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comScore a publié les résultats de parts de marché des moteurs de recherche aux Etats-Unis en juin 2008. Pour une fois les résultats s'inversent parmi les 3 leaders : Google perd 0,3 point tandis que Yahoo et MSN/Live remontent. Cela dit il faut voir ça dans la durée car le mois dernier Live avait fortement chuté. Article publié sur le portail du référencement par Olivier Duffez (consultant référencement)

(To the tune of "Strangers in the Night")"Publishers with websites, creating contentWondering about their sitesIf with their content, they could show some adsBefore the day was doneSomething in AdSense, was so invitingSomething about those ads, was so excitingSomething in our Help CenterTold them they must be onePublishers with websites, yearning for earningsThey were just publishers with websitesUp to the momentWhen they placed their first ad codeLittle did they knowRevenue was just a click awayA happy-user-generated click away and --Ever since that day, they've been monetizingNewbies at the start, they're now optimizingIt turned out so rightFor publishers with websites.Newbie, newbie dooo, da da da daaaa da..."If my lyrical effort didn't clue you in, and our Newbie Central resource wasn't a big enough clue, let me come right out and say it: we care about new publishers. For the next few weeks, we'll be sharing that caring every Friday, with posts especially intended for all the publishers who have recently joined AdSense, fresh and green like a newly mown lawn in the summertime.Now let's see if we can apply that same spirit of new beginnings to your sites.Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support

Matt Cutts has now earned international film star status. Google Webmaster Central in Germany has created an SEO video with excellent production values - particularly by YouTube standards. They've even translated Matt into German: Hallo an alle User aus Deutschland! Ob ihr nun User, Webmaster oder ein SEO seid - ich freue mich, hier die Gelegenheit zu haben, ein bisschen mit euch zu sprechen. Ich hoffe, dass ich bald die Möglichkeit finde, auch einmal nach Deutschland zu kommen. Bis dahin bin ich froh, dass wir hier viele talentierte Googler haben, die sich um den deutschen Markt kümmern und den Kontakt zu deutschen Webmastern halten. We were hoping they might dub Matt into German for the video with English subtitles, but no such luck. You will find out a number of cool things, including Matt's vision of search in the next five years. For example, do you know when Matt first came across spam at Google? After this interview, you will. To find out Matt's true vision of the future of search, you'll have to read SES Magazine, available only at SES San Jose.

Today we released version 6.0.1 of AdWords Editor. In response to user feedback, it's now possible to download performance statistics for selected campaigns and ad groups, instead of always downloading statistics for the whole account. Once you've installed version 6.0.1, you'll be able to download selected statistics by following these instructions.Unlike our last release, this update won't affect your comments or unposted changes. As a result:- You don't need to export an archive of your account. In the auto-update prompt, choose the 'Update without Backup' option.- After you upgrade, your account will already be in the new version. You won't need to download your account again.If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. You can also visit our website and click 'Download AdWords Editor.'For more information about AdWords Editor, visit our Help Center.Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

In April, before Microsoft's ultimatum for Yahoo to accept its bid came to pass, Legg Mason threw its support behind Yahoo. Now the investor group is continuing its support of Yahoo and plans to vote for the current board at the upcoming August 1 shareholders meeting. However, Legg Mason did advise Yahoo and Carl Icahn to bury the hatchet by the time of the meeting. Icahn has submitted a proxy board to replace the current board and has been in talks with Microsoft for a deal should his board win. Legg Mason owns 60.7 million shares of Yahoo, adding up to 4.4% of the total shares. via Reuters

Voici quelques infos tirées d'une interview de Matt Cutts par Eric Enge publiée le 16 juin 2008. Matt Cutts est le responsable de l'équipe de lutte contre le spam, qui fait partie du département Qualité du moteur de recherche. Il donne son avis sur les caractéristiques des bons liens, sur les techniques de linkbait et particulièrement de widgetbait, sur les liens réciproques et sur quelques autres aspects du link building. Article publié sur le portail du référencement par Olivier Duffez (consultant référencement)

