsoft is becoming frustrated with wall street's perception of MSN's lackluster performance in the booming online advertising market.

Microsoft and Yahoo discussed a possible merger that would pair their respective strengths and allow both companies to instantly promote a 30% stake of the online ad market. Many sources report the merger talks have ended, yet key insiders report that both companies are desperately trying to work together to change market perceptions.

Whatever the outcome, Microsoft's online division could be heading for a huge shake-up. Microsoft is frustrated by their lackluster results in the fight against Google in Internet search, the hottest advertising marketplace. Microsoft is firing top executives and pressuring staffers to work harder and faster in a rush to catch up to Google. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are frustrated that Microsoft lost out to Google earlier this year in the purchase of online-advertising specialist DoubleClick. The DoubleClick defeat has Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer considering new direction in keyword search. Ballmer called the MSN search division's performance "palpable". Mr. Ballmer is weighing many options including bringing in new management to the MSN online advertising group.

Microsoft is torn between shuffling their management deck from within or moving outside to form a partnership with Yahoo. The two companies have worked together before; Yahoo previously provided Microsoft with search technology and advertising. Microsoft broke off that relationship last year, as it phased in its own online-ad system within the MSN Live.com search project, which has yet to attract a critical mass of advertisers. The two companies also explored the idea of combining to form a greater competitor to Google a year ago, though those talks led nowhere.

For now, Yahoo does not seem interested in a major deal with Microsoft, say people familiar with the situation. The Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company's course may largely depend on a new advertising-system upgrade, called "Project Panama," whose delay last year prompted criticisms from investors and others that were directed toward the company's management. Panama is now running, and Yahoo said recently that it expects the system to contribute to its revenue, starting this quarter. Also the Yahoo management team knows that if Microsoft takes over their days are numbered.

The merger could be a winner for both Microsoft and Yahoo. Microsoft has technical expertise that might benefit Yahoo, especially considering all of the defections from key Inktomi engineers. Under one possible scenario, Microsoft could manage the technical platform and infrastructure of the companies' combined Internet activities, while Yahoo's current staff could oversee the consumer parts of the businesses, such as Yahoo News, Finance and email. Yahoo is one of the world's most popular Web sites, attracting millions of consumers a day to services, which in turn attract advertisers. However Yahoo gave away their search leadership torch to Google in 2002.

While Yahoo is facing increased competition to sell advertisers the graphical-display ads, such as banners, that have been its bread and butter, the company recently has shown signs of momentum. Yahoo has signed partner sites to carry ads that it brokers, including 12 newspaper-publishing companies representing more than 264 newspapers, and the Web portal of Comcast Corp. Yahoo recently reported a $680 million deal to buy the 80% of online-ad exchange operator Right Media Inc. that it didn't already own.

If merger talks are revived, whether Microsoft and Yahoo could reach an agreement remains as much of a question as it did a year ago, when similar talks ended inconclusively. Microsoft has always steered clear of large acquisitions. Microsoft's market value is $42 billion.

Short of a wholesale merger, Microsoft could spin its online group into a separately run Yahoo in return for a Yahoo stake. Yet top Yahoo executives appear to be a big obstacle to any deal. Yahoo management feels they have found the right strategy and are wary of any combination with Microsoft, for whom Internet activities remain only a small part of its business, says one person familiar with the matter. Top Yahoo staffers could run for the hills if Microsoft acquires the company.

Any integration of the two companies' operations would also be a daunting prospect. Yahoo has in recent years faced criticism, including from within, that it has been slow and hasn't held executives responsible for poor performance. It revamped its corporate structure and shuffled executives in an apparent response and the Panama Project has been lackluster in performance to date.

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What a Microsoft-Yahoo Merger Means for Google.
If Microsoft and Yahoo merge Google may have to worry about its hold on the consumer search and online advertising markets. The potential Microsoft / Yahoo merger probably doesn't have rivals at Google shaking in their Gucci boots just yet, but if a merger comes to fruition Google may have to worry about its hold on the consumer search and online advertising markets.

Microsoft has started a new round of talks with Yahoo, though in the past Yahoo has consistently turned down any merger offers from Microsoft. The companies appear to be in new "early-stage discussions" over a merger or deal that would help both companies better compete for a larger share of the keyword search marketplace.

