PR Newswire Association LLC (www.prnewswire.com), a company that provides electronic distribution, targeting, measurement, translation and broadcast services, announced on October 5 that the news releases issued over PR Newswire’s premium national newsline, US1, will now automatically be optimized for better search engine placement and enhanced access reporting. This enhancement to US1, which is scheduled to go live on October 12, will allow news release issuers to monitor which search engines direct more readers to their releases, and which keywords and phrases are used most frequently.
Search engine giant Yahoo Inc. (www.yahoo.com) announced on October 5 beta redesign of its start pages and the launch of Yahoo! Local, a search engine designed for consumers looking for local information. Beta versions of the Yahoo! Front Page and My Yahoo! feature a more streamline designed and enhanced customizable elements. Yahoo! Local's features include comprehensive merchant listings and a streamlined rating and review system to enhance community involvement. The new version of Yahoo! Local is a result of extensive feedback and usage from beta users.
The search engine giant Yahoo Inc. (www.yahoo.com) is adding new search engine tools that will enable users to create personal folders and share their favorite links with others. With the new tools, Yahoo's search engine users will be able to sort and save their search results into distinct categories. Visitors also will be able to record personal notes about the saved sites. Yahoo will begin testing the new features on October 5 at http://next.yahoo.com.
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (www.SEMPO.org), a non-profit professional association, which represents the common interests of 278 search engine technology vendors, marketing agencies and consultants worldwide, announced on October 5 that it is launching the first-ever comprehensive survey to estimate the size of the North American advertiser spending on search engine marketing and critical trends in the burgeoning SEM sector.
Search engine giant Yahoo Inc (www.yahoo.com) announced on October 3 the launch of a search offering that helps users find local businesses as it battles Google Inc and other Web search providers to capture a growing share of the billion-dollar advertising market now dominated by Yellow Page publishers. Called Yahoo Local (http://local.yahoo.com), the service will be accessible from the Yahoo home page and through Yahoo Search. It aims to help users quickly track down businesses such as restaurants, dry cleaners and banks in their neighborhoods or in other chosen areas. Yahoo hopes the new services will lure millions of local advertisers who are discovering how to use the Web to reach consumers.
In a recent survey of the major search engines, Barbados.org was more widely linked than any other Caribbean Island, beating Mexico, Jamaica and every Caribbean destination, even the Caribbean Tourism Organization site. AXSES (www.axses.com), a pioneer in electronic media and interactive marketing and owner of www.Barbados.org, queried the five popular search engines Google, AltaVista, MSN, HotBot and Lycos to determine how many pages in each search engine linked to Barbados.org.
Alan Meckler, CEO and founder of Jupitermedia Corporation (www.jupitermedia.com), which owns Search Engine Watch and SES conferences, announced on September 30 that Search Engine Strategies (www.searchenginestrategies.com) is going to hold a conference in Beijing, China. He stated that speaking slots and exhibit space are still available.
Software giant Microsoft Corp. (www.microsoft.com) will set up an advisory group of industry insiders to preview its search engine plans and research. Microsoft's Internet division has invited dozens of Webloggers, researchers and others to its Redmond, Washington, campus next week for an event called Search Champs. They are scheduled to hear about and test upcoming features for MSN Search (http://search.msn.com) and to meet researchers from Microsoft Research, according to several people invited to participate.
UK-based Origins.net (www.origins.net), a specialist in British and Irish genealogy, announced on October 1 a completely revamped online genealogy service, now named the Origins Network (www.originsnetwork.com), which provides multiple new and exclusive British and Irish genealogy collections via Irish Origins (www.irishorigins.com) and British Origins (www.britishorigins.com), as well as a free version of Origin Search (www.originsearch.com), the first genealogy specific search engine, now including over half a billion names.
A new search engine has been created for the South Dakota State Library that collects electronic documents into a centralized database. The search engine lets an Internet user search across the different state agencies without having to visit each agency's website.