To pass the gclid or not to pass the gclid, that is the question. At least, if you're trying to tag your AdWords URLs in Google Analtyics it is. On the Google Analytics blog, they're talking about using auto-tagging in Adwords in order to facilitate easy viewing of info in Analytics. But problems may arise if you've got some URL redirecting going on. Basically, auto-tagging inserts a little snippet of code into destination URLs. But if you have several redirects, the snippet could get stripped. That snippet is "gclid." What happens if the gclid gets snipped? While Google Analytics still records the visit and the subsequent user activity, it doesn't have the information necessary to properly attribute the visit to your Google ad. As a result, some of this traffic will be included in the "direct" category while other visits may show up as "not set". Furthermore, your Adwords Campaigns report in Google Analytics may show cost metrics, but your visits columns may show zeros. If this is happening to you, you have two options.

1. Ask your site administrator to configure their servers to pass the glid
2. Manually tag your Adwords

So how do you figure out if you're passing the gclid? Follow these steps: Scenario 1 If your destination URL has no query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/: 1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar, but before you press Enter, append "?gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?gclid=test. 2. Now press Enter. 3. If the gclid is present on the final landing page URL, you're golden. Scenario 2 If your destination URL already has query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a&param2=b: 1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar and before pressing Enter, append "&gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a&param2=b&gclid=test. (This is why the "?" and the "&" distinction were important to note earlier. It's a matter of URL syntax. Luckily, auto-tagging knows the difference.) 2. Press Enter. 3. If the gclid is still there, you're in good shape, and need only to enable auto-tagging. Related Reading: Rewriting URLs: SEO for CMS, E-Commerce, and Dynamic Sites Tracking and Analytics 101 Google AdWords 101

Google is looking to extend its global ad reach with its purchase of a Russian ad agency. Rambler Media has sold Begun advertising agency to Google for $140 million. Begun serves up contextual ads. Rambler will also contract search technology from Google as part of the deal. "Google is very committed to giving Russian users, advertisers and partners the best possible service and experience," said Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director Emerging Markets, Google. "This agreement will result in better search results and more relevant advertising for our Russian users and publishers." In 2006, Google opened a development center in Moscow, and tapped another Sergei, last name Burkov, to run the place. Burkov was the founder of Dulance, which Google acquired in the process of opening their Russian center.

Google wasn't the only one reporting second quarter revenues yesterday. Microsoft also dished, though they label the same period as their fiscal fourth quarter. The software giant made $15.84 billion last quarter, up 18% over the same quarter last year. Annual revenue was $60.42 billion, which was also up 18% over the year prior. The growth rate is not good enough for Wall Street, however, as the stock was down nearly 5% at the time of this post. Analysts see Microsoft as struggling in a weak economy. If making $15.84 billion in three months is struggling, then I want to suffer! Related Reading: Microsoft Earnings Key Takeaways: Where's the Search?

One of our goals is to give everyone using Google the information they want, wherever they are, in whatever language they speak, and through whatever device they're using. A huge part of that goal is making our services available in as many languages as possible. And as I’m sure you can imagine, that isn't as easy as simply as translating a few lines of text.Take Hebrew or Arabic, which are written from right to left. An Arabic speaker may search for [world cup football 2008] [كأس العالم 2008 لكرة القدم]. Part of the query will be written from right to left in Arabic, while the numbers will be written left to right. Sometimes the right-to-left difference can mean having to change the entire layout of a page, as with Gmail.Or take Russian, where words change depending on their placement and role in a sentence. In Russian, for example [pizza in Moscow] is [пицца в Москве] but [pizza near Moscow] is [пицца рядом с Москвой].Then there's the whole challenge of ensuring that queries are locally relevant. While many Australians searching for [freedom] are looking for the Australian furniture chain, UK and US users are often looking for the definition of the word itself. Our search results, then, have to take into account these local differences.Our efforts to make Google products available in as many languages as possible dates to 2001, when we started Google in Your Language, which lets volunteers translate and edit translations of Google products in their native languages.As more and more users, advertisers, and partners interact with Google across the world, the need for local products has become even more obvious. In 2007, we undertook a company-wide initiative to increase the availability of our products in multiple languages. We picked the 40 languages read by over 98% of Internet users and got going, relying heavily on open source libraries such as ICU and other internationalization technologies to design products. Do you need web search in Chinese or AdWords online support in Spanish? Perhaps Google News in Hindi or Google Scholar in Korean? Not a problem.Here's a taste of how far we've come. Growth in local language versions.

