In another move to pull itself out of the Google swamp of search domination, Microsoft announced the acquisition of the semantic search engine Powerset, a newcomer to the search arena with a unique contextual search technology.

While Google has dismissed the idea of contextual search as the next wave in search technology, Microsoft is clearly impressed with what the Powerset team has come up with, including a glowing blog post around the Powerset employees in its announcement about the acquisition. Apparently Microsoft gambles that a search engine that can understand the meanings and semantics of the words and phrases it searches will take the search market “to the next level”.

Whether or not the Powerset team and technology can keep the Microsoft search business afloat remains to seen. In the meantime, the move is yet another attempt to bolster the Microsoft offering by bringing in outside help.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

Marketing Sherpa’s annual survey of marketers is out, and the results indicate that paid search continues to be a major focus in the marketing community. Not only that, the survey reveals that ROI for PPC marketing programs has increased significantly, with 42 percent of respondents noting that their PPC programs demonstrate good ROI. Check out the results in the chart below, and read all about the full survey results here.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

Is it possible to be hooked on your search engine? What if you were challenged to give up your regular search engine for a week, and try something new. Could you do it? What would motivate you to make the change? If you were promised better results, an easier to use format, compensation to use the search engine, the opportunity to share results with friends and connect with the rest of the search community, would that inspire you? Even if you felt that your new engine was better, what do you suppose the odds are that you would return to your Googling ways after the week was up?

In a really interesting series on online habits, “Search Insider” Gord Hotchkiss examines the attachment online searchers have to Google, and how the addiction could (possibly?) be broken.

I think this is a fascinating topic, because the quality is not necessarily the motivating factor behind change. So many other factors (convenience, placement, appeal, ease of use, visual presentation) play into the choice we’ve made for our searching, and we take the choice very seriously, even becoming irritated with those who don’t search the way we do. Check out the article… and feel free to comment… do you think Google will continue to dominate, or can another kind of search sneak in to steal the show?

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

There is no end to the hype around social search. As far back as four or five years ago, buzz in the search community around social search was high, with predictions of game-changing search methods that overrule the algorithmic search of the tier one players, replacing it with user-generated rankings that ensure quality of results and downplay companies’ ability to game the system.

Even with all the buzz around major social search engines like Eurekster, Prefound, iRazoo, Wikia and probably most notably (or notoriously) Mahalo, the social search market share is infinitesimally small. And while leaders in the space like Danny Sullivan start talking about Search 4.0 and bringing a social aspect back into the world of search, the cold hard truth is that it just hasn’t caught on yet. But why?

Some engines (Prefound for example) were way ahead of the game, and tried to launch social search before things really started getting “social” online. Others, like Eurekster, encountered problems with adoption because they only supported a narrow vertical market, which in Eurekster’s case involved providing a service to search individual sites, not an engine that could accomplish internet search on the broader scale. You have engines like iRazoo that provide user-generated recommendations for sites, coupled with monetary incentive to search, trying to use the draw of prizes to gain market share. Then you have engines like Wikia, that rely heavily on generating a user-base before search results will start to have any quality at all. Finally, you have engines like Mahalo that suffer seriously from scalability issues, forcing them to literally hire search editors to provide rankings of sites in order to deliver results, thereby defeating the social aspect (what would you say if Facebook was generating fake profiles to fill its ranks until some real friends came along?!)

All in all, social search has been through some rough times. Despite this fact, the major three engines still talk about social search as part of their vision for the future, and Calacanis continues to champion the social search space despite his need for 460 editors on call 24 hours a day to make the “user-generated” site work. So where is social search heading? What do we need to make a truly scalable, user-friendly, reliable social search engine with the capacity to break into the mainstream market? The answer, we believe, lies in a combination of many of the things engines have tried along the way, coupled with a successful integration with results from the top three engines as well and the adoption of other social components that are already successfully in use today. Some of these components include:

-Voting on relevancy of search results fashioned to match the voting process at the already-popular Digg site.

-Comments fields similar to those already in use on sites like Facebook and YouTube, enabling users to comment on results as easily as they add comments to pictures and videos.

-Integration of friend community to the search world, enabling users to share search results quickly and easily, recommend sites they find while searching, and share recent searches with the community.

