Ecommerce and Web Marketing  Research - March 2004

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March 30 2004

AllTheWeb goes Yahoo!

As of around 4 days ago, AllTheWeb, a little used but very useful search engine, is now using Yahoo! search results. AllTheWeb (aka FAST) was purchased by Yahoo some time ago and it appears the company is in the process of rapid consolidation of recently acquired assets. I'm sad to see the changes - while AllTheWeb didn't provide a great deal of traffic, it was a great engine to use for comparative study and it had some nice features not available on other engines..

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March 29 2004

Microsoft search - the next challenger

In a recent conference for online advertisers at Microsoft's Redmond campus, the charismatic Chief Executive of Microsoft, Steve Balmer, who incidentally is the only guy I have *ever* seen sweat from the elbows, conceded that the company made a mistake in not trying to corner the search engine market a lot earlier.

All that's about to change. Microsoft hopes to have some of its own search technology development completed in the next 12 months and it's already well known that search will be an integral part of their next operating system. Read the full story on CNN. 

Microsoft have actually been testing out a home grown search bot since June 2003 called MSNBot. It's not surprising that Microsoft are focusing so much effort in catching up on home grown search and it's just not because of the money to be made from the search engine industry - it's also about power.

At present MSN Search is powered via an unholy alliance with Inktomi and Overture. Both companies are owned by Yahoo. Given that Y! has discontinued their association with Google and switched to using their own search technology, the company is fast becoming a steamroller in the search engine industry. There are now 2 big "stand alone" players in search - Yahoo and Google. There may not be room for a third, so Microsoft is eager to get a better product off the ground as soon as possible.

By the way, if you don't know much about Steve Balmer, he's really worthwhile checking out - a very interesting and energetic guy! He's not a little guy by any means, but boy can he move and really work a crowd!

ICANN fears spark UN discussion.

ICANN is the organization that  oversees the overall management of the Domain Name System - such as ".com," ".net" and ".org". The organization can also intervene in trademark disputes. 

ICANN is a US based organization and reports to the USA Department of Commerce. Fears are being raised by a number of countries who believe that given it's close association with the US government, it is conceivable that traffic could be diverted from some countries if the US applied enough pressure. These countries would like to see a greater UN involvement in control of ICANN. Read the full story on Associated Press.

27 March 2004

Broadband availability in the USA

Election years are wonderful aren't they? It seems that both Bush and Kerry have jumped on the broadband bandwagon in an effort to secure more votes. If they follow through, it's definitely good news for surfers and rich media proponents alike.

President Bush announced today that: "We ought to have universal, affordable access to broadband technology by the year 2007," Bush said. "And then we ought to make sure as soon as possible thereafter consumers have plenty of choices."

John Kerry stated shortly after "I will focus on raising American competitiveness. By spurring the growth of new industries like the broadband technology that will dominate the future."  Read the full story on Reuters.

But before everyone goes ahead with publishing their 1 megabyte Flash splash pages, it's a good idea to remember that people want broadband for speed, not to spend equally as much time waiting for a page to load as they currently do on dialup. In fact, people will get just as impatient for a 10 second load time as they do now for a 20 second wait. 

24 March 2004

Voice operated web browser

Opera Software, the developers of the lean, mean Opera browser, has partnered with IBM to develop a voice driven web browser. The new browser, still in development stage, utilizes IBM's ViaVoice technology along with XHTML + Voice standards. You can learn more about it in Opera's press release. Don't worry, it's not quite time to totally redesign your sites just yet ;) - public release will be some way off and as to how it will be accepted by the general market is anyone's guess. Personally, I still like the interaction with my keyboard and whenever I hear of voice technology or AI making another leap, this pops into mind:

Dave. Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
Hal. I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
(2001 - A Space Odyssey) 

Opera has made great strides in recent years. Their browser has become the 3rd ranked web browsing software package, mainly due to it's tiny download size (3.2 megabytes), browsing speed and security features. Will Opera topple Internet Explorer? Very hard to say, especially with the amount of cash backing Microsoft - but Opera are definitely a company to watch. 

21 March 2004

AOL reports decrease in Spam

I don't know what to make of this one. In this article, AOL appears to claim that their actions have produced a substantial decrease in the amount of illegitimate email being sent to users. 

That's great news on the surface, but what isn't mentioned is that sources such as MyDoom that were particularly active in February, have since become inactive or less active *by design*. In my opinion, this would have have contributed greatly to the reported drop in email activity. A number of the variant MyDoom viruses were programmed to become inactive of their own accord during February and early March. MyDoom was the fastest spreading virus in Internet history.

