Google is currently in talks with the Massachusetts-based software company ITA. The transaction could cost Google upwards of $1 billion. Bloomberg’s source noted that, though they are currently discussing plans for a buyout, the negotiations have not been finalized yet.

ITA is a developer of flight software that helps users make online travel arrangements. Its software is currently used by Orbitz, Microsoft, and several other airlines.

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, and ITA does that for travel,” Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at Forrester Research in San Francisco, told Bloomberg.

The takeover could have serious ramifications for travel search engine optimization(SEO). The digital marketing firm Efficient Frontier found that Bing was making serious gains in the travel sector – in 2009, Bing increased its travel sector market share by 160 percent. Microsoft currently uses ITA for Bing’s travel search engine. The travel sector generated $88.4 billion last year, according to Bloomberg.

According to eWeek’s Clint Boulton, “as the search provider for the iPhone, Google also sees what iPhone users are searching for, which can help it tailor software and services for its own mobile smartphones. This competitive advantage has not gone unnoticed by Apple.”

While the mobile market could well be the primary catalyst behind Apple’s rumored move, its primary difficulty will be a programming one, writes TechTremor. Creating a search engine is a massively difficult endeavor, but the company’s extensive resources and increasingly strong urge to compete with Google could push it into just such an attempt.

While the world of search engine optimization (SEO) could be seeing a new competitor emerge, SEO professionals are already bracing for the disappearance of an old one… My prediction is that Yahoo will soon be taken over by Bing.

The new technology would use “routers, multilayer switches, and any other suitable device” to capture the URLs of websites that traditional web crawlers may be unable to access because they are unconnected to the crawler’s previously known network of sites. The patent was originally filed last year, but was published by the U.S. patent office on December 17.

BNet describes the technology as an “elegant solution” to one of the central problems with traditional web crawlers. “Any page receiving any amount of traffic would seem to be one whose location should be known,” writes Erik Sherman on that website.

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals should be aware of the possible implications of the Cisco technology, which could have an effect on their carefully crafted SEO campaigns, experts say. Some speculate that the technology could improve the comprehensiveness of search engine results.

Reuters reports that company insiders say that Hot Jobs – in addition to Yahoo’s Small Business unit – was on the block for a hoped-for fee of anywhere between $350 million and $500 million.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, speaking at an investor’s conference earlier this week, joked that Yahoo owed a great debt to Tiger Woods for the revelations about the golfer’s personal life that spiked search traffic across the internet. She also confirmed that Hot Jobs was not central to the company’s strategic vision moving forward and could be sold.

Bartz also blamed the company’s declining search numbers – and consequent diminution of relevance to the search engine optimization (SEO) market – on the failure of toolbar deals with HP and Acer that would have seen Yahoo toolbars pre-installed on PCs manufactured by those companies.

Enge writes that, despite the fact that the benefits of long tail search engine optimization (SEO) having been obvious for years, many clients are still unaware of the potential upside to targeting highly specialized queries. He uses the example of a camera retailer, which, by tailoring SEO to specific camera makes and models, brings in more customers who are ready to purchase their products.

The basic assumptions from which Enge works in making his assertions is that roughly 70 percent of search traffic comes from the long tail, 20 percent from what Enge calls the “chunky middle,” and only 10 percent from competitive “head” search terms. The latter can be useful for driving traffic, but conversion rates are usually low, and the investment is frequently not worth it.

Seach engine optimization (SEO) campaigns that carefully target the long tail should see a spike in ROI, according to Enge and numerous other SEO experts.

1. English
2. Chinese
3. Spanish
4. Japanese
5. French
6. German
7. Arabic
8. Portuguese
9. Korean
10. Italian

(*source)

To master Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the English language is difficult enough, but what to do with sites that cater to English and Spanish-speaking visitors?  And what happens when you have a site in both languages that targets multiple countries (i.e. America and Mexico)?

To begin, you want to find a hosting company that is native to the country the site was designed to primarily serve.  This is imperative.  Furthermore, you need to ensure the domain name is properly registered for that country.  If you have a primarily English site dealing with real estate in Denver, Colorado, it is best to have yourdomainname.com (or .net or .org).  In Canada use .ca and for the U.K. use .co.uk (same goes for Australia – .com.au)

If you want your Spanish-speaking friends to view condos in downtown Denver, then you would create a Spanish subfolder on the site, such as yourdomainname.com/spanish/ and put the identical content that is now translated into that folder.

Now, there is some debate between setting up subfolders and creating an entirely new site completely in Spanish due to better search engine results when using the two separate sites scheme.  However, if the site is hosted in America (or another host country with the content bearing the host country’s language), and is relevant to that country, it is not only quite appropriate to use the subfolder approach – it is recommended.

On the contrary, If we are building a site in which the content is not country/language specific, the recommended course of action is to build separate sites.  Host one site in America with the English language content and the other site in Mexico or Spain with the Spanish language content.  You would then build links to each site and almost treat them as separate entities.  Should someone wish to visit the Spanish site (or vice versa), provide a link between the two sites as a translation.