Microsoft officials are feeling somewhat threatened and frustrated by their lack of power and leverage in their battle with Google for dominance of the keyword searech medium. Microsoft is not the type of company that makes acquisitions right and left, and buying Yahoo would ease some of the pain of failing to take over DoubleClick and also give Microsoft 30% of the keyword search pie versus their current take of only 9%. Size in the advertising world does matter, though, and the combination of Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo! would encroach on Google territory in the search market. Will keyword searchers move over from Google to a new MSN/Yahoo joint search engine? Not unless and until Yahoo and MSN both make changes that:

1) Improve Search Quality.
2) Increase Results Page Delivery Speed.
3) Dramatically Improve Content Relevancy.
4) Expand The Size of the Databases.

Can a Microsoft-Yahoo joint venture truly compete against the precision, speed, accuracy and scale of the Google keyword search system?

No, not without a changing of the guard or a flex of the vista muscles in desktop search. To date Microsoft has not made up for arriving way too late to the search party and Yahoo got drunk early and handed the keys to the keyword search castle to the sober, focused, and most serious Google guys.

Yet even considering all of these search realities, both Microsoft and Yahoo still look much more prepared to truly compete together than all alone.

Click Fraud Impacting Small Businesses

So Many Hits, So Few Sales

A Wall Street Journal Cover Story

Click fraud is fast becoming a problem for small businesses advertising online.

Just when pay-per-click advertising made it easier for small businesses to get more bang for their advertising buck, along comes a potential budget drainer: click fraud.

Pay-per-click advertising -- where an advertiser pays only when users click on an ad that links them to the business's Web site -- has fast become an affordable way for small businesses to reach a big audience on search engines and third-party Web sites.

The problem is that not all clicks are made with the intent to potentially buy something -- or with any good intent at all. Sometimes, a competitor will click on a company's ad numerous times to blow the company's advertising budget out the window, or to move the competitive ad off the page, either way, the sponsoring business will have to pay for each of those clicks.

Other times, a Web-page owner, who gets a commission from search engines to host a pay-per-click ad, will repeatedly click on the listing to boost his or her commission.

And many companies don't even know they are the victims of click fraud.

A lot of small businesses "are probably thinking, 'Wow, I am getting all these clicks for people to visit my Web site.' They have no idea they are not buyers," says Gene Fairbrother, lead small-business consultant for the National Association for the Self-Employed, a trade group based in Dallas. One of our members was sponsoring the single keyword phrase: event management software and used thier entire $1,600 PPC budget in only 10 days. Another of our members was sponsoring 3m respirators and used up $3,000 in only one month.

But experts say businesses can mitigate the cost of click fraud by regularly monitoring their pay-per-click accounts for unusual click activity. And there are a host of start-ups popping up that will do the monitoring for them -- some even at no charge.

These so-called click-detection firms rely on clues like numerical addresses (IP addresses) that computers provide when they connect to weed out fraudsters. Small businesses can then take the information to the search companies to request a refund or credit for any fraudulent clicks.

Click Fraud Costs Add Up: The cost of fraudulent clicks can quickly add up. Pay-per-click advertising typically costs anywhere from 10 cents a click to as much as $10, with the average click running about $1 to $2. So if a small business is the victim of hundreds of fraudulent clicks, the financial damage can be steep. And it's not just the small business that could feel the sting.

Click fraud also affects the search engines, whose business models rely heavily on pay-per-click advertising.

Earlier this year, for instance, Google Inc. agreed to pay as much as $90 million in legal fees and advertising credits to settle a click-fraud lawsuit brought by Lane's Gifts, a Texarkana, Ark., retailer, on behalf of a class of advertisers that claimed they were improperly billed for clicks that didn't lead to genuine customers.

Yahoo Inc. also agreed earlier this year to pay roughly $5 million in legal fees and review advertiser click-fraud complaints since 2004 to settle a class-action lawsuit brought last year by private-investigation firm Checkmate Strategic Group Inc. of Delray Beach, Fla. Checkmate had alleged breach of contract and unfair business practices, claiming that Yahoo didn't adequately protect advertisers from click fraud.

On the Watch Both Google and Yahoo say they have systems in place that filter out invalid clicks -- often, by detecting rapid, successive clicking from the same user or IP address -- and that the majority of advertisers don't ever have to deal with click fraud.

Google says thuggery, when it comes to online advertising, has been exaggerated. The company estimates that less than 10% of clicks over its entire system are fraudulent. The problem is manageable, and the search engine has an incentive "to work with our advertisers and make them as happy as possible," says Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's manager for trust and safety.

John Slade, Yahoo's director of global product management, says that "if our filters say that a click looks problematic, we give it away for free."

Yahoo and Google say they provide businesses with free software that shows if a user who clicked on an advertisement ultimately ended up buying a product or service. If small businesses notice any problems, the search engines say, they should notify them.