• 30 in 30: Today we have more than 30 products in more than 30 languages, up from 5 products in 30 languages just a year ago.
• In 2004, we had 150 local-language versions of various products (e.g. a product local to the UK, not just the English-speaking world); today we're at more than 1500.
• From January to March of 2008, we launched 256 local-language versions of various products, compared to 55 in the same period of 2007.
• We've upgraded to Unicode 5.1 to make sure that we can handle any characters people read or write in.

The web is only useful - or utile, 便利, pożyteczny, or nyttig, depending on what language you speak - to the degree it can be accessible in your language. That's why we're so excited about how far we've come - and why we know there's still a lot of work to be done.Posted by Mario Queiroz, Vice President, Product Management, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America

Google revenues topped $5.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, an increase of 39 percent compared to the second quarter of 2007. That's also an increase of 3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008. But those numbers still disappointed investors who basked in the glow of Google's growth and perhaps lingered a little too long in the sun. The big news? Weakness in key sectors such as real estate, where paid search has proven resilient in the face of the recession. As SEW readers know, Auto finance average CPC was down in June; as was the total Finance category. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs, or TAC. In the second quarter of 2008, TAC totaled $1.47 billion, or 28 percent of advertising revenues. "Strong international growth as well as sustained traffic increases on Google's web properties propelled us to another strong quarter, despite a more challenging economic environment," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, in a statement. "As we continue to focus on innovating in our core business of search, ads and apps, we also look forward to enhancing the experience of our users and expanding the reach of our advertisers and partners with new technologies and formats, particularly as our integration of DoubleClick gains momentum and creates new opportunities in display advertising and elsewhere." Highlights of the 2nd Quarter: Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $3.53 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2008. This represents a 42% increase over second quarter 2007 revenues of $2.49 billion and a 4% increase over first quarter 2008 revenues of $3.40 billion. Google Network Revenues - Google's partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.66 billion, or 31% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2008. This represents a 22% increase over network revenues of $1.35 billion generated in the second quarter of 2007 and a 2% decrease over first quarter 2008 revenues of $1.69 billion. International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.80 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in the second quarter of 2008, compared to 48% in the second quarter of 2007 and 51% in the first quarter of 2008. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the first quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2008, our revenues in the second quarter of 2008 would have been $88 million lower. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the second quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008, our revenues in the second quarter of 2008 would have been $249 million lower. Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $774 million, representing 14% of revenue in the second quarter of 2008, compared to 15% in the second quarter of 2007 and 15% in the first quarter of 2008. Paid Clicks - Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 19% over the second quarter of 2007 and decreased approximately 1% over the first quarter of 2008. The growth of paid clicks year-over-year is good news, showing the strength of the paid search marketplace. As Google has stated previously, the company has made an effort to improve the quality of clicks rather than increasing click volume. AdWords and AdSense were down sequentially, due to quality control and seasonality. Google acknowledged the weakness of key sectors (Autos, Finance, Real Estate) that have wreaked havoc with display advertising. Real estate sector for paid search and contextual ads is down year-over-year. Auto ad spend is up year-over-year, but not consumer financing. Ad Sense partners may have felt the squeeze too. Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC), the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, decreased to $1.47 billion in the second quarter of 2008. This compares to TAC of $1.49 billion in the first quarter of 2008. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 28% in the second quarter, compared to 29% in the first quarter of 2008. The majority of TAC expense is related to amounts ultimately paid to Google's AdSense partners, which totaled $1.32 billion in the second quarter of 2008. (TAC is also related to amounts ultimately paid to certain Google distribution partners and others who direct traffic to Google's website, which totaled $154 million in the second quarter of 2008.)

