SEO News
Google Replacing European Agency Commissioning Programme
Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineWatch reports on Google's announcement to discontinue their current European exclusive agency commissioning programme.
The programme which offered discounts to qualified agencies (including search engine marketing firms), will be discontinued from January 2006. As its replacement Google's European Third Party Programme which aims to fund "best practises" and "level the playing field" will offer the following key benefits according to a Google Press Release:
- Tools to increase third party efficiency and effectiveness
- Training and market research
- Process enhancements such as wholesale upgrades to our commercial processes to ensure that our processes are aligned to our third party business models
- Extended service and technical support
- A quarterly best practise funding program for investment in training and platforms which aims to provide financial support for those third parties who fulfill our quality and investment scale criteria
See Danny Sullivans of SearchEngineWatch blog posting for more depth on this announcement, and the full press release from Google.
New Open Source Search Engine
ThreadWatch points out Sentensa, a previously commercial search engine developed by Virtual Genetics Laboratory AB, now open sourced.
Sentensa, has used 20 years experience in search technology to create the next generation search motor. Users have the ability to use totally new ways of searching amongst very large text databases. The name Sentensa was chosen in order to describe how that it takes into account search text’s underlying significance to find the most relevant search results. Searches become much faster and effective, which make Sentensa applicable in many different markets, from the pharmaceutical industry to media and general document handling. Users can, with help from Sentensa, create advanced applications for searching in all kinds of text, which can be used by many users at the same time
The code is released under the GPL license, which means the source code of anything built up on the engine must be made publically available. Though they do offer an alternative commercial license at a price, for any companies who wish to keep their product(s) close sourced.
Also worth noting, the engine is programmed in Java, giving the advantage of being portable across many environments. But, with speed considered a integral part of making usable search engine applicaions, Java's reputation of being slow (in comparison to the likes of C, and C++, favoured among the Google and other big players) may actually turn off some potenial enterprise users.
Yahoo Testing New Tools For Advertisers
ClickZ reports, that Yahoo are testing a some new promising research/reporting tools for advertisers on their YSM service
The new tools are, Buzz Index:
Buzz Index -- not to be confused with the company's existing consumer-facing tool of the same name -- is a keyword discovery tool with attached demographic data
and, Search Share of Voice:
Search Share of Voice is a metric analogous to the traditional marketing measurement.
Currently these additional services are limited to being tested by 10-15 of the YSM's top advertisers, but are expected to made fully available in the coming months.
Google to Build 1 Million-Square-Foot Campus at Nasa Ames
The San Franciso Chronincle reports Google's intention to build 1 million-square-foot complex at NASA Ames.
NASAS Ames is a research center located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and home to many world class scientists, and engineers developing technology for space exploration.
The Internet giant, which has been looking for expansion space during the company's extraordinary growth spurt, plans to build offices, housing for workers, roads and infrastructure on a vacant section of the sprawling NASA facility in the heart of Silicon Valley.
In a news conference since held, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt described his envision of a collaboration with NASA:
“Google and NASA share a common desire-to bring a universe of information to people around the world, Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it. That's just one small example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology's role in making the world a better place.”
According to a NASA press release, the plans included in the new Google-NASA collaboration are "large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry."