Daniel Alegre, vice president of Google’s Asia Pacific and Japan operations, stated:

Yahoo Japan will use Google search results and Google’s technology for supplying the accompanying search ads. With such partnerships, revenue from the search ads is shared between the Web site and the company that supplies the ads, in this case Yahoo Japan and Google, respectively.

I guess Bing just wasn’t cutting it for Yahoo.

Purchasing bit.ly would help Yahoo better compete in the social media world. Some Internet marketing experts believe that the service isn’t valuable to Yahoo because it can shorten long URLs, but because of the large amount of data it could collect with it. Information such as which URLs are most popular and user behavior would help give Yahoo a competitive edge.

Source | Giga Om

Right now the domain doesn’t point anywhere. In fact, Yahoo’s owning of a popular typo for a Google domain is a bit of a coincidence. Blogsport.com was owned by sports site Rivals.com. But when Yahoo bought Rivals, it also bought all of its assets, including the domain.

Yahoo will probably never monetize the domain or redirect it to a rival service because it does not want to face legal action from Google.

Yahoo is attempting to set a standard with its new Yahoo! Style Guide. Whereas other style guides focus on newspaper style, Yahoo is useful to webmasters and domainers because it bases its standards on what people actually search.

According to Yahoo, for example, ‘smartphone’ is better spelled as one word because that’s what more people search. Sites that use this spelling are better optimized for search engines.

But according to the long-held AP Stylebook, the correct spelling is ‘smart phone.’ Many high-profile websites still adhere to AP standards, even though it puts them at a disadvantage for SEO.

That doesn’t mean you have to be left behind, though. If you want to increase your search engine traffic, consider purchasing the guide when Yahoo releases it on July 6. Domainers should consult it to ensure the spellings they register are best suited for the web.

According to technology news site Softpedia, acquiring the name was a bit of a challenge for Yahoo. It originally offered the owner $600,000 USD, only to be refused. Intent on getting the name, it filed an anti-cybersquatting lawsuit against the owner, despite having no merit for doing so. The company and domain owner reportedly settled out of court soon after.

Yahoo has yet to redirect the name or make any changes. According to information displayed on the site, the domain receives 3.6 million unique visitors per year.

Generally speaking, this is not a bad thing and provides the users with a lot of flexibility, but there are at least 5 reasons to think twice about using cloud email with your own website.

1. A commercial company will have the only copies of your data.

2. Archiving may be a pain if you ever decide to shut down the email accounts but keep the messages.

3. When you cannot connect to the Internet, you cannot see those emails.

4. You are at the mercy of the email company, which can change their software or even shut down completely.

5. You cannot control mail server configuration, except what your service provider allows.

Some cloud services offer a happy medium by providing users with web-based email and pop/imap service. That way, your data is still ultimately yours.

Photo Source: Flickr

Many companies, including Google and Yahoo, offer ad services that will place promotional links or image ads about your website on other websites and in search engines, but making your site marketable is more involved. A good web hosting company will provide advertising services as part of some or all of its hosting packages.

You should only pay for results. In other words, paying a monthly fee for advertising that does not actually work is pointless. A good plan will give you flexible payment options, help you build target audience profiles, and provide you with tracking tools to make sure you are reaching those audiences. Although it is not the primary function of a web host, having these advertising services available is a definite plus.

Photo Source: Flickr

Because XMPP is an open standard, you can implement on your server and have your own instant messaging system. This does not mean you will be able to compete with AOL, Google, or Yahoo. What it does mean, however, is that your organization can create its own instant messaging platform for internal communication.

There are more than a dozen server software applications that can run the XMPP standard protocol. Some of them are paid solutions, while others are free and can be implemented with little cost. XMPP supports encrypted transmissions so your communications will remain private, and it also supports voice and other data streams to allow for a fully connected communication experience. XMPP protocols are defined by the XMPP Standards Foundations.

Where did these users come from? Bing saw a decrease in market share from 9.70% to 9.62%, so most of Yahoo’s new users probably migrated from Microsoft’s new search engine. Interestingly, Google also saw its market share decrease from 70.95% to 69.97%.

Even if most web users search with Google, I still think rankings in Yahoo and Bing are still important. Many webmasters forget to optimize for these engines, but the 1/4 of the web still using them is definitely traffic worth catching.

If your web hosting customers opt for the latter, you have some things to consider. POP3 and IMAP offerings are a given, but if your customers want a web-based option, you will need to provide one. Some hosting control panels come with web-based email solutions. If you have that option, use it.

If you do decide to install your own web-based email, make sure you choose secure, well-tested software that is easy to upgrade and maintain. The last thing you want is to have to manage poorly written software and spend your time fighting off hackers who exploit its security holes. Finally, make sure that things like quota control limits are easily enforceable and that the server load is not too high. You and your clients will hopefully be happy with the results.

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons