Yahoo To Roll Out $100 Million Marketing Campaign Around “Its You” But Doesn’t Own The Domain - Yahoo announced today it plans to spend more than $100 million on its new marketing campaign over the next 15 months. The multimedia campaign will be launched in the United States next week, in the United Kingdom and India in October, and other countries next year, around the tag line: “It’s You”. However, the domain name itsyou.com doesn’t belong to Yahoo. ItsYou.com belongs to domainer, Gregg Ostrick. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

PPC Ads With Logo’s & Icons Coming To Bing - According to Mediapost, Microsoft is going to launch a pilot program this month to test a new paid search ad format, allowing advertisers to not only use text and links in the ad, but  use logos and favicons embedded in listings. “”The formats are intended to make ads pop in search results and to encourage advertisers and media buyers to allocate more paid search campaign dollars to Bing.”” Microsoft wants to make the search experience more “graphically rich.” Consumers who search a ... read more ...

Nielsen: Bing Is Fastest Growing Search Engine, With A Market Share Over 10% - According to Nielsen research, Bing.com is the fastest growing search engine, with  1.1 billion searhces for the month of August, 22.1% more than July. Overall Bing share of the search engine market in August was 10.7%. Google share increased by 2.6% to  64.6%. Yahoo saw its search results drop 4.2% in August to 16%. So the good news for Microsoft is that Bing is gaining market share, the bad news is that Yahoo is losing it faster than Bing is gaining it and by next year the two search engines ... read more ...

Bing Rolls Out “Visual Search”: Replacing Text With Pictures, What Does This Mean For PPC? - Visual Search enable users to search by browsing through images rather than scrolling pages of text-based results.  The search results will display sortable row of galleries of images pertaining to the subject being searched, Initially, the service will be limited to 4 main areas; travel, health, leisure and shopping and will be rolled out in the next 4 weeks. A search on Bing will display traditional results. But on the left side of the search result will appear an option to visualize the search. ... read more ...

Is Google Going Into The Loan Service Business? LendingTree.com Files Suit - Is Google going to start competing against its own advertisers? According to a suit filed Tuesday  by LendingTree.com, they might be planning to. LendingTree filed suit against Mortech Inc. in federal court, claiming that Mortech is violating an exclusive agreement with LendingTree, by setting up a competing loan-referral service will reveal LendingTree trade secrets to Google, by working with Google on technology that automates pricing of lender offers. LendingTree seeks an injunction against Mortech. LendingTree ... read more ...

Yahoo Buys Arab Online Community Site Maktoob.com For $75-$85 Million - According to various reports this morning, Yahoo has agreed to purchase, the arab community site Maktoob.com, which has 16.5 million users in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Yahoo said, while there are more than 320 million Arabic speakers worldwide, less than 1% of online content is in Arabic.  Online advertising is growing sharply in the region, and ad spending is expected to grow 35% to 40% in the Middle East this year. “This acquisition will ... read more ...

Yahoo Is Revamping Its Search Pages - Yahoo announced today that it was working to develop a new search page design that  “will deliver contextual results that are more relevant to users’ queries.” Larry Cornett, Vice President for Yahoo of Search Products and Design, said the redesigned page, which is still being tested, “will help people find things they most want by providing them with a “Web of objects” instead a list of Web pages. For example, a query for “how to make sushi” will return organic search results and ... read more ...

Google Launches Official “Caffeine” Search Site - Last week we told you that Google was changing its organic search algorithm, which it has labeled “Caffeine”. Now Google has released an official  site where you can see what results  a search term will return in the new Google Caffeine search: You can click here and see how your site(s) will rank in the new Google Search Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

Google Is Changing Its Search Algorithm: Will “Caffeine” Impact PPC? - Google is undergoing a major change to its organic search algorithm, which it has labeled “Caffeine”. According to the official Google announcement : “”””For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”” Google is now asking for developers ... read more ...

