“Go Local!” has long been the rallying cry in the whole foods movement (buying most edibles from regional growers, or The 100-Mile Radius Rule among food advocates) and in energy conservation green movements (thinking globally and acting locally).

Given gasoline prices and transportation costs, combined with buyer behaviors that favor local sources, it should be no surprise that buyer, wholesaler and retailer advertising is focusing on regional/local media as well.

Buyers seeking merchandise supply sources are as influenced by local or regional warehouses for faster and less costly shipments, as they are by opportunities to target specific regions with styles and features favored by local potential customers.

Second-tier search engine Ask.com has tried to expand its share of the search market throughout 2007 with user-friendly features and user-sensitive privacy initiatives.

For example, Ask.com paced the big tier-one search engines (Google in May, Yahoo! and Microsoft by September) by offering Universal Search Results: Returning multimedia (video, images, maps, audio feeds) plus localized search results. Like the Big 3 engines, Ask no longer asks search users to click on the “right” database to search on Videos or Maps; and some local searches no longer demand localization keywords, like city or zip code. (You may have seen Ask’s offline electronic advertising on this universal search feature. Spots were themed “Instant Get-ification” and closed with the challenge: Can your search engine do this?)

Ensuring Privacy by Erasing the Breadcrumb Trail

Search engines, as portals to locate products, services, information and community, continue their march toward destination of user choice. Whether it is a large, broad base, consumer targeted search engine, or a second- or third-tier niche targeted vertical engine, SE’s earn their user crede — and potential advertising revenues — step by step. They’ve focused on building their muscle in data warehousing, getting sticky with personalized feeds based on previous user behaviors, expanding their content distribution networks, and offering multimedia plus localized Universal Search Results … without being asked in the search box.

Ever since Tim O’Reilly, technology promoter and publisher, coined the term Web 2.0 for next gen web sites that encourage user-generated content, e-commerce site managers have been exhorted to develop tools for user feedback, user reviews, user ratings of content and user collaboration. The Web 2.0 trend toward more user-generated content, which is often tucked under the label of Social Media, just got another strong push.

Trusted Site and Trusted Users X 30

From surveys conducted by the live entertainment, half-price ticket seller Goldstar, which serves multiple audiences (show producers, venue managers, customer/attendees), online customers were more influenced to purchase tickets by positive user reviews at the web site than they were dissuaded by an expert critic’s negative review. Thirty times more influenced!

Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang was scolded this week by a Congressional Committee for sacrificing democracy and free speech for commercial gains.

Given all the heat generated by the issue of net neutrality for U.S. Internet users — now tied into immunity from prosecution that U.S. telecommunications providers are demanding for breaking laws on wiretapping without FISA warrants for the government — the only surprise in this Congressional tongue lashing is that it does not involve a United States citizen. It’s about China.

The Chinese government maintains strict censorship over all forms of speech and communications on Chinese soil. So, when government censors wanted to shut down two Chinese Internet users who advocated for democratic reforms and rights of free speech, they contacted the ISP these two nationals were using as a democratic soapbox and they demanded the Yahoo! users’ identities. Presumably, Yahoo! was offered something in exchange, such as permission to operate in China’s heavily regulated playing field.

According to comScore’s tracking of online retail in the U.S., online sales jumped 23% from July to September 2007, over the same third-quarter sales reported in 2006. Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, quoted in E-Commerce Times, noted that the 20-percent-plus growth rate for online retail outstripped the rest of the retail industry.

ComScore found that a soft 1Q 2007 in online retail simply mirrored a weakness in offline retail at the same time. But in the following two quarters, heading into the holiday season for 2007, online sales have resumed their growth rate of 20% or better.

The top performer in increased online sales was, predictably, online gaming, with the 2007 release of new Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3 consoles, plus the hot “Halo 3” game.

Online marketers have long been advised to use social media sites – including MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo! and Google Groups, Gather, MeetUps.com, Craig’s List et. al — to achieve search marketing goals:

• To learn real users’ real search terms for your products and services, in order to build PPC Keyword Ad Groups;
• To leverage the Better Crede of user-generated product reviews, recommendations and community-rated content related to your line of business;
• To build believable link-ins from non-commercial social sites that just might bump up your site traffic, search results page ranking or big engine quality ratings;
• To get authority site links from industry, category or vertical search blogs and meeting spaces;
• Even to monitor social media sites for pre-emptive damage control, such as early warning via complaints by toy gift buyers, as they avoid imported toys on gift lists this year.

Google announced a new distribution channel for marketers on October 9 that may offer benefits to all interested parties.

First, Google gets content for its AdSense publisher network, plus the opportunity to finally make ad revenues from its ownership of YouTube video site.

Second, search marketers get another channel to distribute their ads and messages to targeted audiences, without developing a new or expensive ad creative campaign.

Third, users get more: More engaging and more relevant content from their Internet Searching & Surfing. User “more” benefits can be assumed from Google’s video distribution plans according to Google Product Marketing Manager Christine Lee, who promises that the new venue for video ads would be “unobtrusive” and “relevant.”

So, what is this announced video distribution opportunity that promises to be all things to all people?

It’s official. Yahoo! Search announced upgraded features on October 2, including a menu of suggested additional information on a searcher’s topic, and adding multimedia search results (photos, audio and video) to the text links and web sites listed in Yahoo’s standard search results.This follows Microsoft Live Search’s September 26 announcement: expanding its search index four-fold and ignoring search query spelling glitches to provide quicker and deeper Instant Answers. Live Search also claimed an innovation in returning results that fold in photos, videos and blog reviews, regardless of whether the searcher asked for multimedia.

But first, there was Google’s launch in May of what it named “Universal Search” – returning results to searchers that list not simply web pages and links, but blogs, images, news content, videos and other online multimedia, such as maps. As Google applies it, “universal search” would also be termed automatic return of multimedia results, without requiring a specific request for blog posts or videos. (Yahoo! positioned its suggested additional info dropdown menus as “optional” universal results.)

We left emerging search engine race horses galloping up the inside race track last time we scanned which engines are winning or losing, in Search Engines Duke It Out: Goliath vs. David vs. David’s Brother.

To recap: Yahoo! “knocked Google down a peg” in customer satisfaction – Yahoo! improved 4% in user satisfaction vs. Google’s 3.7% decline. Tier 2 engines showed greatest user satisfaction improvement (Ask.com) and largest customer satisfaction decline (AOL) in that same University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction survey. We also noted the classic Little Guy vs. Goliath in search marketing: The Open Source Search Project called LAMP (or David’s Little Brother) is taking on Tier 1 Market Dominant Goliath, Google.

Not SEM Dark Horses Anymore

As if search marketers don’t have enough on their e-commerce plates, they have to sort through latest news on which search engine is gaining or lagging; which SEs are winning or losing the race. In fact, different engines have different handicaps and strengths.

Here’s a recap of measures, rankings, ratings and horse race results for name brand search engines.

Light a LAMP in the Tier-One Darkness?

When your corporate name is synonymous with “search” – as in “to Google” used as a verb for “to search” – there are any number of Davids to challenge the perceived Goliath.

Open Source Search has “David” written into its middle name. Greg Sterling, of Sterling
Market Intelligence, noted at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention that, “Some people are uncomfortable with the power of Google and are interested in alternatives.”