-Adoption of incentive programs that are easy to use, and are based on community members and referrals/invitations, providing added impetus for searches to bring friends and family into the fold.

These ideas represent just a few of the ways the idea of community will begin to move into the search world. Will a Google-killer arrive on the scene imminently and take major market share away from the search giants? Unlikely. But that doesn’t mean that social search isn’t the future. It simply means that new ideas and new ways of using the social components already in use must be integrated in such a way as to spur greater adoption and provide added incentive to break the Google habit.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

So we’ve been hearing all the hype about Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and any combination of the three you could possibly imagine. With the latest numbers showing MSN dwindling below 10% of share in the search market, everyone has waited in great anticipation to see how this giant will resurrect its share in the search world. The great question… how are they going to gain any ground on Google?!

The answer? PAY people to search on your engine! What a great plan. And the concept behind the plan is actually pretty ingenious. With MSN’s new Live Search Cashback program, the searcher is looking for a product online, and types in, for irony’s sake, iPod. In the list of paid search results, you get one with a “Live Search Cashback” icon. Clicking on this brings you to a list of iPod products, from which you choose the one you are looking for. The engine then lists a number of online retailers willing to sell you this iPod, and also listing the percentage the consumer will receive as a discount by buying through each retailer. And the best part for advertisers is that the whole thing is based on a CPA model, which means they only pay if the consumer actually clicks through and buys their product.

Sounds great right? Maybe in theory, but in practice this function is far from compelling, and as Danny Sullivan notes at Search Engine Land, it devolved quickly into a serious exercise in frustration. With no recommendations on products, poor search results, out-of-date information, unavailable products on retailer Web sites and prices that do not rival what you can get the product for at the original retailer, the plan provides little incentive for regular searches to flock to MSN over Google any time soon.

It remains to be seen when a search engine will get it right and start providing real rewards to searchers, but until then the consensus on this latest attempt to pull searches away from Google is a failure.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

Here is the article I wrote that was recently pulished by Mediapost.

Although search marketing isn’t as complex as a real relationship (at least in my experience), there are some similarities as well as fortunate differences. Most if not all online marketers have gone for that hot, sexy traffic source that everyone else lusts after: Google/Yahoo. It’s only natural to go to them as the first networks from which to buy.

Yet we all know that if you’re going to be with the popular one, you’ve got to take care of them well enough to get good placement, so to speak. What do you do when they become too expensive and you aren’t getting back what you had hoped for (ROI)?

When you are dealing with search engine marketing for a small to medium-sized business, the options for an affordable online presence can seem pricey and daunting. Many marketers and advertisers believe the Google/Yahoo route is the only option, however expensive it may be. Well, unlike a real relationship, the beauty of search engine marketing (SEM) is that you are allowed to “fool around” with some other sources when you want to see what else is out there, even if things are going well. Diversifying your traffic from Google/Yahoo results allows you to monetize alternate traffic sources at a lower CPC, ultimately delivering a potentially higher ROI than the “popular” ones.

Search engine marketers in this situation have the opportunity to work with tier-two (or “alternative”) PPC (pay per click) providers. Think of them as the girl in the coffee shop — not high maintenance, fair and easy to get along with. Many tier-two networks are made up of smaller and niche websites which do not receive Yahoo and Google ads, so they bring an audience unsaturated by your competitors. That allows for a greater return on your investment.

These PPC ad networks find success in numbers by aggregating traffic from across their network of search and content publishers, serving paid links when a user searches for a relevant term. Because these tier-two networks are serving ads to smaller search clients, the cost per click is far lower, thereby allowing you to pay less while ranking higher in search results. As a rule of thumb, you should always try to maintain a top three status in the keyword you bid on since search publishers pull only the top three paid results alongside the organic results of each search.

Beyond the proprietary fraud prevention which tier-two networks offer, advertisers should work with the PPC provider to identify and turn off ads from poorly performing channels, further enhancing the quality of the traffic and enabling far better ROI on each click through. These types of customer-driven enhancements at tier-two networks have also led to better click fraud protection measures.

As search engine marketers become more frustrated with the high maintenance and demands of the glam networks, they will be forced to play the field and see where else they can achieve their search marketing goals. Fortunately, the full mix of tier-one and tier-two networks can be hard at work for the SEM, achieving a successful open relationship.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

In the aftermath of the latest potential deal between Yahoo and Microsoft I got to thinking about how this would have affected us, other tier two engines and advertisers had the deal gone through.