Microsoft Hit With Injunction From Selling “Word” - According to PC Magazine, Microsoft’s Word program  has been found to violated the patent of a Canadian technology company, i4i. Microsoft was fined by the court $290 Million (small change to Microsoft) but the judge also ordered Microsoft to stop selling the program within 60 days. The judge ruled that Word products may not “have the capability of opening a .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM file (“an XML file”) containing custom XML.” However the judge noted if Word was modified so that it could ... read more ...

Microsoft Charging For Officelive.com Domain:”Very Competitive” $14.95: Why Not Office.com - Microsoft has been allowing people for free to set up shop using basically a subdomain such as for example: http://youroldcustomdomainname.web.officelive.com. Sure is a mouthful. Today Microsoft,  announced that starting October 1, customers will have to pay for renewing their domain, $14.95 per year saying: “An annual domain renewal fee of $14.95 per year will be due at the time of the domain renewal date” “This pricing compares very favorably in the marketplace.”” I have 2 questions: 1.  ... read more ...

Bing.com Picks Up Another 1% Share Of The Search Market - According to Internet data firm StatCounter, Microsoft’s Bing search engine had a 9.41% share of the U.S. search market in July, up from 8.23 percent in June. Google’s share of the US search market slipped to 77.54%  from 78.48 % StatCounter said Google’s share of the global search market slipped in July to 89.23 percent from 89.80 percent in June. xi4a3m5prt Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

No Trademark For Bing? Bada Bing - According to TechCrunch.com,  The Laptop Company, the owner of  website bongobing.com, received an extension until October 28, 2009, to oppose Microsoft’s attempt to trademark Bing, with the USPTO. The CEO and co-founder Raul Pellerano of bongobing.com is quoted by TechCruch, as saying: “We have worked hard and invested significant resources in building our BongoBing (TM) brand and identity, our website and services, and our corporate identity. We believe it is important for a small company ... read more ...

Plenty Of Opinions On Yahoo-Microsoft - Seems like everyone has an opinion on the Yahoo-Microsoft deal. Here are some stories you might want to check out: New York Times. The CEO Of Microsoft is surprised at the stock market’s reaction to the deal. The CEO of Microsoft says the market undervalues the deal to Yahoo Google VP: Deal May Hurt Competition TheStreet.com: “Microsoft get’s the milk without having to buy the cow” Cnet.com: For Yahoo With Search Gone,  Content Becomes King Again Fool.com: “A suckers deal for Yahoo” Ad ... read more ...

SeekingAlpha.com Covers Tucows Calling It A “Cash Rich’ Company - Seekingalpha.com, a site that follow public companies, gave a very positive  review of Tucows.com shares this morning, (a member of our Domain Parking Stock Index) calling it a “cash rich” company, saying in part: “All told, Tucows strikes me as a relatively low margin business with low (and perhaps negative) capital costs that has deployed its retained earnings profitably for shareholders in recent years. Though GoDaddy is the dominant player in the sector, Tucows has added customers and ... read more ...

Fool.com: Yahoo-Microsoft Deal Is Good For Marchex - The Fool.com, had some good news for Marchex, in its analysis of the Yahoo-Microsoft Deal. The Fool.com, which follows public companies, in analyzing the Yahoo/Microsoft deal said about Marchex: “”Advertisers paying more for leads, as a result of Yahoo! shutting down its self-serve platform, will benefit the Web’s other lead generators. “”Marchex is one of my favorites. “”The local search specialist runs vertical advertising networks, the OpenList local search directory, and even a ... read more ...

Google Launches “Create Your Own Profile” Service: Is This Death For .Tel? - Google has launched its own “create your own profile” service pretty much along the lines of what the .Tel extension is suppose to be for. If your logged into your gmail account and Google yourself, you will be prompted to fill in your all your contact info, which others can then use to find or contact you. A friend pointed this out to me yesterday in congratulating me on the DnJournal piece. (Thanks Ron) If your inclined, you can give Google the following information,  “to make it easy for ... read more ...

