Yahoo Glue pages are a new idea for search results that I think may get some traction. Check out some searches on yahoo India:
http://in.search.yahoo.com/search?p=banana
http://in.search.yahoo.com/search?p=football
http://in.search.yahoo.com/search?p=obama
http://in.search.yahoo.com/search?p=microsoft
It doesn’t suck!
Let’s say you’re gonna buy a company. Wouldn’t one of the ways you choose to buy a company be based on what it’s gonna earn next year? They have a stat for that; it’s called Forward P/E. It’s the Market Cap of a Stock divided by How much the company is expected to profit next year.
A higher number means a more expensive company when comparing Apple’s to Apples. (Everyone still with me?)
GOOG and YHOO are arguably in the same business. What’s not arguable who is in a better position in the Industry. One is an 800 lb Gorilla, the other is Yahoo.
So even after this whole YHOO - MSFT debacle, for some reason the market thinks that YHOO should trade at Forward P/E (1 yr): of 43.52 while GOOG trades at a Forward P/E (1 yr) of 24.04.
Apples to Apples (or Pears to Pears so some dipshits don’t think I’m talking about AAPL stock), Investors value YHOO 79% higher than GOOG.
So . . . for the Universe to get back into balance, YHOO has to go to $13.61 / share, GOOG has to go to $1065 / share, or some combination of the two (like YHOO to $17.50 and GOOG to $833). Either that Jerry has to whip out that super secret sauce he’s been saving up to suddenly get Yahoo’s profits to start skyrocketing.
. . . it flows through wall street too. Some investors are still hoping or praying that MSFT is gonna up their offer and close the deal. They just can’t accept that this deal is deader than . . . umm . . . some really, really dead thing.
The other big reason the stock’s being propped up? Jerry Yang is putting his money where his balls are and is buying up $500 million of YHOO with his own wad.
It’s a Ballsy Move. Only time will tell if it’s a Brainy one too.
According to the WSJ and Bloomberg, Yahoo thinks it’s going to reject Microsoft’s Takeover offer.
It begs several questions. Not the least of which is how the hell are they gonna do that?
When someone offers a 60% premium over your current stock price in cash, you’ve got to come up with a pretty darn good reason not accept it or your shareholders are going to revolt.
Some have speculated that Yahoo might make a deal with Google to outsource search or advertising or something: But a deal like that would certainly be the death nail in Yahoo’s coffin.
Remember how well that deal worked for AOL years ago? AOL had 30% of the search market when they outsourced to Google. Now they have about 5%.
The same thing would surely happen to Yahoo if they got in bed with Google Yes they would get more money per search over the next 3-5 years, but after that they would have no bargaining leverage with GOOG and would have to renew on far less favorable terms.
What other options does Yahoo have to reject the Offer? Find a white knight to put up a bid with more favorable terms? Almost no one has the cash to start a bidding war – and who would even want to?
Yahoo is screwed. All they can do is try to bargain a better price. Filo and Yang are just flailing to add one last bit of shareholder value before they’re both out on their asses as an all cash takeover from MSFT would leaves neither with an equity stake in the new “MicoHooey!”
The other question is whether Microsoft anticipated a rejection (either by Yahoo or regulators) and tendered this bid just to fuck with Yahoo. How desparate will Yahoo get to try to stave off Microsoft? Will they have a fire sale? Merge with a worse suitor? Or even sign a dark Pact with the Prince of Searchness?
One thing is certain: 2007 2008 is the End of Yahoo as we know it.
For a predator like MSFT, that’s probably what they were looking for all along.
Every Now and then, you’ll see one of the flickr popular photos be of some beautiful and scantly clad female. So on Saturday I thought to myself, “You know, I bet that would be a great niche - Finding all the hot flickr babes and creating a photo blog.”
The first domain I thought of that would be perfect for this endeavor was flickerbabes.com. I immediately typed the URL into my browser and BEHOLD! Someone already had the idea and is doing a damn good job.
On the one hand, I’m a little bummed that I didn’t think of it first. But on the other hand, I’m glad they are doing a great job on the blog! I like looking at beautiful woman - so I joined the other 18530 people and subscribed.
Ron Paul Made the front page of yahoo.com about an hour ago with this story under the title
“GOP’s Ron Paul has Unusual Appeal”
Then, 11 minutes later, the headline is changed to
“Ron Paul remains longshot for GOP nom”
Other than that, the 2 articles are identical.
But notice the incredible difference a headline can make. It looks like someone at Yahoo (or more likely at the AP) decided after the fact to push their own political agenda. The story went from the “Unusual Appeal of the favorite of those looking for a candidate outside the political mainstream” to a marginalized “Longshot”.
Isn’t the power of the written word Amazing? How, in the middle of the night (literally 2:11 am EST), a political hack can turn a positive story negative with just a few keystrokes.
Also note that this was NOT done to get more clicks or attract more visitors to the story. No one with half a brain could argue that “Ron Paul remains longshot for GOP nom” would get more clicks or reads than “GOP’s Ron Paul has Unusual Appeal.” This was 100% politically motivated.
