Disclaimer: I’m being paid to write this review.

The single web page Search Engine Marketing Glossary by SEO Book author Aaron Wall seeks to provide definitions for some affiliate programs, AJAX, server status codes (301, 404, etc), people and more. The glossary uses the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license meaning others are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as they attribute the source. This is a copyright friendly license that encourages mashups.

Wall cites the reason for creating the glossary was because people asked and then explains:

I think our personal experiences make everyone biased, but the bias in any of the following definitions is my own (or at least one which matches my own if I borrowed a definition from another source … like the Wikipedia), thus if there are any faults in the following definitions those faults are my own.

During this review when I use terms that are defined in the SEM Glossary, I’ll enclose them in brackets like this [definition]. When no definition exists in the glossary but might be a nice addition, I’ll use: [no definition].

Glossary page design
The top of the page is the same logo as the seobook.com website. Not even the word “glossary” merged into the title. There is a big RSS button which is visible in the screenshot but that doesn’t provide updates/changes for the glossary, instead it is tied to the SEObook book. Kind of disappointing not providing a separate feed for the glossary.

To the right at the top is a first party advertisement for search engine consulting services. This is the only traditional advertising, no Google Adsense, banners or buttons. I didn’t spot any affiliate links either when there were opportunities (e.g. affiliate marketing [definition]).

The basic design focus seems — intentionally or unintentionally — more like a single page advertorial for the SEO book than a glossary others will want to link to and use, which is a bit disappointing considering the quality of the content on the page. The same header is used for the blog and other key pages in the navigation header. It wouldn’t take much to add the word “glossary” to the logo and would help brand the page.

I like that the glossary fits on one 59K sized page. That should load fairly quickly even on slower dialup connections. The definitions and layout are clean and easy to follow and on the eyes (important). Quoted text is formatted attractively. White background with soft blue headings. Some paragraphs could use an additional line break for clarity like banner blindness [definition] which has two paragraphs sandwiched together (see red arrows added below):

Anchored definitions with 0-9 and A-Z navigation at the top, but not the bottom. Would be nice to see the navigation duplicated on the bottom and maybe even in the middle too for those scrolling through all the definitions.

At the bottom the category header is repeated.

Useful for whom?
When I looked at the glossary for the first time I thought it was a good way for Wall to organize terms used in his ongoing SEO book, but how much use would this page get by others?

At the top of the glossary, above the fold [definition], he identifies the way I search for 98% of definitions on the web (using Google with “define:TERM”). If define: doesn’t get me to a word’s definition then I’ll hit dictionary.com. Even if I bought Wall’s SEO book, I’m not sure I’d return to his glossary on the web.

Just to make sure I wasn’t a super web geek (denial alert!), I decided to ask a few folks in our IRC channel how they searched for definitions of words online. Google was the #1 response. Then I asked my wife who doesn’t spend nearly the time online that I do and a good friend who is what I’d politely call non web-savvy the same question: “when you need a definition for something, what do you use online?”

With a little more pressing from the latter respondents, the same answer: Google. Just another example of a powerful reference niche where Google acts as the #1 proxy [no definition]. Not Yahoo, MSN/Live, Ask.com or even dictionary.com.

I tend to rely upon authors to give me the context of words I’m unfamiliar with, either with a link following the term or on the term itself. In some cases I hyperlink unusual words directly to the definition. The SEM Glossary provides writers and editors an additional place to link to definitions, but admittedly with the exception of this post I’d be less likely to link to a non-dictionary, non-scholarly source for most the words in the SEM Glossary.

How were the words chosen?
The next question that came to me as I looked through the glossary terms were how did these relate to search engine marketing? PHP [definition]? A programming language. Opera [definition]? A browser. I can understand PHP, but Opera? What does the browser have to do with search engine marketing?

Also, the glossary has a definition for “above the fold” but not the converse: below the fold [no definition], which I’ve used and usually explained several times.

Definition quality
While I didn’t read every definition, the definitions overall seemed competent with some definitions providing examples with related, external links and others a single sentence or two. Where relevant there’s some cross linking like with absolute link [definition] which shows an example and links to the definition of a relative link [definition].

