I have been assisting a friend of mine with her digital marketing needs. She’s a therapist and in the process of having a website developed for her practice. She knows she needs to have a presence online. She understands that she needs a website that is user friendly, follows SEO best practices and can be easily found through keyword search queries on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Even knowing all that, she is self-admittedly generally uncomfortable around all things technology related, online or off. And given the sorry state of most therapist websites (and I looked at many), this lack of tech savvy is something she shares with many of her colleagues.

So, last week my friend shared with me a letter, in PDF format, that she’s received via email from Shady SEM* (Shady) a company offering paid search services. She told me that the letter was a follow-up to of a cold call from the company. The letter states that Shady would guarantee my friend a top spot in paid search advertising on Google and Yahoo. It goes on to say that set-up in Google will cost my friend a mere $50 unlike the $79.95 the “competition” charges. Google’s name in rainbow colors is sprinkled throughout the text. Nowhere does the letter mention cost of media. Not a word about cost per click or strategy or keyword research or anything substantial. Just the guarantee of a top placement, the promise of adjustments (management?) if necessary, and a $50 fee.

My friend actually asked me whether the letter was from Google, seeing that Google’s name was everywhere. Don’t laugh. Your mom would probably ask the same question. Mine would. Really. Like I suspected, my friend was nearly misled into thinking that the $50 would buy her a high-ranking ad on Google. She was only “nearly” misled because we had talked about paid search and the associated costs, and so she thought the offer sounded “too good to be true”. But had she not known me, she admitted that she probably would have gone for it.

I don’t know about you, but this situation makes me mad. It is obvious to me that Shady is deliberately targeting non-tech-savvy verticals, fishing for naïve business owners who want to advertise their services or products on Google, know that a high placement is desirable, but the rest is mystery to them. When they bite, what happens next? Yes, we all know that it’s possible to pay one’s way to the top, but at what price? And how come Shady is not upfront about those costs? I wonder, how does Shady handle it when the unsuspecting business owner gets that invoice from Google? I can imagine a telephone call to Shady answered with “Oh, we’re sorry, obviously media cost is extra… Really, you didn’t know? Oh… No, we’re not charging that fee, Google charges that fee…”

At this very minute I’m wondering how many business owners like my friend may have been duped by Shady, and how many companies like Shady are out there. Hundreds? Thousands? And why should I (we) even worry about this? After all, it’s all buyer beware out there, no matter what the good or service is, right? So why should we all, as online marketers, be concerned about a few (I hope) bad apples among us? Well, to me it’s obvious. Unscrupulous and unethical members of our community (yes, sadly, they will be viewed as members of OUR community) damage our collective reputation. A business owner burned by Shady or a similar outfit is likely to have negative feelings about digital marketers in general and malign us all as a result. So WE get a bad name because of THEM.

So what should we as an industry, as a community of online marketing professionals do to address this? Form our own Better Business Bureau? Report companies like Shady to the existing BBB? Should we blog about them openly instead of covertly, legal repercussions be damned? Should we create a “Black List” or a Digital Marketing Code of Ethics we can all publicize and sign on to? Or should we just educate the public as much as possible about what we do, making sure that business owners like my friend become informed consumers? What do you think I should do right now? What would you do?

P.S. When I searched for Shady on Google, they don’t show up. Go figure…

*Not their real name, but it should be.

Laying in bed this morning, eyes closed, not quite awake, I heard the NASDAQ reporter on CNBC cackle “Amohave announced their intentions to acquire Funiture.” I thought…WTF? Why is buying furniture making the news? I picked my head up turning it towards the tv and dialed in my focus on the screen….I heard wrong. It’s Adobe to acquire Omniture!

This is a beautifully strategic move for Adobe and another cock block on Microsoft. Why? MSFT was working on an analytics package last year to compete with Google Analytics and Omniture. The plug has been pulled and there’s no further development (link). I suspect the powers that be decided better to buy than build. MSFT’s pre-occupation with Yahoo & Bing has led them to miss the ball again. Steve…WAKE UP…It’s about tracking! So instead of buying the technological leader they bought a second place also ran and are pumping marketing dollars into a dying horse. Perhaps MSFT will attempt to buy WebTrends and revive it as well?

For Adobe this is a superb move. As the technological leader in the digital design space (i.e. tools that build digital experiences) they now have the preeminent platform for tracking the effectiveness of those experiences. In short, Adobe sells tools to those who bring in the audience and now the platform for measuring. The subscription revenue model of Omniture is also an interesting complement to Adobe who still derives much of their rev from licensed software sales.