I guarantee you that the word “Remains” in a headline does not sell newspapers. How is it news if something “remains”? Isn’t that the opposite of news? Isn’t it the antithesis of a magnetic headline?
The mystery is - Who made the change? Was it the Article’s Author, LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON Associated Press Writer, Yahoo, an editor at the Associated press . . . Smurfs? Who decided that the “Remains Longshot” title was the better way to paint this story than “Unusual Appeal”?
As an SEO experiment, a little less than a month ago we:
1. Removed all the categories from the sidebar
2. Listed titles of every post with links every page
3. Got rid of the Google Sitemap.
Because we updated the theme on friday to include a new navigational setup, it’s time for some observations about the experiment.
For the month of September, SEO Black Hat had these search referral numbers:
Google 24889
Yahoo 1047
MSN 503
Ask Jeeves 91
Google Images 82
In August, 2006 with search referrals of
14258 - Google
1603 - MSN
1266- Yahoo
41 - Ask Jeeves
19 - Google Images
and these numbers in July
11995 - Google
1145 - MSN
828 - Yahoo
514 - Google Images
34 - Ask Jeeves
There was a 74% climb in the number of Google search referrals. MSN switched to live – and live hated my old layout because it was ugly (let’s see if that picks up any with the new design).. Yahoo was down slightly and Ask Jeeves up slightly.
Also of interest is that SEO black hat had gone supplemental after 182 results prior to the experiment. Today, SEO Black hat does not go supplemental until 554 results (which is pretty good considering this is only my 334th blog post.)
Of course, all this did not happen in a vacuum. I continued to write posts and people linked to those posts. Also, I took advantage of two internet “trends” with a couple of my posts that contributed to these search referrals:
Keyword Search Referrals
Fortuny 3151
lonelygirl15 715
Those Keywords, which accounted for about a third of the increase, should probably be disregarded.
The private SEO Black Hat forums increased stickyness and number of visits. Therefore, if Google is tracking user behavior, there’s a good chance that SEO Black Hat would be seen as more authoritative site.
My theory is that Google probably does track user behavior and is factoring this into their algorithm. It also seems very likely that Google cares about click distance from the homepage – especially for indexing purposes (as in: what goes supplemental).
What is click distance? Click distance is the minimum number of clicks it would take you to get from one page to another. During the experiment, the click distance from the home page to any post (or from one post to another) was 1.
What does that mean for your site design? Make sure your navigation is set up well. Google sitemaps are not the answer. If a post is 10 clicks from the homepage, it’s going to be a lot harder for that post to rank in the search engines.
I’ll detail what changes were made to SEO Black Hat from an on page SEO and usability perspective throughout this week.
Many of you might have seen that Google is given SEO advice to government agencies. The Google Cache is reporting that at one of those events, Adam Lasnik of Google gave a speech/session where he let out this little tidbit:
Google doesn’t improve the link: command because they don’t want spammy requests.
Adam then went on to say that if you want to check your backlinks that Yahoo Site Explorer was a good place to look.
Now, we’ve known forever that the link command was horrible in Google. What is interesting if that they consider backlink checking to be “Spammy Requests.” So all you “white hat SEOs” out there, do you make “Spammy Requests?” or would you rather just err on the side of not being seen as “Spammy?”
Today we are witnessing the amazing Synergy between Flickr and Yahoo come to life. By allowing users to easily drop and dragg photos onto a Yahoo map, the Flickr/Yahoo community is building a resource that competitors like Google and MSN will be hard pressed to match.
Want to know what Huntsville, Alabama looks like? How about a that small town in India? or maybe a tropical resort in Fiji? No problem. There will be thousands of pictures from everywhere in the world beautifully integrated into Yahoo maps.
This is significant because Yahoo maps now has a huge advantage over what Google or MSN will be able to offer for the forseeable future: an advantage that will win both users and search share.
This is just the beginning. Watch for similar improvements based on flickr and their other great 2.0 pickup, del.icio.us. Yahoo’s choice of acquisitions shows that they understand where the web is headed and what to do when it gets there.
So now the question is, will Yahoo complete the “2.0″ Trifecta by buying out Youtube?
Well, not yet . . . but if they could figure out how to solve the massive copyright problem, Yahoo would surely buy them tomorrow.
You know that the best SEO Black Hats are doing something more than scraping, using a site generator, comment spamming, and pinging to be raking in more than $100k per month.
But what is it?
Right now, there is way too much good stuff that I simply can’t publish on the SEO Black Hat blog. If I posted these tactics and exploits they would immediately get all the wrong kind of attention. The detailed conversations about how exactly to abuse search engine algorithms, generate massive traffic, and what other Black Hats are doing must remain underground to retain their effectiveness.
But what if I told you that you could discuss these exploits with me without paying my $500 an hour consulting fee? What if I told you there was a way to join in on the private, cutting edge discussions with some of the best Black Hats and web entrepreneurs in the world?
Would you be interested?