There is also some marketing advice within some defintions like the bait and switch [definition]:

It is generally easier to get links to informational websites than commercial sites. Some new sites might gain authority much quicker if they tried looking noncommercial and gaining influence before trying to monetize their market position.

My least favorite definition in the glossary is Black Hat SEO [definition] which never really offers any examples or definitions, save for external links. Wall sort of touches on it with:

Within that highly profitable framework search engines consider certain marketing techniques deceptive in nature, and label them as black hat SEO.

No inline examples of what people consider black hat SEO? It’s a commonly used and highly flammable term in and in a glossary dealing with search engine marketing should carry more depth. If size is of importance, perhaps cut out the PHP, Opera and John Battelle definitions and put some more meat into definitions specifically related to SE marketing.

Tools, tools
This tools link leads to a bunch of search engine related tools like link checkers, spider test tool, common terms ranking, site maps links and much, much more.

Summary and grade
There are three perspectives to consider when grading the SEM Glossary: writers/webmasters who would link to the definitions (limited), people who actually would use the definitions for reference (limited) and finally the benefit to the site owner (great). Clearly the biggest benefactor of the glossary is the site owner.

Perhaps the biggest weaknesses for the SEM Glossary are that people could be apprehensive about linking to it over other non self-promotional resources. The Google Page Rank for the glossary page is currently zero which supports this hypothesis. The first party advertising for the SEO book is minimal and definitely not offensive, but if I were Aaron Wall, I’d either change the design to de-emphasize his book and/or move the glossary to another domain, perhaps a .org. I realize this advice goes against the underlying marketing of his book which pays the bills, but if the goal for the glossary is to promote natural linking and use from people wanting to learn more from the search engine marketing terms I think it would be more likely linked as a standalone resource.

Of course the Creative Commons license doesn’t stop somebody else from registering a domain and doing precisely this which gives back where points are taken away, as long as they attribute the source. If I was rolling something like that out, I’d also create an API with access to the terms so that developers could mash the terms into their other search engines easily. Maybe even plugins for the popular blog engines so that definitions could be flagged. This might seem like too much for a relatively small number of terms, but I suspect as time goes on more terms will emerge. What, no accidense?

As for the final group: the people actually using the definitions? I think most will continue to use Google. Aaron is in good company fighting that, if he is even trying (which I doubt). Overall, an average resource that could be improved. Grade: C

Brady Forrest notes that as of December 5, 2006 — yes, two weeks ago — Google has deprecated their SOAP API in favor of their newer AJAX Search API:

The AJAX Search API is great for web applications and users that want to bling their blog, but does not provide the flexibility of the SOAP API. I am surprised that it has not been replaced with a GData API instead. The developer community has been discussing this and do not seem happy with the change.

The deeper I looked into this situation the less dramatic it appears to be, at least for the immediate future. From the AJAX Search API page, the description:

The Google AJAX Search API is designed to allow users to distribute search results to others, primarily through content creation applications like blog posts, message boards, etc.

I originally wrote about how to use the Google SOAP API back on January 12, 2003, nearly six months before this blog was begun and in fact did use their AJAX Search API to enhance the search area of this blog recently. I didn’t use Brady’s more pejorative reference “bling” because in front end situations like the one used here I think the AJAX API currently works better.

However, from a backend perspective for those who only want to get to the data and develop their own frontend, I can understand why developers are concerned why this was done wasn’t more publically explained. The AJAX Search API still has the sometimes open-ended words “coming soon” for activities like styling search results.

Also understand author and developer Paul Bausch’s concerns because this move will practically obsolete the Google Hacks book (published by O’Reilly, BTW) he authored for those who don’t already have a SOAP API key.

Which makes me wonder anyway how many developers who are upset about this don’t already have their own SOAP API key?

The Google SOAP API isn’t something that has caught on with more mainstream developers who seem to prefer the more non-developer friendly REST and AJAX solutions, but this definitely remains a curious move and begs the question about how long before Google totally unplugs the SOAP life support.