Oh and I forgot to mention another hook into the media companies who buy Adobe design software. They’ll be able to sell more as more media dollars flow to digital as a result of analytic tools. Nice job Adobe.

For multi-national brands and companies with global operations, now is the time to invest in international PPC programs. Recent research from IAB Europe, PWC and ScreenDigest on the status of the EU online advertising market indicates moderate but solid growth of 6.5%. While the UK is tempered some, it’s the opportunity to make market in roads.

There was a perception that Europe was 18-24 months behind the US in adoption of search marketing. I don’t believe that’s the case as there are very strong SEM firms pushing advertisers with great results. The “gap” if there is one is probably closer to 6-9 months and closing. The opportunity exist with US firms not going into the EU with test budgets on PPC and SEO. At my previous firm we found Western Europe to offer modest PPC discounts on competitive B2B technology keywords. While many firms aren’t willing to test new markets, those that do will benefit from being first mover in a market where others are on the sideline.

Start with a reasonable test budget and follow this methodology for building an European program:
1. English is the language of business. In UK-English (i.e. catalogue vs. catalog) target the UK, Ireland, Benelux first. With success expand to Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Hold off on Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.

2. Set up a new campaign in Google to test and be sure to not include the Content Network. Consider applying day-parting parameters to focus on the European business day.

3. Looks for pockets of success. Are you meeting or beating target CPA’s or ROI? These can be indicators that your daily budget should be increased. More important, these successes can show where localization might be worthwhile.

4. Localization is more than translation. If you’re finding strong success in Germany/Austria/Switzerland, consider developing German language ads and landing page copy. Localization includes use of cultural influencers such as imagery, page layout, information collection protocols, appropriate character encoding, and more. And don’t forget your offer! It should be culturally appropriate.

5. When international markets are found to be profitable and become strategic components of your program, invest in a localized website. This includes localization of all offers (i.e. white papers, demos, etc.) and if sales are face-to-face, it’s best to have representatives that speak the language.

6. International SEO is a whole other beast. We’ll tackle that one at a later date.

Day two of SEOMoz’s Pro Training continues or as we might call it, “Why SEOMOz is so awesome!” Now I like SEOMoz and their personable approach they take. Their success in elevating the importance of SEO to corporations is not to be diminished. That said there is a fair amount of self promotion but it’s not arrogant, just a little obvious. In general today was much more organized and seemed to have more of a flow. Day 2 grade: 87, B. Overall a solid B for the two days.

Session 1: This History and Future of SEO
Sorry, didn’t take notes on the history of SEO. The Todds (Malicoat and Friesen) put on a lively and entertaining discussion about the black/gray roots of SEO.

Rand Fishkin took over to talk about the future of SEO. This was just a more interesting discussion and of course it’ll be interesting to see which of these comes to pass.

Issues Rand believes to be likely
Further segmentation of results by the engines as they attempt to deliver more results tailored to the searcher’s need.

Increased globalization of the web.

Peronalization impact is still to come. Not here yet.

Increased mobile usage but not different from current user experience.

Bing + Yahoo = 12-20% of referrals to other sites. Rand makes the point that searches within the portals leading to other areas of the portal network shouldn’t count in market share – I agree. Expect Stevie Ballmer and Carol Bartz to think differently.

Social search gets interesting. Does the content from the multitude of social and user generated content sites and conversations get slurped into major indexes?

Events believed to be unlikely by Rand:
Google’s success in content networks

Bing + Yahoo gaining more than 30% of the market for referrals to other sites.

Twitter becomes a “standard” search engine.

Facebook’s social graph having a major impact.

The semantic web anytime soon.
Events Rand thinks might happen:
WolframAlpha gets traction.

The social graph becomes part of Google’s algorithm.

Session 2: Social Media Investments that Bring Real ROI
Social media for global link equity and branding. PPC is used to test and find out what converts. Then target converters with SEO for long term ROI.

Get the social media add-on for Firefrox from 97thfloor.com. (The add-on isn’t compatible with my Firefox install of v3.5 – the most recent version of FF.)

Set up your tools before starting and get your KPI’s identified and bought off by all interested parties.

Include 30-60-90 check ups and distribute progress to all stakeholders and interested parties.

