Searching for Search

Sorry for the delay in posting. I?ve been buried with deadlines and in the midst of all the craziness I ran off to the Search Engine Strategies 2005 conference in San Jose for a few hours.

I was only at the SES show for half the day Tuesday. It was a little bit of search and search-related information overload, but I the 50 mile-plus drive back to my office in San Francisco helped me process all the info and sort through all the pens, rubber balls and corporate chotchkes/swag I accumulated.

While at the show I managed to attend the keynote with Search Engine Watch Editor Danny Sullivan asking questions of Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz for 30 minutes. I also sat in on two sessions about blogging and I visited almost every booth in the exhibitor hall. There were more than 70.

The Q&A session with Ask Jeeves? Berkowitz wasn?t nearly as exciting as I?d anticipated (too short), but it still provided some interesting moments or at least some interesting sound bites. While the bulk of the conversation dealt most with Ask Jeeves? role after being acquired by Barry Diller?s InterActive Corp. (IAC), there were also questions about Ask Jeeves? sponsored search and the possible name change for the company.

Berkowitz said he hopes to leverage IAC properties, such as iWon, with its broad consumer platform, Excite, HSN and other brands to grow Ask Jeeves.

Though Ask Jeeves just launched its own paid search ad program, he said company isn?t looking to sever ties with Google. “We love the Google relationship. I can see it lasting forever,” Berkowitz said. Ask Jeeves? partnership with Google ends in 2007. But Berkowitz noted that is a long way off. Meanwhile, Ask Jeeves will continue to focus on creating relationships with advertisers directly. “This is not about negotiations with Google, it is not about … Microsoft and Overture,” he said. “This is about our focus on developing our relationship with advertisers. We need to understand conversion and deal directly with the advertiser.”

When questioned about the possibilities of a new name for the company, Berkowitz said that a new name hadn?t been decided yet. Although, it sounded like IAC was looking to leverage the Ask Jeeves brand awareness by going with Ask or Jeeves or maybe even continuing with Ask Jeeves.

Next, I was onto the blogging sessions. Both were packed ? in fact, overflowing into the hallways. My first session, called “RSS, Blogs & Search Marketing”, examined how search engines are dealing with blog and RSS feeds and how providing syndicated content can drive new search-related traffic.

It was interesting but nothing earth-shattering. The talk centered on how your blog can include great content but if no one knows your blog exists then you?re just spinning your wheels.

There were a lot of tips about how to get noticed in the sea of blog noise (also tons of stats on the explosive growth of blogging). Most of the advice seemed obvious ? have something interesting to say with a new and interesting perspective, make sure you get your blog read by decision makers, influencers and other high-profile bloggers, use RSS to ping al the relevant syndication services.

The other session was about search engines and blogs. The session, “Meet The Blog & Feed Search Engines,” had some heavy hitters from the major blog and feed search engines (Feedster, Technorati, BlogLines, Findory and Moreover) and offered a chance to find out about what happening from those in the trenches. I actually found out quite a few things that might be useful to us here at Revenue and some info that will definitely make it into my forthcoming story about online marketing using blogs, which is coming out in the Fall Issue of Revenue.

There also seemed to be a lot of buzz at the show about search and personalization, local search (also a feature article in the Fall Issue of Revenue) and alternatives to pay-per-click.

Let me know your biggest concerns when it comes to search. [email protected].

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