Google Closes Free Web Analytics Tool to New Users

Google has temporarily shut down the free Google Analytics tool for new website users as it has been unable to keep up with customer demand since Google began offering the free service to website owners last week. Google is asking interested Analytics users to supply their email address for notification once Google begins accepting new accounts again.

Demand for Google Analytics has been much higher than expected as Google AdWords Advertisers try to CURB CLICK FRAUD and protect search marketing budgets.

PPC click fraud is at an all time high and qualified click-thrus from sponsored search links are trending downward.

Google searchers now prefer the organic search results 6 to 1 vs AdWords sponsorsed links.

Website owners seeking to reduce pay per click fraud should turn to their own website server logs and begin analyzing search engine trafic patterns further. Comb your site logs and start spotting trends. The Google AdWords referring urls typically include google syndication in the string. Extract these website referrers and then look for trends of similar ip address ranges and suspect ppc click through activity levels. If IPs of a similar or identical range continue to target your sponsored advertising listings copy this website referrer information and send it into Google for investigation.

Control your search marketing budget by stopping click fraud.

Recent ComScore studies report that Nearly 20% (or 1 our of every 5) clicks to sponsored search listings is questionable and quite possibly fraudulent.

Become familiar with your server logs, spend time working with your website trafic logs at least once a week, analyze referring urls from search engines and increase your knowledge base of those parties and their IP address ranges that are begin delivered to your website from visiting your website. Learn to avoid PPC click fraud and maximize search marketing budgets.

Also take the time to learn how your website actually serves users and market the site accordingly by creating new relevant content pieces to further strengthen your site's most popular areas and also help reach out for more keyword qualified, in-market, organic site traffic, by targeting the most popular keyword search phrases that correspond and importing SEO best practices principals that help drive organic site optimization efforts.

Make sure to contact a proven organic SEO firm fully dedicated to organic optimization not any of the new self-marketed SEM/PPC hype machines who have ulterior motives deeply rooted in PPC campaign management.

Address organic search engine optimization, the most effective form of online advertising.

--

New Candida Resource now available

The Google Jagger Update Upsets Some 'Optimization Experts'

Google's Recent Algorithm Update Has Many SEO Companies Crying Foul.

Have you noticed all of the crying and pleading with Google by many self-hyped SEO companies lately?

It seems that Google's most recent algortihm update: "Jagger" has sent shock waves through the organic seo circles.

Here at Peak Positions we feel the pleading, begging, crying and moaning by these so called 'organic seo experts' is most telling.

Google's Jagger Update was necessary and the organic search results at Google are changing for the better, however, the Google's core algorithm has only been slightly modified.

Quality websites that are filled with content relevant pages and above board linking schemes have not been impacted negatively by Jagger as most continue to enjoy premium keyword positions on highly competitve keywords and search phrases that matter.

In most cases the websites that fell in google's results did not deserve any top Google positions that they might have briefly attained in the first place. Most of the sites that disappeared from Google's top 20 pages of organic search results or fell from the top 200 listings do not contain RELEVANT CONTENT, failed to serve users, and in many cases were involved in unethical linking techniques.

If you are considering outsourcing organic search engine optimization services for your website it pays to take note of any 'self professed seo guru companies' that are crying foul about this recent Google Jagger update.

The seo companies pleading with Google to return to their former organic search results have actually announced thier lack of ability to provide a long-term organic optimization solution that aligns client websites with the core googlebot algorithm secures and maintains top keyword positions and is not subject to fall off the map the next time Goggle updates their search results.

Quality organic search engine optimization equates to helping websites and search engines further serve users by delivering relevant content at all times versus manipulating the keyword search system with costly and short-term manipulative SEO techniques.

Claiming that Google algortihm updates are: "mood swings" or "unnecessary" or asking Google to justify why they updated or changed their organic search results in insulting to our industry.

To read SEMPO executive circle members crying and pleading with Google to justify their organic search results is a shame to proven performers in the organic SEO industry.

SEMPO the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization is filled with SEM companies that are committed to Pay Per Click sponsorsed search and offer very little skills, knowledge, or technical resources in terms of proven organic search engine optimization services.

Our recommendation is to avoid working with any SEO who cries foul, blames google, warns google to be careful, or begs for answers every time that Goole updates their organic search results. Find a proven organic seo company that helps make your site more content relevant, immune to any one algorithm update and helps your site maintain premium keyword positions for years to come.

