Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance

As part of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, you will eventually transition to using the Microsoft adCenter platform. The Yahoo! Transition Center will help you stay informed about this important change. Please bookmark this page to easily access future updates.

Microsoft Windows 7 tablets to rival iPad

Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer touted new tablet-style Windows devices from more than a dozen manufacturers at a conference, underlining the giant software company's eagerness to counter the explosion of interest in Apple Inc's iPad.

New tablet or slate devices -- small, hand-held, wireless computers -- running Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system are in the pipeline from Acer Inc, Dell Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Toshiba Corp, Sony Corp and several other PC makers, Ballmer said at the company's annual partner conference in Washington, DC, which was webcast.

"This year, one of the most important things that we will do in the smart device category is really push forward with Windows 7-based slates," said Ballmer. "This is a terribly important area for us."

Apple's iPad, launched in April, has already sold more than 2 million units worldwide, and threatens to take customers away from Microsoft-dominated desktop computing.





A notable exception to Ballmer's list was Hewlett-Packard Co, which has said it plans to build slate devices running the operating system devised by Palm Inc, which HP bought this year.

Source:- Timesofindia Jul 13, 2010, 10.56am IST

Attend a Back to School Shopping Webinar to Help Improve Your Results

Date & Time

Date: Thu, Aug 5, 2010
Time: 11:00 AM PDT
Duration: 1 hour
Host(s): Yahoo! Advertising

Meeting Description:

It's not too late to learn tips and best practices to boost your back to school campaigns. JoinYahoo! for a back to school webinar focusing on valuable insights related to how consumers relate to online deals and promotions. Also get an overview of search trends, as well as best practices that can help you make the most of your back to school campaigns. Please join us for this free webinar! For More

Now Google copies Microsoft Bing

Edwin Perello discovered that Bing, the Microsoft search engine, could find addresses in his rural Indiana town when Google could not.

Laura Michelson, an administrative assistant in San Francisco, was lured by Bing’s flight fare tracker. Paul Callan, a photography buff in Chicago, fell for Bing’s vivid background images.

Like most Americans, they still use Google as their main search tool. But more often, they find themselves navigating to Microsoft’s year-old Bing for certain tasks, and sometimes they stay a while.

“I was a Google user before, but the more I used Bing the more I liked it,” Mr Callan said. “It’s more like muscle memory takes me to Google.”

Bing still handles a small slice of Web searches in the United States, 12.7% in June, compared with Google’s 62.6%, as measured by comScore, the Web analytics firm. But Bing’s share has been growing, as has Yahoo’s , while Google’s has been shrinking.

And while no one argues that Google’s dominance is in immediate jeopardy, Google is watching Microsoft closely, mimicking some of Bing’s innovations -- like its travel search engine, its ability to tie more tools to social networking sites and its image search -- or buying start-ups to help it do so in future.

Google has even taken on some of Bing’s distinctive look, like giving people the option of a Bing-like colourful background, and the placement of navigation tools on the left-hand side of the page. The result is a renaissance in search, resulting in more sophisticated tools for consumers who want richer answers to complex questions than the standard litany of blue links.

The competition is a remarkable and surprising twist: Microsoft, knocked around for so long as a bumbling laggard, has given the innovative upstart Google a kick in the pants. As the search engines introduce feature after competing feature, some analysts say they have set off an arms race, with the companies poised to spend whatever it takes to win the second phase of Web search.

“There is a cold war going on,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, senior Internet and software analyst at Caris & Company, who watches both companies. “Clearly, you can see how Bing’s competition is forcing Google to try and catch up in some places.”

Source:- Timesofindia Aug 3, 2010, 02.11pm IST

What are Search Funnels ?

Search Funnels are a set of new reports describing the Google.com search ad click and impression behavior leading up to a conversion.

Currently, conversions in AdWords are attributed to the last ad clicked before the conversion. Search Funnels gives advertisers data on how "upper-funnel" keywords are assisting conversions before the last click. It also enhances basic conversion reporting for AdWords.

Conversions reported in this tool are tracked by the AdWords Conversion Tracking tag or are imported from Analytics after linking your AdWords and Analytics accounts.

Source: AdWords Guideline