Google's made a subtle change to the layout on their search results page. They've replaced the Image-link Tabs they previously used connecting to Groups, Images, and News with plain ole text-links. We suspect that by removing what little clutter the tabs contributed, they'll increase the clicks on their FroogleNew! link.

March 29th, Google labs launched another new tool they call Web Alerts. The service notifies you when Google discovers new information based on a specific search query. You can sign up for Web Alerts at: http://www.google.com/webalerts.

Overture - Overture SITE MATCH = Guaranteed Listings in Yahoo! It's almost that simple. The problem is that, while your listing in Yahoo is guaranteed when you pay to enlist in Overture's SITE MATCH, your positioning is NOT. That means that paying to be listed might just get you nothing more than position #599 on Yahoo's 30th page of it's WEB RESULTS! ...and we seriously doubt that will make you happy.

To add insult to injury, your competitor might be getting listed for free and hold a Top Ten position. That might just make you (and your wallet) even more unhappy. So the trick is to get listed for free in Yahoo's WEB RESULTS and gain first page positioning.

Ask Jeeves / Teoma - accepts submissions to their engine via a paid inclusion program called Site Submit available at http://ask.ineedhits.com/sitesubmit.asp

MSN - MSN Signs Deal Keeping LookSmart On Life Support. MSN has once again renewed their intravenous feeding of LookSmart's bottom line by occasionally displaying their directory results. Based on the LookSmart press release this month announcing an agreement between MSN and LookSmart, it appears we may be seeing more of the LookSmart directory listings at MSN for a while longer – perhaps until MSN Search gets its own engine up and running.

ODP / DMOZ - Google's link to the ODP directory has been relegated to a more obscure page making it even more unlikely their site visitors will make use of it.

Yahoo - Yahoo added a new beta search toolbar and local search function, but that is "no big news". For starters, Yahoo is now, for the first time ever, a pure search engine! Ok, technically they are a directory too, ...and a pay-per-click engine that mixes in paid inclusion results with free "organic" listings – but their default search results are being driven in part by their own Yahoo! Search Technology (old Inktomi) database. And, that is a free crawler; meaning that you do not have to pay to be listed!

The short of it is that Yahoo wants your wallet. But, you should NOT have to give it to them to get listed in their search results. Many companies are paying for listings they could very likely be getting for free by simply letting Yahoo's free crawler find their site's pages. The new Yahoo strategy we outline in our update article and UFA Book (see links mentioned above) detail this fact while making solid recommendations on exactly who, when and why to give Yahoo (through Overture) your money – or not!

As part of Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, we're testing an email service called Gmail. Gmail is a free, search-based webmail service that includes 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of storage. The backbone of Gmail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly recalls any message an account owner has ever sent or received. That means there's no need to file messages in order to find them again. When Gmail displays an email, it automatically shows all the replies to that email as well, so users can view a message in the context of a conversation. There are no pop-ups or banner ads in Gmail, which places relevant text ads and links to related web pages adjacent to email messages.

Could this be a Google April Fools joke??????

Google can help you find just about anything: facts, phone numbers, recipes, song lyrics, even the dirt on a prospective date.

"Googling" has become so commonplace that it is now a verb. Google can search 5 billion Web pages in 2/10 of a second, and people do it 200 million times a day, in 100 different languages, from German to pig latin. But, as CBS News Sunday Morning Contributor David Pogue reports, the inside story of Google may be more interesting. ...

One may think it might be fun to work at Google, and they're not alone. "We get over 1,500 résumés a day of people who are applying to Google," according to Susan Wojcicki.

But if you want to get hired, you'll have to have to fit in with Google's corporate philosophy, which is: "Don't be evil." Today, Employee Number 1 Craig Silverstein is Google's director of technology. "The focus that Google has on our users, you know, a very slim homepage and so forth -- text ads, not banner," says Silverstein. "We do that because we don't want to go to sites with banner ads. We don't like them." ...

What's next for Google? Going public, for one thing. Analysts are putting Google's value at $20 billion -- the first major Silicon Valley stock offering in years, and the biggest ever. Google won't talk about it, but brokers worldwide have dilated pupils and sweaty palms.

At that point, hundreds of instant millionaires will walk the halls of the Googleplex, and a few fancier new cars will fill the parking lot. But despite the tiny distraction of $20 billion, Google's executives hope they can keep their eye on the ball. For them, cataloging the Web is only the beginning.

"My guess is about 300 years until computers are as good as, say, your local reference library in doing search," says Craig Silverstein. "But we can make slow and steady progress, and maybe one day we'll get there."

Ben Silverman is what you might call a Google obsessive. A producer and a former talent agent best known for bringing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to US television, Silverman Googles people he is lunching with. He Googles for breaking news, restaurant reviews and obscure song lyrics. He Googles prospective reality-show contestants to make sure they don't have naked pictures floating around the Web. And, like every self-respecting Hollywood player, he Googles himself. Competitively.

"Guys all over town are on the phone saying, `I bet I can get more Google hits than you.'" he said recently. "It's become this ridiculous new power game."

It's more like the new kabbalah. With an estimated 200 million searches logged daily, Google, the most popular Internet search engine, "has a near-religious quality in the minds of many users," said Joseph Janes, an associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle who taught a graduate seminar on Google this semester.

"A few years ago, you would have talked to a trusted friend about arthritis or where to send your kids to college or where to go on vacation. Now we turn to Google," he said.

For the entire article, go here!

Use this to check on your competition, or to get a better feel for the difference in the algorithms.

Note: Yahoo! seems to limit the number of requests in a certain timeframe. If nothing cool shows up, just try again later.

What does this mean? Probably nothing, but for those who are looking to build their annecdotal theories of the difference between the algorithms, this tool will get you off to a great start.

Why search? Your email collection is growing larger every day. Some Bloomba customers have over 20,000 messages collected across ten years. With powerful search at your fingertips, whether you have 2,000 or 20,000 messages, you work more efficiently. You spend less time worrying about the details of your folders; less time clicking, scrolling, and looking for messages.

Google has made five significant changes to its algorithmic formulas in the last two weeks.

Interactive Search is the parent company of several Web-search and portal brands, including My Way, My Search, My Web Search, Excite, iWon, and MaxOnline, making it one of the largest players in the search arena. Ask Jeeves raised its revenue projections for 2004 as a result of the acquisition. The deal solidifies Ask Jeeves' focus on the Web-search market.