Seems GoDaddy is having some problems with their just launched .me domains. People were applying left and right for them and obviously GoDaddy seemed to have a "box office" hit with the new domain extension. But as SEW moderator Discovery details here, everyone seems to get an initial you got your domain only to find out a little while later that the names have already been assigned to someone else. Jeremy Shoemaker had the same problems over at Shoemoney and posted the responses. GoDaddy is going to make a lot of money with this new domain roll out, but now that people are being rejected after being told otherwise, the loss of goodwill may have a much bigger longterm negative effect for the company. Hope GoDaddy registered younolongerlike.me and dontblame.me, as they may need to use them to offset the bad publicity.

Last week, the ten grand prize winners for the first Google Highly Open Participation Contest, our initiative to get pre-university students involved in open source development. We were very excited to welcome these burgeoning computer scientists and their families to Silicon Valley in a celebration of their many accomplishments.Our grand prize winners and the Open Source teamChosen from more than 350 students worldwide, our winners created software, documentation and marketing materials for ten different open source projects, getting all this work accomplished in just over two months. For more details, including interviews with the winners and their mentors, check out the Google Open Source Blog.Posted by Leslie Hawthorn, Program Manager - Open Source

Amit Singhal vient de vulgariser sur le blog officiel de Google les principales technologies utilisées par le leader de la recherche sur Internet. Pour résumer, il les a classées en 3 grandes catégories représentant les défis auxquels tout moteur de recherche est confronté : comprendre de quoi parlent les pages web, comprendre les requêtes tapées par les internautes, comprendre les intentions des internautes eux-mêmes. Article publié sur le portail du référencement par Olivier Duffez (consultant référencement)

We often take the mainstream press to task for not understanding the value of search engine marketing and search engine optimization. So it's a welcome change when a national columnist gets it right. Today Steven Strauss in TheStreet.com wrote a column titled, "Get on Google's Good Side with SEO." With Matt Cutts' recent endorsement of "white hat" SEO, it's great to see small business embrace search engine optimization. Strauss writes, "One of the questions I hear most often these days goes something like, 'How the heck am I supposed to keep my small business going in this economy? I don't have a lot of money for advertising.'" He states - or perhaps overstates: The good news is that there is in fact a great way to market your business that is not expensive and is very effective. However, it is quite time-consuming. It's called search engine optimization. SEO gets you noticed, is practically free marketing and increases sales. SEO is the magic bullet. Anyone who's done SEO knows it's not a magic bullet. Calling SEO a magic bullet beats "snake oil" any day of the week. Since he's writing for beginners, Strauss compares fear of SEO to an Alec Baldwin-Anthony Hopkins movie written by David Mamet, "The Edge." I am reminded of the 1997 movie The Edge with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. In it, the two men are stranded in the Alaska Outback after their small plane crashes. Soon they are being stalked by a bear. Eventually Hopkins' character convinces himself and Baldwin's character, Bob, that they can slay the bear. "I'm going to kill the bear," Hopkins' character says, "Say it! Say I'm going to kill the bear!" Bob says it, halfheartedly. Charles (Hopkins) then yells at Bob: "Say it! Say I'm going to kill the bear!" Bob says it. "Say it again," says Charles. Bob, starting to feel it, says it more loudly. "I'm going to kill the bear." "Again!" Charles bellows. Finally, Bob yells, convincingly, " I Am Going To Kill The Bear!" Finally, they kill the bear. You must believe in SEO and your ability to achieve online marketing goals to succeed. Steven D. Strauss is a lawyer, author and USA TODAY columnist. His latest book is the Small Business Bible. He's spoken around the world about entrepreneurship, including at the UN, and has been seen on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, The O’Reilly Factor, and many other television and radio shows. He maintains a Web site at www.MrAllBiz.com.

