Posted by randfishI had a fascinating breakfast discussion with Jonathan Hochman from Hochman Consultants on Friday about Google's market dominance and the potential roads that might eventually lead to their fall. In our quest for potential Google-killers, we came across four likely candidates for bringing balance back to the search world (if not ending Google's reign entirely). They include:#1 - An Existing Search Competitor Wins Back ShareIn this scenario, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Ask manages to overtake Google's relevance and mindshare through higher quality results or better branding and emotional appeal. ...

Posted by randfishLast week, I asked Danny Sullivan, Founding Partner and Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media (as well as the Editor-in-Chief at Search Engine Land) a few questions about the upcoming SMX West conference and the other sites he helps run (Sphinn and Search Marketing Now).SMX West represents the first larger scale show for the SMX Series. Can you talk about the "whys" behind this show - why 3 days rather than 4, why Santa Clara, why end of February and why 4 tracks?Last year, it made sense for SMX to ...

Posted by rebeccaSorry again for the delay. I have a nagging cold that prevents me from going to bed at any time other than what I like to call Rand o'clock (~3:00 am or later; yesterday I was so desperate to get some rest that I watched Silent Hill on Encore Mystery in hopes that it would bore me to sleep), and due to lack of zzz's I was Zombie Becca today. After a nap and a bike ride, however, I felt revived enough to bring you this week's Roundup Thursday. Enjoy.Stories, news, and other notable items ...

Posted by great scott!This week, Rand interviews Fox Interactive's own Natasha Robinson. These two spend time talking about the challenges in managing gargantuan properties like those run by Fox (MySpace, IGN, RottenTomatoes, AskMen, American Idol, etc.) as well as the possible ramifications of the possible Microsoft/Yahoo! deal.As Natasha points out in the video, when you manage sites of this magnitude, small changes like tweaking title tags, can mean MILLIONS more visitors every month! It may all be relative but good SEO is good SEO (no, I'm not saying that ...

Posted by Jane CoplandI can credit the ideas for this post to a couple of other blog entries I've read around the web today. Beginning here at SEOmoz, justFred's YOUmoz entry about our thumbs system asks whether the relative popularity of a comment or post within this website makes a difference to how keywords from that comment rank at Google. While I don't think the test Fred proposes is going to yield any real results, the comments on the post brought up some questions about how search engines treat the features commonly used within social media....