Tools to assist in gathering data and tracking success. Find your preferred mix. Easytweets, Blvdstatus, Trackur, Samepoint, Search.Twitter.com, RavenTools, Quarkbase, Whostalkin, read Marty Weintraub’s blog post about developing a reputation monitoring dashboard

7 Steps to Link Bait
1. Define the audience and with precision
2. Research the market to understand the size and make up
3. Identify a suitable hook process
4. Brainstorm titles and tactics
5. Research your topic: Digg, Twitter, Reddit, Delicious
6. Create and polish your content; it must be good
7. Find distribution and launch. Get a power user to submit to social networks to help go viral.
Link Bait Hooks: attacking, humor, contrarian, news, resource, ego, pictures. Combining hooks can have a more powerful campaign impact. Interviews are also powerful and can appeal to the ego of the interviewee. Awards and badges help and also appeal to the ego in humans.

Read Copyblogger.com to get ideas for

Develop a reputation hub to keep track and maintain your profiles.

Session 3: Researching the Search Engine’s Algorithm – Had the potential to be interesting but didn’t live up to the opportunity. The complexity of the topic was not put in non-mathematician terms.

Session 4: How to Win SEO Budget & Influence the CMO
Develop a 3 tiered approach: 1) present the opportunity in quantifiable terms, 2) establish expectations and goals, 3) reports that track appropriately.

Define and quantify the market opportunity being lost. Do this by: isolate top non-branded terms, gather volumes and ranks, use a CTR curve for each position (available searching online) and figure out a per visit value. Use graphs to visually illustrate the competitive deficiencies.

Establishing your game plan.
1. Manage expectations
2. Get buy in on recommendations
3. Establish milestones to success and key performance indicators you can use to track progress.

Know if your clients have been burned in the past by ineffective SEO’s. You’ll need to go the extra mile to regain their trust.

SEO touches all facets of marketing and technology. Build an SEO task force and agree to minimum service levels – cross functional groups must collaborate to achieve success. Develop an attribution model. SEO is early stage and conversion metrics will not be the same as PPC. For SEO reports: keep metrics/KPIs fresh in everyone’s mind, urgency about competition, make it tangible and illustrate successes.

Session 5: Not much here. Unfortunately I seem to catch Vanessa Fox on her off days. She has SEO Rock Star status in the community but I’ve been underwhelmed in both seminars I’ve seen her at: SMX Analytics Toronto and now SEOMoz Pro. She’s intelligent but some folks are better at blogging than presenting. Charisma can trump depth of knowledge in a 45 minute presentation.

Session 6: Conversion Rate Optimization
This started out a bit too much like another commercial for SEOMoz. Fortunately Ben Jesson has a lot of charisma. He’s able to tell a story and work the stage making the entire room feel involved even if 75% of his content is fawning over SEOMoz A/B test results.

1. Know what to test.
2. Understand the non-customers

Why didn’t they convert?
Where did they decide not to convert?
How does this align (or not) with the value proposition?
Speak to the customers (in person) and get feedback.

3. Develop creative that is persuasive and addresses customer issues
4. Designing tests: O/CO method = Objection + Counter Objection

Tools to help: Kamplye, Ethnio, ClicTale, iPerceptions 4Q, Google site search, talk to your customers.

General tips to improve conversion rates
1. Landing page copy should be as long as it takes to counter objections.
2. The copy must offer value. The opening paragraph must support the headline.
3. Include a call to action.
4. Include credibility factors: testimonials, logos of clients, trust badges, etc.
5. Genuine scarcity influencers, examples: only available until March 31! While supplies last or tie into inventory system and display actual amount on hand.

Session 7: Building a Kick-Butt In-house Web Marketing Team
Avvo is an online legal community and marketing company. As such they should have a stellar in-house marketing team as a core competency. That said, not all companies are online marketing firms but use the channel as a means to grow their business and reach customers. Avvo is a bit biased in their position but justifiably so given the services they provide.

Have a good PR team. Any PR that leads to links is good. The engines don’t recognize the context of the link (yet).

The entire company should be versed in SEO. Contractual agreements with partners and vendors should include language about links and how they are to be implemented. Treat linking as a business development activity.

Assign and allocate resources according to the required return on investment.

SEO is a process not an art. Set business objectives, define key metrics, establish benchmarks, brainstorm tactics, measure results to objectives, repeat.

SEO must follow an agile development methodology (not waterfall). Be flexible, react to environmental factors, take advantage of opportunities.

You are not and will not ever be smarter than Google. Do calculate internal and external variables, test scientifically, use statistical principles.

The business community accepts Google Page Rank (PR), deal with it.