New ECommerce Study Confirms Search Engines Are Most Influential Medium For Clothing Purchases

Pew Internet and JupiterResearch Released a New Internet Maketing Report and Both Firms Confirm Online and Off-Line Consumer Purchases are Both Being Impacted by Search Engine Exposure.

Ecommerce Site Owners Urged to Outsource For Organic Search Engine Optimization

Keyword Search Now Influences Offline Purchasing.

According to the study, 86% of consumers that purchased clothing offline reported that the search engines directly influenced their retail clothing store visit and offline clothing purchases.

Some of these offline clothing consumers also reported that they often purchase clothing online and spend nearly 40% more annually on clothing than apparel consumers that do not visit search engines.

Over the two month holiday gift shopping season last year, clothing gift keyword searchers spent nearly 40% more time in the store during their retail store visit than non-search visitors and "internots", and keyword searchers are likely to engage in several website activities once online such as requesting a catalog, locating a store coupon, analyzing sizes, colors, and product details, or submitting their email address and contact information in seeking a free or discounted gift coupon or other special cost-saving offers.

The Keyword search group were also more likely to make a purchase during a retail store visit than the "internots" that participated in the clothes shopping study.

Clothing customers that use Keyword Search converted with an offline clothing purchase more than 30% of the time.

A fascinating finding in the study confirms what our Peak Positions clients have been reporting for years that the keyword search customers use several multiple searches as the search results ofr one word searches are many times not related ot the searchers need even still clothing consumers use search engines at least twice daily throughout their buying cycle.

Many of the keyword searchers stated that they were uing search to locate a specific product, brand, new clothing style, 60% say they used the website to find a physical store address or a phone number to double check on the return status prior to purchase.

JupiterResearch went on to add that clothing stores, labels, products, and brands should outsource for organic search engine optimizaton as keyword searchers prefer the organic search reults 8 to 1 over the Pay Per Click sponsored search boxes.

Keyword searchers are not visiting their bookmarks, instead they are so comfortable with search engines, that they continue to dial up the search engines directly and search every time they think about clothing vs. entering sites from bookmarked links. (most of the study participants forgot that that they had previously book-marked the site.

This study further confirms the importance of being found early and often on the search engines, especially on your product name, brand name, company name, at all times.


The study further validates that any wbesite owner or webmaster should be addressing organic search engine optimization, the most effective form of online advertising.

Google Library Launches

Attention Copyright Holders Call Your Agent

Google Adds Library Texts to Search Database

Google announced earlier this week that they have completed the first expansion of the Google Print database of searchable books, adding the full text of more than 10,000 trademark protected works whose copyrights have expired, culled from the collections of four major research libraries.

The exclusive additions, from the university libraries at Michigan, Harvard and Stanford and from the New York Public Library, represent the first large group of materials to be made available online from these university libraries, which along with Oxford University contracted with Google last year to let the company scan and make searchable the contents of much or all designated copyright lapse collections.

The new material includes works of literature, governnment documents, biographies, and more. The entire text of many works can now be searched and read online through the Google Print site. Users can also save individual pages and cut and paste excerpts from the material. The ability to print is currently limited, however, to single pages at a time.

The newly available materials are part of a program that has brought Google under fire from many of the same publishers, under which publishers offer new books to Google to scan and allow searching, in the hope that Google users will be prompted to discover and buy the books.

But members of publishing trade groups representing authors and publishers have sued to stop Google from scanning copyrighted works in the library collections. Many of those works are out of print or otherwise inaccessible to most potential users.

Google temporarily stopped the scanning of copyrighted material this summer to allow publishers and authors to "opt out" of the program if their works were in those libraries. But both groups objected, saying that it is Google that must first obtain permission to copy materials. Google said this week that it would resume scanning copyrighted works as of Nov. 1.

This program launch further demonstrates Google core's mission to deliver relevant content to the world.

Federal Court Orders a Stay in Google vs. Microsoft Lawsuit

A federal judge ordered a tentative stay in Google Inc.'s suit against Microsoft Corp., according to a court Website, dealing a blow to Google's legal fight over its hiring of a former Microsoft executive.

The parties are scheduled to appear before Judge Ronald Whyte in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, on Friday in connection with the suit. That suit is separate from a related action Microsoft brought in Washington state accusing Google and Kai-Fu Lee of violating a noncompete agreement that Lee had signed with Microsoft.

Google has argued that California, a state that generally does not recognize noncompete clauses, is the proper jurisdiction for the legal dispute.

A Washington state judge ruled last month that Lee can begin helping Google set up operations in China, but placed tough restrictions on him, pending a trial scheduled for January. Whyte's tentative order did not specify how long the suit would be stayed.

