Professional Search Engine Optimization and SEO Marketing Firm

Home

Package Deals

Optimization

Submission

Pay-Per-Click

Paid Inclusion

Local Search

Conversion

Free Tools

Blog

Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

We encourage you to get involved in our blog community - so share your opinions and experiences by leaving comments on our posts.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

Wednesday, August 30

Danny Sullivan Leaves Search Engine Watch

Danny Sullivan, the undisputed guru of the search engine and search engine optimization space, has announced that he will be leaving Search Engine Watch effective 1 December 2006. He will most likely also no longer be chairing the Search Engine Strategies Conference series. He has made the decision to leave because he and Incisive Media, the new owners of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies, were not able to reach a financially attractive agreement for Danny regarding his future contribution.

It's hard to imagine either of these search engine institutions without Danny, and so far, he is keeping us guessing as far as his next moves are concerned. Chris Sherman, his collaborator of five years, will remain at Search Engine Watch.

If you want to find out what Danny's next venture will be, you can use one of the options of staying in touch that he mentions on his private blog. You can also find Danny's full explanation of why he's leaving Search Engine Watch there.

Tuesday, August 29

Google "Office": Will Small Businesses Adopt It?

Today, Google will be rolling out a new software bundle called "Google Apps for Your Domain". It's basically Google's version of Microsoft Office - and using it is free, as it's based on an advertising supported business model. But don't get excited too soon - at the moment, Google Apps for Your Domain only includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google's instant messenger Google Talk and Google's web design tool Google Page Creator.

Missing are crucial business software programs for word processing and spreadsheets. Google recently bought a word processing tool called Writely, which it plans to include before the end of this year, just like it plans to include Google Spreadsheets. Only then will you be able to really compare Google Apps for Your Domain with a software suite like Microsoft Office.

But what are the pros and cons of Google Apps for Your Domain if you look at the larger picture and consider what it will become in the future?

The Good Points of Google Office:

It's a free, ad revenue supported product bundle. This will certainly appeal to cost-conscious small businesses.
All the services are based around a domain. You can receive emails to your.name@yourcompany.com through Gmail and also add company branding to your calendar and Gmail accounts.
Google Office is strong on collaborative features which will come into their own when word processing and spreadsheets are added to the bundle. Microsoft has been slow to add any collaborative features to MS Office, but will feature them with the new release of Microsoft Office 2007.
Once word processing and spreadsheets are added, it might actually become a serious alternative to MS Office (as long as you're not interested in creating presentations or using database applications).

The Bad Points of Google Office:

In its current form, neither a word processing nor a spreadsheet application is included in the Google Office Suite - so it is definitely underwhelming for small businesses at the moment.
You can't use any of the applications when you are not online.
Google Apps for Your Domain is centered around a domain name, but Google doesn't offer domain registration and the instructions of how to get it set up with a domain registered at various registrars may be confusing.
There are privacy and security concerns. All your data will be stored on Google's servers, which may make the data vulnerable to security breaches, and opens the question of how Google will use any of the stored data.

In summary, Google Apps for Your Domain is currently too limited to be of great use to small businesses. According to Google, this will change soon with the addition of spreadsheets and word processing - and then Microsoft really will have a competitor on their hands whom they'll need to watch closely.

Yahoo! Overtakes Google ...In China

The battle between Yahoo! and Google for search domination is generally contested in the lucrative US market. Both companies hold significant market share across the US and have been seeking foreign shores to increase their search reach. The playing field of greatest promise for the two search heavyweights is China.

According to a recent research report of Searching Engine Market in China, issued by the CCW Research and reported by ChinaDaily, Yahoo! has just overtaken Google in Chinese search market share.

Google has very publicly expressed its interest in the Chinese search market after buying into China's no.1 search engine Baidu.com and then selling its interest to focus on its core Google search engine.

While Google has been in the Chinese headlines for all the right and wrong reasons, it appears Yahoo! has secured its share of the market more discretely. Without much hoopla, Yahoo! has not only successfully entered the Chinese search consciousness, but overtaken Google to secure the second spot to trail Baidu.com.

The increased market share is a great success for Yahoo!, but it's important to recognize that Yahoo! and Google still trail Baidu by a significant margin. The Chinese are still embracing their own, with Baidu holding about 44% of the search market alone.

Don't expect the US based search engines to resign themselves to minor placings in China. Google is already looking to set up a research center in Shanghai next year, and Yahoo!'s stake in the rapidly growing Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba.com should give it the network and inside knowledge to further increase its stake in China.

Google, Yahoo! & MSN Undergo Search Updates

All the major search engines are updating their indexes in same way at the moment. These index tweaks always have website owners watching anxiously, hoping that the updates will have a positive impact on their rankings.

Google is updating back links at some of its data centers. This comes hot on the heels of a recent data refresh which saw many web pages sent into supplemental results.

While the back link update shouldn't affect rankings immediately, website owners will be concerned should they see their back link counts drop. Google uses back links to determine its PageRank score, which it suggests plays a significant role in its rankings.

Yahoo! has also conducted an update, rolling out a new search index. The impact of its index revision has had more immediate effects on its ranking results. Initial feedback from the forums has been generally negative, with many webmasters complaining that the results have lost relevancy. As with all index updates, there are many website owners that are pleasantly surprised with their improved rankings too.

And to round off the trifecta, MSN attempted an index update also. A bug was reported in the initial update, which lead to the top 5 sites being duplicated on the 1st and 2nd page of results. MSN was quick to roll back the update after several complaints and is working on remedying the obvious bug. MSNdude stated:

We rolled back the recent update, so we're back to the status quo ante. All of your complaints may be accurate :-) but they shouldn't be any worse than they were a few days ago.

So the best thing to do right now, is to hold on tight and get ready for the ride. With Google, Yahoo! and MSN playing with indexes and results, there's sure to be complaints a plenty. The key is to not get caught up in the excitement. Stick to your SEO plans and strategies and you should be okay.

Monday, August 28

Google's Latest Deal - Is eBay Sleeping with the Enemy?

Internet heavyweights Google and eBay have announced a new deal that will have many wondering whether eBay is sleeping with the enemy. While the new deal is good for both parties on paper, considering the number of services that the two companies compete on, one does wonder who gains the most from the partnership.

The new alliance will see Google exclusively supply contextual text ads to eBay's non US sites. eBay signed a similar deal with Yahoo! in May this year for their US pages, but it's Google's international search strength that has seen it secure the non US deal.

The second part of the deal will see the two companies partner on a click-to-call advertising model available on Google's AdSense and eBay's product listings. The new system will allow internet users to use either eBay's Skype service or Google Talk to communicate directly with advertisers.

While click-to-call is not a new concept, the challenge has been find a VoIP facility that makes the program cost effective for advertisers and searchers alike. With the mass appeal of Skype and the extensive reach of Google's advertising and eBay's marketplace, this could be the first viable test of the click-to-call concept. Both companies will split the revenue derived from the click-to-call model, with no exact details on the how it will be shared.

For those not familiar with the rivalry that exists between these two internet powerhouses, these are the services that each company offer which are in direct competition:

Classified/Listing Service:
eBay Marketplace vs. Google Base

Free VoIP Services
eBay's Skype vs. Google Talk

Online Payment Systems
eBay's PayPal vs. Google Checkout

When you compare the various services, you realize that these service markets are actually being dominated by eBay's offerings. This new deal could be a sign that Google is resigning itself to eBay's strength in these areas, and has decided to join them rather than try to beat them.

From eBayâ€™s point of view, the deal will allow them to harness Google's search strength to drive more visitors and additional revenue to their highly trafficked internet network. The click-to-call program, should it prove successful, will also help them monetize their very popular Skype service, and help increase its market domination.

The synergies of the deal should be lucrative for both parties. It will also increase the barriers to entry for other players trying to enter markets dominated by both companies. eBay shareholders are obviously excited by the company's decision to join forces with Google, as its share price rose on announcement of the partnership.

For Google, it's the third major deal in a matter of weeks. Now the search giant has secured agreements with social network icon MySpace, entertainment titan MTV and now online marketplace goliath eBay. Who's left in Google's quest to conquer via collaborative partnerships?

Friday, August 25

E-Commerce Holiday Initiatives Swing to E-mail & SEM

E-mail marketing and search engine marketing will be the focus of many Internet and multichannel retailers' marketing campaigns as they approach the holiday season, according to a new study released by WebTrends.

Forty one percent of the 300 retailers surveyed in the 2006 Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report, said that the holiday season accounts for over 20 percent of their annual revenue. According to Forrester Research, the industry has already experienced an incredible 33 percent compound annual growth rate, and by their predictions is expected to increase by yet another 20 percent, totaling over $200 billion by the end of 2006.