When you use keywords in your ad groups to contextually target your ads, we match them to relevant pages across the hundreds of thousands of sites on the Google content network. But have you ever wanted to bid more (or less) for a specific content network site you're contextually targeting? Or write customized ad text for a precise group of pages, such as news articles or relevant discussions on social networks? Now you can.We've combined keyword-targeted and placement-targeted campaigns into a single online campaign type. Starting today, you can target keywords and placements together in the same ad group. By doing so, you combine the benefits of contextual targeting with placement targeting: use keywords to show your ads only on contextually relevant pages, then use placements to set specific bids for, or restrict your targeting to, sites you value differently from the rest of the content network.Here are two ways you might use these new content network controls:

1. Set custom bids for specific placements. Let's say you're selling laptops, and you're using the content network to advertise on pages relevant to the keywords 'laptops,' 'laptop computers,' and 'laptop accessories.' After checking your Placement Performance report, you see that you're getting sales at a great ROI from three technology review sites. You also see a few sites where you're getting sales, but your costs are too high to advertise effectively on them.If you currently have a $1.00 bid for the content network as a whole in this ad group, you can now add the high- and low-performing sites as placements into your ad group with custom bids. For example, you might set a $2.00 Max CPC for the three high-performing sites, and a $0.50 Max CPC for the low-performing ones. Meanwhile, you're still using the keywords in your ad group to target relevant pages across the content network, but now you've adjusting bids for the sites in the network that perform better or worse than average.
2. Show your ad only when both keywords and placements match. Suppose you check your Placement Performance report again and see that your laptop ads are showing often on sites that discuss how to make laptops more energy efficient. You know that you sell some of the most energy efficient laptops available, and you'd like to write an ad that highlights the power-saving benefits of your products. But you don't want to show this ad on pages whose readers aren't as concerned about energy conservation.Now you can create an ad group containing the same 'laptop' keywords you've been using and add each of the energy efficiency sites as placements. Next, change your campaign settings so that your ads show only on the sites you've added, and only when their pages are relevant to your keywords. This gives you the freedom to write an ad highlighting the energy-saving benefits of your laptops to this unique audience, since you know that your ad will appear only on relevant pages on the placements you've selected.

This new feature affects your ads on the content network only, and it's entirely optional. You can do nothing and your existing campaigns will continue running just as they have. But by using keywords and placements together, you can get better control over ad placement and pricing on the content network to help you meet your ROI objectives.To learn the ins and outs of the feature and and get started, please visit our Help Center.Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

In the latest installment from Google about search quality, the topic du jour is user intent. Google Fellow Amit Singhal is at the helm of the Official Google blog again and wrote about efforts Google makes to help searchers find what they're looking for. Singhal writes, "Search in the last decade has moved from give me what I said to give me what I want." I guess that depends on who you ask. Perhaps the search engines have approached it this way, but users have always been in the give me what I want column. Either way, today it's all about what searchers want. Using the example of kofee annan, Singhal says Google knows a searcher is really looking for Kofi Annan, and will prompt the searcher as such. However, in a query for kofee beans, Google knows that the searcher is looking for coffee beans. Basically, Google isn't a spelling-monger. Singhal also says that Google knows when Dr means doctor and when it means drive, and that searching for new york times square church is a search for an actual church and not something in the New York Times. Understanding user intent is also something that drives Google's initiatives in both personalized and universal search. Finally, Singhal introduces Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR). The technology allows searchers to discover information in a language other than the one they're searching in and use Google's translation technology to access it. What do you think about Google's understanding of user intent? Leave a comment and let us know!

