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MSNBot
- Searching For Ways To Make Redmond Rise Again
You have all the resources the world can offer and the certain knowledge that
your project is so important to your employer that mountains, molehills, companies,
code and really comfy office chairs will be moved, built or acquired to meet your
needs, no questions asked.
First
Look at Ask Jeeves Desktop Search
Ask Jeeves will launch their new Ask Jeeves Desktop Search (AJDS) application
on Wednesday, but we caught-up with Senior Vice President, Jim Lanzone, and have
some exclusive details of the newest entry to the desktop search race.
Multiple
Domains and 301 Redirects
A common area of misunderstanding and confusion within search optimization has
to do with how and when one should use a redirection document. If you’ve moved
a site to a new domain and you want your normal traffic to follow, a 301 permanent
redirect needs to be employed.
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Weighing The Desktop Search
Pros And Cons
The "in" item for big four of the search industry (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and, Ask
Jeeves) is Desktop Search utilities. By early next year, all the major search
platforms will/should have a branded, functional Desktop Search (DTS) model for
the masses to use.
Desktop Search is spreading like wildfire. Do you use any of these utilities?
Discuss at WebProWorld.
Currently, Google and MSN
have working public beta models of their DTS utility, while Ask's should be available
at any time. Not to be outdone,
Yahoo has also announced
that they will be providing a DTS utility in early 2005.
To be sure, search engines aren't the only companies considering entering the
desktop search "industry." ISP leader America Online announced a partnership with
popular DTS developer Copernic. AOL is offering members the opportunity to download
an AOL-branded search utility, powered by Copernic's software. And last, but certainly
not least, Apple will also be including Spotlight,
their version of desktop search, in the next version of their operating system.
 For
a thorough look at each DTS utility, PC Magazine has reviews
of most all of the available utilities, save Copernic.
Andy Beal has a look at the upcoming
Ask tool. Seattle PI's Microsoft
Blog has an interesting compare and contrast of MSN's desktop search and Apple's
Spotlight.
With so many different DTS utilities becoming available, some have begun asking,
"What's the point?" SearchEngineWatch
forum member Pdstein shared a similar curiosity by asking "…but what is all
the hubbub about desktop search? Sure it's useful, but why are SE companies climbing
over each other to offer this ap? What's in it for them?" Because the business
model side of DTS hasn't been fully explored, the responses were given in theoretical
form.
One such member, KeywordMonkey, offered one very possible scenario to tap into
the financial potential of desktop search:
Advertising alongside results (after Betas)
Marketshare - if I use MSN Toolbar for desktop search, I'll probably use for
Web, too. And maybe MSN Messenger, Hotmail, MSN blogs...
(Possibly) gathering search trend data and selling it on
(Possibly) selling add-ons to free desktop search tools that connect them
to enterprise search solutions
Personalization and localization of web search results via user profile in
tool / related service profile (MSN Passport, Yahoo accounts)
The above motives for developing a DTS utility are all sound. However, because
of the nature of many of these tools, a few security issues have started popping
up that may damage their monetary potential unless they are addressed.
In an article that appeared on ZDNet
AU, Munir Kotadia looked at some of the potential security risks some of the
DTS tools hold. His piece detailed what many security experts have been stating
since before Google's desktop search utility launched. One of the main points
portrayed in Munir's article revolves around the indexing process that's inherent
to tools of this nature.
Because indexing stores information like email addresses, financial information
and other personal information, virus writers can and probably will target this
technology with a new generation of malicious programs. As always, the security
community advises the use of virus removers and up-to-date patches to fight current
and potential threats. Preventative measures, as opposed to reactive ones, are
the primary way to ensure protection… that and being permanently offline.
Google Desktop Search also received a measure of this criticism as well. A number
of publications reported that GDS contained security risks that could be exploited
by the virus community. In his blog, security
guru Bruce Schneier detailed the threats contained by Google's tool. "The
problem is that GDS indexes and finds documents that you may prefer not be found.
For example, GDS searches your browser's cache. This allows it to find old Web
pages you've visited, including online banking summaries, personal messages sent
from Web e-mail programs and password-protected personal Web pages." Because GDS
does its job exactly how it was designed, an unprotected computer with the utility
installed could very well be a target.
 However,
Schneier defends Google's product BECAUSE it does what it was developed to do.
"GDS is very good at searching. It's so good that it exposes vulnerabilities on
your computer that you didn't know about. And now that you know about them, pressure
your software vendors to fix them. Don't shoot the messenger."
Google's tool wasn't the only tool to receive criticism either. Yahoo, who will
be releasing their X-1 powered DTS tool in January, also had some jabs thrown
their way. I, Brian at SearchEngineWatch
had an interesting comment concerning the upcoming launch of Yahoo's tool, "More
importantly, it shows that Google are dictating terms for search and personal
advertising, and Microsoft seem to be doing a better job of keeping up on the
application side. However, it's the mobiles market where things are really going
to get heated"
Brian's statement is reflective of the entire search engine industry as a whole.
It is an ever growing, ever evolving entity. While desktop search is the new thing
for search engine departments to focus on, the previous statement also contains
a glimpse of the upcoming future. But the future of desktop search is now; that
is until Microsoft's Longhorn or Apple's Spotlight integrates ALL search into
one utility and the other companies have to adapt their product in order to keep
up.
However, once desktop search becomes more popular, expect virus writers to target
these utilities. And since these risks aren't necessarily flaws, protection will
be up to the user.
Comment on this
article in WebProWorld.
Chris Richardson |
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| Articles:
13,499 |
Contributing
Authors: 2,353 |
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Measuring
& Managing Visitor / Customer Retention
 By
Jim Novo
Recency: Predictive Marketing
The concept of Recency as a human behavioral metric goes back to the early 1900's.
A whole body of research was conducted, building on the work done by Pavlov and
his famous dogs. Just before feeding time, Pavlov would ring a bell, then feed
the dogs. By repeating this over and over, the dogs began to associate the ringing
of the bell with being fed, to the point of salivating when the bell rang - even
if there was no food present. Stimulus and response; the bell rings and the dog
salivates. Edward Lee Thorndike took this idea a step further with humans and
proposed the Law of Effect - the response to any particular situation, if followed
by a rewarding experience, will become the likely response to the situation. Now,
you may think to yourself, "Wow, how brilliant - duh" but he was the first guy
to say it, so there.
 Read
the Full Article
Finding the right formula
Our post today comes from Wolley
Seqap.
They have a question about how to estimate
click through from Overture. As of now they know that Overture will estimate
searches per keyword for you, but why not offer
estimates from the clicks? This is a problem for Wolley, and they are looking
for a good answer that may help them in deciding to use Overture or just turn
away and find someone else.
Think you can help Wolley Seqap out? Tell us your
thoughts at WebProWorld.
|| Rafael||
Searches
vs. Click Through, Formula?
By Wolley
Segap
So Overture let's you estimate total searches for any keyword/phrase, but what's
the rule of thumb when you need to estimate the click through? I realize the ad
copy effects this, but can one typically say a certain % of these searches will
actually click through? In other words - if the keyword "widgets" receives 100
searches per-month, how many click-through's can I estimate? Is there a standard
formula here? Is the percentage the same if I had the second position in Google
adwords?
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"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from
bad judgment."
- Unknown
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Is the rest of the world catching up and surging ahead of the
U.S., or has the U.S. focus moved away from I.T.?
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