06-2007
Google is coming up with Google Universal Search, designed to incorporate listings from Google's various vertical search engines directly into the main Google search results. The organic search results will be included isearches returned by Google News, Google Maps(Local), Google Video, YouTube.

Yahoo intoduced <div class="robots-nocontent">which tells Yahoo's spider that the content tagged with it is not part of the main content of the page and should be ignored.

09-2006
Yahoo released its Site Explorer help you better understand your traffic and usage, similar to Google Sitemaps.

07-2006
Another competitor to PayPal, Google's new online payment system - Google Checkout - is launched. It is currently available only in the US. While Google Checkout charges 20¢ plus 2% of the total transaction. PayPal charges 30¢ plus 2.9% fee. For AdWords advertisers, Google will credit you $10 against your transaction fees for every $1 spent on buying AdWords.

05-2006
Improved Google Sitemaps capability to notify penalized sites for violating Google's webmaster guidelines. Google emphasizes, however, that they won't be notifying all penalized sites. Notifications will be reserved for those sites that are legitimate, but are using some technique that Google dislikes.

04-2006
MSN released the beta version of Windows Live Search service which will replace the existing MSN Search engine.

03-2006
Google releases its own WYSIWYG web page creation service. The pages that will be created, are hosted on Google servers and are available at http://yourname.googlepages.com

02-2006
Google has added a feature to Google Base that allows merchants to handle payments through a user's Google account. The feature effectively turns Google into an e-commerce platform for retail operators

01-2006
Beginning January 18th, Yahoo is reducing the maximum number of characters viewable within their pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Previously, advertisers had up to 190 characters to work with. Now you'll have to work within a relatively scant 70 characters.

A competitor for the hugely popular Google Maps, Windows Live Local debuted in December with a bunch of cool features, including:
1. A 45-degree bird's-eye view.
2. Integration with MSN Instant Messenger.
3. Customizable, shareable maps with pushpins.

11-2005
MSN has begun accepting applications for its new AdCenter Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program. Fill out your application.

Google gives away web site analytics. Google Analytics, formerly known as Urchin on Demand, lets users monitor visits to their Web sites. The users can track, for example, the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns and to determine how to modify Web pages to improve sales conversions. To get Google Analytics...

10-2005
Google's New Plan, including classified ads in their search engine results pages (SERPs) will be competing against Craigslist, AOL, and eBay.

09-2005
Google and Yahoo added "SiteMap / URLList" service to detect new links and remove dead links on an ongoing basis. Yahoo - URLList or Google - SiteMap

08-2005
QualityScore: Google developed a new algorithm to rate your site.
The old formula was
AD RANKING INDEX = CLICK THROUGH RATE (CTR) x COST PER CLICK (CPC)
The new formula is
AD RANKING INDEX = CTR x CPC x Ad text relevance x Historical Keyword Factor x Other Relevancy Factors
CTR = the percentage of people who actually click on your ad as compared to the number of people who see your ad

02-2005
Google has become a registrar - a company allowed to sell Internet domain names - but told it has no current plans to sell any

RFQ for Proposal for Search Engine Optimization