Posted by Beate List, University Programme, ZurichA few months ago we had the great pleasure of announcing the fifth class of Anita Borg Scholars in the U.S. and our first class of Scholars in Canada. Now it's the Europeans' turn.This scholarship program, originally established in the U.S. to honor the work of Anita Borg and to recognize outstanding young women scholars in computer science and related fields, expanded to Europe most recently. Nearly 300 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 31 countries applied for the award. Sixty-three finalists were selected; 20 women received a €5,000 scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year. The remaining 43 finalists received a €1,000 award.Each of the finalists visited our Engineering Centre in Zurich for our annual Scholars' Retreat, which included tech talks, career panels and social fun. All of it was a way for the young women to share experiences and come together as leaders in the computer science field.Visit the Google Europe Anita Borg Scholarship page for more on the program. Hearty congratulations to these winners!The 2008 Europe Anita Borg Scholars

• Despina Michael - University of Cyprus
• Dina Petri - University of Reading, UK; Aristotle University, Greece; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Inbal Talgam -Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
• Katy Howland - University of Sussex, UK
• Kerstin Wendt - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Ksenia Rogova - Petrozavodsk State University, Russia
• Mirela Ben-Chen - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
• Nadezhda Baldina - Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, Russia
• Olga Boronenko - University of Reading, UK; Aristotle University, Greece; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Patricia Moore - Dublin City University, Ireland
• Rebecca Stewart - Queen Mary, University of London, UK
• Sara Elisabeth Adams - University of Oxford, UK
• Seda Gürses - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
• Silvia Breu - University of Cambridge, UK
• Siska Fitrianie - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
• Stefanie Jegelka - Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany
• Svetlana Obraztsova - Steklov Institute of Mathematics, Russia
• Sylvia Rueda - University of Nottingham, UK
• Ulyana Tikhonova - Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University, Russia

Update: Added photo.

Efficient Frontier has released search advertising market data for the second quarter of 2008, and it showed Google growing 2% over Q2 2007. For every new dollar spent on search ads in 2008 over 2007, Google received $1.10, while Yahoo lost $0.09 and Microsoft lost $0.01. As a result, Google enjoyed 77.4% of total search engine spending in Q2 2008, while Yahoo fell 2% to 17.8% and Microsoft came in at 4.8%. Google's rise comes despite Adgooroo data suggesting their client base has actually declined. Google accounted for 77.4 percent of total search engine spending in Q2 2008, an increase of 2 percentage points over the previous year. Here's more toasty data nuggets for your consumption:

• Cost per click (CPC) rates increased by 13.8 percent for Google in Q2 2008 versus a year ago, while average CPCs on Microsoft Live Search increased at a slower rate of 5.6 percent, and Yahoo! CPCs declined by 7.3 percent.
• Return on Investment (ROI) improved on all three search engines, with Microsoft Live Search improving 25% YOY, while ROI on Yahoo! Search increased by 13%, and Google’s ROI increased by 3%.
• Automotive advertisers increased search advertising spending by 24 percent in Q2 2008 versus Q2 2007, but retailers increased search spending by a cautious 1 percent. Financial services advertisers, hit hard by the mortgage crisis, decreased search engine spending by 7 percent YOY, and travel advertisers decreased spend by 17 percent as consumers pulled back on leisure spending.
• The global outlook for Google’s growth is very positive, with the search giant capturing 75% or more of search engine spending in Q2 2008 in the global markets in which Efficient Frontier operates, with the exception of Japan and China. In Q2 2008, for the first time Google captured a majority share of search engine spend in Japan, with 56% of search spending in that market.

Google releases Q2 revenues after the closing bell on Wall Street later today.