Had the deal gone through, I feel the MSN/Yahoo deal would have been good for Tier 2. Tier 2 success relies on fulfilling the advertisers’ needs that are often not met by giants, Tier 2 search companies are often able to cater more to specific individual advertiser needs; working with them closely to create a successful campaign regardless of their size. A Yahoo/MSN acquisition would have been quite a feat for MSN to undertake,I am certain customer service would have been a casualty in the process of streamlining resources between MSN and Yahoo. Additionally, the combination of MSN and Yahoo advertisers would have driven bid prices higher in-turn lowering advertiser ROI giving advertisers more reasons to look elsewhere for quality eyeballs.

What would a Google-Yahoo deal mean if it happened?
In my opinion, a Yahoo/Google merger would never happen, the government would flat out deny it. It would cause an unwanted Web monopoly. This doesn’t rule out a strategic partnership between the two companies but I’m not sure it would be a good move for Yahoo. Relying on your direct competitor to fulfill your main revenue stream doesn’t seem like good strategy in the long run. For advertisers, the partnership would also mean MUCH greater advertiser saturation on the Google network driving up bid prices and inevitably reducing advertiser ROI.

This industry never ceases to amaze and surprise me almost on a daily basis, I am looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO

ABCsearch’s patent pending fraud prevention software ClickShield™ becomes automated!

With the latest enhancements, ClickShield™ integrates dynamic, real-time fraud monitoring and traffic quality filtering to drastically reduce time between quality audits, a significant measure toward maintaining and growing high quality, convertible traffic.

Benefits for Advertisers:

-Low quality traffic sources are removed sooner

-High quality traffic sources are added quicker

-Ultimately higher ROI

Benefits for Publishers

-Quicker  source optimization will help retain high quality rating.

-Transparency into traffic source quality

-Healthier advertiser mix

For more information about ClickShield™ check out the press release on the news and events page.

-The ABCSearch Team

Here is a very revealing article about Google’s recent algorithm switch that is forcing advertisers to look to alternative traffic sources.

Some interesting advertiser/analyst responses:
“I am seeing large-scale advertisers whose general cost per clicks is trending up … and they’re seeing impressions go down,” Chatfield says.

“If it were just a rate increase, I would have tolerated it. But my ad rates have doubled and I’ve got no business,” says one longtime AdWords advertiser, “Sam”, he got about 100,000 impressions on ads served for two keywords in February (which resulted in $250,000 in revenue), and in March that number dropped to 20,000 impressions and essentially zero revenue. To compensate for lost sales, he says he started buying advertising from Yahoo and Microsoft.”

This over saturation of advertiser competition has forced Google to create new ways to further qualify the most relevant ads for the user, which is commendable. At the same time however, Google is straying from its original PPC platform: the advertiser pays for the positioning and they get it. Now, in addition to a fairly exorbitant bid price, the advertiser has to meet the standards an organic listing would have.

We have seen a direct result of this as many advertisers have come to seek refuge from the diminishing ROI they have been experiencing. The problem is, too many advertisers have put their all of their advertising dollars in one proverbial basket making them vulnerable to risks like this where all of a sudden their once profitable campaigns are floundering due to a pretty hefty switch in infrastructure. Networks, traffic sources and users are fickle, it’s up to the advertiser to make their stake in various traffic sources to protect them in the event one oasis dries up they’ll have another. Its always a good idea for advertisers to constantly be testing new sources of traffic, even if you’ve tried it 6 months ago, that’s like 3 internet years, give it another shot! Of course there are certain traits to look for when evaluating new PPC traffic sources, but when you find the right fit, you’ll be surprised how much traffic is out there that’s cheaper and just as good of quality.

-Simon Chernin, Director of Marketing ABCSearch

This is the first installment of the new ABCSearch blog! Here we’ll be posting about new industry trends, exciting projects at ABCSearch and other interesting tidbits from the search space! New to our company? Check out ABCSearch.com to learn more about what we offer. And in big news… we have acquired and will be launching soon a new social search site. With awesome features and lots of potential, we think it will rival Google, Yahoo! and all the rest! Check out the current version at aftervote.com and look for a new launch in June!