Because now you can . . .
Today is the official launch of the resource you’ve looked everywhere for but never found:
Normally what you get on forums are people who don’t know anything talking with people who don’t want to say anything. You can occasionally find amazing tips on some forums: but you have to dig through 400 crappy posts just to find one post that is useful. That becomes a huge time sink.
How are the SEO Black Hat forums different?
Quality: We’re not going to have any contests to see who can make the most posts. That just creates tons of crap that no one wants to read. Our focus is on quality over quantity. Our primary concern is with succinctly answering one question: “What works?”
Sophisticated: Many of the topics we discuss are very advanced and require a high level of technical or business acumen to appreciate.
Expert Discussions: The SEO Black Hat forums are not for everyone and they may not be right for you. If you are relatively new to SEO or building websites, then do not join the SEO Black Hat Forums: you will be in way over your head. There are plenty of newbie forums out there for you – this is not one of them. Our forums are for successful web entrepreneurs to develop strategies that drive more traffic and generate more revenues.
Access to Expert Advice and Discussions
We have both White Hat and Black Hat Experts that are already benefiting from new tool development, techniques, scripts and the sharing of ideas.
Some members you may already be familiar with include:
* CountZero from blackhat-seo.com (Black Hat)
* RSnake from ha.ckers.org (Web Security Expert)
* Dan Kramer from Kloakit (Cloaking Expert)
* Jaimie Sirovich from seoegghead.com (Token White Hat / SEO Geek)
There are several other members that you are certainly familiar with who are using handles for anonymity. We have others who are more focused on security, vulnerabilities, and coding. There are still more that you are likely unfamiliar with but are nevertheless web millionaires.
Databases – Large Datasets
If you want your sites to have massive amounts of unique content you need large data sets. The trading, discussion and posting of large data sets is going on right now on our forums.
Expired / Deleted Domain Tools
Want to use to use the same domain Tool that I used to get a Page Rank 6 site in the Gambling Space for just $8? This domain tool is available for members to use for free.
50% off on Kloakit – The Professional Cloaking Software
Scripts – Several useful scripts have already been posted – interesting thing you may not have thought of before are being discussed and developed.
Exploits and Case Studies: The really good stuff I can’t talk about on the SEO Blackhat Blog is being discussed on the SEO Black Hat Forums. Right now, some of the conversations include beating captchas, domain kiting, data mining, hoax marketing, XSS vulnerabilities as they relate to SEO, and much more.
Pricing: $100 per month.
The price will soon be rising significantly as more databases, hosted tools, scripts and exploits are added. However, once you lock in a membership rate it will never go up and you will continue to have access to everything.
So, if you think you’re ready for the most intense Black Hat SEO discussions anywhere, then here’s what you need to do:
1. Register at the SEO Black Hat Forums.
2. Go to the User CP and select Paid Subscription.
I’ll see you on the inside!
Want to know what it means to rank 4th in MSN? How about to rank 2nd in Yahoo? Or what about ranking 1st in Google and 3rd in MSN?
Well then grab the number of overture searches the term had last month and use our new “Expected Clicks by Rank in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Other Tool.”
By combining the AOL User Search Data, Hitwise Search Engine Market Share and Overture Search Tool, you can now estimate with some certainty how many clicks to expect for ranking anywhere in any search engine for any term.
The AOL user search data has been harvested to determine the CTR (Click Through Rate) for ranking number 1 vs. number 2-10. The sample size is large enough and broad enough that we can infer that this average holds true across many verticals:
Results from:
Total Searches:9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623
Ranking Number 1 receives 42.1 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 2 receives 11.9 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 3 receives 8.5 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 4 receives 6.1 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 5 receives 4.9 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 6 receives 4.1 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 7 receives 3.4 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 8 receives 3.0 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 9 receives 2.8 percent of click throughs.
Ranking Number 10 receives 3.0 percent of click throughs.
The rest of the Long Tail (ranks 11-1000) = 11.3 percent of click throughs.
Search Engine Ranking #1: 2,075,765 clicks
Search Engine Ranking #2: 586,100 clicks = 3.5x less
Search Engine Ranking #3: 418,643 clicks = 4.9x less
Search Engine Ranking #4: 298,532 clicks = 6.9x less
Search Engine Ranking #5: 242,169 clicks = 8.5x less
Search Engine Ranking #6: 199,541 clicks = 10.4x less
Search Engine Ranking #7: 168,080 clicks = 12.3x less
Search Engine Ranking #8: 148,489 clicks = 14.0x less
Search Engine Ranking #9: 140,356 clicks = 14.8x less
Search Engine Ranking #10 147,551 clicks = 14.1x less
Search Engine Ranking 11+: 501,397 clicks
Now you may want to know the Market Share of the Search Engines Google, Yahoo, MSN and Everyone else: From Hitwise, we find:
The Search Market Share for Google: 60.2%
The Search Market Share for Yahoo: 22.5%
The Search Market Share for MSN: 11.80
The Market Share fore Everyone Else: 5.5%
(more…)