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It is obvious that the further Internet technology goes the less privacy could be kept by the users. What do you think the level of privacy left for searchers is now and what will it be in the future?

Google ranking and quality score mechanisms are already based on data collected from user queries and behavior online. What could be the other steps of destroying your privacy for the sake of more tailored and helpful search results?

As my imagination suggests – Google could resort to the following personal data to collect:

• each site a user visits and time spent on it before returning to search results;
• each search a user performs;
• sites a user owns, controls or updates
• accounts a user creates in Google services like Gmail, Bloogger, AdWords(AdSense), Picasa, etc.
• emails and messages sent/received via Gmail and Google Talk
• documents created on Google Docs, Google Calendar
• sites and feeds a user subscribes to at his Google Personalized Homepage
• everything one does on his personal computer (after installing Google Desktop)

I wonder is there any verge Google and other Internet giants will stop on or will they continue accumulating personal information up to the moment they know what I’m eating for breakfast?

If you still are doubting if to use meta description tag in the site structure or not from now it is confirmed that Google do use meta description tag. It was revealed in Google Groups discussion by Vanessa Fox – Google representative. Her answer to the other member’s question concerning Google indexing issues is the following:

Looking at your site in the search results, it appears that your pages would be well served by meta description tags. For most queries, the generated snippet is based on where the query terms are found on the page, and in those cases, your results are fine. But for some more generic queries, where a logical snippet isn’t found in the text, the generated snippet seems to be coming from the first bits of text from the page — in this case, boilerplate navigation that is the same for every page.

So generally speaking, making use of meta description tag not only adds your page uniqueness but makes it’s snippet work for you.

When did you perform a search for local services last time? Yesterday? An hour ago? Local Search is growing swiftly and is reported to double for paid search to almost $1 billion this year - compared to $418 million of year 2005.

According to the latest survey conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings’ among the 2800 consumers 70% have searched for locally situated business and services using the Internet and 46% of them did so in the last 3 month.

Considering that 90% of respondents have found local search to be effective for finding services or business in a particular area, costs spent on local search advertising are obviously giving Advertisers great returns on their investment. Kate Kaye at ClickZ also has a great article on the Local Media vs. Search Engine battle that is waging.

Borrell Associates report, “2006 Local Search Advertising” also predicts dramatic growth in local search spending; their estimates reach $4 billion by the year 2010.

In my opinion, local paid search is worth spending your advertising dollars on and definitely should be considered when planning the overall advertising budget and strategy.

Looks like Live.com (New MSN Search) is banning sites that use ’spammy’ technologies, like participating in link-exchange programs or using the services of link farms. An email from The Live Search Team was published in a Search Engine Watch forum that confirms the accusation:

Your site is acquiring links through posting to or exchanging links with sites unrelated to your site content. Techniques which attempt to acquire unrelated spam links in order to increase ranking are considered spam and your site has been excluded from our index as results. Please contact us once you’ve removed these links and we will reevaluate.

Live Search

I’m not sure if those ultra strict measures are fair, and in respect to sites honestly exchanging links I feel a just penalty shuold be a ranking decrease. Penalizing the site for the behavior is enough to punish them - banning them is another issue. However, considering that spammy techniques used in link farming dramatically affect the search results as a whole; some still feel Live.com’s measures could be fair.

An easy and fast way of submitting websites to search engines was announced yesterday on PubCon conference. From now 3 major search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN support Sitemaps 0.90 format. They expect it would result in search results quality and freshness improvement and better representation of sites in search indices.

Sitemap protocols make it convenient to submit and update all site URLs, notify search engines of changes or new pages. The sitemap can be submitted to any site that has adopted the protocol and though for now it’s Google, Yahoo and MSN, other search engines are also invited to use this system.

All and detailed information about Sitemaps could be found on a new Sitemaps.org site. But in general I should say that if you already have a Google sitemap you shouldn’t change anything as it is supported by Yahoo and MSN from now. The format was not changed just now the sitemap submission option is available in Yahoo and MSN also.

This is one of the best overviews and guides to help explain the current Search engine marketing marketplace. The newly released Ad Age “Search Engine Fact Pack” contains over 50 pages of valuable insights about search-engine marketing.

This includes data points on specific engines, keywords, referring sites and numerous case studies.

All of us in the SEM world know it’s value and ability in connecting potential buyers to sellers, but until recently, it has lived a low-profile life in the online media and advertising world.

You can download the Search Marketing Fact Pack - 2006 PDF here for free.