Done Deal: Yahoo Gives Microsoft Its Search Business - Well its finally a done deal. After turning down $44 Billion from Microsoft last year for their company and after reportedly turning down  Billions from Microsoft for just its search business, Yahoo finally made a deal with Microsoft for control of its search business. The final price: Zero. Not a dime upfront, nor a dime guaranteed. Certainly not the “boatloads of money” CEO Carol Bartz said back in May, it would take to do a deal with Microsoft. The deal is pretty much the same as we reported ... read more ...

New Study: Bing.com Ads More Likely To Clicked Than Google Ads - A study by the search advertising network Chitika , says that people who land on sites from organic search results are 55% more likely to click on an ad from Bing.com than on  Google. Analyzing click-through rates from 32 million ad impressions across a network of more than 50,000 sites during seven days in July, Chitika found that Bing users clicked on ads 1.5% on average, compared with 0.97 percent for Google, and 1.24% for Yahoo. About 200 million unique Internet users come through the Chitika ... read more ...

Ad Age: Yahoo To Send Its Traffic To Bing.com - According to AdvertisingAge.com,  Yahoo is on the verge of a deal that would make Microsoft’s Bing.com, its search provider. Yes according to the story, Yahoo would send its traffic to Bing.com and the story goes on to say the deal is likely to be announced this week. However,  unlike the reports of last week, the deal is to be based on just a revenue share, not on an upfront or guaranteed payment. Last week the talk was Yahoo’s was going to get an upfront payment in the of hundreds of millions ... read more ...

Google’s Sells Its 5% Share Of AOL & Loses Over $700 Million In The Process - Time Warner bought the 5% of AOL that Google owned for $283 million dollars. Its not a very good return for Google. Back in 2002 its purchased their 5% interest for $1 Billion dollars. Time Warner, plans to spin off AOL by the end of the year, into a separate public company, bought the stake from Google on July 8 according to filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The price that the company paid for Google’s stake puts the value of AOL at about $5.7 billion including the $850 ... read more ...

Yahoo Reports: Revenue Down 13%, Profit’s Up - Yahoo! reported revenues of $1,573 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, a decrease of 13% from the second quarter of 2008, after the close of the market today. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, revenues for the second quarter of 2009 would have declined 8% from the second quarter of 2008. Yahoo profit was $141.4 million, or 10 cents per share, in the three months ending in June, up from income of $131.2 million, or 9 cents per share, last year. Marketing ... read more ...

Report: Microsoft & Yahoo Nearing A Deal - According to All Things Digital report late on Thursday, Microsoft and Yahoo are nearing a deal. According to the report, the two sides are “down to the short strokes” and a deal could come within a week, All Things Digital said. The report goes on to say that Microsoft will pay Yahoo several billion dollars upfront to take over its search advertising business and guarantee certain payments back to Yahoo. Back in May Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said that she was open to a search deal with Microsoft ... read more ...

Google Beat Estimates But Growth Slows & Share Fall 4% AfterHours - Google reported earnings after the stock market closed and said its 2Q earnings rose more than expected by 19%. However the shares are down over 4% in after hour trading because, Google’s Internet ad sales grew at their slowest rate ever during a 2Q, and much of the increased profit was due to cost cutting. For instance, the company trimmed its general and administrative expenses by 23 percent to save about $110 million and reduced its spending on capital projects by 80 percent, or $559 million. Here ... read more ...

New Study: If You Follow The Money, Bing.com Isn’t Gaining - A new report from SearchIgnite, a subsidiary of Innovation Interactive, entitled “Q2 2009 U.S. Search Market Report” says says if you follow the money no more money is being spent by advertisers on Bing then they spent on Live Search. The study concludes that advertisers only spent 6% of their PPC budgets on Bing for the second quarter the same percentage they spent on Live Search. Although to be fair Bing launched late in the quarter. The report also found Yahoo share of PPC advertising dollars ... read more ...