Those concerned should remember that the SOAP API has never emerged from beta and reading the warning in my first paragraph nearly four years ago rings eerily true: “Again, at the time of this diary entry it is a beta service, so it’s uncertain if this will be a permanent service.”

This has been the primary reason I’ve not used the SOAP API very much in our own projects. I don’t like putting much time and energy into projects where the critical API element isn’t guaranteed. Too many web pooh point oh services out there are built entirely off of APIs that may or may not be here six months from now. People talk about financial bubbles, but I see a very real potential for an API bubble bursting when/if some/more key companies start trashing their APIs. The threat is always there without something more concrete in place.

And Google showed that they will terminate beta services recently when they said no mas to Google Answers.

Enough pontificating, is the Google SOAP API dead at this point?

Google Product Manager Tom Stocky responds essentially saying not yet (emphasis mine):

Just to clarify, we’re not planning to shut off the SOAP Search API service for people who are already using it. The change is that we’re not accepting new requests for SOAP Search API keys and are no longer actively supporting it so that we can concentrate our efforts on the AJAX Search API.

This makes it sound at this point like a resources concern — perhaps more human than machine — rather than a technology concern.

Brady’s update from Tim O’Reilly has a Microsoft jab:

SOAP has always been a political football shaped by big companies who were seeking to use it to turn web services back into a controllable software stack. (I remember the first web services summit we did, where a Microsoft developer who I won’t name admitted that SOAP was made so complex partly because “we want our tools to read it, not people.”)

The whole SOAP vs. REST API debates remind me a bit of RSS vs ATOM. I try to stay out of platform and language wars like these largely because I’ve seen through history how something supposedly or actually “better” always comes along sooner or later. Waste of time and energy that could be applied to projects instead of politics and principles.

I do understand and agree that the Google AJAX API in its current state isn’t as complete and flexible an answer to the SOAP API, but until they actually shut off the SOAP services and devs who get Google Hacks under their tree this Christmas aside, this isn’t that significant.

Being a YaHOO shareholder, you might think I’d be in favor of Microsoft buying them, but I’m not. Jeremy Schoemaker produces a crystal ball and attempts to make a case for 10 reasons why Microsoft will acquire Yahoo next year. It isn’t completely without merit, but here’s a point by point rebuttal. Jeremy’s points are bolded.

1. The search algorithm… duh…. Um, a big no duh. Maybe Yahoo’s search algorithms produce more traffic for Jeremy’s website(s) than MSN, but in our case Yahoo is a distant #3. I’d probably put Ask.com (disclaimer: I own shares of that too). For example, just <>try to find this website with a specific query like “makeyougohmm” or “things that make you go hmm blog” (26 results of mostly other sites talking about this blog, but no link to this blog — it shows “about 33 results” but only 26 are listed).

Yahoo management also has admitted — and then later retracted — that they were satisfied not being #1 in search. Add to that trying to incentify people to use their search and Yahoo search tastes like a rainbow soda. Ever had one of those? It’s where you mix a little bit of each soda into a single drink.

Yahoo search isn’t worthless, they do have some good niche search engines, but their main search engine isn’t any better than what Microsoft already is working on.

2. Overture Yahoo Search Marketing. compared to Adcenter. I agree with Jeremy that AdCenter has been too slow in development, but I think we’re seeing them take a more cautious approach to make certain their product competes. I also agree that they don’t have the inventory — yet, but two of the top 10 websites traffic-wise are MSN and Live.com which means if/when they decide to start throwing that weight around watch out. I’ll take AdCenter potential over what Yahoo Search Marketing is currently doing.

The silver bullet? Yahoo doesn’t have a micropayment program to tap directly into (Microsoft Points used through Xbox Live). Just wait until Microsoft unlocks this program so webmasters can slice a layer of selling goods in the Live Marketplace and Zune.

