Title tags, image filenames, headline tags affect Google rank: study

The German company Sistrix analyzed the web page elements of top ranked pages in Google to find out which elements lead to high Google rankings. They analyzed 10,000 random keywords, and for every keyword, they analyzed the top 100 Google search results.

Which web page elements lead to high Google rankings?

Sistrix analyzed the influence of the following web page elements: web page title, web page body, headline tags, bold and strong tags, image file names, images alt text, domain name, path, parameters, file size, inbound links and PageRank.

  • Keywords in the title tag seem to be important for high rankings on Google. It is also important that the targeted keywords are mentioned in the body tag, although the title tag seems to be more important.

  • Keywords in H2-H6 headline tags seem to have an influence on the rankings while keywords in H1 headline tags don't seem to have an effect.

  • Using keywords in bold or strong tags seems to have a slight effect on the top rankings. Web pages that used the keywords in image file names often had higher rankings. The same seems to be true for keywords in image alt attributes.

  • Websites that use the targeted keyword in the domain name often had high rankings. It might be that these sites get many inbound links with the domain name as the link text.

  • Keywords in the file path don't seem to have a positive effect on the Google rankings of the analyzed web sites. Web pages that use very few parameters in the URL (?id=123, etc.) or no parameters at all tend to get higher rankings than URLs that contain many parameters.

  • The file size doesn't seem to influence the ranking of a web page on Google although smaller sites tend to have slightly higher rankings.

  • It's no surprise that the number of inbound links and the PageRank had a large influence on the page rankings on Google. The top result on Google has usually about four times as many links as result number 11.

Can you use that information to get high rankings for your own website?

While general advice can help you to get higher rankings, it is much better to get detailed advice specifically for your website and your keywords.

It might be that your keywords trigger slightly different ranking filters at Google and that the algorithms have been changed since Sistrix performed the study.

Online ads go go go

Keywords: speak your audience's language

Clickz By Fredrick Marckini January 24, 2005 - It's amazing how many marketers fixate on their site's HTML, believing that's where solutions to their search engine marketing (SEM) challenges are found. But they're looking inward when they need to be looking outward.

At a recent industry conference, I provided SEM assessments for Web sites belonging to audience volunteers. Participants invited me to review the sites in front of the other conference attendees and offer suggestions about how to initiate, or improve, their SEM campaigns.

Every brave volunteer's natural inclination was to immediately dig into their sites. That was the last place I wanted to look. It's as though marketers think their Web sites are the focus of their SEM campaigns. They're not. The audience is.

Many marketers worry about how they can attain top ranking without first understanding how their audience searches and where in search results they click. Consider these actual assessments I performed for the audience.

Home Healthcare Monitoring

One volunteer's company offers a system that remotely monitors certain medical conditions, allowing patients who would otherwise be in the hospital to rest comfortably at home. I asked the marketer to name the most important keyword her SEM campaign should target. The reply: "Home healthcare monitoring."

First, I searched for that phrase on the home page. Nothing. Clearly, this highlights a huge challenge.

Next, I used Overture's Keyword Selector Tool. This tool determines how many searches were performed on a keyword in the previous month. I input "home healthcare monitoring." Overture reported not one single search was performed on that term in the previous 30 days -- an even bigger challenge.

"Home healthcare monitoring" is an industry term. Sellers of these sorts of solutions use it to describe what they sell. As is too often the case, it's not how the audience describes it.

Users think about these services in terms of "medical alert," "alarms," and "systems." That the devices are installed in the home apparently isn't as important to them; they're interested in the systems' response features.

Some keywords that were searched:

  • "Personal emergency response"

  • "Medical alert systems"

  • "Medical alert system"

  • "Medical monitoring"

  • "Medical alarm systems"

  • "Medical alert devices"

  • "Medical alert alarm"

Next I looked at Overture's View Bids tool. "Medical alert systems" has multiple bidders; the current high is a whopping $14 per click. "Personal emergency response" is selling for over $3 per click. How do we know we zeroed in on the right language? There were clues.

First, "home healthcare monitoring" had zero or low-query volume. It also had no paid search advertising bidders. "Medical alert system" was queried more frequently. It had multiple bidders and a high bid price (suggesting it's valuable to competitors).

This problem is more common than you might think. Marketers think of solutions in their own terms, not in their audience's terms.

Here's my favorite example: A major bank's executives recently asked me to ensure their site could be found on every search for "lending" because they're one of the world's largest "lending" institutions. I pointed out what I thought would be obvious: Their audience wants to "borrow." Smiles slowly formed on their faces. They got it.

Ring Tones

Another assessment I performed was for a large telecom. It's active in a number of markets, including data, cellular service, and local and long distance services. I was asked to review a wireless product's Web site.

I asked the audience what keywords should matter to this company. Someone shouted out "cell phone." Someone else suggested "calling plans." Then, I heard it. Some smart marketer blurted out, "the brand!"

Yup.

Big brands often find their branded keywords are the most important and enjoy the highest click-through and conversion rates. Again, I referred to Overture's Keyword Selector Tool. The most frequently searched term was the brand name and the phrase "cell phone." But the second most frequently searched term was a surprise to everyone. It was the brand name paired with "ring tones."

I asked the marketer if ring tones were a profitable business. He assured me they are. Yet the phrase "ring tones" was buried deep in the site. I searched Google and Yahoo for the company name with "ring tones." Dozens of other companies showed up in the search results but not this major brand.

Though the company is engaged in paid search advertising, no one thought to bid for this keyword phrase or to feature it on the home page, even though the keyword included the brand and was the second most frequently searched branded term.

To experienced search marketers, these examples seem simple and intuitive. To others, especially those new to SEM, they aren't intuitive at all.