WebTrends report that this year, twice as many retailers (23 percent compared to 11 percent in 2005) will be abandoning price-based promotions to generate online revenue. Free shipping which was clearly the preferred promotional tactic in 2005, has also dropped in popularity with only 45 percent of retailers intending on using it as part of their promotions compared to 62 percent in 2005.

On-site promotions such as suggested items, gift idea centers and featured sales item pages are still considered the most popular this year, despite a percentage drop (compared to 2005) in retailers choosing not to use these features on their sites. The only features to receive a year-over-year boost were personalized promotions and live chat.

Retailers ranked email marketing as the most important demand generation activity for this holiday season, followed by search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Overall, the biggest increases in spending according to the report will be in email marketing (52 percent), search engine marketing (46 percent) and search engine optimization (38 percent). The biggest decreases in activity spending however will be in online banner ads (17 percent), print advertising (16 percent) and broadcast advertising (14 percent).

Eighty percent of retailers said that sending regular emails to customers was their main strategy in building customer relationships. To further create and enhance customer relationships in the future, the activity ranked the highest (31 percent) amongst retailers was to develop a database of clickstream-based information for campaigns targeted to customer interests.

While according to this report retailers are looking to utilize email marketing and search engine marketing to build and nurture their customer relationships, 27 percent of those surveyed are not measuring their activities at all. Over 63 percent of retailers still measure their campaigns on response and activity-based metrics such as clickthroughs and page views, with only 10 percent currently using visitor-centric metrics such as unique visitors and deferred conversions.

Wednesday, August 23

Online Tips & Tweaks: How to Make Money with Affiliate Programs

Affiliate Programs - What Are They?

Affiliate programs are a type of performance marketing. Online companies (merchants) selling products or services agree to pay a commission for the referral of customers or prospects.

As a website owner, you can become an affiliate, advertise a merchant's products or services on your website and send traffic to the merchant's website. You will earn a commission on every sale that was made by visitors that you have sent to the merchant website.

Merchants may not only pay commission on sales, but also pay for lead generation. For example, a merchant might want users to register for something (maybe a free whitepaper, a newsletter subscription, or a request for information), and you as an affiliate can earn a set fee for every registrant that you have referred to the merchant website.

Large companies like amazon.com manage their own affiliate program in-house (so you sign up for amazon's affiliate program on the amazon.com website), but many merchants sign up with affiliate networks, which manage the affiliate program for the merchant.

For an affiliate, affiliate networks have the advantage that you can sign up to many different merchant programs at the same time and get summary reports and easy and reliable payment for all programs.

For merchants, affiliate networks manage the fairly complex tracking and administrative side of the program, while allowing the merchants to promote their affiliate program to a large number of potential affiliate sites. Popular affiliate networks include Commission Junction, zanox, shareasale, Linkshare and Performics.

Tips and Tricks for Affiliates

There are two broad approaches to making money with affiliate programs: You either have an existing business and want to supplement your sales revenue with affiliate commission, or you build you online activities solely around generating affiliate commission

The Key - Qualified Traffic
In either case, the most important ingredient to affiliate success is traffic, or more specifically, qualified traffic. If no one visits your website, you can have as many affiliate ads plastered on your pages as you want, but you still won't earn any commission.

If you have an existing website, you know what type of people visit your website and what they are looking for. In this case, offer affiliate products and services that your visitors are likely to be interested in and that complement your existing products and/or are related to the topic of your website.

For example, you might have a website promoting your cat and dog boarding kennel business, and you also provide tips on how to make holiday absences less traumatic for pets. In this case, it would probably be a good fit if you promoted pet food or pet accessories (or even pet psychologist services) through an affiliate program.

If you are thinking about setting up a website from scratch to generate affiliate revenue, think about the audience you want to target first. You need to create interesting content that will attract your target audience to your site.

For example, let's say you want to target running enthusiasts. What kind of information would running enthusiasts be looking for online? They might be looking for information on training programs, running tracks, race meets, nutritional supplements, injury prevention, running clubs and running gear.

So create pages with useful and current information on those topics, and then add affiliate ads promoting running shoes, vitamins, training handbooks and the like. Of course, it always helps if you are really passionate about the subject you write about ... your readers will recognize your passion, and this will enhance the reputation and authority of your site - which should result in more traffic!