3. Yahoo Publisher Network - YPN IMO is the best contextual advertising network there is. Come on, Jeremy, Adsense blows YPN out of the water. Russell Beattie bragged that YPN was so awesome that a few months later he quit blogging altogether. Is YPN better than what Microsoft has? At the moment yes, because Microsoft hasn’t released AdCenter so smaller publishers can compare. 4 of the 8 things I suggested Microsoft could do in 2006 to better compete against Google in 2006 revolved around AdCenter. They didn’t pull the trigger on AdCenter for the masses which has arguably Microsoft’s biggest disappointment. Again, as I said in #2, I’ll still take Adcenter potential over what YPN is already doing.

YPN does have the best customer service. You can get a real human being to answer questions about the program. I like it. AdCenter needs that. If Microsoft could hire the people responsible for the customer service side of YPN, they should do that, but YPN itself? Nope. YPN just released ad filtering capability that Google has had for over a year.

4. Flikr - Again Microsoft may have a similar product but the volume is here. Spelling gremlin aside, Jeremy is looking too much at the geek core and not enough at regular people and the business side of things. Flickr is a great service but there are mixed reports about how much this service contributes to the bottom line as well as confusion with a popular Yahoo service Photos. Yahoo stock isn’t very healthy and while I’m one of the people who thought the Flickr acquisition was smart, time has not proven it to translate to the bottom line very well. I hope things change in 2007 and Flickr becomes the dominant photo property at Yahoo and contributes more to Yahoo’s profitability.

5. del.icio.us. Another geek favorite, but small potatoes for Microsoft. Not likely to have much, if any, impact for Microsoft in the marketplace, particularly when dozens of competitors exist out there. Microsoft would be better off buying StumbleUpon.

6. The People - Microsoft has tons of stale old people who do not understand this new industry. Jeremy must not know enough people who work at Microsoft. There are some great people who work there. Not saying Yahoo doesn’t have some stellar employees like PHP creator Rasmus Lerdorf, but think about the people who have left Yahoo to work at Microsoft like Gary Flake? Calling people like this “stale old people” is a heavily flawed observation.

7. Video - Between Yahoo Video and Microsoft’s Soapbox They might be able to combine for a decent share of the video market. Might is the keyword here. Would be less expensive buying Metacafe or one of the dozens of other video services out there. It’s interesting that Jeremy doesn’t mention Yahoo bought Bix recently to further strengthen the contest side of their video service.

8. Community properties - Yahoo has yahoo groups whose numbers rival Myspace.. This is one of Yahoo’s strongest assets but it was weakened by a lousy design that took them too long to update. Worse yet, the search was the #1 weakness spotted by others when Jeremy Zawodny asked for feedback. How lame is that being a search company with a heavily used product that has inferior search?

9. Business Directory - Microsoft Just gave up there Business Directory efforts. Yahoo has always rocked it with their paid inclusion directory. Rocked? Really? Are we thinking about the same directory? (I’m not sure, that’s not sarcasm) The paid “maybe” search inclusion has been a black eye for Yahoo among webmasters, particularly adult webmasters who need to pony up $600 to not even be guaranteed a listing.

10. Yahoo Just cleaned house. That should be a loud and clear signal that they are in trouble, not that they are healthy.

The bigger question in this discussion for Microsoft should be whether or not they should swoop in as a defensive move against Google. That would be one main reason I think Microsoft has to be at the table as a player. It’s interesting Jeremy doesn’t point to that as a key reason Microsoft should acquire Yahoo. There are some other possible players here like eBay and Apple who should also be part of the discussion. Will anybody pull the trigger on Yahoo in 2007?

Doubtful.

Sorry Y! employees, but Yahoo reminds me a bit like being Sony at the moment. While they don’t have the bad PR problems that Sony has (widespread PS3 shortages, battles with homebrew, rootkit, etc), Yahoo’s worst enemy and biggest competitor seems to be themselves. How they can end up with multiple products competing with each other rather than blending into a single, strong vision is vexing.

I’m hoping 2007 is a better year for them but if I was grading their performance in 2006 with a couple notable exceptions like Yahoo Answers and their developer areas, it would be a D+.

What have you liked about Yahoo in 2006? Do you agree with Jeremy’s list? Would you provide additional or different reasons Microsoft should seriously consider acquiring Yahoo? Thatedeguy weighed in yesterday and he doesn’t think it will happen. You?