Meanwhile Lee sits idle and cannot take over as Google's new China office director. Does Google already have posession or knowledge of proprietary Microsoft code?

Newspaper Losses Mount as Search Engine Optimization Gains Continue

Amanda Bennett the lead editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer found out that she had to cut 75 jobs in her newsroom - 15 percent of her staff - she became sick to her stomach. But after some reflection, she said, she realized that the depth of the editorial cuts would force the newspaper to reinvent itself, and this would be to its advantage.

"This is a chance to hold everything up to the light and say, 'What value does this give to the readers?' " she said, adding that she would rethink everything from the concept of local coverage to the formats for delivering the news.

"If we miss this opportunity to change ourselves from a newspaper into a news organization," she said, "shame on us."

Such rethinking is sweeping newsrooms across the country as the industry faces a wave of job cuts, among them 700 announced since May at The New York Times Company, including its business operations and the various media properties it owns, and 14 at The Hartford Courant. Most recently cuts have been announced at The Boston Globe (a division of the Times Company), The San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and Newsday, and over the last few years The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have also moved to eliminate jobs.

Industrywide, ad revenue is flat, costs are up and circulation is eroding. At The Inquirer, circulation has dropped 30 percent over the last two decades.

Beyond the industry's economic woes, the future is clouded by the rapid expansion of the Internet and the popularity of the seach engines, leaving newspapers in an identity crisis as they try to come to grips with fundamental changes in the industry and society that are significantly curbing their growth.

Pessimism about the industry's ability to overcome these obstacles continues to drive down the price of newspaper stocks. Wall Street has revised its third-quarter earnings estimates downward for most newspaper companies. The turmoil is largely confined to big metropolitan dailies, not small papers where the advertising base is more stable.

At big papers, ad revenue has stalled for several reasons: a decline in local auto ads; the consolidation of department stores, especially the merger of Federated and May, and a march to the Internet by travel advertisers, hotels and car rental agencies. That exodus from print includes Hertz, which has not advertised in The New York Times for six months, a Times spokeswoman said. Movie ads are in a trough as box-office sales slump.

Goldman Sachs predicted recently that ad revenue for the newspaper industry would grow a quite modest 1.7 percent in the third quarter this year over the period a year ago, the industry's weakest performance in two years.

"No one's crystal ball on this was good," said Lauren Rich Fine, a publishing industry analyst at Merrill Lynch. "No one anticipated that Federated/May would take a stance this year and say, 'We're less dependent on newspapers.' That has caused some of the panic at newspapers, where they are saying, 'We better get in front of this.' "

Several longer-term worries are also undermining growth. One is the migration to high-speed Internet connections, or broadband. Two-thirds of United States households are expected to have these connections by 2010, double the portion today, according to Forrester Research.

Advertisers like the Ford Motor Company are already seeing how this trend affects buying patterns. Ford says that 80 percent of its customers now shop online, doing everything from their initial research to setting up test drives and getting quotes from dealers.

So the company has decided to move 30 percent of its estimated ad budget of $1 billion a year to nontraditional media, with 15 percent going to online. "With the explosion of broadband, it makes more sense for us to continue to increase our spend where we can find our customers," said Linda Perry-Lube, Ford car communications manager.

These trends are likely to accelerate. Over the next three years, advertisers are expected to devote 15 to 20 percent of their budgets to the Internet, up from 5 to 8 percent, according to David Verklin, chief executive of Carat Americas, a major media services firm. At the same time, newspapers are losing classified ads to Craigslist and eBay. And they are losing information-seekers to Google and Yahoo, which recycle news from media outlets and increasingly offer content of their own. As readers turn to these cyberbehemoths, advertisers follow.

While newspaper websites are attracting an increasing number of online ads, those ads are cheap and bring in only a fraction of the revenue that print ads do. And while some newspapers now have more readers on their Web sites than they have in print, most are reluctant to charge for their content online, depriving themselves of revenue from their most popular product. The New York Times recently started charging $50 a year for nonsubscribers to read its columnists online, but it has declined to discuss the early results.

Those are just some of the factors crimping the outlook for newspapers even as their costs are climbing.

"The basic newspaper, when you take out the Internet and all the other targeted publications that people are starting, is just not growing," said P. Anthony Ridder, chairman and chief executive of Knight Ridder, which owns The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Newsprint costs are up significantly. Wages and health benefits are up. So you have the cost pressure on the one hand and the lack of revenue growth on the other. That's really the problem, and everyone is having essentially the same problem...how do we battle the search engines?"