Success leads to paranoia of falling rankings and competitive pressures. That’s life at the top. SEO is ongoing and you cannot let up and expect to retain leadership.

So that sums up 2 days of pretty intensive SEO training. SEOMoz is just into the larger scale events so I’ll cut them some slack. Overall it was a great value for the price. Our clients will get immediate positive impact by the tips and tactics we’ll apply. I look forward to watching these locals make good on the global SEO scene.

Rant: Okay, generally the content was pretty solid. Organization needs to be tighten up with the workbook matching the slides and presentation order. What happened to the session on SEO reporting? That was a big miss. Definitely not SEO 101 which is why the 200+ of us showed up. But guys , you’ve got to slow down your delivery. There was 8 sessions in 6 hours and that’s too much. Cut it down to 6 and allow more interactivity with the audience. Also, WTF? this is Seattle, why no afternoon coffee? Day 1 grade: 78/100, C+

Now for a bulleted list of some of the better comments, tips and discussions. This is according to what the published schedule was but not the actual order of events.

Session 1: SEO is Nothing Without Content

Give contributors of user generated content and ego boost which helps build community. Recognize them and give them ownership of their profiles.

At start up of user generated content initiatives, seed with high quality content or members.

Include a call to action to encourage sharing of content. Reward links with trackbacks.

Pride is a great motivator. Praise someone, let them know and they’ll likely link to the content.

Google crawls sites according to page rank. High PR’s get crawled more frequently, new/low sites have trouble.

Session 2: Structurally Sound SEO
In navigation, target relevant keywords in links and category names. Use sub-categories (appropriately titled) rather than excessive pages. Include useful and relevant content on category level pages.

Don’t let users define navigational tags. Provide a selection of keyword rich options.

Use 301 redirects to move links to pages with fewer links and strong content.

Don’t use robot.txt files to block pages. Instead use the META noindex command to prevent pages from being displayed.

Measure the delta between search engine indexing and crawling of your site.

Session 3: First You Get Keywords, Then You Get The Money

Onsite search data is a great source of keywords.

IceRocket.com for social media use of keywords.

ContentRanch.com/google-geo-search-tool – shows SERPs in different geographic areas.

Consider using good converting PPC ad headlines in META data. Test it.

Session 4: Was supposed to be SEO reporting which would have been great! Since we’ve gone away from rankings reports, use of reports to communicate progress and success is vital.
Session 5: Just a list of tools. Nothing much noteworthy.
Session 6: Sustain Verticality for 3 Rounds – What does this mean? No notes from this session.

Session 7: Getting the Most Out of Linkscape (aka SEOMoz’s commercial) – you’ve got to be familiar with SEOMoz’s tools for this to mean much.

Linkscape counts are lower because they claim to focus on only links from highest quality pages.

Track changes in your volume of indexed pages. The size of the index changes but compare how competitors are doing as a percentage of their indexed pages.

New link visibility tool allows you to see where competitors are outperforming you. Also includes immediate actions to take.

New link intersection tool from SEOmoz. Put in your site + 5 competitors and see how each competes.

You should strive for balance between mozRank and mozTrust figures.

Session 8?: Strategies for Local Search on Google – By this time everyone was confused about the order of presentations and where to find the content in the workbook.
Up to 40% of querries have local intent. A more conservative estimate is 25%. Among the local intent is 5% include city and/or state. An additional 2% include neighborhood terms and 0.5% include a zip code.

Engines are using explicit questions (i.e. “US City – zip” in search box), search history, account information, IP targeting and browser information to provide localized results.

IP targeting automatically is being applied to generic keyword searches.

Google’s 10-packs come from the maps.google.com algorithm. This is entirely different than the google search algorithm and focused on location.

Local search engine optimization is driven by location, not by websites. Be consistent in your use of location variables across all your firm’s citations online including profiles (i.e. employee profiles on social networking sites).

Claim your local business listings in engines and secondary local listings data suppliers. These other sources include InfoUSA, Localeze, Universal Business Listing, Yahoo Local, Best of the Web, OpenList, Cite Voter, Insider Pages and Superpages.

Mine local online resources (i.e. associations, directories, chamber of commerce) and get links and citations on these properties.

For organizations with multiple locations, give each their own location as long as there is a physical presence.

When the opportunity is available, use strong calls to action in your local listings. See what is working with PPC and include those headlines and offers.

Get reviews for your local listings. Quality of rating affects local listing click through rates.