Another interesting strategy that AOL is using in the fight against spam is to block access to websites run by known spammers. After seeing what some AOL members classify as spam, this could be a very flawed approach. 

For example, I've noticed AOL members subscribing to double opt-in newsletters and then when they don't wish to receive the newsletter any more, they don't bother unsubscribing - they just report it as spam. 

Even if AOL is correct in stating that Spam *originating* from their services is decreasing, the situation reminds me a little of the battle against drugs - clean up one suburb of traffickers, they just move somewhere else. There really needs to be a *globally* co-ordinated effort. As long as even one country turns a blind eye to spammers, the battle can never be won and it will only get worse.

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Yahoo! Web Rank - observations

Yahoo! Companion, a search toolbar similar to Google's, is currently testing a new feature called Web Rank, much like Google's PageRank. I've been able to get a copy of the toolbar with Web Rank enabled in the past few days. 

The Web Rank feature is currently in Beta and if you download the toolbar from the Yahoo Companion site at the moment, WR scores aren't available as beta testing spots are full.

I've been cruising a number of sites and comparing the scores to Google's PageRank - like Google, the scores range from one to ten.

From what I've noticed, top level pages of well established sites display tend to display scores of one point less than Google, but there are many differences when it comes to sub-pages. Many sites I visited that have only been established in the past 2 months are yet to show a Web Rank, but it's early days yet.

Web Rank will be another useful tool for webmasters to use to assist in improving search engine rankings on Yahoo! Search, but as with PageRank, high Web Rank scores shouldn't be seen as the holy grail of SEO. The standard advice remains: 

- build sites with good internal linking for search engine robots to follow.

- add compelling content with relevant key terms.

- engage in quality link trades with similar sites; i.e. don't bother with sites who will add your link to a list of 1000 other sites.

- don't try to fool search engine robots, it's just not worth it.

While on the subject of link exchanges, I've published a couple of article that you may find useful - Exchanging links - tips and tools and Anchor text and search engine optimization. The reason I mention this is that it appears that Yahoo! is currently giving quality inbound links and anchor text a great deal of weight.

I'm not sure when Web Rank will be implemented as a standard feature. Learn more about Yahoo! Companion here:

http://companion.yahoo.com/ 

.. and about the Web Rank feature here:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/companion/webrank/ 

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18 March 2004

New spam laws

Legislation is wonderful isn't it? Unfortunately, it's only heeded by those with respect for the law. Since the introduction of the CAN-SPAM Act, I haven't seen any slowdown of junk mail. As usual, other countries are following the USA's lead in introducing equally ineffective laws, drafted by persons whom appear to have little understanding of the web and the people these laws are supposed to target. Here's the latest from the European and Australian policy makers.

Spam Act 2003 - Australia. This is due to be fully implemented in April 2004.

European Union - A listing of the various laws in place for member countries. You can also download the E-Privacy Directive pdf file. The E-Privacy Directive is currently being adopted by member countries to provide a common set of laws.

All I see in these various documents is tighter controls over the people who are trying to do the right thing anyway and lots of loopholes for the spam gangs. Until *universal* sets of rules are adopted and governed by a central body, the war against spam is doomed to failure; with just a few token court actions to make it look as though something is actually being achieved. What's really needed is an ICANN type organization to oversee global efforts in spam reduction and to establish workable, mandatory processes for ISP's and web hosts.

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16 March 2004

Yahoo - a new era, new challenges

Most people would be aware of the recent changes to Yahoo, including the company no longer using Google for search results and the introduction of SiteMatch. If you're still confused about the new directions of Y!; the relevant Web Master World Forums may contain the info you need; but beware, it contains a lot of theories, so take each post you read with a grain of salt - it's early days yet. A couple of Yahoo representatives also frequent the forums. 

You can also get a brief summary of the changes to Yahoo in our search engine optimization & submission guide 

Europeans still wary of Ecommerce?

While consumers in the USA have embraced doing business online, it appears that one in four Europeans are still resistant to purchasing goods and services via the web for a couple of reasons, predominantly trust issues and Internet accessibility.

Some figures from survey results released by the European Commission :

- Only 16% of people in the European Union utilize ecommerce.

- 25% of people who don't use ecommerce state issues relating to trust.

- 57% of consumers who don't buy online do not have Internet access.

- 55% prefer to physically handle goods before purchasing.

- 44% of people not using ecommerce are skeptical of information they garner online.

- 50% of the  persons surveyed who were aware of trustmark schemes said they had greater confidence in trustmarked sites.

- Only 10% of people surveyed knew what a trustmark was.

Read the full report

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