Nonetheless, many top news executives say they are adapting to these new realities and positioning the industry for a promising future. Gannett newspaper corporation is beginning to address organic search engine optimization by outsourcing organic seo and drive exposure of their daily classified listings.

Google Opens Washington Office - Begins To Lobby for Changes to Trademark Laws

Google Goes Inside the Beltway
Business Week Article
With major Net and privacy issues looming, the search giant has hired its first full-time lobbyist. Some say it's about time


Call it a rite of passage: Google (GOOG ), the once-upstart search outfit with the sparse homepage and a motto championing "Democracy on the Web," has hired its first full-time lobbyist in Washington and plans to staff up more. Google has picked technology-law expert and Washington veteran Alan Davidson to help win friends and influence people on Capitol Hill.

"Our mission in Washington boils down to this: Defend the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication, and innovation," Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel, wrote in an Oct. 6 company blog.

The move to beef up lobbying coincides with forays by the online giant Google into a host of new markets and services beyond basic Web search (see BW Online, 09/05/05, "Google's Grand Ambitions"). While many of its new ventures have wowed consumers, they've brought Google into conflict with old-media stalwarts and telecom behemoths alike. Print for Libraries, a plan to scan and index millions of the world's library books, has publishers fuming and prompted a group of authors and the Authors Guild to sue Google for alleged copyright infringement (see BW Online, 09/22/05, "For Google, Another Stormy Chapter").

"A GROWN-UP COMPANY." Google's push into other communications, including Internet-calling service Google Talk and a plan to provide Wi-Fi for San Francisco, threatens to tread on turf dominated by the biggest phone carriers, including Verizon Communications (VZ ) and SBC Communications (SBC ). Meanwhile, privacy advocates have raised concerns about how Google tracks and stores search data.

With an overhaul of landmark telecom legislation pending and legal battles brewing, Google needs to widen its influence in Washington while its developers dream up pie-in-the-sky projects in Silicon Valley. "The company is bleeding into so many new sectors and businesses that there are any number of government policies the company should be involved in," says Blair Levin, a managing director at Legg Mason and a former chief of staff at the Federal Communications Commission.

"It really shows they are becoming a grown-up company," says Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual-property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The Internet companies are belatedly realizing that they can't ignore Washington."

Davidson, who joined Google on May 31, is well-suited to wave the company flag in the nation's capital. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained computer scientist and graduate of Yale Law School, Davidson served for eight years as associate director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit think tank and initiative group that opposes government and industry control of the Internet, while advocating user privacy.

DANGEROUS FAULT LINES. Associates say Davidson is best known for his work on intellectual-property and Internet-privacy policy issues. He has argued against the mandatory inclusion of special content locks in digital-recording devices and testified before Congress for increased measures to protect personal privacy online.

A background in privacy is of particular importance, notes Levin. After all, Google's method for tracking and archiving user data fundamentally affects search, its core business. "When I think of what could go wrong with them, a privacy issue could be much more damaging than losing out on some universal service issue," says Levin. "It's important both from a consumer perspective and a policy perspective...that Google stay out in front of concerns of privacy."

Google's top priority will be "to create a free and open Internet," according to Davidson. "I've been very focused in my previous work on advocating for consumers and Internet users, and I find myself doing very much the same work for Google," Davidson says. He declined, however, to delve into specifics. But within this broad goal, Google says it will focus on three major categories: Copyrights and fair-use policy, intermediary liability, and "Net neutrality."

LIABILITY FOR BLOGGERS? Each is directly intertwined with one of Google's nascent businesses. With the Print for Libraries and Google Video projects, the company has said it plans to digitize both copyrighted books from libraries and video from television networks -- and make it all searchable. These efforts have come under fire from both the publishing and entertainment industries.

Intermediary liability has to do with ensuring that the government treats the company as a neutral provider of tools rather than holding it liable for all of the content held in its search results, or on the blogs created on the Google-owned Web-log-publishing tool "Blogger." "With Blogger, Google is becoming a pretty prominent Web publisher...presenting a whole new set of issues" says von Lohmann.

One of the most contentious regulatory battles may fall in the realm of telecommunications, and specifically "Net neutrality," the idea that an Internet service provider should cease efforts to hobble the performance of other sites and services in favor of their own.

