Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Yeah… by 0.3 %. Having just been voted the UK’s best ‘Superbrand’ and with 1.25 billion in their pocket, I’m sure Google is quite concerned about it. The fact that they missed their Wall Street share value expectation by a penny this quarter is really of mild consequence, when you realize that they now have a more solid lead than ever on the whole search business, and Yahoo and Microsoft appear to have no chance of catching up.

Yahoo climbed 0.3% and Microsoft 0.7%, showing that there is life in the stragglers yet, but the obsession with Google continues. For whatever reason, some investors go into panic attacks at the slightest hint of a downturn, but at such lofty heights some fluctuation is to be expected.

Chill out, everyone. Google isn’t planning to go belly up anytime soon.

American Airlines filed a suit against Google last year for failing to protect their copyright. They claimed that the fact that Google allows competitors to purchase keywords that include trademarked phrases violates their rights, and sued the search engine.

The Orion case settled earlier this year was a stride I the right direction when it comes to the trademark infringement via use of keywords in advertising and search results. A judge ruled that results could not be brought up for such keywords if it resulted in misleading consumers.

In startlingly accurate legalese, the settled case stated that trademarked terms must be excluded in search, and advertisers could not use the keywords to advance their own agenda.

However, in the suit with Google, a step backward seems likely.

American Airlines asserted that “Google’s ‘Sponsored Links’ may instead redirect [searchers] to: (i) websites of airlines that compete with American Airlines; (ii) websites that sell air travel not only on American Airlines, but also on a variety of airlines that compete with American Airlines; or (iii) websites that are entirely unrelated air travel.”

This caused American to file the suit, but Google objected, stating that all they did was allow other companies to stock their product on the same shelf as American. American contended that it was more like slapping identical labels on them.

Nonetheless, even after a judge refused Google request to throw out the lawsuit, the case has been settled quietly and without fanfare.

So how far can competitors go? Does Google simply not care about copyright infringement as long as they can keep revenue coming in by encouraging a bidding war? As it stands, companies must fight just to get the keywords that specifically describe their company by name.

There is simply a lot more leeway than most would like to see, and suing the bidder only solves the problem short term. SuingGoogle keeps coming up as an option to crush the problem at it’s source, but seems futile.

The Viacom plaintiff so far seems to be the only one making a dent, but in reality their case against Google for copyright infringement in the matter of unauthorized YouTube content differs substantially from the advertising claims.

Google is being much more manageable - perhaps because the issue here is not their bottom line? When it comes to YouTube, hand over a few user records and bye-bye Viacom. Problem solved.

Perhaps American Airlines just couldn’t resist what Google put on the table to make them go away.

Well, Hulu may be showing full length episodes, but YouTube is still king when it comes to viewership. (Yes, I just made that word up, copyright pending.)

Yesterday comScore reported that internet viewers watched 12 billion videos online in May 2008. That’s up 45% from last year! Google laid claim to a full quarter of the traffic, with 4.2 billion, of which YouTube accounted for $4.1 billion.

Hulu (NBC / FOX) made a bit of a dent, however - YouTube did slump a little in the polls and Hulu took up the slack, which amounted to nice if tiny slice of the market share. Microsoft and Yahoo! Sites account for most of the rest of the pie.

Nonetheless, when it comes to Google Video, the giant is towered over by its own progeny. YouTube is still the most popular way to search for videos, outstripping MySpace and Hulu still - although that may not be so for much longer.

YouTube had 12.6 million unique visitors in May, compared with Google Video (7 M) and Yahoo Video ( 4.2M) The sharp spike from April made YouTube the fifth most gaining property on the web.

Some have gone to say YouTube is more influential now than even MTV, but considering that the average length of a video online is around a minute and a half, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same demographic here.

YouTube is a hotbed at the moment, due to Viacom’s lawsuit against Google over copyright infringement. Google was ordered to hand over user logs, causing a flurry of concern about privacy issues.

Viacom backed down a hair and agreed that substitutions of an anonymous code were acceptable to shield user identity in the material handed over. Viacom had filed the $1 billion suit claiming that over 1.5 billion views of video clips on YouTube were of some 160,000 pieces of unauthorized material.

Guess some of that MTV material is popular on YouTube too! Along with SpongeBob and stuff off of Comedy Central. Viacom is out for blood, and we shall have to see who pays the ultimate price; Google, YouTube or the users themselves.

In the meantime YouTube users can now combine add local search options to their viewing experience, leading to a rise in ‘prank videos, but really opening up the market for instructional videos from local stores, particularly in the sports and hobby field.

I don’t quite get the relevance of being able to geographically pinpoint videos on YouTube. I mean, I guess if Google wants to be able to hand over that info too…

Or is it a good way to personally hook up with friends, meet new people, and stalk celebs? I guess there could be some compatibility in the area of advertising, but for run of the mill vids, I don’t see the point.

What’s the criteria? Do you tag according to where the film was actually taken, where the poster’s location is, or what? And do we care?

Apparently so; the big story on Google this week is all about the New soon to be released feature that will let you search for videos by geolocation.

I guess I can see the application narrowing search time by weeding out non specific or misleading results, but seriously - how many people use YouTube for serious web search?

Again, apparently enough that Google felt it wise to integrate their geolocation system on Google Earth and allowing posters to geotag their vids. And Again, I ask how accurate can we assume that will be?

I guess we’ll just have to wait till next year when the usage results come out.

A year ago Viacom had a wall-eyed fit about content on YouTube, claiming copyright infringement. The initial suit asked for a billion dollars.

Now Viacom is about to be handed the user information of everyone who has viewed a video on YouTube, let alone posted one? That can’t be right - can it?

Doesn’t seem right, does it? And one wonders if Google had simply settled last year if they would now be humiliated and forced to hand over personal user data.

There are a myriad of issues at work here. From the beginning, Google tried to have the suit dismissed on the basis that it inhibited free speech, and Viacom countered that copyright infringement is not covered under free speech.

Kind of have to agree with Viacom on that one… but really, what are we talking about here? A few thousand clips from MTV or the Daily Show with Jon Stewart seems more like free advertising to me…

And if we are going to crack down on copyright infringers, shouldn’t Viacom just get access to the user logs of the posters? I mean, I went and looked at the South Park clip about Scientology - well, I tried. It now says:

“This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.”

Obviously, problem solved - for that clip, anyway. But will Viacom come banging on my door now? “Excuse me, you’ll have to come with us…we noticed you logged in and attempted to view a video in violation of copyright today…”

Google is willing to hand over user records, but not YouTube source code. This kind of ticks me off.

Now I am not a huge fan of YouTube (I tried it a few times and emerged several hours later, reeling and laughing my head off to find the day wasted and my sense of humor dangerously warped), but I can see where there needs to be some checks and balances to protect copyrights.

I do not agree that handing over user data is the way to rectify the problem. Google should make more of a stand for user privacy, but they seem more concerned about their own issues than those of their consumers.

In the meantime, their team of specialists keeps assuring us that the information they will be releasing is simply the user logs with the IP addresses, and nothing can be deduced about the users from that type of data.

Then what does Viacom want it for? That’s what bothers me.