Alan Perkins’ Response on Black Hat/White Hat
Alan Perkins replied to my previous post on black hat/white hat issues in SEM. (I’m quoting his email with his permission). He took issue with my placing search quality responsibility solely on search engines. He writes: “Why hold a search…
The Long Tail
I recently caught up with Chris Anderson’s excellent Wired article The Long Tail from October 2004. This article discusses the consequences of disaggregating copyrighted content from the physical manufacturing/distribution/retailing chain that historically has been required to get that content to…
Google’s AutoLink tool
Google’s AutoLink tool has been in the news. AutoLink picks certain words on a web publisher’s page and turns those into hyperlinks of Google’s choosing. I’m struck by how often this idea has come up. I remember a client pitching…
Black Hat/White Hat SEO
Great description by Andrew Goodman of the Black Hat/White Hat panel at Search Engine Strategies Chicago. (I attended the panel and Andrew captures the event perfectly). You should also read Alan Perkins’ follow-up “Ethical Search Engine Optimization Explained,” where he…
Paul Boutin on Typo Traffic
Paul Boutin discusses the problem of searchers making typos when typing domain names into the address bar. He runs through the typical litany of gripes about product efforts to solve this problem—Microsoft’s “blatant ploy” to promote MSN search when IE…
French Lawsuit Involving “Search Engine Optimization” Techniques
I haven’t seen much discussion on the recent French opinion Societe Kaligona v. Societe Dreamnex, French Court of Appeals, Jan. 12, 2005. (I’m working from a BNA report—subscription required). The case involves two competing Internet sex shops. Dreamnex’s site saw…
Google and Keyword/Domain Name Convergence
Bob Tedeschi speculates about why Google became a registrar. He discusses a number of good reasons but missed perhaps the most obvious. To Google, there’s no difference between selling domain names and selling keywords: both are merely ways for companies…
Shopbots and Nash Equilibrium
Interesting News.com article by Paul Festa discussing a report by Prof. Michael Baye of Indiana University on why shopbots have not led to homogeneous prices by all retailers. The basic argument: retailer are constantly changing prices to avoid letting competitors…