Once you've got an interesting site with affiliate ads, how do you get traffic to your site? Here, you're back to the basics of generating website traffic through paid and free methods like on-page search engine optimization, incoming links, paid search advertising and any other form of online advertising that helps to generate traffic. Whenever you spend money on acquiring traffic, you need to keep your affiliate commission in mind and make sure you spend less on getting traffic to your site than you are earning as commission. Test, test, test until you find the winning formula.

Apart from search engines, community sites and social networking sites like myspace.com are popular places for people to hang out online. Try and think of how you can tap into these sites or activities like blogging to direct traffic to your site! Email marketing can also be very effective - set up an informative newsletter for your subscribers and include ads in the newsletter, or test advertising in third-party newsletters.

Focus on Selling!
While simply including affiliate ads on your site or in your newsletters may be enough to keep your commission payments ticking over, you can give your affiliate a sales a boost by actively selling them to your customers. Product or service reviews give your visitors credible background information and more reasons to purchase, testimonials and case studies act as fantastic sales support. Including text links to affiliate products within your content is also an relevant, effective and unintrusive way of promoting affiliate products.

An Alternative to Affiliate Programs: Join A Publisher Network

Does this affiliate thing still sound like too much work for you? Well, there are alternatives: You can sign up to the publisher networks of advertising programs like Google AdWords (Google AdSense is the name of the publisher network) or Yahoo! Search Marketing.

As a publisher, you simply select where and in what form you want to display text ads on your site, and the ads are served up to automatically match the content on your site. If you feel you don't want to promote certain companies because they are directly competing with you, you can choose to exclude these advertisers, whose ads then will never be displayed on your site.

The advantage of these kind of publisher networks are that they are very easy to implement and require minimal ongoing effort on your part. On the other hand, you are simply displaying text ads in various forms, so there are limits to how creative you can get.

Useful Links

Shareasale.com - The affiliate network ineedhits uses
Google AdSense - The Google AdWords Publisher Network
Yahoo! Publisher Network - The Yahoo! Search Marketing Publisher Network

Tuesday, August 22

AOL's Search Data Blunder - Heads Are Rolling

What Happened?

In late July, AOL made a data set of 20 million search queries by 658,000 of its users publicly available. These searches were conducted between March and May 2006, and users were not asked for their permission to release this data. The data sample represents about 1.5% of AOL's total users in May 2006 and about 0.33% of total searches conducted on AOL in the time period in question.

The data had not been sufficiently anonymized, so that theoretically individual users can actually be identified. AOL user names had been replaced with a random ID number, but the searches can by analyzed by user ID number, so that you can get a picture of all of the searches that an individual person conducted. Since people often search for their own name or include social security numbers in searches, it is possible to trace a search trail back to an individual.

The search trails can be embarrassing for the people who searched or can even indicate the possibility that illegal or criminal activity may have been or could be committed. So really, the data can be potentially explosive!

AOL's original intent was to release this data to provide a data set as a tool for the research community wanting information on search behavior. After all, researchers and marketers would love to have better information on search patters, amongst other purposes in order to be able to target advertising offers better.

After the enormity of the privacy breach was picked up and reported in blogs, AOL was quick to take down the data and apologize, but the damage was done - hundreds of people had already downloaded the data set, and duplicates of the data set were available on other websites.

Why is AOL's Search Data Blunder Such a Big Deal?

Well, because the fundamental issue of online privacy is at the core of the problem. The release of personally identifiable data without permission constitutes a breach of privacy rights. It also raises the question of what data companies should be allowed to store about their users, and for how long this data may be stored. The level of security surrounding storage of such data is also under scrutiny - how easy is potential abuse, and how likely is another screw-up or malicious breach of privacy?

There are strong conflicting interests at play - privacy, civil liberties, security, crime prevention, and lastly commercial interests of marketing companies and advertisers.

Is There Anything Good About the Search Data Blunder?

Interesting, AOL's slice of search data reveals how much there is still to learn about behavioral patterns in searching:

Is everyone really searching for themselves or could they be searching on behalf of others?
Over how much time can a search pattern stretch? How do you communicate to a searcher who is searching related keyword terms over periods of several months or longer?
Are you really sure a search trail can be attributed to one single person? What about multiple people using the same computer?
How do you best guess the intent behind very broad keyword searches?

As a marketer, I find these questions fascinating, and I can see how better understanding of these kind of behavioral issues could lead to the development of more relevant (for the users) and effective (for the advertiser) advertising products.

