As a search expert with Mom on the brain, Google was curious to learn more specifically about Moms and Search. To accomplish this, we partnered with , a Moms expert, on a joint research study designed to take a look into the mindset and motivations behind decision-making Moms…

This could prove to be invaluable information to any business that has mothers as part of their demographics. Find out why mums are hitting the search engines and how you can profit from this.

At Google, we’ve found that users are more likely to click on short URLs in the search results than on longer ones. However, if your site is like most, there are multiple URLs that will take users to the same product page, including some that are longer because they include tracking information, category navigation, or other parameters. For example…

Are you interested in having Google index your site’s links which only you approve of? Let Google tell you how.

Shoppers increasingly use their smartphones to search the internet, and we typically see an increase in shopping-related queries on Android, iPhone and Palm WebOS devices during the holiday season. Ensure that your online campaigns perform well on mobile devices with…

If you’re marketing with Adwords and aren’t targeting potential customers who’re migrating over to their smartphones for online purchases, you’ll want to read what Miles Johnson has suggested.  Hurry and get your campaigns prepared for these smartphone-savvy shoppers this holiday season!

Seriously guys.

Can’t you keep the web the way it was when I left it for TWO weeks? Who is sleeping on the job? All I ever asked you guys for was to make sure nothing major happens when I’m gone.

But it never fails. The instant I go on vacation, eleventeen different things change (or threaten to change, or start to change) about the web and I come back to an Inbox full of questions.

Says my protégée. I don’t do email anymore.

Anyways, so here’s the short list of the news I’m going to add my own analysis today.

• Yahoo adopts Bing for search, and the mixed reaction to the ten year deal and how it will affect search engine optimization.

  Wasn’t there a major search engine that started out like this… starts with a G… hm… maybe I’ll remember later.

  Folks are saying they are giving up on search… but isn’t that what was said about their alliance with… what was it? Oh yeah I remember GOOGLE.

• Facebook buys FriendFeed and expands their search into the News Feed. Has Facebook set their sights on search? Or wasn’t that the plan all along? And aren’t they really cozy with Microsoft? That just made Bing? Who just hooked up with Yahoo?
• Twitter has a denial of service attack and Network Solutions’ merchant account service gets hacked.

  We’re going to delve more into that, how I believe we all missed the point of the news, and for the second, the horribly uneven coverage in the press tomorrow.

  With the disclosure that I’m on Networks Solution’s Social Web Advisory Board, which makes me kind of an even bigger deal than you thought I was, but, as you’ll read, does not influence what I write about. Unless of course they can afford to pay me $2 million.

  Yes, I can be bought. But I’m not cheap, and I will tell EVERYONE when it happens…. lol…

• Google debuts Google-On-Crack, better known as the Caffeine public beta. They’re asking for your input. I’m asking you to pay attention.
• Tr.im is Gone. Blames Twitter. Tr.im is Back. Still Blames Twitter. … Wait. WTF is Tr.im?

Okay, you got me. I have no intention of covering that in my upcoming news analysis. I just don’t get the business model for a URL shortening service that ….

Okay I don’t get the business model for ANY url shortening service. There are things along the lines of bit.ly that I would pay for. Because how is tr.im different from is.gd?

That rant is for another day maybe. It took me three hours to do this much. My back is just killing me today.

Back on the topic though. In the upcoming articles, I solemnly swear that I’m not going to just tell you what everyone else said. I just did that – you’ve got a mouse, click over and read the reports.

But if you want to know how some of these events might change your life or at least your business or why you shouldn’t care, or just want to hear me speculate, then stay tuned. As usual, I’m going to tell you how the news will affect you, the business owner building a web presence , between tonight and tomorrow.

Here’s a trick people fall for all the time. It’s so common the really scuzzy people have a name for it – it’s called “False Proof.”

It’s when they tell you something that is technically true, but completely irrelevant or immaterial. 

Like when a person shows you a check for $75,000 they made from affiliate sales. But they don’t tell you they spent $60,000 in advertising and have to share the rest with several JV partners. 

Or when a so-called search expert will say, “I’m number one out of  33 million results.” And you think, really? 33 MILLION?

Then you get their software, ebook, or system, and you find out that even though you’re also able to rank number one for a term that gets 33 million results, none of it sent you any sales, or leads – and really, not much traffic either.

If you don’t want to get hustled by this little trick, remember that proof has to be MEANINGFUL. 

If you’re in a traffic or search tool buying frenzy, paste this notice to your computer.

Unless The Keyword They’re So Proud of Ranking For Is Actually a Difficult Task Even for a Professional, They’re Not Teaching You Anything You Can’t Find Out On Your Own.

Unless the thousands of links they’re getting are Valuable links, it’s a waste of your time and money to get them. 

If the technique they’re showing you is unethical, remember you’re risking your entire business for a possible short term gain – is the possibliity of losing everything you built worth a few extra sales? 

