EngineWorks, Inc.

Yahoo Search Marketing rolled out some new features to the Panama platform today. These features include:

1. The ability to easily move & copy keywords from one ad group to another.
2. A revised keyword selector tool. The new tool provides an estimate of monthly searches on each keyword suggested.
3. An ad writing help guide. This guide will allow users to preview ads they would appear on the search results page.

For more details visit Yahoo’s Search Marketing Blog.

First off, let me say that having a background in Web site design and development, I understand the unique and often complex issues that both designers and developers face when approaching a new site project. Secondly, I’m still amazed at the number of poorly designed sites I see every day.

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Google Adwords recently released an IP exclusion option. This option will allow Adwords advertisers to block their ads from displaying on specific IP addresses. In addition to controlling Adwords placement with distribution preferences, language, location and site exclusion, ad targeting can now be further narrowed with IP exclusion. For more information visit Google’s Adwords Help Center.

I recently had the opportunity to sit on the panel of SEMpdx’s June Hot Seat. This monthly event is hosted by the Portland, Oregon Search Engine Marketing Association (SEMpdx) whom our very own Sean McMahon sits on the board. The association’s mission is to inform and educate Portland area businesses on the benefits of search engine marketing (SEM).

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In the early days of search, meta description tags were a significant part of search engine optimization. Years ago, they were one of the many factors used by the search engines to determine rank. Today, however, meta description tags are important for a completely different reason. Currently, today’s sophisticated search engines often display the meta description on their search engine results pages (SERPs). This, in turn, can have a significant impact on click-through rates (CTRs).

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I just caught the news across the wire that original co-founder Jerry Yang has replaced Terry Semel as CEO at Yahoo!. Apparently the Wall Street community is not especially pleased with the Internet behemoth’s stock performance over the past couple years. Of course, the fact that the stock remained stagnant during the same time period that Semel received more than $71 million in compensation might also have rubbed a few investors the wrong way.

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The new Google Analytics is now out of beta. In addition to a new user interface, the Google Analytics team has added some significant new features requested by users. These new features include:

• Hourly Reporting – All reports are now updated on an hourly bases.
• Clickable URLs – All URLs displayed within each report now link directly to external pages.
• Cross Segmentation by Network Locations – Ability to cross segment reports based on network locations.
• Increased Number of Data Row Per Page – The interface now has the ability to view up to 500 rows per page.
• Bounce Rate Increase/Decrease – Bounce rate increases are now shown in red (bad) and bounce rate decreases are shown in green (good).
• Adwords Integration – Improved ability to link Adwords accounts.

For More information visit the Official Google Analytics Blog.

Yahoo! is testing a new look on their search results page. The new look is a major departure from the current search results page. It’s sleek, clean and provides some additional features. Unfortunately, the new layout does not display the total search results. I hope Yahoo! is working on including it.

An article posted by Associated Press this morning caught my eye. It appears that Google has unleashed a 49 page complaint to the U.S. Justice Department claiming the Microsoft’s Vista operating system impairs the performance of enterprise search functions. While the article reveals all the accusations contained in the complaint document, the real issue should be that Google may be retaliating against Microsoft’s complaint to the FTC that Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick last month runs afoul of antitrust regulations.

Here’s the article in its entirety.

HTML title tags are arguable the most important on-page elements pertaining to effective search engine optimization (SEO). Not only do title tags have a significant impact on search engine rankings; they also have a substantial influence upon click-through rates (CTRs).

Here is a short list of best practices to keep in mind when creating your HTML title tags:

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