As a search engine user, I understand that a huge amount of data is collected about my search behavior every single day. I still don't like the thought that "Tell Me What You Search and I'll Tell You Who You Are" could be applied to me personally. The thought of this information in the wrong hands is quite chilling.

What Will Be The Fallout For AOL and Others?

It remains to be seen what long term damage this search data blunder may or may not do to AOL. The blunder has, with some delay, caused some heads to roll internally: This Monday, it was reported that Chief Technology Officer Maureen Govern and two other employees have been suspended by AOL. Two bodies involved in civil liberties and privacy advocacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the World Privacy Forum, also filed complaints against AOL last week over AOL's violation of the privacy of its users.

The risk of search data either unintentionally or maliciously landing in the wrong hands has definitely been highlighted - and this should not only concern AOL, but also Google, Yahoo!, MSN and any other online entities collecting and storing behavioral data of users.

Google Data Refresh - More Sites Go Supplemental

Forums threads started appearing on Thursday morning about a potential Google update underway. As many webmasters started noticing movements in Google's results, the speculation of a Google data refresh began.

So what is a data refresh? A data refresh is like a mini Google update. Google updates generally reflect a significant change to the Google algorithm, whereas a "Data Refresh" is simply a re-jig of the data based on the same algorithm.

The notable consequence of the data refresh is the movement of many web pages into Google's supplemental results. The official Google explanation as noted on the Search Engine Journal is:

"Supplemental sites are part of Google's auxiliary index. We're able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index. The index in which a site is included is completely automated; there's no way for you to select or change the index in which your site appears. Please be assured that the index in which a site is included does not affect its PageRank."

Many webmasters dread having their pages relegated to Google's supplemental results as it means that Google, while indexing your site, hasn't visited it in some time. This also means that the results can contain quite dated information. This further reinforces the need to update and be SEO conscious of all your pages.

While there has been no official word from Google on the data refresh, the forum buzz certainly confirms that something is going on. If you have encountered any results changes for your website, or you know something about the data refresh beyond the forum discussions, share your insights in a comment below.

eBay Fee Hike Set to Kick In

eBay announced recently that it was going raise some of the fees associated with trading on it's iconic online auction site. While the fees are designed to increase revenue, potential vendor backlash could mean that revenue moves in the opposite direction.

The fee increase would mean that the existing difference between auction prices and store prices is significantly reduced. Under the old fee structure, the cost of listing store items was 27% less than auction items. The new fees will see this reduced to just 3% according to an article by Ben Carmy from the Seattle Times.

Vendor concerns have been heard throughout the internet, with one group actually staging an eBay boycott. The group put a request through to Google to create an eBay alternative, so that other disgruntled vendors would have another option available. This does highlight the control eBay has on the online auction market, as currently there are no real alternatives.

That said, not all vendors are sharing the concerns. One seller's comments on an online message board herald the increases as a positive move. "Actually, I think this is good...Have you ever gone to eBay to search for cell phone accessories or anything of that nature? There are TONS of (items) that are so cheap there is no point in me selling my own. I'm glad they hiked it up."

So while eBay aims to reinvigorate its online auction system, the success of their initiatives will be measured by the actions of their sellers. Generally all fee rises are met with some resistance, but if sellers are able to absorb the costs and still make money, the backlash should be relatively short lived.

It also highlights a real gap in the online market. Until another company creates a genuine competitor, eBay will be in a position to dictate the termsâ€¦and nobody likes a monopoly (except for eBay execs).

Monday, August 21

Google's Sneaky Re-Release of Writely

One of Google's recent acquisitions received a sneaky re-open on Thursday night. While the search engine juggernaut focused on publicising their involvement in the Star Trek convention, their Writely web word processor was quietly re-released to the masses almost secretly.

Writely offers users most of the standard features you would expect from a modern word processor, plus the benefits of online storage, collaborative editing from anywhere on the net and document sharing.

The feature that has many touting it as a Microsoft killer is Writely's ability to accept Microsoft's Word documents plus many other word processing document formats. This includes layout, tables, embedded images and fonts.

Google's Writely, while still in beta, places pressure on Microsoft who is striving to control the online software market in the same way they did the personal computer software industry. Coupled with Google Spreadsheets, Google is definitely trying to stake its claim on the online SAAS (Software as a Service) market.

Another great feature that Writely offers is the ability to post directly to blogs such as Blogger, Movable Type and via Bloglines RSS feeds, which is an important feature in this user generated content environment.