BABY-BELL BATTLES. Moreover, while Google hasn't completely tipped its hand, recent activity points to a strong move toward providing consumers with data and voice service. Along with the bid for Wi-Fi in San Francisco, the company has helped fund Current Communications, a technology company that provides broadband Internet service over power lines. Also, Google last summer launched Google Talk, its free voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) service.

These moves could have Google running headlong into huge telecom players that would just as soon keep cities out of the business of providing city-wide Wi-Fi. Google's challenge: Continue to push back the Baby Bells on this issue. Also, Google has said it would oppose efforts by network operators to block their customers from reaching competing Web sites and services.

"Should they be able to speed up their own sites and services, while degrading those offered by competitors?" McLaughlin asks in the blog. "What's better: [a] Centralized control by network operators, or [b] free user choice on the decentralized, open, and astoundingly successful end-to-end Internet? (Hint: It's not [a].)"

"THEY'VE ARRIVED." Davidson and his associates will be able to outline such views when they weigh in on any overhaul of the Telecom Act, just now getting under way. The House Energy & Commerce Committee says it wants to introduce a bill later this month -- and is working on a second draft after having circulated a first one and received comments back.

The first version of the law contains language hinting the committee is on board with Google's view of the world. The Senate Commerce Committee is not as far along, though it's expected to start drafting a proposal soon.

Google's lobbying effort will only grow from here, says company spokesman Steve Langdon, as it plans to add more staff in Washington. Just a little over a year after its IPO, analysts hardly find this surprising. "It signals that Google's part of the mainstream now," says Scott Cleland, CEO of the Precursor Group. "It's a milestone that they've arrived in mainstream corporate America."

While Google may still like to cultivate the image of a light-on-its-feet, devil-may-care startup, it's beginning to act like the $80 billion industry heavyweight it really is.

Keyword Search Statistics - Search Stats By Search Engine

MSN Search increases slightly according to a new keyword search statistics report by OneStat.com

OneStat.com (www.onestat.com), the number one provider of on demand intelligence web analytics, today reported that MSN Search's global usage share has slightly increased and that Google's search site is still the number one search engine in the world.

MSN Search's global usage share has risen from 8.6 percent to 8.9 percent.

Google's global usage share has decreased 0.3 percent the last 8 months.

Yahoo's global usage share remained flat, as the second largest search engine on the internet had a global usage share of 21.2 percent.

The 4 largest keyword search engines on the web are:

1. Google 56.9%
2. Yahoo 21.2%
3. MSN Search 8.9%
4. AOL Search 3.2%

All numbers are an average of North American Keyword Search Activity in August and September of 2005.

The organic search results of all four search engines above are determined by a search engine spider and/or robot crawler using pre-programmed algorithms.

Contact Peak Positions Organic SEO consultants to discover the power of algorithm synchronization and database website optimization that allows corporate websites powered by dynamic databases to appeal to the leading algorithms and enjoy premium organic search engine placement.

Organic search results are favored by consumer searchers 6 to 1 and b2b searchers prefer the organic search results at a 7 to 1 clip.

Learn more about Organic Search Engine Optimization, the most effective form of online advertising at: http://www.peakpositions.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Key Organic Search Engine Optimization Facts:

Keyword search is the 2nd most popular online activity, rapidly approaching the popularity of email retrieval.

90% of all new, unique, website visitors are delivered by a major search engine and/or directory.

98% of all keyword search results are powered by the big (4) search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. (see usage shares above).

Keyword search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL are all determined by a search engine spider and/or robot crawler.

Recent internet marketing studies confirm that keyword searchers prefer the organic results at a 6 to 1 ratio vs. pay-per-click sponsored search advertising listings.

Discover the most powerful and effective form of advertising:
Search Engine Optimization.


Search Engine Marketing is projected to become (10x) more powerful and influential than traditional media outlets such as: network television, cable television, local television, network radio, satellite radio, local radio, national newspapers, local newspapers, magazines, billboards, direct mail, telemarketing and more.

An aside for consideration are the segments of Search Engine Optimization. Clarification is required in terms of paid search marketing, sponsored search advertising, pay per click, email marketing, and the foundation of any successful internet marketing campaign: Organic Search Engine Optimization.

Organic SEO in some circles is also referred to as Natural Search Engine Optimization or Natural SEO.

Learn more about search engine optimization at: http://www.peakpositions.com

--

Organic Search Engine Optimization > Organic SEO > Industry Facts

Organic Search Engine Optimization Facts (Organic SEO) in some circles also referred to as Natural Search Engine Optimization (Natural SEO).