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It’s Not Always Because You’re New to This. Most of The Time It Probably IS. Look for the Proof. Look for the Respect of Peers OUTSIDE THEIR INDUSTRY Who Don’t Benefit Monetarily From the Product’s Success. 

 

It’s fine to profit from a JV deal with a friend, I’m not saying it isn’t. I’ve done it and when I have, I’ve slept great. 

What’s NOT Okay is when the testimonials of friends are the Only testimonials they have. What did their peers think? What did their clients think? What do people who didn’t know them from Adam before they tried it think?

If a person selling you an SEO product or search consulting is a layperson, and they figured out how to get results better than the next guy, though not on a professional level, and they say so, that is completely above board.

But if they’re claiming to be a guru or expert in any way, and they’re using keyword rankings or number of links generated, or anything else to prove their results, make sure they stand up to scrutiny.

Here are some things to test for:

• The number of results doesn’t always tell you how comparatively difficult the keyword is to rank for. 
   
• If the keyword is more than 4 words long, a monkey could probably rank for it under the right conditions.
   
• Even if it is hard for a newbie, and the program will help you get to the next level of expertise, if the terms you would rank for are those that don’t send any traffic, or help you build up to terms that will send traffic, it’s a waste of time
   
• If it’s just one keyword, and not at least hundreds, if not thousands that they have gotten rankings for? They aren’t an expert. You do NOT really know what you’re doing with search until you have been able to maintain hundreds or thousands of rankings for a few years. You can get to number one by cheating in the short term – until they catch you and ban your site.  Luck or cheating doesn’t make you an expert.
   
• Is the top result they have in Google or Yahoo their own site? It’s not that it’s a bad thing to get to number one using Ezine Articles or Hub Pages. It’s that you don’t control the rankings, and you don’t need someone to teach you something fancy to get that ranking.Anyone can get a popular site to rank at the top for an article they’ve contributed – there are free articles for how to do this around the Net. That’s not some coveted secret worth $97. You just use your keywords in the title of the article you’re contributing. The real trick is getting that ranking to mean money for you – just because it’s technically listed higher for you, and a link on that page goes back to your site, doesn’t necessarily mean it will help your search rankings or that the person reading the article or watching the vide will go to your site. 

  It Can be a good technique. But knowing that doesn’t make you an expert.

Now, I won’t sit here and say that every expert trying to get you to buy a search or traffic related product is full of it. There’s a lot of good programs out there that work. But the instant you’re being promised outlandish results with a minimum of effort, it’s right that your BS radar should go off.

There are plenty of programs out there that work – to tell them apart, scrutinize your expert, and the results of the tool. You may be surprised at what you find.

News and Clip ==> Yahoo’s getting a new home page, and someone has a screen capture.

The biggest change is the customizable left nav bar featuring Yahoo properties that now allows people to add or edit links to outside sites through an “application gallery” that opens up via tabs at the top and bottom of the section.

Link ==> Yahoo Readies a New Home Page – PC World

Screenshot of Yahoo’s Alleged New Homepage at Mediapost.

Important? ==> This could be the first of many changes designed to make Yahoo more competitive with Google, who is dwarfing the former King of Search at the moment. A decade ago, we didn’t know what a Google was, remember, and Yahoo has somehow survived all its competitors, and though it should be all but crushed by Google, is still around. Don’t bank on a TKO yet. As long as Yahoo continues to fight for search dominance, it’s not over.

And until then, whatever traffic Yahoo can bring you is good for your business. So don’t abandon a Yahoo search strategy just yet.

In » Life without Google Day 1: The Ask experiment , ZDNet writer Larry Didgnan swears off Google for a few weeks, and on day one, has replaced the search wife in his life with the tawdry harlot, Ask.

From his Day One experience:

Here are a few thoughts on Ask.com and its redesign. More detailed views are available in the gallery above.

Being able to save a Web page is a nice touch.

The recommendations are helpful and encourage discovery–something that’s sort of old school for me. Typically, I know exactly what I’m looking for and expect it quickly.

Results in Ask.com are presented in a nice format, but often I was led astray or given results that didn’t quite add up. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it wasn’t Google either.

Search results from various content types–images, blogs and local could be integrated better. A few times I wound up at Ask City and felt like I was off the Ask3D approach.

Overall, I could survive with Ask.com as my search and maybe even thrive. On Day 1 though I’m missing Google. I’m sure it’ll get easier.

Good points about Ask but he’s better than me – I can live without Google, but I refuse.

Stop what you’re doing (“because I’m about to ruin/the image and the style that you’re used to…” name that tune in the comments and I’ll give you $20 next week). You want to read this excellent article over at Search Engine Land that I just “Dugg”, Google 2.0: Google Universal Search.

The new system officially rolls out today for anyone using Google.com and searching in English. Not everyone will see it at first, but over the course of the next several days, Universal Search should be more, well, universal.