Before focusing on your site's HTML, first look closely at how your audience searches. How they search is probably different than what you'd expect. Looking inward instead of outward can leave a lot of money on the table.

Social network advertising booming

eMarketer - In 2007, eMarketer estimates that companies will spend $900 million in the US — and $330 million outside the US — on social network advertising. Although the lead players, MySpace and Facebook, will continue their strong performance, hundreds of new social networking sites will give them competition.

The Social Network Marketing report analyzes the trends that are driving new competitors into one of the hottest advertising spaces on the Internet.

Since eMarketer published its first report on social network marketing, companies have latched with almost religious fervor onto the notion that consumers want to be socially connected online – whether on mass-appeal sites such as MySpace, on targeted niche sites and video sites or on mobile phones – almost everywhere.

However, is there enough interest among consumers in social networking to support so many ventures?

Key questions the "Social Network Marketing" report answers:

* How much money is being spent on social network advertising?
* What works and what doesn't in social networking marketing?
* How are video and mobile playing into the space?
* Will virtual worlds such as Second Life pose a threat to existing social networking sites?
* And many others…

eMarketer Reports—On-Target and Up-to-Date

The Social Network Marketing report aggregates the latest data from international marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer numbers, projections and analysis to provide the information you need to make the right business decisions—today.

'Hyper-local' news = the unmet needs

E&P - The printed newspaper is a world unto itself. Version 1.0 of the newspaper website: ditto. Today's newspaper websites (what are we at now, version 2.0? 3.0?) are less provincial, but most still don't do a great job of reaching out to tap the larger information stream that is the web.

That is, you don't typically go to a newspaper website because you expect it to point you to all that is good and relevant to you on the web. That's what Google is for, eh? ... Of course, Google isn't great at local. Sure, with the search engines you can find good local information, but it's not yet a wonderful experience trying to find fine-grain local information and news from a wide variety of sources -- especially at the neighborhood level.

There is still an opportunity for someone to do a truly good job and become the king of hyper-local news and information. You would think that the obvious candidate for this would be the newspaper industry. But I suspect that newspapers' lingering provincialism -- their reticence to link to or bring in content that is completely out of their control -- will allow Internet entrepreneurs to own this space.

Is this where it's headed?

Lately, I've been watching Outside.in, a New York-based, venture capital-backed, new player in the hyper-local news and information space. Who knows whether Outside.in will turn into the Next Great Internet Thing, or eventually join the large ranks of Internet companies in the sky. But I do think they're on to something important -- and newspaper executives should be paying attention.

In a nutshell, Outside.in seeks to bring together and finely categorize news and information from all sorts of sources online, down to the neighborhood level. It's seeking to become the place you'll go to zero in on your neighborhood and find everything that's being written or produced about it -- as well as recruit original content about your neighborhood in a social networking experiment.

The website was created in part in reaction to the "placeblogging" trend. Placebloggers, of course, are usually individuals who write blogs about a specific geographic location. There are now thousands of people blogging about their communities -- covering large metro areas, or neighborhoods within cities, or small towns, or military bases, or boarding schools, etc.

Most of the placebloggers operate independently, perhaps writing a placeblog out of nothing more than love for and passion about their communities. Some have figured out how to turn them into small businesses by attracting advertisers. Some newspapers have staff members writing placeblogs, while others may pay independent placebloggers to produce content for them or otherwise partner with them.

But placebloggers are just part of the wealth of hyperlocal content that Outside.in is tapping. There are also community groups, government agencies, schools, and numerous institutions publishing content that's relevant to a place. Aggregate all that into a useful interface, and you start to have an interesting and useful news and information service -- albeit a disorganized, and ultimately unedited, one.

An unmet need

Outside.in founder Steven Johnson (an Internet pioneer known for starting the '90s online magazine FEED and for the website Plastic.com) says he and his team recognized that there was no place online that you could go and easily find all that information and news. "We wanted to grab as much of that as possible," he says. "We said, let's organize what's out there already" because no one else is doing a good job of that yet.

The process of categorizing all content that is fresh and locally relevant is something that can be automated to an extent, but it's still -- for now, at least -- partly a time-consuming editorial task requiring humans.

For example, Outside.in can identify a placeblogger, pick up his or her content feed (RSS), and because the blogger's location is known, put that content into a specific place feed (e.g., Boulder, Colorado). But what if a Boulder-based placeblogger writes a review of a restaurant she tried on a trip to Tupelo, Mississippi? That needs to go in the Tupelo area of Outside.in, and for now that requires a human editor to accomplish.

Outside.in currently employees about 10 freelance editors whose job it is to categorize content. If a placeblogger's item mentions a specific university, for example, an editor might add it to an Outside.in page and feed about that school.

Outside.in's content is nearly always geo-coded, and the site includes a useful map interface. So you can find your house on a map, then read all the content about your neighborhood: crime reports from blogs or police departments, restaurant reviews from a wide variety of people (and media sources), even local news from newspapers, TV stations, etc.

Johnson says that this ability to drag an online map around and see the news by geographic location (what's been happening within a mile of my house, my office, my kids' school?) -- from the huge variety of sources available on the Internet -- is powerful, and is where traditional media like newspapers "have done a lousy job."

(Adrian Holovaty's ChicagoCrime.org is somewhat in the vein of Outside.in -- a small slice of this hyperlocal online information pool. That website from a few years ago allows the user to find their block or neighborhood and see recent crime reports, giving a useful and powerful perspective on the crime situation near your home or work. ... Holovaty currently is chief technologist for Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive.)

There's more to Outside.in's model, and it's in its early days, so we'll have to watch as it evolves. But other things to note are:

-- The Outside.in community is designed so that users help the categorization process, to relieve editors of having to do everything (an impossibility if the site grows significantly).