Session X?: Getting Links
I’m sorry but I couldn’t understand most of this presentation. Not the content but the thick English accent and hyper speed delivery. Please S-L-O-W down and take a breath. Below is what I managed to make out. It’s unfortunate since linking is so vital.

Know your strengths and why your content is worthy of being linked to. Develop your unique selling proposition and build on this. Use to separate your site from the 100’s of others you’re competing against for links.

Create widgets to get links.

Develop content that leverages your community. Let them know about it. People are vain and if they are profiled they’ll likely link to it.

Evaluate your competitors and re-engineer their successes. Map out what they’re doing correctly. Target gaps between their success and your short falls.

(Presenter plugs SEOMoz tool) Use Linkscape and sort by domain trust rank. Identify gaps in missing links and target those.

Build a process for acquiring links. Understand why your building each link and the value of them. Treat as a business development activity. Embed linking into your business. Write into contracts with vendors and partners. Talk to your linking partners. Treat them as partners.

Directory networks can be useful. Check that they pass value. See their PR and indexing of inner pages. Are the links clean?

Run an AdWords content network campaign to see where your ads appear. Take down campaign and target these sites for linking.

Last sessions of the day
Dharmseh Shah, Founder of Hubspot talked about his start up experience. As a founder and participant in several start ups, this was an entertaining talk but off topic for the seminar. I should would have like to had time for that SEO Reporting session.

Pannel Q&A
Good stuff but specific to the individuals asking the questions.

ABT – Always Be Testing

ABT is requirement for all digital marketing. If you want to improve you need to test. Pay Per Click is an ideal low cost test platform. I typically see two opposing methods of running ad copy; only having one ad running per ad group or having too many. Ultimately it depends on the conversion volume your campaigns drive but at minimum run two ads simultaneously.

In your campaign settings select ads to rotate evenly. Do not set to optimize if you’ve not tested previously. Google optimizes on the click through rate (CTR) not conversions. Clicks earn Google money, conversions earn you money. When you know what an acceptable cost per acquisition is and your program predictably hits it, then have the better ad served more frequently.

Develop ad copy that is closely aligned with the keyword theme in your ad group, but test different ideas. For example if you run an ecommerce program test free shipping versus a percentage off. If you have a lead generation program, test different types of offers.

Over time a winning ad will emerge. Now remember, the time it takes will vary depending on the volume of conversions your program drives. To be statistically significant you should have a minimum of 30 conversions for each ad variation.

When the winning ad has been determined it’s time to kick back and relax, right? NO! It’s time to develop new ad copy to challenge the current champ. Testing ad copy should be a continuous effort in your PPC management routine.

Developing good test habits is vital to optimizing your program over time. Small incremental improvements lead to large jumps in ROI.

Recent research by eMarketer indicates what we have all known for some time, social media isn’t going away. As much as some may want to ignore this oncoming freight train, it here. Much of it is measurable and with a solid executable strategy your social media program will become an important piece of your marketing mix.

Measurable & Effective Social Media

Will a social media marketing initiative hit a home run out of the gate? Not likely. The landscape is evolving rapidly but now is the time to get in. Experiment and find your audience. Listen to the conversations and resist the temptation to act on emotion.

When explaining search marketing to people unfamiliar with the space (and I believe social media marketing is a close relative), I use the analogy that paid search (PPC) is like a direct response media buy. You do your research, establish goals, select your channels, test, and so on. Search engine optimization (SEO) is like public relations. You craft your story, spin it in the best possible light, announce it and hope you resonate with the right people so they elevate your status. Social media marketing strikes me as a party you’ve been invited to but not sure if you’re going to know anyone. You approach the venue a bit nervous hoping to find a friendly face, or conversation in this case. Meandering through the room hearing snippets of conversation out of context causes concern. “Are they talking about me? Is it my hair? Do I have something in my teeth?” you think to yourself. Maybe yes, maybe no but you’ll only have certainty when you engage.

Social media marketing is much more dynamic and with many more variables than paid search or SEO. Therefore it’s increasingly important to establish a set of rules by which you choose to engage. We had a client that was one of a kind. A big crusty old guy, ex-marine and physically imposing. During meetings he’d often state, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” I loved that and it’s more true than ever in the digital world.

Social media is here and it’s measurable. But if there’s no strategy in place supported by policies and guidelines, even the latest social media analytics technology isn’t going to help effectively manage the endeavor. How will you know you’re traction is taking you where you want to go?