"If we find cases that are click fraud, we'll refund it," says Yahoo's Mr. Slade.
"If it's hard to tell, we'll offer" a credit for the cost of the click.

Some in the small-business community complain that the search engines were slow to acknowledge that click fraud was even a problem. The lawsuit settlements have eased many concerns since they brought the problem to light.

But some advertisers still believe that the search engines will never be able to do enough and that click fraud will always be a problem. So what steps can small businesses themselves take to combat click fraud? Marketing experts, small-business advocates and the search engines themselves agree that the most important thing a business can do is to closely monitor its advertising campaigns, especially server log files that show click results.

If, on a given day, click-through traffic is 10 times heavier than usual, then ask a few common-sense questions: Did an article about my business come out? Was there something in the news? "If there is no answer, that might be a good indication that fraud is occurring," says Andrea Peiro, president of the Small Business Technology Institute, a San Jose, Calif., nonprofit that trains small-business owners on technology skills.

Seek Outside Help Many small-business owners, however, don't have the time or inclination to sift through website logs. And that's where click-detection firms come in. Among them: Click Forensics LLC, of San Antonio; Click Defense Inc., Fort Collins, Colo.; ClickDetective Ltd., of the United Kingdom; WhosClickingWho, San Jose, Calif.; and ClickFacts, of San Francisco.

Click Forensics provides a click-fraud monitoring service free of charge to businesses whose online advertising campaigns generate fewer than 100,000 clicks a month. The company, which makes the bulk of its revenue providing the service for a fee to large advertisers, says it uses special technology to detect every click to an advertiser's Web site and tracks the visit through to the exit page.

In return for providing the service, Click Forensics uses click-fraud data to publish a monthly Click Fraud Index, which measures the frequency of click fraud in online advertising campaigns. Another firm, ClickFacts, has developed proprietary auditing software to help advertisers detect click fraud. It charges small businesses about 1% of the cost of a click for its service. For instance, "if you're buying clicks that are $1 a click and you spend $100 for 100 clicks, we will charge you one dollar," says Mikhail Ledvich, ClickFacts' chief strategy officer.

Jim Hill, owner of SportHill, a Eugene, Ore., retailer of athletic gear, was only marginally aware of click fraud until several months ago -- when his advertising budget for a new campaign based on one word search was depleted in a day as a result of incessant clicks. Although he lost only a couple of hundred dollars, Mr. Hill says his faith in the advertising model was shaken. "It's definitely been a drag on my enthusiasm for advertising on the Internet," he says.

In business for 20 years, Mr. Hill says he has relied on the Internet over the past five or six years to expand his clientele. So after the click-fraud incident, Mr. Hill decided to start monitoring his advertising campaigns using ClickFacts' service. "It's happening every month, and we're tracking it," he says. Mr. Hill says between 7% and 15% of his clicks on any given day are fraudulent -- a small but significant amount, and one that easily could have gone unnoticed.

In a few months' time, he plans to add up the losses and ask the search engines that run his ads, including Yahoo and Google, for a refund. Other Options Some experts say the best way to fight click fraud is to avoid advertising where it tends to happen most. That, they say, means listing ads only on search engines, and not on third-party ad networks like Google's popular AdSense, which allows external sites to host ads and share profits.

They say a third-party site can be driven by greed to use a software program or pay cheap labor in developing nations to repeatedly click on ads in order to get more commissions from clicks. "Generally, where we see a high volume of click fraud is not [in] Google directly but those other affiliates," says Jim Collins, chief executive of Affinity Internet, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., firm that advises small businesses on ad campaigns.

Google says that there's no greater chance of fraud if your ad runs on a third-party site, and that if anything, a small-business owner might lose out on valuable exposure. "Making decisions about where to invest your advertising dollars out of fear is not the best way to set up your campaign," says Mr. Ghosemajumder.

Other experts, meantime, point to potential new advertising pricing models that may make it harder to commit click fraud in the first place. Search engines are studying one method, called cost-per-action advertising, where an advertiser pays only when a click-through leads to a product purchase or sales lead. "It's safer for the advertiser, but then it's more risky for the search engines" because they would likely lose easy revenue from simple clicks, says Alexander Tuzhilin, professor of information systems at New York University's Stern School of Business. If such a system were adopted, he says, the loss of revenue from pay-per-click could prompt search engines to charge more for cost-per-action ads.

Yahoo says search engines are looking at ways to give advertisers more choice, but it's not anything the company can talk about in any detail right now. Google's Mr. Ghosemajumder says, "We're always looking for new ways to provide effective and useful features to advertisers, publishers, and users. As part of these efforts we are currently testing a cost-per-action pricing model to give advertisers more flexibility and provide publishers another way to earn revenue through AdSense."