-- When bloggers tag their own content appropriately (which is becoming increasingly common), it's easy for Outside.in to categorize it automatically.

-- The concept of "citizen media" is integral to Outside.in. Users are invited to submit content to add it to their geographic location, and the idea is that they can converse with and get to know their neighbors through this process. This original citizen content is added to the content gathered from around the web, to make the site rich and deep.

-- What in theory is getting built out is a "Wikipedia of neighborhoods." Just as many, many people contribute to Wikipedia, the online participatory encyclopedia, so too can many people who live in a neighborhood contribute what they know and their news to create a user-driven guide to neighborhoods.


Partnering possibilities

How does Outside.in mesh with newspapers? Is it purely competitive, or "co-opetition," or benign partner?

Johnson, who's currently in discussions with some newspaper companies, says one possibility is for newspaper websites to license Outside.in's feeds for neighborhoods and cities within its coverage area -- adding non-staff-produced local content and making the sites much richer. Details aren't worked out yet, but possibilities include reciprocal traffic -- where a newspaper's neighborhood content is fed into the Outside.in system in exchange for using Outside.in's neighborhood feeds -- as well as more traditional licensing.

I can see that as a possibility, though I wonder if a newspaper staff couldn't do the same thing itself, by assigning an editor or editors to find and continuously monitor local bloggers and local information sources.

Outside.in is still working on its revenue model details, but local advertising certainly will be key. In that respect, the company is yet another player looking to take local ad dollars away from local newspapers. Johnson expects to develop some sort of advertising share program, so by running Outside.in content and ads on your site, you get a cut. That, of course, is a well-worn model; many publishers participate in Google's advertising program, for example, and do quite well from that.


Why pay attention to this small company?

Simply put, Outside.in represents an approach to hyper-local news that newspaper companies should be considering. It perhaps points to the future of local news, which is not restricted to those hired or associated with news companies, but includes everyone in a community who is publishing neighborhood- or community-relevant news and information.

Rich Gordon of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, put it well in analyzing Outside.in's core concept: "In the digital age, content and aggregators and consumers and media users are members of a network. The key to success in a networked information economy will be to build hubs that enable connections. So I like Outside.in's concept." Of course, for that particular company, "The devil will be in the details -- how well they execute," he adds.

As an example of the potential value of this model, my hometown newspaper seldom has news about the elementary school that my youngest daughter goes to. But a hyper-local, non-provincial approach would mean that the newspaper website taps everyone outside of its staff and freelancers who are writing anything about the school -- teachers' or principals' blogs, the school district website, even parents of students who blog and happen to mention something going on at the school. It leverages the networked information infrastructure that has evolved over the last decade-plus.

Now that would be a really useful service that would truly tap the potential of online hyper-local news.

So, will entrepreneurs like Steven Johnson be the ones to accomplish this? Or will newspapers take the bold step of truly loosening the reins of editorial control and step up to the challenge?

Lessons learnt from Virginia Tech shooting

E&P - Every time there's a hugely important or dramatic news event -- as with the recent shootings on the Virginia Tech campus -- new lessons are learned about our evolving media world. As I see it, two important issues arose during the coverage of that tragedy.

1. Traditional media have a hard time reporting outside of their own boxes, which when it comes to a really big news event is to the detriment of public knowledge.

2. The public demands everything that media knows about an event of this magnitude -- immediately -- while at the same time accusing news outlets of offering too much.

Needed: Reporting outside traditional boxes

Virginia Tech was the classic example of a news story so powerful and compelling that the public demands every tidbit of information available -- and right away. And in large part, news organizations oblige. They no longer wait till the presses roll, or for the 5 o'clock newscast. News goes online as quickly as editors can get it ready. For a breaking news event like Virginia Tech, the web is now the dominant medium, because of its speed and on-demand nature.

Some newspapers created blogs to cover the shootings and aftermath. On the day of the shootings, when the identity of the killer was not known, and details were coming in dribs and drabs, the breaking-news blog format was ideal. News consumers could learn (to a degree) what reporters were learning right away, rather than waiting for an assembled story to be produced.

Reporters latched on to MySpace and Facebook, finding entries in those popular social networking sites from people directly involved in the event. This provided not only fodder for journalists' reporting, but also leads to survivors and friends of victims, who could be contacted as part of the reporting process.

Compared to news coverage of, say, a decade ago, news media have come a long way. ... But not far enough.

Here's where I think most news organizations could have done a better job: Serving as an intelligent conduit to all the information (and "news") that flows onto the web and into digital networks during a major news event like this one.

Let's take Facebook as an example. The social networking site, which is dominated by college students, became a hotbed of activity on the day of the shootings. Students used it to ask if friends were safe, to report in, and to share news and gossip with each other. Some used the site to share their experiences with their online friends. Facebook users at Virginia Tech were on the front lines of a national tragedy, and they used the website to report what they saw and experienced.

Other students and those close to the tragedy wrote about their experiences in their personal blogs.

Obviously, Facebook and blogs provided incredibly important information to reporters covering Virginia Tech. (I'm not going to deal with it in this column, but some students fiercely objected to reporters "snooping" on their Facebook communications, which they consider to be "private" between them and their friends. I think that's naive on students' part, and that if they want privacy, they should not post in a way that makes what they publish on Facebook visible to anyone -- including reporters.)

But news organizations, I think, need to do more than use Facebook -- and all the other myriad sources of information, including personal blogs -- as reporting tools. Yes, they are that, and Facebook, et al are an increasingly important part of reporting on college-related news.

What I'm talking about is in having a news site link to and point people to all the pertinent information (and yes, gossip) that's flying around cyberspace during a major breaking news event like Virginia Tech. Instead of only having reporters digging through Facebook and the blogosphere looking for nuggets to include in their stories, and for sources, ALSO assign an editor to comb through the pertinent social networking sites and blogs. And create a section on your news website that packages and links to whatever's relevant.

Take the killer's Facebook page, or his student profile on the university website, or his MySpace page, if he's got one. I don't think it's enough just to report on what's been posted to his Facebook page and cherry-pick the best or least objectionable stuff, for example; let your audience see it all (yes, no matter how disturbing).

Did the killer show up in other online discussion forums? Are any of his class assignments online? Point your readers to those. Again, don't just use it as source material and fall into the old gatekeeper mode. The beauty of the Internet is that the public can -- and should, in my view -- have access to all the source material. For most stories, that's overkill and no one really cares about all that. But for a story like Virginia Tech, news consumers can't get enough.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that reporters change what they're doing -- finding and reporting on the important stuff, and sifting through the wheat to find the chaff. But in our age of lightning-fast communication, news organizations must supplement that with everything they can put their hands on for the big stories. Today's news audience demands it.

The end of the gatekeeper

Now we get into the "taste" issue. As in, when you reach outside of "conventional" reporting and link to information that's provided by other, unvetted sources -- especially in a horrific story like Virginia Tech -- you'll end up pointing your audience to, or outright publishing, some disturbing material.

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, traditional media had a significant decision to make in deciding whether to broadcast and publish the contents of the killer's "multimedia package" sent to NBC News. It included a disturbing video of the killer making his "statement" about why he was about to kill several dozen innocent people. NBC and others aired parts of the video.

Predictably, a great public debate ensued -- predictably, with a good number of critics contending that the killer's video message should not have been aired at all, because it served his pre-suicide purpose and glorified his crazy ranting. That the media carried Cho Seung-hui's video, that argument goes, tells future psycho-killers that they too can become famous -- and makes it more likely that the future will see more Cho's.

I'll come down squarely on the side of the argument that supports NBC's decision, largely because I think the public has a right to know. We have a right to information about him that can help us (maybe) better understand how the unthinkable happens. To my mind, it would be unconscionable for government and media to withhold that from the public. At the least, we need this to educate ourselves to watch for and prevent future Cho's from exploding.

But what about the taste and decency issue? About offering up unsavory and uncomfortable newsworthy material where youngsters will see it? Don't news editors have a responsibility to protect the public from the worst of the world? To withhold the worst of the news so as not to upset people as they sit eating breakfast or dinner?

This is where the difference in old (one-way) and new (interactive, on-demand) media comes to play. I don't begrudge NBC News from broadcasting only selected pieces of Cho's video. In media where the material is in the consumer's face -- network and cable TV, the daily newspaper -- some self-censorship is the only rational decision.

When it comes to news websites, however, all bets are off. Just as I said above that news sites when covering major stories should publish and link to anything that's relevant, so too do I think that they should share all relevant source material (in a big story like this) with their online readers.

Yeah, that's heresy when looked at from the old gatekeeper school of journalism. But with on-demand media, it's the news consumer who makes the decision about whether to click on that disturbing link or not. The digital-era consumer deserves to make his or her own decisions.

What online news organizations can -- and should -- do is provide lots of warnings and context about what's beyond that click. Want to see a student's cellphone video that she took in the classroom during the actual shootings, which shows people getting shot? (I'm being hypothetical here.) If I were sitting in an online news editor's chair, I'd either link to that, or maybe even publish it on my site. But I'd make the people who choose to see it well aware of what's about to be seen. I'd add age warnings, and I'd insert discussion of the personal implications of watching something so disturbing. ... You'd need to wade through all that before I sent you off to that content or that link.


Say no to nannying

I realize that many traditionally trained editors will react in horror to my suggestions. They'll contend that it's their job to not only sift through all the junk to find and present the important news, but also to protect the public from the worst of the society and the world -- the most graphic.

Hey, I was trained that way too, and long bought in to the idea that we journalists served a righteous purpose by shielding the public from the worst the world has to offer. ... As anyone who's ever worked as a wire editor at a newspaper (as I have) knows, the wires services routinely send over shocking images as part of big stories. (During 9-11, I remember how the Associated Press distributed images of a severed hand, and of bodies falling from the World Trade Center.) Editors use their gatekeeping power and seldom publish such disturbing images.

The big difference now, of course, is the Internet. Those types of graphic images now get thrust out to an international audience of online users. You can easily find them, typically, with a Google search or by browsing or searching blogs. News editors can keep on gatekeeping -- being our nannies -- but it's now a hollow role.

When a major story like Virginia Tech breaks, media can serve a public service by alleviating the need for news consumers to search the web and blogosphere for raw information about a big breaking story. Online users are already doing that -- because traditional media typically won't, out of concern for pointing to unvetted information or to disturbing content. I say, get over that. Why not provide that service for them, and thus become more relevant to the digital news consumer.

The world has become a different place -- where information (no matter how disturbing) now has fast and easy channels to a wide audience.

As I see it, news organizations need to adapt to this new reality. They can best do so by being the place where people looking for news go to find it in all its forms -- from professionally vetted and digested traditional news, to raw information from untested sources (eyewitnesses, bloggers, social-networking users, etc.).

News media's new job is to offer up all that's now available about the big stories, and provide some context to make sense out of the information chaos. It's an expansion of news organizations' role. Let's get to it -- rather than let Google do a better job in what should be media's role.

1Q'07 newsprint profits fall, data shows continued market decline

While North American newsprint producers were releasing dismal returns for first-quarter 2007, the latest available market data reflect a continuation of the steady drop in U.S. newsprint consumption.
E&P - While North American newsprint producers were releasing dismal returns for first-quarter 2007, the latest available market data reflect a continuation of the steady drop in U.S. newsprint consumption.

