Search Engine Week in Review

This week was quite a milestone, with the top news coming from Microsoft's unveiling of their MSN Search. Tuesday was the worldwide launch of the new MSN® Search (www.msn.com), the first-ever search engine built from the ground up by Microsoft Corp. The new search engine architects are aimed to help consumers get answers more quickly and efficiently from their Web searches.

DevStart, Inc. (www.devstart.com) announced the successful launch of MSN Search Keyword Ranking Monitor. This powerful new tool helps webmasters track their ranking in Microsoft's new MSN Search Engine, released Tuesday. The tool is completely free to end users.

This week Google released the top news for a golden financial 2004. The leading search engine Google Inc. (www.google.com) announced Tuesday financial results.

The giant Google reported record revenues of $1.032 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, up 101% year over year. The search engine reported its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs ("TAC"), or the portion of revenues shared with our partners. 

In the search engine optimization field, SEO Inc. announced that their company was selected from thousands of entries worldwide, Fast Company readers voted Grant's entry into the top 10 most popular entries.

The reader ratings assist the magazine in determining which submissions spark the Fast Company audience. Fast Company  will issue the prestigious awards.

SEO Inc. saw revenues more than triple to nearly $6 million in 2004, making SEO Inc. one of the largest U.S. firms dedicated to helping companies raise their internet visibility. The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company signed 37 new clients representing nearly $1.8 million in business in December alone, including two of the giants of the consumer packaged goods and entertainment industries.

Ed Martin, Vice President Sales and Marketing of IRON Solutions (www.ironsolutions.com) announced exceeding the 5 million hits per week milestone on IRONSearch.com. (www.ironsearch.com)

"Surpassing the 5.1 million weekly hit milestone means our customers' listings are getting tremendous exposure," said Martin.

Another search engine optimization firm, Web Publicitee announced it has developed and optimized a full scale entertainment-based interactive website. Web Publicitee (www.WebPublicitee.com), through optimization of key words and proper structured content as well as streamlined loading of heavy graphics, has created one of the World Wide Web's first fully optimized major media & entertainment web sites.

One of the established leaders in hosting automation, SWsoft announced this week HostAdvantage (www.sw-soft.com/en/partners/hostadvantage), a new initiative for hosting providers that offers new search engine, email marketing, domain registration and other services at a discounted price to its hosting customers.

Another web hosting industry firm, Hurricane Electric (www.he.net) announced to host "Low Budget Online Marketing," an informative Marketing seminar that will focus on strategies that business owners, web designers, and marketing professionals can use to grow a business on the Internet. 

With the Internet marketing industry growth more and more hosting companies are aimed to provide search engine and marketing services. Seemingly this trend will grow this year.