That said, Google's Writely does have its deficiencies. Grammar checking, word counts and other word processing add-ons are notable omissions. There is also an obvious lack of integration with Google Spreadsheets and Google's existing accounts.

For those looking for a word processing alternative, or looking to embrace online software, Writely is definitely worth a look. I think its best feature is the ability to collaborate and review documents with colleagues online from remote locations in real time.

Give Writely a test drive and let us know what you think.

Friday, August 18

Microsoft Tops Worldwide Property Rankings

Microsoft sites secured the number one spot as the most visited global property in June 2006, according to recent analysis by comScore Networks.

comScore's results reveal that approximately 713 million people worldwide used the Internet in June, with U.S. users accounting for the highest percentage of unique visitors (21 percent), followed by 11 percent from China and 7 percent from Japan.

Close to 500 million unique visitors accessed Microsoft sites, with Yahoo! sites drawing 481 million visitors, followed by Google with 454 million visitors. Yahoo! sites however, finished on top with the number of page views, leading with 116 billion, while Google accounted for 84 billion and Microsoft sites received only 75 billion page views.

Top 10 Online Properties Worldwide (Visitors aged 15+)

Property	Unique Visitors (000)
Microsoft Sites	499,540
Yahoo! Sites	480,933
Google Sites	453,963
eBay	256,653
Time Warner Network	219,868
Amazon Sites	129,320
Wikipedia Sites	127,982
Ask Network	111,864
Adobe Sites	95,831
Apple Computer, Inc.	92,211

Source: comScore World Metrix, August 2006
*Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes and access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Managing Director for comScore Europe, Bob Ivans, comments how these three major properties continue to dominate and attract the largest audiences worldwide, in fact nearly 200 million more visitors than the next highest ranked property. Wikipedia and MySpace continue to make upward movements in the worldwide rankings, with Wikipedia attracting 128 million visitors in June, and MySpace capturing 15th position with 66 million global visitors. Yahoo! sites maintained its top online property position in the U.S. in July, attracting over 129 million unique visitors.

Tuesday, August 15

Google's Video Obsession - The Future is Revealed

Google's recent change to their homepage highlights its commitment to the industry's buzz around social. Last week, the Froogle link on the homepage was dropped in favor of Google Video. So as the search industry openly embraces the power of the community, Google has put its strongest social foot forward with Google Video.

So why has Google chosen video as its core foray into the social arena? Considering the social phenomenon embraces many different forms including blogging, social bookmarking, networking communities, photo sharing and so on, it is intriguing that Google chose video as its main focus.

The only logic I can purport is that video is an area that Google sees as largely untapped compared to the other major social/user generated areas. Their decision is probably reinforced by the fact that neither MSN nor Yahoo! has really made any serious headway in video.

Considering the resounding success of YouTube, the community potential of video is obvious, so maybe Google sees video as its way of getting ahead of MSN and Yahoo! in the social arena.

Google's focus on video goes beyond the link change on their homepage. The Google Video interface has been given a major overhaul bringing it inline with many of the most successful social sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr. With tagging, comments and video ratings, Google Video is now more user influenced than ever before.

There have been some other noticeable changes to mark Google's video direction. Some of you will have seen video links appearing at the top of search results. There has also been the very public deal with MTV to stream programs via AdSense and the ability to purchase MTV shows via Google Video download.

So the writing is on the wall. Video is the avenue that Google is taking to explore the power of social search in the short term. With everyone in the search game excited by the impact that people, user content and social influence will have on search improvements and results, here's hoping Google's learnings from its video endeavors are quickly related back to its core search offering.

Win gold with search engine marketing!

As you have probably seen, ineedhits is currently celebrating its 10th birthday. Not only is there a huge search marketing sale, but we are also running a competition to win one ounce of gold. Currently, one ounce of gold is valued at around US$628 ... that's 628 good reasons for you to enter the competition!

Entering the draw is easy - simply take our five question search marketing quiz and fill in the entry form. Not sure if you'll be able to answer search marketing quiz questions? Give it a go - everyone goes into the draw to win gold, regardless of how well you did in the quiz!

If you want to improve your chances of winning the ounce of gold, all you have to do is refer your friends - you get one extra entry into the draw for every successful referral of yours!

Good luck with the competition!

Sweepstakes and More - Hundreds of sweepstakes updated daily, free stuff, paid to surf sites, on-line games, lotto and more.