The move potentially should be a huge boon for searchers, while search marketers who have paid attention to the importance of specialized or vertical search will see new opportunities.

Pay particular attention to the concise relay of what vertical search is.

For many of you keyword research veterans, this may be nothing new. And if you’ve signed up to get the free gifts, you also have my free Lucrative keyword research Guide. However, I find this to be the best mini-guide to Keyword Research that I’ve seen in a while. It covers quite a few things that even experts forget.

Here’s a quote from Gobala Krishnan’s article Keyword Research 101 : Fundamental Keyword Strategy that talks about the limits of keyword research:

There are some severe limitations to keyword research. The main one is that it tells you what the user typed into the search engine, not what the user is really looking for or the state of mind the user is in.For example, the user typed in “cheap gibson electric guitar” into the search engine and found your site. But, what is the user thinking when he is reading you page? Is he:

* Looking to buy a product – if yes, then your site should be primarily monetized by affiliate programs that pay you per sale. You can find a lot of physical products and digital products that you can sell from your website just by typing in “your keyword affiliate program” in search engines
* Looking for more information – if yes, then your site should be monetized by an advertising program like Google Adsense or Chitika, since the user is more likely to click away for more information rather than buy something
* Looking for bargains – if yes, your site should be monetized by Ebay or Auction Ads, which is based on Ebay but works like Adsense
* Looking for freebies – if yes, your site should be monetized with CPA (Cost Per Action) programs that you can find on networks like www.shareasale.com or www.linkshare.com

Awesome approach to a concept that is often a little tricky to relay.

Okay, newbie. Let’s learn the ropes. (I love it when Dr. Cox on Scrubs calls Zach Braff’s character a girl’s name in addition to “newbie” … back to reality…)

1. Create a Google Account

I don’t know if this is now true of all Google accounts, but when you sign up at Google Groups, you can create a google account without having to sign up for Gmail, Google’s email service. Just go to the Google Groups home page, and click on “Create an Account”. In the first box, you’ll see that you can use your current address to log in.

2. Explore
Find stuff that interests you by searching or browsing under “Explore groups” on the home page.

3. Join

Find a groovy group? Click the link that says “About This Group” in the right hand pane and learn the topics or guidelines before you sign up. Then you can click on “Join this Group”, which is normally right below that.

You can always opt out later if you find it’s not for you, and you can choose to follow via email, the web, or RSS. After a bit, watch for the “Suggested for You” area in Explore Groups to find groups similar to the ones you’re subscribed to already.

4. Create or Participate

I’ll give you a week to lurk then I’m pushing you out of the nest. Meet people! Post! Have fun. You can even make your own Google Group by clicking on the “Create Group” button.

Be sure to invite people from your newsletter, blog, or other communities that you host or run.

5. Help or Ask, Politely

Each group has its own level of etiquette. You can’t go wrong if you conduct yourself as if everything you say or do is being watched by your favorite client or the mentor you most admire. In other words, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want anyone to do if it was your forum.

Offer help when you can. Ask questions if you need help yourself. It sounds simple because it is. Jump in.

If you want to delve more deeply into Google Groups and how to use it, there’s an extensive guide in the Google help section.

Familiar with Google Groups but want to know what’s new? Go on the tour.

Want to know how to increase your traffic with Google Groups? Stay tuned, Samantha.

Edit 5. 28: Thanks to the Carnival of Entrepreneurs for including this entry. Visit more posts in the Carnival of Entrepreneurs at Start-up Spark.

Google Groups are kind of a cross-breed between public forums, what used to be newsgroups or Usenet groups , and a discussion mailing list. With an upgrade freshly out of beta last night, the new features seem like they will help facilitate communication between its users even more.

These enhancements include:

• File Sharing
• Member Profiles
• Collaborative Web Pages
• Customization of a Group’s look and feel

Google Groups can be public or private, moderated or not. But why would you use Google Groups instead of creating a regular forum on your own site’s servers?

The most obvious reason is that the fish are already there. What I mean by that is that to have a forum at your own site, you’ll have to seed it with members, and then get the group to grow. It can be an intensive endeavor, one that requires time and resources a full time business owner may not as readily have.

But when you start a Google Group, you’re casting your line into an ocean full of marine life, so to speak, rather than attempting to get them to come live in your pond of their own volition. Millions of people already use Google Groups, some migrated from Usenet groups, and many from daily searches at Google.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still have your own very successful forum at your own site as well. Some discussions are better in a closed community with fewer distractions. Anyway, who says you can’t have both? Or that you can’t participate in Google Groups to cultivate or show off your own subject-matter expertise?

On the other hand, Google Groups is free, and you can participate via the web or over email.

That nifty new facelift doesn’t hurt its case either.

If you’re still not sure how Google Groups would benefit you, get into the Google Group groove with some free tips for both the new and advanced Google fan.