Google Radio ?

The best search engine and quite possibly the most impressive company in the world is moving into the dead medium of radio ?

Here the Latest on Google Radio !

Google and Clear Channel strike new traditional media advertising deal. A new radio advertising partnership has been formed between Google and Clear Channel Communications.

Google will place radio advertising for its pay per click Google AdWords customers on all 675 radio stations owned of Clear Channel, the US' top radio station owner (not by any means the best, only the largest of the modern day radio vultures).

Google will begin selling radio advertisements across all of the stations of Clear Channel Communications, the No.1 radio station owner in the US, at the end of June, the companies said on Sunday.

The recent tests of Google radio that launched in beta with Clear Channel Detroit stations has allowed both sides to work the kinks out and roll the program in full nationwide.

Google has been working for months to expand its ad sales operation into traditional media like newspapers, radio and television. To do so, it needs traditional media companies to allow it to sell some of their ads, and it had seemed to be making little progress in radio.

But the partnership with Clear Channel represents a step forward for Google. The deal will run for several years and will give Google access to just under 5 percent of Clear Channel's commercial time.

That will include 30-second spots on all of Clear Channel's 675 stations during all programs and all times of the day, executives at both companies said in interviews on Sunday.

The companies did not disclose the financial details of the arrangement, except to say that Clear Channel would receive the majority of the ad revenue. "It represents an opportunity to put what is arguably the hottest sales organization in the world to work selling our unsold radio inventory, and we're very excited about that," Clear Channel chief executive John Hogan said.

Hogan said Google would bring new advertisers to his stations and would work with those companies rather than with Clear Channel's existing advertisers. But, he said, the Google advertisers would have access to premium inventory -- in contrast to some of Google's deals with newspapers that allow Google to sell only leftover ad space. And, he left the door open for a broader deal. "If it is a success, we would want to replicate it and expand it," Hogan said.

Google has already signed on to sell ads for 800 stations nationwide, but they tend to be in smaller markets, said Tim Armstrong, Google's president for North American advertising and commerce. "Everybody from top to bottom at Google is excited about this partnership," Armstrong said.

The deal will most likely stir more fear among the media executives who are wary of Google's encroachment. Google may have an easier time becoming dominant in radio because of the importance of local advertisers there, said Gene DeWitt, chairman of DeWitt Media Strategies, a firm that buys ads. "Most mediums tend to be driven by national advertisers, but not radio," DeWitt said. "It's the national advertising community that has kind of been keeping Google at arm's length.

These advertisers -- on radio -- may very likely be more willing and interested."
DeWitt said radio buying and selling generally had the most cumbersome processes.

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt said last year that he planned to eventually have 1,000 employees working in the company's radio unit. Google paid as much as US$1.24 billion to acquire dMarc Broadcasting early last year and used that company's systems to expand its AdSense for Audio sales system to include radio capabilities. Advertisers log on to the AdSense Web site, choose what type of ad they want and submit their bids.

Google executives have said they hope to expand the offerings on their AdSense site to include all types of advertising, online and offline. On Friday, Google agreed to pay US$3.1 billion to acquire DoubleClick, a company with display ad knowledge that Google hopes will help it move beyond the text and search ads that generate most of its revenue.

Google also recently started selling ads for the 125 national satellite channels on EchoStar Communications' DISH Network. It is also testing ad sales for papers like the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and newspaper chains.

No mention was made of the declining return on investment figures that radio advertising has generated in recent years.

Also no mention was made of the declining radio audience and consistent market share losses that are cannibalizing radio's reach, impact, and future as satellite radio audience numbers rapidly gain and sales of new personal music programming devices such as the: Ipod, Zune, Rio, Sony PSP, etc. continue to skyrocket.

In this new media world: Its all about User Controlled Content ...Not Advertising !

Is Traditional Radio Dead ? Yes ... and the real question has become simply a matter of when.

Many senior level marketing and advertising executives have been wagering assets as to the actual date of traditional radio's impending death.

Advertising Age Releases New Search Marketing Fact Pack.

This new study from Ad Age is packed with great overview information and insight on the major search engines, keywords and keyword targeting, and many recent SEO/SEM Studies.

Search Marketing Facts included:


Harris Interactive Reports:

80% of ALL Internet Traffic Now Begins at a Search Engine.

DoubleClick Reports:

41% of web users use search for simple navigation, typing a query to find a brand rather than typing a URL directly into their browser.

Download Adage Search Marketing Fact Pack Here --- Enjoy the Research.