One word regarding translations:  when translating your site, do not – I repeat, DO NOT – rely on mechanical means of translation.  Spend the money to hire a person to translate your site, preferably one that lives and works in the language-speaking country so they may be familiar with the native cultural dialects and norms.  One mistranslated word and your site could easily go from selling real estate in Denver to insulting someone’s mamma.  It is just as important for a website to communicate correctly as it does effectively.

This article is just a brief beginning to a tumultuous topic.  The thoughts and reasoning of the SEO community-at-large continue to change on a pretty regular basis when dealing with multiple languages and optimization.  Ultimately, it comes down to what the visitor needs.

Source:

• Unleaded Software

“Readers can simply copy and paste the destination URL into your browser to direct it to the desired Website; you would be taken to [a] boring but otherwise harmless blog posting like those pictured earlier in this discussion,” the company explained. “The attack only happens when the compromised blog site determines that you arrived by way of Google by checking the HTTP referrer.”

Cyveillance said that the infected sites utilized rogue blog publishing to automatically generate new posts with titles like “las vegas rental no credit check” or “uninvited song lyrics alanis morrissette morissette.” These poisoning campaigns are detrimental to legite SEO operations.

Source:

• Security Watch

All three local search centers include a wealth of information that’s of use for people doing searches (i.e. your prospects!), so be sure to fill out each form completely (the hyperlinked “Google”, “Yahoo” and “Bing”, above, will take you to each).

For example, if you have a bricks and mortar storefront, you can indicate your operating hours. If your site then appears in Google’s 10-pack listing and someone clicks on your listing, it will say whether or not you’re open for business – in real time.

Also be sure to choose the appropriate categories for your business – and yes, you can choose more than one. Choosing more than one category helps ensure you site is shown in local searches for those categories (nevertheless, show restraint: only choose those categories that genuinely refer to your business).

As you can see in the screen shot below, Spa Bar, a day spa in San Francisco, has included its operating hours but is listed for one category only.

Its competitor, Tru Spa, also located in San Francisco, lists its operating hours and six categories, as you can see in the screen shot below.

2. Ask all of your customers to give you a review – on multiple sites.

Customer reviews comprise a major component of the local search algorithm. And, as you can see in the screen shot below, Google is now including a link for “Reputation Trend,” which links to a trending analysis on the review site Judy’s Book.

This means it’s becoming increasingly important that you become very strategic about getting your customers to leave reviews for you – on multiple review sites.

In this shot for Luminous Day Spa, you can see that Bing is pulling information from the CitySearch directory, including “menu” and “reservation” hot links, and it’s showing that the spa has a rating of 9/10 (we’re not sure how that is calculated).

Other review sites you’ll want to consider include:

Local review sites for your city/region – These include CitySearch and Yelp, to name just two popular review sites.

Travel sites — Fodor’s and HotelTravel.com are two popular sites.

Health sites — Doctor Oogle, Health Grades, No More Clipboard, and Health Profs are a few popular sites.

Google Reviews – Anyone with a Google account can leave a review simply by clicking on the little “comment” icon that follows any search engine listing (provided the person is logged in to Google).

Yahoo! and Bing Reviews – The review function works similarly to Google’s.

3. Upload your own images.

Although all three search engines let you upload images, you can upload more than just one or two to Google’s local business center. If you don’t upload your own images, you leave to chance exactly what image Google is going to show – which could be unflattering, to say the least.

For our day spa example, many of the spas used photographs of people getting facials and massages or images of their interiors. You can also upload your logo and YouTube videos.

Speaking at the ‘Connect to Content’ session at World Travel Market, Frommer’s Unlimited general manager Joel Brandon-Bravo said natural search had become the biggest battleground for travel companies.

He also estimated that website content requires about half the investment of cost-per-click advertising.

Frommer’s conducted research among eight of its clients to reveal the content costs about 17p per visitor. This compares to the average cost-per-click in travel search of 33p according to US figures from Efficient Frontier released in the summer.

Market figures show 70% of people click on natural (organic) search results.

To get to the 17p cost per visitor, Frommer’s divided the total investment in content against the number of unique visitors brought to a client’s website from natural search. The sample of eight clients included online travel companies, hotel sites and airlines and looked at a mix of syndicated content, custom content as well as a blend of the two.

Brandon-Bravo also talked about the importance of integrating content properly within websites.

“Investing in content is a bit like buying a gym membership, you have to use it. It’s about integrating that content with your products and really making it work. If a customer has to do more than a couple of clicks they are just going to go away.”

Recent research carried out by Frommer’s shows travel companies plan to increase their online marketing budgets next year with social media, search engine optimisation and online content – the three hot areas for investment.

More than three quarters of respondents also said the cost per visitor across their online marketing mix was under US$5.

Leapfish’s flagship product is a customizable homepage, which Search Engine Watch describes as being similar to iGoogle. Users can create their own startup pages using a simple graphical user interface to arrange and position various pre-set widgets, predominantly those offering access to Twitter, Facebook and numerous other social media networking tools.

The new search portal has drawn widespread interest from all corners of the world of search marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO). Leapfish adds a new variable into the way in which web users view social media content, and could hamper Google and Microsoft’s expected moves into the social search market.

The two internet giants recently signed separate deals with Twitter to index the popular microblogging service’s content. Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals are still trying to figure out exactly how the “real-time web,” as Leapfish calls it, will affect SEO campaigns.