Statistics released today by the Pulp and Paper Products Council (PPPC) show U.S. daily newspapers consumed 8.7% less newsprint year-over-year in both March and throughout first-quarter 2007.

Total U.S. consumption was even worse, dropping 12.4% in March and 12.2% year-to-date. March had the same number of Sundays in both 2006 and 2007, but there was one additional Sunday during this year's first quarter vs last year, the PPPC reported.

In recent days, first-quarter results posted by newsprint producers Catalyst Paper Corp. and Bowater Inc. reflect the grim condition of the market. Through the first three months, profits fell year-over-year by C$25.6 million (US$22.9 million) for Catalyst and by US$35.4 million for Bowater.

"The continued decline in newsprint consumption…led to price declines during the quarter," noted David J. Paterson, Bowater chairman, president and CEO. Increased recycled fiber costs and production curtailments also adversely effected profits.

Exports improve again.

The weakening of the loonie vs the U.S. dollar, however, provided some relief for Canadian producers, noted Catalyst. At the same time, a drop in value for the U.S. dollar boosted exports. Overseas buyers were also attracted by lower North American newsprint prices.

Overseas shipments of North American newsprint increased 7.0% in March vs a year earlier, the PPPC reported. Together with the 10.1% year-over-year hike in February, the two months' total just offset January's 17.2% loss and brings year-to-date even with a year ago, at 525,000 tonnes (down 0.1%).

The biggest year-over-year jump in March's overseas shipments was to Western Europe (up 82.6%), while Latin America grew by 6.2%. Japan and non-Japan Asia, however, fell by 34.7% and 16.3%, respectively. Through first-quarter, only Western Europe was ahead of a year ago, by 52.8%.

FOEX Indexes Ltd.'s latest report indicates that 30-lb newsprint in reels dropped just 26 cents, to US$595.87/tonne, for the week ending Apr. 17, indicating a slowing down in the rate of price erosion. However, this latest index is down US$31.88/tonnes, or 5.1%, since the beginning of 2007.

The Reel Time Report lists a price of $605/tonne for 30-lb newsprint in March, down $50/tonne since it hit its latest peak in September 2006. Bowater's average newsprint transaction price decreased $22/tonne in first-quarter 2007 vs the previous quarter, according to the company.

More downtime taken.

Bowater indicated in releasing its first-quarter results that it curtailed significant newsprint and specialty paper production during the first three months of 2007, resulting in the loss of approximately 68,000 tonnes of newsprint output and costing about $15 million.

North American newsprint production dropped 4.9% in March, to 947,000 tonnes and brought the year-to-date total to just under 2.9 million tonnes, 4.5% below a year earlier, the PPPC reported.

At the same time, the industry's operating rate declined year-over-year by 1% to 93% in March and 94% through the first three months of 2007. However, U.S. mills ran at just 91% in March compared to 95% in Canada. The rate was 94% for both countries through the first quarter.

North American mill inventories were whittled down by 14,000 tonnes in March, but were still 162,000 tonnes higher than a year earlier, according to the PPPC. The bulk of the drop in stocks occurred in Canada, which was down 13,000 tonnes in March, yet still 136,000 tonnes higher than a year ago.

Inventories held by North American newsprint consumers remained low and continued to decline. All U.S. users had 874,000 tonnes on hand at the end of March. This was 3,000 tonnes lower than a month earlier and 108,000 tonnes below a year ago. U.S. dailies stocks fell 13,000 tonnes in March and were down 52,000 tonnes from last March.

Newspapers continued to reduce the basis weight of newsprint used, with the PPPC reporting that the average g/m2 fell 0.8% year-over-year for both March and year-to-date, to 46.69 and 46.66, respectively.

Second-quarter could see some improvement in overall newsprint earnings due to lower fiber costs, Bowater indicated. In addition, the company expects its proposed merger with Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. would "improve efficiencies by reducing costs and increasing productivity."

Newscom offers 500,000 royalty-free stills from Getty Images

E&P - Washington-based Newscom announced May 3 that it now offers more than a half-million royalty-free creative stills from Getty Images for editorial and commercial use in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The new imagery will be sourced from the following six royalty-free Getty Images collections: Digital Vision (highly conceptual visuals with an aspirational feel and worldwide appeal); National Geographic (adventure, wildlife, travel and diverse cultures, through distribution arrangement with the magazine); Photodisc (array of authentic, contemporary content); Photographer's Choice RF (selections by top photographers worldwide, reflecting an eclectic range of styles and subjects); Retrofile RF (an "American family photo album" of vintage, black-and-white photography from the Black Box and George Marks collections); Stockbyte ("a range of subject matter in a clean, contemporary style").

This diverse assortment of creative content will join approximately 1.6 million news, sports and entertainment images and more than 260,000 Hulton Archive selections from Getty Images available via Newscom.

Women watch less video

eMarketer - HisTube?

Online video is a business that has been years in the making. Thanks to the proliferation of broadband and the popularity of the YouTubes of the world, it is now what analysts at Piper Jaffray call "the new killer app of the Web."

But the app is not as killer for females as it is for males.

This year there will be an estimated 97 million females online in the US, compared with 91 million males. A clear majority. When it comes to viewing video online, however, their positions are reversed.

US Online Video Viewers As a Percent of Internet Users, by Gender, 2006-2011

"While 78% of males watch video online, only 66% of females do," says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and the author of the new Women Online: Taking a New Look report. "They are less likely than males to visit most video destination sites — even the biggie, YouTube."

The disproportion is all the more surprising because females watch more TV than males. So what do females watch online?