In a letter that is likely to believed by almost no one, Yahoo regurgitated much of the same old statements about Microsoft and Carl Icahn - and then slipped in something about selling the entire company for $33 a share. Of course, that's only "if Microsoft will negotiate a transaction that delivers certainty of value and certainty of closing. This is the simplest, most straightforward way to maximize value for you." Rumor had it that Yahoo wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of $35-37 per share in the spring when the deal went south. Both sides have accused the other of walking away prematurely. Then Carl Icahn created a proxy board and subsequently called for Yahoo to sell for $34.375 a share. Now Yahoo says it will go for $33 per share. If I were Microsoft, I would just sit back, relax and continue to watch the price drop. If I were Google, I'd continue laughing all the way to the bank. Here's the full letter: Dear Fellow Stockholder: The recently-formed Carl Icahn-Microsoft alliance continues to make misleading statements about their plans for Yahoo!. Your Board of Directors believes strongly that the Icahn-Microsoft agenda -as presented to us jointly last week - will destroy stockholder value at Yahoo!, serving only their very narrow special interests, clearly not your interests. Your Board continues to work to maximize value for you and is taking the following steps to do so: -- Moving forward with our strategic plan and strategies to lead in online advertising - with both search and display; -- Preparing to implement our recently signed commercial agreement with Google that will increase cash flow; -- Continuing to explore other ways to unlock value and return value to you such as unlocking the value of our Asia assets; and -- Remaining open to negotiating a value creating transaction (including with Microsoft) that provides real and certain value - not just the possibility of value. In contrast, let's review Carl Icahn's brief involvement with the Company to date. Carl Icahn bought his stock two months ago for an estimated average cost of less than $25 per share. He is well-known as a corporate agitator with a short-term approach to his investments. His short-term approach gives Mr. Icahn a strong incentive to strike any deal with Microsoft that enables him to recover his investment and get back his money quickly, even a deal that does not provide full and fair value to you. Is that in the interests of all stockholders? Clearly, it is not. Mr. Icahn has severely handicapped himself in his ability to negotiate a favorable transaction with Microsoft. Why? -- Mr. Icahn has made it clear that his only objective is to sell part or all of Yahoo! to Microsoft. That fact, combined with his lack of an operating plan going forward, means that he will have no leverage to negotiate a fair deal with Microsoft. He has set himself up for failure. -- Second, Mr. Icahn and his slate lack the working knowledge of Yahoo! and its Internet business needed to do two things that are required to successfully deliver a value-enhancing transaction for Yahoo! stockholders. First, they do not have the detailed knowledge to negotiate a complex restructuring of a large, innovative high technology company in a rapidly changing environment. Second, they do not have the hands-on experience to manage and lead Yahoo! during the approximately one year period estimated to be required to gain regulatory approval for a deal or to manage and lead the remainder of the Company (non-search) after a transaction is completed. Don't take our word for that. Mr. Icahn will be calling the shots if his slate wins and yet Mr. Icahn himself told the Wall Street Journal last fall: "Technology hasn't really been one of the things I've focused on too much before" and "It's hard to understand these technology companies." That's why you need a knowledgeable, experienced and independent board to represent your interests vis-a-vis Microsoft. Mr. Icahn can't make up his mind about what he thinks will work for Yahoo!. He bought his position believing that he could bring Microsoft back to buy all of Yahoo!, at one point suggesting we publicly offer to sell Yahoo! to Microsoft for $34.375. But he didn't do enough due diligence to determine what your Board already knew: that it was Microsoft's decision to walk away and that it had rebuffed repeated efforts by your independent directors to get a whole company acquisition back on the table. Recognizing that a sale to Microsoft might not be an option, Mr. Icahn said as an alternative that we should enter into an agreement with Google (which we were already negotiating and subsequently signed), and that we should walk away from Microsoft's search-only proposal (which we did after careful evaluation of that proposal). Then, in an extraordinary flip flop, Mr. Icahn teamed up with Microsoft and embraced their latest joint search-only proposal--even though it involved significant execution and operational risks and was fraught with flaws that made the "headline value" asserted by Microsoft and Mr. Icahn more illusion than reality. How