Amazon Steps into the Search Engine Race

Search, one of the Internet's Killer Apps has become a very lucrative business. The major search engines are making billions of dollars in income. Therefore, it is no surprise that Amazon is getting into the search business with its search engine A9. Recently Amazon has been offering additional discounts to is shoppers who surf over to buy from them from their A9 search engine. What will all this mean for the convergence of shopping and search? This is a developing story that I will be keeping tabs on in future months. To read more about this development: Click Here

Microsoft Delays Longhorn's Desktop and Internet Search Feature

MICROSOFT DELAYS NEW WINDOWS SEARCH FEATURE

In a move that will help Yahoo! and Google breath easier about the web based search applications business for now, Microsoft is delaying its desktop search facility. Microsoft's desktop search feature could eventually make web based search obsolete. Yahoo and Google will continue to diversify into the Internet service space like web mail, web site affiliate advertising, and online shopping.

Microsoft will release its long-awaited update to its Windows operating system in 2006 without its advanced file search capability, the company said last week. The company said the new operating system, code named Longhorn, would come without WinFS, a system designed to search for information scattered throughout a computer in different file types. Microsoft was expected to combine desktop search with the Web search engine it is also building. Instead, it will release a test version of WinFS with Longhorn, in a delay the company characterized as a "tradeoff" for making the operating system available quickly. To Read more Click Here

Local Search becoming More Important!

For those business owners who once felt that the Internet wasn't necessary for their local business please take note of the following article. More and more people are using the Internet to find local business services in their area. Now is the time to learn to utilize the Internet for your local business. This Article is courtesy Direct Marketer News

GUEST COLUMN: MERCHANTS FIND COMPLEX LANDSCAPE
IN LOCAL SEARCH

Consumers increasingly are searching online for local businesses, but how will local businesses take advantage of this fundamental shift in customer behavior? The Internet has affected almost every facet of business and has driven the creation of new business models while forcing the evolution of others, writes Click4Talk's Dave Landa. Traditional printed yellow pages and local commerce are being drawn headlong into the Internet vortex. The surge in online local searches by consumers relative to traditional printed phone book searches has prompted tremendous business focus in this space. To Read More Click here To Learn how to optimize you site for the search engines in your local area Click Here. If you need help in optimizing your web pages take a look at our services Click Here

Top Listings in Search Engines Drive Site Traffic

The following article gives you an idea of how valuable top rankings on search engines are. Kamau

STUDY: SEARCH RANK DRIVES TRAFFIC
Marketers with listings ranked at the top of search results pages receive much more traffic to their sites than those just a spot below, according to a new study. The research, released by aQuantive's Atlas Institute yesterday, found that Internet traffic decreases as keyword rankings drop. Overall, a top ranking generates 10 times the traffic as a spot at No. 10, Atlas said. Traffic was found to drop 10 percent for each drop in rank. "A lot of [marketers'] strategies are driven by their intuition, which tells them the No. 1 ranking is the best to be in," said Young-Bean Song, director of analytics at the Atlas Institute. "What they don't know specifically is what the tradeoffs really are." http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=29458