A study conducted by InsightExpress for Advertising.com indicated that news clips are the most popular type of online video for all US adult viewers.

Types of Content that US Consumers Say They Are

A study by Piper Jaffray also found that news appealed to both genders (52.3% of adult men and 48.9% of women). After that, though, differences appeared. Men were more likely to watch amateur videos, music videos and movie previews. Women favored movie previews and then music videos.

Types of Online Video Watched by US Online Video Viewers, by Gender, 2006 (% of respondents in each group)

Among female BabyCenter visitors, the most popular type of video was entertainment (chosen by 61% of respondents), followed by news (56%).

Types of Videos that US Female Visitors to BabyCenter.com Enjoy Watching Online, February 2007 (% of respondents)

"Getting the female audience engaged is crucial for the success of online video, and over the next few years, marketers and online video content providers will need to figure out exactly how to get that job done," says Ms. Williamson. "They have no choice. They have to."

For a better understanding of what women are thinking when they use the Internet, read eMarketer's new Women Online: Taking a New Look report today.

China's online spending to skyrocket 5 times by 2010

eMarketer - COD and patchy postal delivery. No wonder more Chinese don't shop online.

Chinese e-commerce is growing at a quick clip. eMarketer estimates that the average amount spent online per Internet user in China will increase roughly fivefold by 2010 from 2006 levels.

That sounds great, but it is typical of an immature market.

Average Annual Amount Spent Online* per Internet User in China, 2005-2010

In 2006, 20 million Chinese Internet users had made at least one purchase online within the past year, according to iResearch. That is a 15% penetration rate. By 2010 the penetration rate will increase to 28%. By comparison, in 2006 the US penetration rate for online buyers ages 14 and older was 66%.

Chinese retail e-commerce has several hurdles keeping it from growing even faster. One is low credit card usage, thanks to fraud concerns by both sellers and customers. Nearly two-thirds of respondents in a China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) study said that they do not buy things online because they are unsure about how secure it is.

Reasons that Internet Users in China Do Not Buy Online, June 2006 (% of respondents)

China also needs a secure infrastructure for settling transactions, but lack of regulations and technical standards have resulted in a poor online payment system. These two problems have made COD the most popular online payment method. Only a quarter of online buyers surveyed by AC Nielsen used credit cards.

Payment Methods Used by Online Buyers in China, April-May 2005 (% of respondents)

A third major problem is that it is tough to physically deliver goods once the sale is made online. Despite postal authority and express delivery company efforts to build countrywide networks, slow service and high costs are still the norm. Outdated facilities and a lack of automation and managerial talent are to blame.

Online retailers are developing their own delivery networks to get around these problems. Over half of respondents to a CNNIC survey said that they received goods bought online through an express delivery service run by either a third party or an online retailer.

As with most Chinese markets, the potential is vast. Until these problems are resolved, however, the market will continue to have mere "growth," instead of "phenomenal growth."

Learn more about online retail in the Asia-Pacific region. Read the eMarketer Asia-Pacific B2C E-Commerce: China, Japan and South Korea report.

User-generated content will be king: media guru survey

eMarketer - It's going to make someone rich. Somehow.

More than half of media and entertainment executives surveyed in Accenture's "Global Content Survey 2007" cite user-generated content as a leading threat to their bottom line.

Two-thirds of respondents believe that within three years their businesses will be making money on user-generated content. A quarter does not yet know how that will happen.

So is the glass half-full?

Respondents agreed that short-form video offers the best growth potential over the next five years.

Media Content with the Highest Growth Potential* according to Media and Entertainment Executives in North America and Europe, Q1 2007 (% of respondents)

While media and entertainment executives debate how to make money from user-generated content, user-generated online video continues to grow. Screen Digest's "User-Generated Online Video: Competitive Review and Market Outlook" reports that 55% of online video watched in 2010 will be user-generated, up from 47% in 2006.

User-Generated Online Video Content As a Percent of Total Online Video Content Watched in the US, 2006 & 2010

Not all consumers are sold on the value of user-made video. According to a Synovate study commissioned by Clipblast! respondents disliked having to wade through user-generated content to get to the good stuff.

Aspect of Online Video that US Adult Internet Users Like Least, February 2007 (% of respondents)

eMarketer's User-Generated Content: A New World of Online Advertising report will be published in May 2007. To be notified when it is released, click here.

Food, beverage online ads to jump 36% in 2007

eMarketer - Food and beverage advertisers cut spending in nearly every major media last year — except the Internet.

This year, eMarketer estimates this category will spend $288 million advertising online, a 36.6% increase over 2006.

US Online Advertising Spending by Food and Beverage Companies, 2006-2011 (millions)

Why has Internet advertising become a meat-and-potatoes buy for food and drink marketers?

"Because food and drink is becoming an online staple for consumers who are searching the Internet for healthy eating tips and recipes, as well as for products they see advertised in other media," says Lisa Phillips, eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new CPG Online: Food & Beverages Party On report.

"Eat, drink and go online" is the message food and beverage companies are sending to US consumers, and they are following their own advice.

In fact, according to TNS Media Intelligence, the Internet was the only medium to see more than a small increase in food and beverage ad spending last year. While spending in newspapers tanked almost 25% and outdoor spending fell 9.5%, online advertising gained nearly 27%, to reach $183.4 million (and TNS does not include search advertising in its calculations).

US Advertising Spending by Food and Beverage Companies, by Media, 2005 & 2006 (millions and % change)

CPG companies, however, do not spend as heavily on paid search advertising as many other categories do, preferring to focus their Internet campaigns on branding, sponsorships and direct response such as e-mail.