The Google blog will be saying “no more questions” to Google Answers:

Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time — and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product. Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers, the very first project we worked on here.

I checked out but never used Google Answers which differed from other Q&A systems in that it costs money to receive answers. While I’m not opposed to paying for an answer to something, I can usually find the answer by digging through the search engines or asking somebody I know.

Yahoo Answers [Hmm review] is currently at the top of the online Q&A sites and I’ve queried this a few times over the last year. I spent a month beta testing the Microsoft response Live QnA and haven’t really used it since. I reviewed Amazon Askville a month ago. No return there since either.

Others are saying
Mohamed Amine Chatti: “I would rather use Google or Yahoo! main search engine which are getting increasingly better to get a quick answer, or directly ask someone that I know s/he might have the answer.”
A five star Google Answers researcher peers into how the system might have been flawed by not requiring a certaim amount of involvement and ongoing participation.
Pramit Singh: “I was surprised to learn that only 800 or so people participated in Google Answers. Therein lays the answer. A recent Oprah Winfrey session on Yahoo Answers got more than 20,000 participants.”
ZDnet’s Larry Dignan: “It shows the company can cut its losses on a project that may not be delivering–a critical skill for all companies. Cutting losses is a cog in solid project management.”
Don Dodge: “Who wants to wait for an answer to a search query? Any wait beyond half a second becomes intolerable for most users. Secondly, how can an answer service be profitable and scale?”
Mark Evans wonders if this is a sign Google will start nuking other projects: “Who knows, maybe this move suggests Google will be more pragmatic about rolling out new services rather than slapping stuff on the wall and seeing if it sticks.”
Haochi Chen who also points to the Google Answers thread below writes on his Googlified blog: “It’s really sad to see Google Answers being shut down. Unlike Google X, Answers has been around for years, even though I don’t use it at all.”
Via Google Answers bowler-ga on 23 Oct 2006 14:50 PDT: “The quality of GA has become diluted with spam questions that are conceivably attempts from credit card thieves to verify the validity of stolen credit card numbers, webmasters realizing that a mention of their website in a GA question may boost their ranking in the search results (although this may have been resolved), and the disappearance of researchers such as yourself.”
Rex Hammock thinks Wikipedia is the main reason for GA demise.

The value in Q&A sites
What I think could/will someday be useful with these Q&A sites is when they integrate the data with regular search results. I’m admittedly a little less enthusiastic now that Google who was receiving Q&A data people were paying for couldn’t figure out how to better integrate this data with their search results. They didn’t help the project by not advertising it very well. I’m curious if this announcement merely means they will be back with a free service to compete against the other two thirds of the GYM trio?

Do you use any of the Q&A services? How often? Why/why not?

Yahoo sure likes to make deals toward the end of the year. Last year there was a flurry of acquisition activity and this year they are starting to heat up in the same department.

Yahoo will index and tag content from seven major newspaper chains and make the news content from 38 states available on the web. Yahoo will also power local events listings, maps and search technology on the local newspapers’ websites. The partnered newspapers will also use Yahoo’s advertising platform to sell and host the targeted local ads on their websites. The ads will largely be powered by Yahoo Local.

I’m not sure who this deal helps more, a print newspaper business moving (begrudgingly?) to the web or Yahoo. And why are they using ads from Yahoo Local and not Yahoo Publisher? We still don’t subscribe to any newspapers, you?

Perhaps just me, but why does this deal — piggybacking on what I wrote Monday on the allegedly leaked internal Yahoo memo — all feel like a part of some throw at the wall and see what sticks scheme?

Yesterday another deal that was announced which makes more sense is Yahoo Answers teaming up with Answers.com to form a definitive Q&A database, which answers.com CEO explains::

“The phenomenon of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ has taken on extraordinary momentum, as evidenced by the meteoric growth of Yahoo! Answers,” explained Bob Rosenschein, CEO of Answers.com. “While our existing content is incredibly rich, relevant and cross-disciplinary, answers drawn from a community Q&A site provide a flip side - the dynamic, interactive voice of the people. User-generated content is a powerful wave on the internet and is a direction that we will continue to actively pursue.”

It’s going to be tough for Microsoft Live QnA or Google Answers to put a dent in that combination.

Another thing Yahoo continues to be doing right is improving their developer relations, products and services. This will always pay dividends in the software world.

Much welcomed news that the trio of top search engine hitters, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are agreeing on common specs for sitemaps to be listed. This will make it easier for webmasters to publish a single document that all three engines can interpret and act upon to index the site better. Robots.txt is a document telling search engines what directories not to index where sitemaps tells the engines the opposite.

Hopefully all — or at least most — search engines will adopt this free sitemap protocol.

The last post on identity got me thinking about branding online. Perhaps this experience will be useful to other webmasters and online entrepreneurs. It’s been useful and profitable for our business over the years. Ooo, a trade secret. No hands, ma!

One potential downside — perhaps the only one depending on your political persuasion — of the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigning and having a man who also has the last name of Gates poised to replace him is that anybody subscribing to “Gates” by keyword will now have to resort to shoehorning in ‘Bill’ to the query. Bill Gates is resigning in a couple years and plans to spend time giving away his vast fortunes to good causes through his foundation. Perhaps this politics-technology keyword confusion will be good for the Microsoft’s chief.

This is similar to shock jock Howard Stern being confused programatically by Anna Nicole Smith’s attorney and boyfriend Howard K. Stern. Don’t forget the ‘K’ part, Howard reminds on his Sirius talk radio show, clearly a little perturbed.

Check out Google News for “Gates” pictured above. Now see the query for “Bill Gates”/ Adjust your RSS feeds by keyword now, if you haven’t already.

Better to focus on one keyword when branding?
This raises a question about using full names for queries versus multiple names as part of an overall brand and identity? I’ve tried to limit this potential query quagmire by using one name. This is also why I try to refer to this website as Hmm, even though I don’t own hmm.com (wish I did) or MakeYouGoHmm instead of “make you go hmm.”

The answer to Apple’s pod obsession
On the last Webtalk Radio show we got into a discussion about the whole Apple wanting to own the ‘pod’ name dispute. My suggestion for those with podcasts to brand their podcast to their site name like we do here with Hmmcast. I suggested Rob and Dana called their show Webtalkcast or WebtalkRadiocast. ‘pod’ reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers more than Apple and that’s a less than pleasant image.

How have the search engines treated Hmmcast?
Speaking of our currently bi-monthly podcast Hmmcast — expect #28 next Friday on schedule — I put some thought into the name of the podcast long before Apple started complaining. I made sure the domain for the name we would call it was available and registered Hmmcast.com (which leads to the Hmmcast page). Another important step in the road to making something easier to be found on the web.

Google: Hmmcast #1 result leads to Hmmcast category page which lists all Hmmcasts
Yahoo: Hmmcast #1 result leads to Feedburner RSS feed for the Hmmcast. That’s ok, I’ll still take that one.
Live: Hmmcast #1 result leads to Hmmcast #13 recap page here. Not sure why that page ranks so high over the category page, but the fact that it leads to a Hmmcast page is promising.
Ask: Hmmcast #1 result leads to the Hmmcast #15 recap page here.

A query for a unique word like Hmmcast should reach our category page or the Hmmcast RSS feed. Fortunately the major engines all led to something related.

Now you see why we didn’t call this Make You Go Hmm Podcast.

The shorter the better
When choosing a name or brand try to keep it short, memorable and whenever possible spelled correctly. Easy to remember Flickr, but how many people have tried to visit flicker.com which is not owned by Yahoo (and is one of those keyword laced domain landing pages)? Also double words like “for/4″ or “you/u” in a domain can be a type-in landmine as I’ve learned, so we bought the variation “u” domain and pointed to this site early on. I have trouble spelling sometimes and I know I’m not alone in this challenge, so make it easy — much easier than the domain abomination but conversely compelling service del.icio.us — for prospective and return visitors.

A few business things to hopefully make you think this morning, especially if you are starting a new project. What’s in a name? Everything, if you want to be found.

It seems the iPod Click Wheels have other worldly uses, or so an editor at CNET learned:

We asked Brad, “How did you die?” Our fingers slipped on the Click Wheel and transitioned to a different menu. Clearly Brad wanted to communicate with us using the medium of song. Our fingers scrolled slowly though the tracks, as it neared the ‘M’ section it slowed to almost a stop before settling, chillingly, on Murder Incorporated. This was a shock few of us were ready for — the ghost liked Bruce Springsteen.

We should ask the nearest iOuijaPod what it thinks about the Jotspot wiki service being bought by Google. Or what about the other acquisition du jour of the day, Reddit being gobbled by Wired?

Trickey wicky acquisition licky day. Are we having gun yet?

A couple months ago there was a dustup over Google being used as a verb in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. I just noticed this post on the Google blog trying to make some sense out of trademark nonsense:

Usage: ‘Google’ as verb referring to searching for information via any conduit other than Google.
Example: “I googled him on Yahoo and he seems pretty interesting.”
Our lawyers say: Bad. Very, very bad. You can only “Google” on the Google search engine. If you absolutely must use one of our competitors, please feel free to “search” on Yahoo or any other search engine.

So it’s ok to use Google as a verb for googling Google, but not ok according to the legal beagles for googling other search engines? That seems more reasonable than not using Google as a verb at all, but I’ve never seen anybody use an example like they provided. Who uses Google as a verb for Yahoo?

Google keeps trying to inspire everyone to use their search engine for everything, including their newest product: creating a Google coop search which has Techcrunch saying:

For bloggers, using Google Co-op may be a better choice than the built in search feature. A search engine can be created that searches just a single site, and Google search is generally better than search features included with blog software

We’ve been using Google search for our Virtual TO Reality group blogging effort and to date have been disappointed. I created a Google Coop search this morning and tied into the Adsense hoping to see better results, but there doesn’t appear to be any improvement. Our group’s long term plan is to move the site to Wordpress and our domain and use the built-in site search instead.

Let others collaborate on your custom site search
A curious feature Google coop offers is the ability to add collaborators to your custom site search. In theory this means the bloggers in our group could add other site searches related to virtual reality and Massive Multiplayer Online sites to make a more useful custom search engine as well as use the Google Marker to annotate included pages. I’m looking forward to sharing this feature with the group this coming Friday and see what they think and what our group can do to improve the overall search result.

Problogger Darren is soliciting his readers to add family friendly sites to his custom search. The light yellow color scheme for the search results is hard on the eyes, Darren, if you happen to read this feedback. I clicked on the volunteer button and it seemed to do nothing. Maybe a message was sent to him to approve me? Terrible UI response. When you click on links something should always happen. Send me to a page or pop a message that indicates the information has been successfully submitted. Call me a name. Do something besides blink the page as if nothing happened. Bad Google.

Add Adsense to your custom coop search
Once you create a custom search by filling out a short form (pictured above), you need to go to the coop site search control panel and choose “make money” to link the custom search to your Adsense account. Here are instructions on managing Google coop.

You’ll need the email address, zip code and last five digits of the phone number from the Adsense account to link (pictured above).

Who will benefit from custom site searches?
The collaboration feature aside, I’m not sure what readers in a real world sense will benefit from this search. If you have a good working example for readers of a Google coop custom site search, feel free to share in the comments below. I can see the benefit to the owners of the search, but that’s not what search is supposed to be about. Give me a search engine that helps me find what I’m looking for, not one that lines somebody’s pockets.

Om Malik thinks Google should pay more to micro search builders:

The emphasis here should be on getting more and more people to build these specialized micro search engines. Mike Arrington is not going to waste his time for peanuts, but make it a good deal, and I bet he can build what could be the most accurate Web 2.0 only search engine.

Individually I’m not very motivated to build a micro search engine for a third party service, although I definitely see the value in a group collaborating to build a niche search engine. From a webmaster and reader perspective I’d rather have something more integrated than less. With this in mind I’m curious if one can use the Google AJAX API to integrate a Google coop search into a site? Anybody try this out yet?