-

Key Organic Search Engine Optimization Facts:

- Keyword search is the 2nd most popular online activity, rapidly approaching the popularity of email retrieval.

- 90% of all new, unique, website visitors are delivered by a major search engine and/or directory.

- 98% of keyword search results are powered by the big (4) search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.

- Keyword search results on: Google, Yahoo, MSN & AOL are determined by a search engine spider and/or robot crawler.

Recent internet marketing studies confirm that keyword searchers prefer the organic results at a 6 to 1 ratio vs. pay-per-click sponsored search advertising listings.

These Internet Marketing Facts make Organic Search Engine Optimization (Organic SEO) the most effective form of Online Advertising.

Microsoft President Resigns as more key MSN search engineers jump ship to Google.

Software giant Microsoft Corp. tweaked its organizational structure once again last week. The company president and chief operating officer Rick Belluzzo was forced to resign as more key Microsoft engineers fled to Google.

Belluzzo was unable to stop the flow of senior Microsoft engineers leaving for Googleplex. The fact that many of the engineers also took proprietary code with them to Google.

Microsoft is fighting many of the resignations trying to enforce non-compete clauses with federal lawsuits against he ex-employees and Google.

Microsoft has been in talks with America Online in recent months and Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were not pleased with the lingering AOL talks and that many of Microsoft's books were exposed in negotiations with AOL.

Micorsoft has always been very protective over its business processes to date and Belluzzo was not providing enough protection to critical company systems as negotiations with AOL took place.

Many in the industry feel this latest move is more evidence that Microsoft is waffling and has not clearly defined their company direction for the coming years.

How will Microsoft address keyword search the second most popular online activity? The new MSN search engine has not been popular with internet users is not meeting consumer demands. MSN has been unable to substantially increase their share of the $16 Billion dollar keyword search market in recent months.

The article below is a great summary of MSN's intention to shore up their keyword search weaknesses and begin to make more in-roads on Google's market share.

Bill Gates and MSN Focus on Google

Bill Gates and MSN Focus on Google
Clash of the Titans, The War for internet user share reaching new heights

CARLSBAD, Calif. - Don’t be fooled by all the speeches about global health and high school education. Bill Gates is still, first and foremost, about clobbering Microsoft Corp.’s competition. And his current obsession is Google Inc.
"Google is still, you know, perfect," he told the crowd of technology executives attending The Wall Street Journal’s third annual conference on "All Things Digital." "The bubble is still floating. They can do everything. You should buy their stock at any price."

The world’s richest man said those words with a wry irony that suggested ridicule of the Google craze, but also resentment. There may be hot air in Google’s highflying stock price ($260 Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market), but Gates clearly takes the company seriously. "We had a 10-year period like that," he said, equating Google’s current standing in the computer world to that of Microsoft from 1986 to 1996.

To underscore the point, Gates touted Microsoft’s new "Virtual Earth" project - a service starting this year that uses aerial photographs and satellite images to enhance local-area searches on the Web. The service looked surprisingly similar to Google’s "Keyhole," which was on display in the next room.

Gates also demonstrated how Microsoft will allow users to construct their own search home page - an almost identical service to the one Google announced last week. And he highlighted Microsoft’s new tool for searching files on your computer - also similar to a Google tool.

Gates’ fear is that the increasingly ubiquitous Google search will become everyone’s gateway into the digital world - a role he has always fought to preserve for Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The search is an elegant starting point - after all, why go anywhere before you have indicated what you are looking for? And Google has proved it is also a lucrative one, enabling the company to match advertisers with the specific interests of customers. As a result, Microsoft is determined to get into the game. "If anything touches on search," Gates said, "we’re going to do it."

That is why the biggest laugh of the conference came when Gates and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt appeared together onstage for the Computer Bowl quiz game with T-shirts that read "Same Team." These guys are definitely not on the same team.

For his part, Schmidt finds Gates’ focus - and the media’s fascination - on the industry’s competitive dynamics to be more than a little annoying.

"Come on. This is crazy," he said to me, after I pushed him on the point. "Google is part of the information industry, and that industry is very large, and Google is a very small part of that industry." Moreover, he added, "it’s not a zero-sum game." True enough.

A veteran of both Sun Microsystems Inc. and Novell Inc., Schmidt knows what it is like to be in the cross hairs of Gates’ competitive attention. "It’s the norm," he said, shrugging his shoulders. But it doesn’t mean he has to play the same game. "Google is not Microsoft, and I’m not Bill Gates."