"In the CPG segment, purchase consideration hinges more on in-store sales and discount coupons," says Ms. Phillips, "so paid search is not as paramount as in other industries, such as automotive or financial services."

eMarketer estimates CPG companies devote only 15% to 20% of their online spending to paid search.

"The shifts in food and beverage marketers' media mix in 2006 mirror what is taking place in other industries," says Ms. Phillips. "Last year, traditional media such as television, newspapers, radio and outdoor all lost share of spending within food and beverage budgets, while magazines and the Internet gained share. Even as total spending in other media fell 1.8%, Internet advertising rose, from 1.6% of the total in 2005 to 2.1% last year."

Media Distribution of US Advertising Spending by Food and Beverage Companies, 2005 & 2006 (% share)

As a category, however, food and beverage advertising did not make the list of the top 10 advertising categories in 2006. Data from TNS show that the personal care segment was the only CPG category to break into the top 10, ranked eighth in overall spending last year, up 1.1% to $5.7 billion.

Top 10 US Advertising Categories, Ranked by Spending, 2005 & 2006 (millions and % increase/decrease vs. prior year)

To feast on more CPG and food and beverage figures, read the new eMarketer report CPG Online: Food & Beverages Party On today.

Social networking for jobs

eMarketer - Should Monster be scared?

Business-specific social networks have the attention of both employers and job seekers, and millions are using the sites.

LinkedIn, the best-known career social network, reported 89% growth in members from 2005-2006. The site has grown from 85,000 members in its first year to over eight million members.

Members of LinkedIn Social Networking Web Site, 2003-2006 (thousands and % increase vs. prior year)

Some large US employers are conducting searches on social networking sites to recruit highly qualified prospects that may not be actively job hunting. Today's job hunters are not only looking at online classifieds, but also are likely to view themselves as brands to be marketed online.

Young workers in particular use business-oriented social networking sites for career development, according to a survey by SelectMinds. For young workers, these sites function as a "job search engine," providing them with career information that is pre-qualified by its users and, therefore, credible.

Young workers are more likely to view career networks as beneficial. Nearly three quarters of GenYers said they viewed these networks as very important, compared with 66% of workers age 30-39 and 61% of workers age 40+.

eMarketer senior analyst Jeffrey Grau notes that "the proliferation of social networking sites, blogs and online discussion groups organized around niche topics enables employers to find job candidates with specialized knowledge and skills."

Profiles of Five Major Business-Oriented Social Networking Web Sites, 2006

Mr. Grau added that the rise of business-specific social networks "does not reduce the importance of job-hunting sites. Besides the large, general job boards, there are a host of niche sites that specialize by, among other things, industry, geographic region and occupation. Niche sites such as these are ideal arenas for online advertisers looking to target their messages."

Get an in-depth look at the online employment market. Read eMarketer's Career Planning and Job Hunting Online report.

Search marketers keep spending

eMarketer - No need to look elsewhere, search execs say.

According to the "US SEM Executive Survey, 2007" report, from JupiterResearch, two-thirds of search marketers expect to increase their spending this year.

Only 7% of search marketers expect to decrease spending, and 28% expect no change.

Change in Search Marketing Spending Planned for this Year by US Search Marketing Executives, 2007 (% of respondents)

"Very few people are dissatisfied with search, and the ones that are tend to be smaller advertisers managing less than 1,000 keywords," said Kevin Heisler of Jupiter in a ClickZ interview. "We see many advertisers getting more aggressive with their spending, especially agencies. They've figured out what makes search so successful, and are content with the ROI."

According to search engine agencies surveyed by Intellisurvey and Radar Research for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, in 2006 the average search marketer spent a little more than $138,000 for paid placement ads. However, the largest client spent more than $2 million.

Average and Largest Client Spending in 2006 on Search Engine Marketing according to Search Engine Agencies Worldwide, by Type, December 2006 (gross spending)

Paid search is the largest component of search marketing, and is currently the key driver of US online advertising. eMarketer estimates that spending on paid search in 2008 will reach $10.2 billion. That is more than the $9.6 billion that was spent on all online advertising in 2004.

For 2010, when eMarketer forecasts US paid search spending at $14.21 billion, four other researchers come in below that estimate and five above.

Comparative Estimates: US Paid Search Advertising Spending, 2006-2011 (billions)

To find what you need to know about search, read eMarketer's Search Marketing: Counting Dollars and Clicks report.

Marketing to social networking sites, targeted

clickz - One in four adult Internet users in the U.S. regularly visits popular social networking sites, according to “iProspect Social Networking User Behavior Study,” a report sponsored by iProspect and conducted by JupiterResearch.

The study defines a social networking site as “one that allows Internet users the ability to add user-generated content such as: comments, review, feedback, ratings, or their own dedicated pages.” Sites such as MySpace, YouTube, and Amazon.com fit the study's classification of social networking sites.

While one quarter of the adult online population may be considered a small segment, lacking the reach of major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, it accounts for 41 million people, according to Rob Murray, president of iProspect.

The audience visiting social networking sites is self-selecting in terms of looking for specialized sites to suit particular interests. These specialized sites deliver highly-targeted audiences.

Many of these sites target communities defined by their affinity to a vertical industry, business model, or interactive activity type, unlike MySpace and YouTube, which are designed to appeal to the mass population.

"Most marketers would far more prefer targeting a very think slice of a highly relevant audience than doing the mass marketer appeal," said Murray.

Beyond display and sponsored listings, opportunities exist for marketers. Past reluctance to get involved in online social communities signals marketers to remain cautious. "Participation on these sites can take a couple different forms," said Murray. "[Marketers] have to pick the right site, picking the one that most closely matches your online audience. Being very transparent in your communication is very important. Each community has its own rules of engagement; a marketer must abide by those rules."

