Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service

Oppppsss… Google made a big bo-bo and displayed wrong information about Michael Jackson’s death:

What happened there? Google’s snippet was pulled from Wikipedia page about Michael Jackson the writer who died in 2007 at the age of 65, instead of the pop music king. The problem has been quickly fixed by the Googlers but MANY people were exposed to the wrong information, including me.

The snippet was pulled algorithmically without human intervention, so this shows just how much of Google is automated.

On the topic of Michael Jackson.

Google wasn’t the only search engine that honored the pop star that day. Yahoo went as far as sending reporters to the hospital for the coverage of the event. They also recorded number of clicks, beating the election day from 15.1 million to 16.4 million. As a content destination with writers and editors, Yahoo took a more editorial event on the issue. They’ve included stories from major news sources on the sidebars. Yahoo also called staff who were off to help with the overload of traffic.

Bing’s performance was poor, as it showed information for Michael Jackson on the bottom of the page instead of featuring it in the most prominent spot on top of the page.

Personally I think Yahoo did the best job because they are a search engine / content destination. Google is number 2, because the algorithmic error, while Bing is still number 3.

Battle goes on!

Competition in the smartphone market is heating up this summer as one new hot smartphone after another hits the street. The latest is T-Mobile’s next Google Android device, called the myTouch.

T-Mobile will announce the new smartphone Monday. It is the second smartphone the carrier has introduced that uses Google’s open-source mobile operating system, Android. T-Mobile introduced the world’s first Google Android phone, called the G1, last fall. And so far the company claims it has sold over 1 million devices.

The myTouch is manufactured by HTC and is essentially the same hardware design as the Google Ion, which is also known as the HTC Magic. The device was introduced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February and is now being sold by Vodafone in various markets around the world.

The Google Ion/HTC Magic has been described as thinner than the G1 and slightly smaller than Apple’s iPhone.

But it features a large 3.2-inch touch screen with a resolution of 320 x480 pixels and no physical keyboard. The phone offers network support for 3G and Wi-Fi.

Google is a leading search engine in the world, unless you are located in China, where Baidu owns majority of the market and keeps growing every year. Under Chinese laws all search engines must sensor their search results and prevent searchers from accessing websites critical of Chinese dictatorship. Of course the official excuse is to protect people from “porn” while reality is much uglier.

Bloomberg reported that Baidu is actively looking for acquisitions in order to expand its market reach in China and get more advertisers.

Research company Analysis International, based in Bejing, put Baidu’s search engine lead at 62.2 percent in 2008, up from the 59.3 percent it had for Baidu in 2007. Google’s share in China for 2008 was a relatively small 27.8 percent, but according to Analysys, that number was up from 23.4 percent a year earlier — a faster growth rate than Baidu’s.

Google is also actively looking to expand its presence in China. It is looking at partner with Top100.cn to start a free download music service in China. The move is designed to lure in illegal downloaders, who love Baidu for providing links to illegal downloads. The move makes sense, since you cannot force internet population to pay, while FREE sounds very attractive.

Earlier this week Microsoft set Bing as the default search engine for Internet Explorer 6, without the possibility to choose another search provider. Search engine marketers noticed and wrote about it. After notifying Microsoft, here’s what they answered:

We’re aware of the issue with IE6 and Bing and are investigating a solution. This issue is not impacting IE7 or IE8 users. We respect user choice on search providers in IE and all browsers, and designed IE to enable that choice. We will provide an update soon on this issue, and we apologize for any inconvenience it has caused. In the meantime, we encourage customers to upgrade to IE8 here. Alternatively, Firefox users can install the add-in for Bing here.

Accident?

Few people use IE 6 and by their majority they are not web savvy. Has Microsoft been testing the change on the old browser in order to see people’s reactions? Sounds like a logical thing to do. Change IE6, wait for reactions. If no one catches on:

1. Leave it at that (some market share)
2. Change IE 7 as well (the really big one).

They got caught though :)))

The new search engine from Microsoft Bing.com is now officially live. You can search whatever, just like Google. Microsoft has allocated around $80 million in advertising to promote the search engine to the public.

The first impression of Bing is very good. The results are very relevant and it stands up very well to Google. I personally think now Google has a more serious competitor. Add to that $60 billion in reserves and we’re in for a very though battle.

Ex-Googler Yoelle Maarek Becomes a Purple Person

In 2006, Yoelle Maarek founded the Google Haifa Engineering Center. While there, her team contributed such features as Google Suggest, Searching Ads, and Interactive Annotations on YouTube.

Maarek left Google and will now lead the Yahoo! Lab in Haifa with Ronny Lempel. The lab was opened in March 2008.

Prior to her Google gig, Maarek worked for IBM Research both in New York and Haifa. Maarek received her undergrad and grad degrees in Paris and later her PhD from Technion in Haifa. During her PhD studies, she also was a visiting student at Columbia University in New York. - search engine watch