It starts with a strategy. Even if it’s currently “we’re just experimenting,” that’s completely acceptable. We’re still early in the game. But good experimentation starts with a hypothesis, an action plan and a set of measures and guidelines for assessing results.

Social Media Marketing Policy Usage

Sponsored Tweets? Okay so I’m a little late to the game but I’ve just come across this while checking out the Google-Shoemoney legal showdown. This is interesting but also a little slimy. So let’s say I’ve got quite a following to my twittering. For a price I could tweet about a topic dear to the paying party’s heart. Say you’re Ashton Kutcher…I know I know but just go with me here. I know 1,000,000+ nimrods that follow Ashton are pretty darn likely to check out whatever he says might be cool. So say I’ve got an iPhone app I want to push. I have Ashton tweet about my app and the math is simple: Followers x Click Through Rate X Conversion Rate x Revenue – Celebrity Tweet Fee equals your profit.

I don’t know of anything that Ashton could recommend that I’d be interested in. But what if a search marketing guru said, “The latest optimization tool from XYZ Corp is awesome. Check it out the free demo.” There’s a good chance I’d click the link. The point is that social media should be about community interaction with as much bias removed as possible. In the case of sponsored tweets it’s nothing more than another advertisement and should be identified as such. Each sponsored tweet begins with “Adv” so I can filter them out. I get enough garbage in my email. Why do I need it in my Twitter account?

In the Shoemoney post it seems to be a CPM basis for the tweet fee. What about those who have fewer followers, tweet less oftern but when using analytics on their tweets have higher click through rates? Shouldn’t those be the real influencers and charge more for better relevancy? Smells like Adwords 2004 all over again.

When I first heard about the Microsoft and Yahoo! deal this morning, I did what undoubtedly many others did too. I entered “yahoo microsoft deal” in the query window of my favorite search engine and waited for the search results. At the top I saw several news links, blog links, and the like. And close to the top of those search results was a link to Choice, Value, Innovation, the deal’s promotional website.

It isn’t much. It includes a press release, with all top of page links leading back to the same text along with accompanying videos of Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promoting the deal. Oh, and a sign up form to get email updates (about what, there’s no clue).  (Out of curiosity, I signed up, so I’ll update here when something comes through.)

But why with every news outlet or tech blogger out there eager to disseminate and comment on the story would Microsoft and Yahoo! bother to invest into a separate website to promote their deal? Well, I think it’s precisely for that reason. Both companies assumed that many, many people would be entering “microsoft yahoo deal” into their search engine and they wanted their version of the story to show up on the first page, rather than everyone else’s (like, that of a skeptic blogger or ten). Microsoft and Yahoo! wanted to mitigate the PR damage from the failed February 2009 merger. (Just do a search on “microsoft yahoo deal fiasco” and you will find plenty of commentary on that failed deal.)

Let me offer you mine. Based on the internal chatter at Microsoft at the time, the earlier deal failed for several reasons, but a top reason was the intense distrust by Yahoo! rank and file and software designers of Microsoft and of CEO Steve Ballmer and the reciprocal disdain of Yahoo! by Microsoft programmers. There was talk of a “poison pill” put in the deal by then Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang. Bottom line, the deal failed, Yahoo! stock sank, and Yang lost his job. Microsoft stock took less of a hit, but heads rolled there as well over what was quite embarrassing for the company.

So naturally this time around the Boards of Directors of both partners would want to make sure there was no slip up. Given that employees as well as Wall Street, regulatory bodies and “the world” were likely to be suspicious  and scrutinize this new deal very closely, they needed to craft their message carefully to make sure the deal’s terms and promises looked solid in the eyes of all those constituencies.  And so I believe that the Choice, Value, Innovation website was created to drive a message of unity to the employees of both companies (why can’t we all just get along?) while promoting the deal to Wall Street, regulators, and everyone else.

But here’s where something that made me go “Hmmmmmm” happened. When I searched “microsoft yahoo deal” on Google, the website link showed up. But not on Bing or Yahoo! search engines. And what’s even more interesting, is that when I queried “yahoo microsoft deal”, the website did not show up in Google, Bing or Yahoo! Is this an omission, or a clear indication that Microsoft drove the message? Possibly, but either way the fact that the website created to tell the world about how they plan to change the landscape of search does not show up on page one of search results in the market’s top three search engines is deeply ironic.  Search results never lie.  If you don’t search engine optimize, it will show (or rather, not show).  I sure hope this SEO snafu does not portend the future of this union.