In addition to today’s Internet Marketing Monitor coverage, we felt these stories were worth pulling out of the multitude of news items for May 18, 2007:

You now have access to the new Google Analytics [The Official Google Analytics Blog]

If you’ve been waiting for your Google Analytics account to update to the new version… the wait is over. I guess Google got tired of rolling out the change and just said to heck with it all. Nothing much to add… just thought it was worth passing along.

Yahoo says ‘Been there, done that’ to Google redesign [C|Net News.com Blog]

Yahoo’s claim is that it’s SERPs have been populated with images, videos, etc for a while now. That’s not entirely true, though. While I’ve often told people that Yahoo’s search results are populated with more cross-over results, it’s just not really the same thing at all. Don’t get me wrong… Yahoo’s cross-over results are one of the reasons I’ve been using them more and more lately (especially for pop culturey type stuff). But it’s one thing to throw some images on top of a SERP. It’s quite another thing to actually rank those images according to relevance along with websites, videos, etc.

54% Increase put Silver Surfers at cusp of being largest group online [Hitwise]

Hitwise is referring here to Internet users age 55 or older and it should come as no surprise that they’ve become quite a force online. That’s why I wrote “Are Your Marketing Messages Getting Lost in the Generation Gap?” back in March. You need to keep the age of your primary audience in mind when you’re working on site design, marketing, etc. Hitwise has some specific figures on several industries and the frequency of visits from the 55+ demographic but your own analytics should be able to help you figure out who your target audience is.

Google Killed the SEO Star [Apogee Weblog]

Does Google’s universal search initiative kill off SEO? This is just the first stage of the process. Could stage two do SEO in for good? I’m not shaking in my meta tagged boots just yet. I’m sure SEO will have a place in Google’s NWO. Albeit a different version of the SEO we know today. But as long as their are search engines there will be the need for website owners to build sites that work well with them… and such… SEO will exist. What do you think? Is this the beginning of the end for SEO?

It’s the weekend already? Wow… where’d Monday - Thursday go? Hopefully you make the most out of the next couple and days and come back ready to go on Monday.

Until then… have a great weekend!