can Yahoo! stockholders trust Mr. Icahn to deliver what he claims he can deliver when his actions have been so contradictory -and when all he has delivered so far is a risky proposal of questionable value from his new friends at Microsoft? Yes, the Microsoft/Icahn proposal is somewhat of an improvement over Microsoft's last search-only proposal, but no one should confuse a modestly improved offer with a good offer. The Icahn/Microsoft proposal was more "smoke and mirrors" than objective reality. Now let's turn to the recent marriage of convenience between Microsoft and Mr. Icahn. This "odd couple" collaboration - between two parties with keenly different agendas - is indeed perplexing. Why does Mr. Icahn believe he can count on Microsoft to complete a transaction? Certainly Microsoft is a well-respected and successful company and we have been clear that we are fully prepared to do a deal with them. But Microsoft's flip flops and inconsistencies over the past five months are so stupefying that one can only conclude that Microsoft was never fully committed to acquiring Yahoo! either because: -- Microsoft can't decide what is and isn't strategically important to its online business; or -- Microsoft is more interested in destabilizing a key competitor so that it can either enhance its competitive position or buy our highly valuable search business--and the enormously desirable intellectual property associated with it --at a bargain basement price. Microsoft desperately needs to improve the performance of its online services business (consisting of its search and display assets) which, cumulatively since 2003, has lost money despite billions of dollars of investment. And yet Mr. Icahn would ignore this track record and its implications for his fellow Yahoo! stockholders, swallowing a deal that leaves Yahoo!'s future dependent, in part, on Microsoft's ability to monetize search. And, as Mr. Icahn has himself pointed out, it would eliminate any opportunity we may have to sell the entire Company for an attractive premium. In contrast to the conflicting and confusing statements emanating from the Icahn-Microsoft alliance, your Board and management have been crystal clear about our position. First, we will sell the entire Company to Microsoft for $33 per share or more if Microsoft will negotiate a transaction that delivers certainty of value and certainty of closing. This is the simplest, most straightforward way to maximize value for you. Second, we remain open to selling only search to Microsoft as long as it provides real value to our stockholders and resolves the substantial execution and operational risks associated with the separation of our search and display businesses. Third, your Board takes seriously its obligation to examine all value-creating steps it could take and continues to actively examine many of these now, including a potential spin-off of our Asia assets and a return of cash to stockholders. These are steps Yahoo! could take, if we determine they are feasible and in our stockholders' best interests, without any "help" from Microsoft or Mr. Icahn. But they are complex steps that require care and prudence. These should not be adopted simply because Mr. Icahn and Microsoft are trying to dress up Microsoft's inadequate search-only proposal. While your Board continues to evaluate the foregoing avenues, your current Board and management continue to execute on our strategy to grow the value of our unique collection of assets. That strategy is working and we believe it can result in substantial double digit growth in operating cash flow as we move forward. Our recently executed search advertising agreement with Google reflects our commitment to achieving our strategic goals, while preserving flexibility to pursue a sale of the Company or even, on the right terms, a sale of our search business. Please compare and contrast the straightforward, responsible actions and positions of your Board of Directors with the behavior of Mr. Icahn and Microsoft. There you have the situation, as we see it, put as simply and clearly as we can. We believe the Icahn slate and agenda present significant risk to your investment in Yahoo!. We believe you cannot count on Microsoft to bail out Mr. Icahn's misguided agenda, at least not on terms that are in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders. In contrast, your Board remains fully prepared to represent your interests aggressively and conscientiously in the effort to maximize value--whether that takes the form of negotiating a transaction that provides full and fair value, with certainty; finding other ways to unlock and return value to you; or moving forward with our accelerated strategies to lead in online advertising. Your Board of Directors remains committed to maximizing stockholder value. It is--and will remain--our number one priority. Do not be fooled into thinking otherwise by Carl Icahn. We strongly urge you to vote your WHITE Proxy Card today for your current Board of Directors. Thank you for your support. Roy Bostock Jerry Yang Chairman of the Board Chief Executive Officer