Consumers visiting social networking sites generally do so through direct navigation and bookmarks. Secondary is navigation through Google and Yahoo, or links in e-mail. In addition to optimizing participation on a social networking site to be visible on Google or Yahoo, marketers need to ensure "that their content is of high enough interest, quality, or value that it will serve as 'link bait' or 'bookmark bait.'"

The report, conducted by JupiterResearch, is based on an Ipsos U.S. Online Consumer Panel of 2,223 individuals. The survey consisted of 25 closed-ended questions about behaviors and preferences regarding online holiday shopping, search, ISP and video, online social networking (on behalf of iProspect), and online dating. Data were weighted by AOL usage, online tenure, and connection speed, determinants of online behavior.

Search terms for Q1 2007

clickz - Here are the top searches on Google Zeitgeist; Yahoo Search; AOL Hot Searches; Ask.com; and Lycos Top 50.

Google Zeitgeist, Week Ending March 31, 2007
1 blades of glory
2 ron jeremy
3 hayden panettiere
4 transformers
5 gwen stefani
6 cesar chavez
7 xbox 360 elite
8 happy feet
9 discovery channel
10 allegra versace
Source: Google, 2007

Top 20 Overall Yahoo Searches, April 10, 2007
Leaders Movers
Rank Subject (Days on Chart) Move Score Rank Subject 1-Day Move (%)
1 The Masters (5) -276 239 1 Zach Johnson Breakout!
2 Easter (10) -18 238 2 Shirley Temple 1353
3 UFC (2) +93 188 3 Matt Serra 1344
4 WWE (269) -28 164 4 Calvin Lockhart 774
5 Beyonce Knowles (231) -13 148 5 Elizabeth Hurley 545
6 Limewire (83) +4 143 6 60 Minutes 503
7 RuneScape (269) -7 134 7 Sara Foster 416
8 Internal Revenue Service (66) -5 111 8 The Amazing Race 333
9 Avril Lavigne (30) -15 101 9 Bootz 317
10 Clubpenguin.com (104) -21 101 10 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 314
11 Britney Spears (243) -14 99 11 Microsoft Vista 305
12 Naruto (88) -2 94 12 New Jersey Devils 302
13 Hilary Duff (232) -11 94 13 Pope Benedict XVI 293
14 Hi-5 (83) +0 94 14 Leelee Sobieski 273
15 Lindsay Lohan (241) -12 87 15 New York Islanders 270
16 Akon (136) -12 81 16 UFC 69 262
17 NBA (126) +4 80 17 Mark St. John 256
18 Paris Hilton (269) -13 78 18 Diego Sanchez 256
19 MLB (6) -8 71 19 Quentin Tarantino 249
20 Ghost Rider (40) +2 70 20 Planet Earth 245
Source: Yahoo, 2007

AOL Top 20 Hot Searches, March 29, 2007
Rank Search Term
1 Sanjaya
2 Christina Ricci
3 Wild Hogs
4 Kelly LeBrock
5 Scalene triangle
6 Barba
7 Kellie Pickler
8 Ann Coulter
9 Movie showtimes
10 Dr. Seuss
11 Tornado
12 Larry Birkhead
13 Grey's Anatomy
14 John Cena
15 Rosie O'Donnell
16 Barbie
17 Hilary Duff
18 America's Next Top Model
19 Fall Out Boy
20 Coins
Source: AOL, 2007

Ask.com Top Searches, Week Ending March 23, 2007
Rank Search Term
1 MySpace
2 Definition
3 Local Weather
4 Cars
5 Anime
6 Conversion chart
7 Jokes
8 Recipes
9 Music Lyrics
10 Games
Source: Ask.com, 2007

Ask.com Top Advancing Searches, Week Ending March 23, 2007
Rank Search Term
1 March Madness
2 Phil Spector
3 Dick Cheney
4 Regis Philbin
5 Miss USA
6 John Backus
7 Keanu Reeves
8 Vanessa Williams
9 Heather Mills
10 Luther Ingram
Source: Ask.com, 2007

Lycos Top 50 Searches, Week Ending March 31, 2007
Rank Search Term Last Week Weeks Rank Search Term Last Week Weeks
1 Poker 2 377 26 Limewire 22 42
2 MySpace 2 377 27 Diets 24 3
3 Spyware 4 377 28 Shakira 34 2
4 Paris Hilton 3 377 29 Baseball 26 6
5 Pokemon 5 11 30 Soccer 35 2
6 Britney Spears 9 386 31 Webkinz new 1
7 Disney 6 15 32 Jennifer Lopez 27 10
8 Golf 11 40 33 Hilary Duff 38 2
9 Runescape 7 32 34 Cookie recipes re-entry 1
10 Naruto 10 111 35 Wikipedia 36 195
11 Dragonball 13 376 36 Inuyasha 47 36
12 WWE 12 15 37 Akon new 1
13 Antonella Barba 8 4 38 Avril Lavigne 48 2
14 YouTube 14 16 39 Carmen Electra 29 109
15 Clay Aiken 15 196 40 American Idol 43 6
16 Anna Nicole Smith 21 8 41 XBox 50 6
17 Easter 23 3 42 Angelina Jolie 30 65
18 Pamela Anderson 16 386 43 Lindsay Lohan 33 62
19 NFL 16 194 44 Salma Hayek re-entry 1
20 Trish Stratus 25 42 45 Barbie 37 9
21 The Sims re-entry 1 46 Univision re-entry 1
22 Apple 19 195 47 Neopets re-entry 35
23 Christmas 20 26 48 Beyonce re-entry 1
24 NBA 18 385 49 Brooke Burke re-entry 1
25 Fashion 28 9 50 Stacey Keibler 31 2
Source: Lycos Inc., 2007