I have just received an email announcing the retirement of the bCentral small business directory. In its place Microsoft is planning to launch the Microsoft Small Business Directory.

"On May 18th 2007 Microsoft will retire its Submit It! service. The service's site preparation, directory submittal, and reporting tools will be decommissioned. To help you transition away from the service, we are giving you a limited period of free access to Submit It’s site preparation, submittal, and reporting tools. In addition, existing Submit It! customers are being offered a way to retain their Small Business Directory listings, for free, through 2008." 

This obscure directory had been around for years and I can only applaud Microsoft doing away with it. Other than SEO companies I don't even khow anyone who knows or heard about this directory. It rarely if ever shows up in search results even on MSN, so the only value it was serving is giving a cheap one-way links to those who were too lazy or skilled enough to find really good links with topical relevance. The whole Submit It Directory submittal, and site preparation and reporting tools are also getting the axe. Submission tools lived out their useful shelf life years ago, it's about time Microsoft gets the point as well. We have made our own SEO Studio submission tool free years ago in all editions of SEO Studio, it's a complete waste of time except for a few obscure international engines that are non-crawler based. 

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Internet directory called Root Directory.org. Root Directory submissions are going to be reviewed by our editorial stuff and we'll be aiming to create a well balanced directory of high quality links while ensuring your website gets maximum exposure through search engine friendly links . Take advantage of our FREE directory submission offer in exchange for a link back to the the Root Directory.

Yahoo will be phasing out the Overture keyword tool and perhaps making room for a new keyword search tool based on their new Panama advertising platform in the near future. The Overture keyword tool has been up and down for a few days now, but as of this morning it seems all regional versions of the Overture keyword inventory tool are also dead.

In a thread over at Webmasterworld someone claims to have talked with Yahoo representatives and they have given assurances they will fix the problem as early as today. If you rely heavily on the Overture keyword inventory data you have a few options although most of these options have some type of costs associated with them. Some of the best keyword research tools include Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Keywords Analyzer and Wordze.

The only free keyword tool available without creating an account is the Google external keyword tool. Unfortunately the Google external keyword tool only gives a search volume indicator instead of the actual search volume in numbers.

Update Feb, 02, 2007

The overture keyword invertory tool is still alive at this address http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/, although it shows the previous month's results from December 2006. This may mean December 2006 was the last update for this popular keyword tool.

Also, a new Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool and KeywordDiscovery research tool has been released to the Overture keyword tool decommissioning.

The bottom line is, the telcos and wireless companies are up against a formidable opponent in Google and they know it, so they have been trying to defeat the legislation through political back door maneuvering to twist the arms of congressman and senators to stop the Network neutrality legislation, I’d say stick it to them Google.

A fascinating documentary called “The Persuaders” on Frontline of PBS looks into the world of off and online media advertising and the new ways advertisers are trying to unlock the code of consumers buying habits.

“Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists—most of whom work for one of six giant companies—spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. Increasingly, these techniques are migrating to the high-stakes arena of politics, shaping policy and influencing how Americans choose their leaders.”

If you have noticed more advertising creeping into feature films and television shows through clever product placement you are not alone. According to the documentary it’s no accident advertisers are looking for new ways to present their products. As people watch less and less television and ads due to advanced television programming technologies such as TIVO, it’s easier for consumers to by pass those pesky in your face ads.

I have learned a great deal about persuasion techniques, and how to build the language, images, and sounds around a brand in a subtle way that builds “loyalty beyond reason” as one of participant said in the show. It’s well worth 90 minutes of your time.
 

Check out the latest search market share results (PDF) published by Nielsen//NetRatings for September 2006. Google is leading by a very comfortable lead, no surprise there, but what about MSN?

It seems Microsoft can’t mount a successful counter attack against Google, no matter what they do. We have to wait to see if the launch of Windows live made any difference in their market share when the new search results are published.

Example: An estimated 3.0 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 50 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period. Please take note, these searches also include image, news and even map searches.