Like John D. Rockefeller, Gates has taken his enormous wealth and turned it to good causes. Unlike Rockefeller, he isn’t giving up the chase. He is the nerd-turned-winner, still resentful of the cool guys in the class. When Apple Computer Inc.’s Steve Jobs spoke on Sunday evening, the audience’s questions were reverential softballs, even though his company’s business hangs on the ephemeral success of a tiny music player. When Gates spoke on Monday morning, as the unchallenged titan of the industry, every question asked of him had a decided edge.

Bill Gates may be curing diseases around the world. He may be tackling what he considers the most pressing public problem facing the United States. But for many people in this crowd, he was the same old Bill, seething with competitive intensity, copying ideas and smothering the competition.

Give Gates a few bonus points, though, for being a good sport. The oddest event at the D conference was a spoof of the quirky film "Napoleon Dynamite," in which the listless Napoleon - Jon Heder - teams up with the Fifty Billion Dollar Man to save his family’s business.

On screen, Gates looked about as uncomfortable as he did when testifying for his company’s antitrust trial. But he plays along - swiping Napoleon’s Tater Tots off his plate and donning a pair of Rollerblades to be pulled behind Napoleon’s bicycle. Perhaps he has mellowed a bit with age.

Breaking SEO News Report

IAC/InterActiveCorp founder Barry Diller is rumbling that he could be walking away from his purchase of the Ask Jeeves search engine.

After analyzing the accounting, financial records, shared PPC structure and traffic logs Mr. Diller feels he might be paying way too much for the 4th most popular search engine.

IAC/InterActiveCorp and Ask Jeeves are not officially commenting yet.

Only a couple weeks back Diller and IAC help press conferences to joyfully anounce a a $2 billion stock deal allowing IAC to acquire Ask Jeeves.

IAC/InterActiveCorp owns many popular web properties including: Expedia, CitySearch, Ticketmaster, eVite and Match.com and was looking to help increase Ask Jeeves’ share of the lucrative search engine market.

Mr. Diller and his team of accountants quickly began to realize however that the paid search partner agreements in place at Ask Jeeves only result in a small percentage of profit and limit the search engines revenue growth potential.

Mr. Diller had been researching the scope of the revenue share partnerships and has not found opportunities to convert the exisiting patnerships into IAC's favor.

Could IAC be moving away from ASK Jeeves in an effort to acquire AOL?
stay tuned...

Federal Investigation Begins on Print Circulation Numbers

Advertising Agencies and National Advertisers have requested a federal study of newspaper and magazine circulation nnumbers as audience reach and brand impact made with print advertising campaigns continues steep decline.

Major Advertisiers and Leading Agencies report that Online Advertising Programs and Search Engine Optimization are Far More Effective than Print and Magazines.

Time Inc. the nation's largest publisher of consumer magazines, has been subpoenaed by federal investigators to provide information about the magazine industry's circulation practices, the company confirmed earlier this week.

The disclosure comes at a time when advertisers and agencies are questioning the validity of audience circulation statements following a series of scandals and mis-statements among major newspapers, and several major magazines.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the probe by a federal prosecutor in New York is investigating the business practices of Inflight Newspapers & Magazines Inc., a third-party magazine distribution agent that is no longer in business, but whose practices have raised questions about how magazines treat magazines distributed for free to airlines and business travelers.

The report said publishers including Time Inc. routinely treats such 'Free Pass Along' distribution as "paid" circulation. This taints the paid circulation numbers that many print companies use to justify steep advertising fees.

Advertisers and their agencies are forced to pay print advertising rates based on audited circulation statements of publications. In recent years the audited numbers have been declining substantially, yet print advertising rates continue to escalate.

Advertisiers and their agencies are now reducing their "up-front" buying practices and shifting portions of their ad budgets into online advertising campaigns that have proven to be much more effective from all perspecitives.

A key component of online advertising is search engine optimization and more companies are beginning to address organic search engine optimization as the foundation of all corporate maketing efforts.

Organic search engine optimization offers 100% targeted reach with no waste as the keyword search phrase has qualified the new website visitors. Organic search engine optimization has lasting impact and benefits versus print that typically presents a 5 day conversion window.

Many senior execiutives are realizing that searching has replaced time spent reading and that most of their target consumers search daily and receive thier current news and information updates online versus interacting with the often dated and stale print publications. Aslo today's time-pressed target consumers lack the 'free time' that print publications require.

The federal courts now will investigate the audited circulation practices of the print industry in an effort to establish more accurate circulation numbers.

The next investigation is sure to lie with the broadcast industry as the inaccurate arbitron and neilsen radio and televsion ratings systems used to dictate quarterly television and radio advertising rate increases are sure to be called into question.

Related Media Buying Note:

The next time your media reps lay the ratings or audit circulation numbers in front of you demanding a market/ratings based Cost Per Point increase, ask for validation of the numbers, and in many cases your cost per point will decrease rapidly.

Authors Sue Google - Google Library Facing Copyright Heat

Google library faces federal lawsuit by US authors.

U.S. writers are suing Google Inc. in a federal court, alleging that the Web search leader's bid to digitize the book collections of major libraries infringes individual author's copyrights.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Google and its Google Print project, names as co-plaintiffs The Authors Guild and writers Herbert Mitgang, Betty Miles and Daniel Hoffman.

Hoffman was Poet Laureate of the United States in 1973-74. Mitgang is a historian, critic and former New York Times editorial writer. Miles is a children's book author.

The lawsuit seeks class action status, asks for damages and demands an injunction to halt further copyright infringements by Google.

This is the latest round in the battle between Google and major publishers that pit copyright holders' interests against Google's stated corporate mission of "organizing the world's information and making it more universally accessible and useful."

Google Print (http://print.google.com/) has exploded into the top ranks of U.S. Internet sites, rising to the 30th most visited site for the week ending September 17 from 90th a week earlier, according to data from Internet traffic researcher Hitwise Inc. Global data was not immediately available.

A Google spokesman said the company regretted that The Authors Guild had chosen to sue rather than continue discussions.

"Google Print directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the program," Google said in a statement. "Only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more."

A year ago Google began working with five of the world's libraries -- at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library -- to make large parts of their Library book collections searchable on the Web.

The action by the 86-year-old Authors Guild is part of a push by the organization to roll back efforts by Websites to make the contents of copyright protected books freely available online.

In a related case, the group has been seeking for a decade to force online publishers from New York Times Co. to Amazon.com to pay royalties to writers whose copyright protected stories appear in free online databases without their consent.

In August of 2005, Google said it planned to temporarily scale back plans to make the full text of copyrighted books available on its Internet site.

Google has said it will respect the wishes of copyright holders who have contacted the company and asked for their books to be withheld from the project. Meanwhile, Google says it was working with publishers and librarians to scan books in the public domain that are not covered by copyright.

Critics of the project said that Google's plan to allow copyright holders to opt out switched the burden of upholding copyright from infringers to copyright holders.

"This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law," Nick Taylor, president of the 8,000-member New York-based Authors Guild, said in a statement on Tuesday. "

(Authors), not Google, have the exclusive rights to ... authorize such reproduction, distribution and display of their works," the complaint said.

"It is not the responsibility of copyright holders to protect their material, the burden of copyright protection lies with the infringing party and in this case the infringing party is Google."

"What gives Google the right to trespass on our membership's copyights and display this material in a free, online medium, without making any royalty payments."

"Also Google is reaping financial rewards by selling advertising sponsorships on pages filled with copyright protected materials. What give Goole the right to increase revenues at our memberships expense."

An attorney with Kohn Swift & Graf P.C., the plaintiffs' law firm based in Philadelphia, said the lawsuit had been filed on Tuesday in Manhattan.

AOL to Replace Google with MSN Results ?

America Online the world's largest Internet Service Provider may replace Google with MSN in the coming days. Search Engine insiders report that AOL and MSN have had several high level meetings recently.

The first development of the metings has AOL turning to MSN to power AOL search results, ending AOL's search partnership with Google.

MSN is seeking to increase share of the total search market and this deal with AOL would allow MSN to increase their keyword search market share to approximately 20%.

MSN claims powering AOL search results will give them at least 20% of the $12 Billion dollar keyword search pie.

---

Microsoft Aims to Buy AOL

MSN would like to acquire AOL and has been analyzing AOL business and accounting records however, MSN sees potential legal and litigation issues on the near-term horizon at AOL.

MSN is moving towards a short-term, exclusive partnership with AOL, with a formal takeover in the works once legal and potential litigation is fully identified.

MSN/Microsoft wants to control legal issues and has enough of own their legal troubles at this time. Once AOL has fully shaken out of the failed AOL Time Warner merger and all potential lawsuits and costly accounting lawsuit nightmares are gauged, then at that time, MSN will make their move and pull in AOL.

Also AOL has been losing account holders at a record clip in recent months and MSN would like AOL to re-calculate their total numbers and modify acqusition fees downward and more accurately reflect the declining value of the America Oonline enterpirse.