I assume the expansion comes from infusion of Yandex funds.  I hope it helps them expand their index, and perhaps shake up some internal philosophy too.  We really don't have many other alternatives.  

QuoteI think outside of the US it was missing huge amounts of sites/data.

I've felt that inside the US, it was missing huge amounts of sites/data too.  When I asked a Blekko booth guy about this a while back, he said... very self-righteously... that that's because they don't index spam.  It was hard to have much of a discussion beyond that, except to suggest that not all that was missing was spam.  There's also zero documentation for a lot of Blekko features.  

All that said, I've liked some of Blekko's search and SEO data, and it's led me to information I wouldn't have found otherwise, but I can't rely on them for day to day search.  I haven't run any major tests since the announcement of the expansion.  What I have tried hasn't shown a major change.  I'd like them to achieve enough critical mass to be a useful tool.  

QuoteWould a combined Chinese/Japanese buyout of Yahoo make it past regulators in the US?

Bill, do you mean analogous to the iconic quality of Rockefeller Center... or is Yahoo a more strategic asset? 

Used them a few years ago, at whatever level provided links with anchor text.  We tried anchor text that the clients had never pushed before, so the boost could be identified, and these appeared effective, but ultimately faded over time.  These were niche market areas, and we found it more productive on future efforts simply to identify the sites (blogs in all cases) that would pick up the story, and then offer customized versions of the article.  

I've never managed to get enough coordination with a large clients' marketing departments to affect their press releases.  By the time very large companies get something through branding and legal, they've rewritten the release to remove all effective keywords.  

The version I have is dated March 30, 2011.  I think the classifications of user intent as "Do-Know-Go" are well worth studying. 

For those not doing a continual volume of link-building or link research, the loss of a free tool like Yahoo's can hurt. 

At PubCon, Dixon showed me a new, more user-friendly interface for Majestic that's a little like SiteExplorer on steroids... extremely nice, but unfortunately not free.  I don't know whether that interface will be made available for analyzing your own site (or client sites you have access to). 

Bing's Duane Forrester (bingdude) mentioned in his PubCon presention that he hopes he can persuade Bing to come out with a tool like SiteExplorer that won't be limited to just data about one's own site.  It would be nice to have such a public tool available. 

I'm not a fan of SEOmoz's Open Site Explorer, so I can't say much about it.  Pretty limited capabilities, as I remember, with data that's about a month behind.  I think SEOmoz has the most to gain by providing a free tool, so it's possible it may get better.  Anyone experienced with it?  I don't think there's anything else, unless you count Blekko, which is basically self-censored and therefore limited, particularly for competitive research where you want to see why competitors are ranking.   

It would be ironic if Google were actually showing us most of the links it counts. 

I came across a site yesterday... Swapes.com... which made me think that the next major wave of blog and forum spam is likely to be pushed by swapping of social citations by intermediate sites that are in themselves sort of social.  Here's a quote from the Swapes homepage...

QuoteIf you have an blog / forum, write about Swapes or worldsofting.com (include the link to our site) and we will give you one coupon code, depending of your blog / forum (age, traffic, etc), between 250 and 2500 coins. Your blog / forum need to have minimum 2 months old. If you write about Swapes or worldsofting.com on your forum, the topic need to be global. After you write about Swapes or worldsofting.com, send the link including your username to this email freecoupons@swapes.com and we will send you the coupon code.

Coins/coupon credits are good for Likes, +1s, etc.  Just to be clear, I'm not in this game, and I suspect it will fail because of low reputation and self-control among the clickers... but it is more likely than many schemes I've seen to get around the location issues. 

Welcome to a bunch of folks too numerous to mention.  Good to see you here. 

TallTroll, rc, etc... points well taken... Here's more detail...

http://www.fashionologie.com/Details-Googles-New-Fashion-Initiative-Boutiquescom-12012112

QuoteThere are at least 19 designers, including Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch, Cynthia Rowley, Marchesa, Isaac Mizrahi, Tracy Reese, Prabal Gurung, and Erin Fetherston, who have been invited to set up virtual stores on the site. There will also be curated boutiques selling looks worn by celebrities and influencers like Lady Gaga, Victoria Beckham, Emma Watson, Anna Wintour, Rachel Zoe, and Michelle Obama. Sarah Jessica Parker has been asked to set up her own personalized shop, and a handful of high profile bloggers are also said to have been invited to curate their own boutiques in exchange for a low five-figure payment.

All that said, I still think that for Google, this is about image search and mobile, and of course about data. 

I think this is about image search and mobile... actually more than that, since Google will incorporate every other signal it can into the algo. 

But Google's trying to build a virtual model of the universe and put up ads on it.  Every product image, and every single search "query" submitted via an image, is going to be an extra bit of data that Google will use to build and refine the model.  I'd be surprised if they mess with that model by becoming an affiliate.  That's really small change to them.   They get more data and more billboard space when they let you play for free. 

I'm also thinking that the boutiques (however they organize them) with the biggest and best product photos are going to be among the early winners in the algo. 

Little did I think when I clicked on bill's message.... Good to see lots of familiar names.  This is a real time warp.   

I'd actually planned to get to bed at a decent hour tonight, but I couldn't not stop in here to say hello.  I see the pressure is on to post a bio.  The best I can do right now is a link (well, a url anyway) to one that's just about nine years old and probably overly kind... and mostly about my film career, which I was still trying to hang onto....

http://www.nbma.com/member/profiles.html

I'm still a freelance SEO consultant for hire.  The bio above should give an idea why I don't speculate on my own sites.