Search Engine Business Models

Came across this thread at Nick W.'s popular ThreadWatch. Between the actual article and the input of many smart commenters it makes for a great read.
Great insight into the interrelatedness of changing and newly started search engines.
The speculation on how the industry is going to evolve has recently increased - though the idea of a move to vertically niched engines does seem to be a stretch.
The SES Conference starting tomorrow should prove a great source of insights of the months ahead.
I will post back here about the sessions I attend and any interesting gossip I come across.

PPC Cheater Forum

I just came across this forum and I think they deserve a mention. We need more of this to help educate the average PPC marketer.
PPC Cheater Forum

Google Changing AdWords Interface

Google has reported that its Adwords' interface will be unavailable on Friday February 25, 2005 from 9 pm - 12 am pst.
Apparently they are coming out with a new one and need a little time to change the system.
So there will a new topic of discussion this weekend and next week at SES Conference in NYC. Should be fun!

Domain Name Listings Drop in Google

This has been a few days in the making, but, after having checked a number of different sites, it appears Google used a filter in its last shuffling of the databases to downplay the placement of a site just because of its domain name.
Though the way they did it is still being debated on the various forums, there are two main ways it could have been done.
First the impact on the SERPs of a site purely from its domain name seems to be lessened. This could also be a reduction in the weight given to repeated anchor text - and in many cases domain names are used as the link.
I would appreciate all comments on this one.

Implications of Google as a Domain Registrar

In my wandering around the millions of websites that make up this landscape we work in, I have read all sorts of conjecture on the Google domain registration impact - but the one that seems the most interesting is that they will use the information they get access to to filter sites by registrants' names and addresses.
Guess the filtering for C Blocks will be a minor distraction when they start filtering by the name of the person registering the domain - will it be okay to have a vriety of sites on different topics or will it come down to one domain per name gets in? Will registering domains in relatives names become the new cloaking?
And then address - what happens to buildings in cities like NY where there could be 100 companies all doing the same thing - hell the finance district may as well start looking for different places to set up offices.
I don't know how it could work - but am sure at some level there will be a filtering.

New Images at Google SERPs

I don't know about anybody else but the new (well let's look like Alexa - and that is where they are coming from) pics I see on Firefox for Google searches is annoying.
I guess it is from a combination of XP and the latest Windows service pack that gives different result look for Firefox....

Google ToolBar V. 3 launched

You can get the new Google ToolBar here.
It adds a bunch of new features such as a translators, a spell checker and an autolinker - my opinion on this one is out until I play with it some more.
But if they are counted as anchor text then hey that is a whole new ball game!!!