I highly recommend this article from page A1 of today’s Wall Street Journal for anybody interested in why Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) buyout offer for Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) fell through at the last minute. It reads less like a business story and more like a suspense novel.

It has all the intrigue of a Hollywood blockbuster: two forces uniting against a common enemy, secret meetings at remote aiports, a woman with a red umbrella to signal that the coast is clear, private CEO-to-CEO meetings in the back of a private jet, and a promise of a sequel!

Best of all, it continues to promote and elevate the prominence of the search engine industry and all of the secondary industries built around it. The drama may cause more than a few sleepless nights for Steve Ballmer, Jerry Yang and their armies of foot soldiers, but it is first class entertainment for those of us in the peanut gallery.

And if you prefer dialogue to suspense, it doesn’t get much better than one Microsoftie’s face-saving quote as the closing credits roll,

“They believed that we needed them much more than they needed us. Ultimately we called their bluff.”

Get ready for the sequel where Microsoft returns to buy just the search part of Yahoo’s business. This time it’s personal!

As reported on TechCrunch and ZDNet, Adobe has created a standardized format for its Flash development suite that will allow search engines to index dynamically generated content, which was not previously possible. What does this mean for the industry? Frankly, it means that “existing and future” Flash sites will be more accessible to search engine crawlers which will result in many previously invisible websites being indexed and ranked in search results. Google is already incorporating the new capabilities into their search platform, and Yahoo! reportedly still “has some work to do.”

This is good news for designers that prefer Flash for its flexibility and animation capabilities. However, it also opens up a whole new series of questions that will have to be explored and tested by the SEO community:

• Will this newly indexable content start out with zero site history? As we know, the age of a domain plays a role in calculating its authority and credibility. If a Flash site has been around for years but is just now becoming “visible” to a crawler, can its age be accurately determined?
• Without a hierarchical markup system, how will crawlers treat text and images of varying importance? For example, in HTML we can use the <h1> and <strong> tags to emphasize particular pieces of content. What is the Flash equivalent, and will those tactics be more or less impactful than their HTML counterparts?
• How will crawlers treat Flash sites that have a properly optimized HTML framework? As an SEO, I know how to create a crawler-friendly HTML version of Flash content to aid with crawler accessibility. Will Google and Yahoo treat sites with both formats differently or prefer one over the other?
• Will sites built entire of Flash be treated differently than HTML sites with Flash components? Good SEO and user experience (accessibility) dictate that Flash should not be used to create an entire site, but rather certain interactive elements within it. Will two sites with similar content be treated differently if one is built entirely in Flash and the other is a Flash element wrapped in standard HTML?
• How will the use of Flash adjust to incorporate deep links? Most purely Flash sites have no unique URLs for each “page” because all of the content exists within one .swf file. Therefore, most inbound links would have to point to the top-level URL, regardless of where the desired content resides within the rich media application. This will help the domain-level rankings but not individual pages.
• Will Flash designers adapt their use of analytics to properly measure the traffic and conversions from newfound organic search traffic? There is a little extra work required to properly track Flash site usage statistics using traditional site analytics packages. I’m guessing relatively few Flash sites have this capability built in, and even fewer are going to retrofit their sites with action tags.
• How will non-text digital assets (images, video, audio, etc) be optimized within Flash? Will the same rules apply, and if so, will digital assets embedded in Flash be more, less, or equally weighted compared to their HTML counterparts?

I’m sure this list of questions will grow over time and many smart, talented SEOs and Flash designers will figure out the answers. It’s certainly a game changer for the industry because it expands the playing field significantly. We are now competing against millions of “new” sites that were once thought of as unfortunate victims of emerging SEO best practices.

Anybody else think it’s ironic that the The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad bothered to put a copyright statement in the footer of every page on the official site? I know the Chinese government talks a big game about shutting down copyright infringement and IP piracy, but you have to admit it’s a little funny when other people plagiarize the Chinese authorities for fun and profit.

Google search results for this phrase from the official site turn up “about 29″ copies of the same content:

As an image of Olympism, Coubertin thought the rings had deep significance: that of the union between men. He multiplied the image to create a total of five rings. He designed and commissioned the Olympic flag to mark the 20th anniversary of the IOC’s founding, on 23rd June 1914 in Paris. (original citation)

Oh, make that 30…

It’s no secret that most Search Engine Marketers really enjoy the challenges and rewards of Search Engine Marketing. It’s the thrill of the chase and the hunter instinct that motivates us to pursue customers or prospects online, learning from past efforts, and refining our strategies to increase our effectiveness over time.

We are internet fishermen.

The author fishing on Captiva Island, FL.

We sit just off the banks of the sea of information that is the internet. We cast a line out with a lure meant to attract our desired target. We hope to reel in “the big one” that we just KNOW is lurking out there somewhere.

Just like successful fishermen, we learn to think like our prey. We study them, figure out where they congregate, learn their habits, likes and dislikes. We understand what motivates them to take action. We know they are fickle creatures that will scatter at the first whiff of an artificial hook.

Just like successful fishermen, we obsessively check and re-check our tackle. Are we sending the right message at the right time in the right place? Is our target hungry for what we are serving or are they likely to pass in the hopes that something tastier comes along? Is our offer presented in an irresistible way? Are we simply splashing around or do we have a legitimate chance of hooking a lunker?

Just like successful fishermen, we have to BELIEVE that the next cast is going to land the fish of a lifetime, the stuff memories (and a few “fish tales”) are made of. If the lure comes back empty, we take note of the conditions that created an unsuccessful attempt and use that information to increase our chances of success on the next cast.

This metaphor could go on forever, but I think you get the point. Whether you are doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), or both, Search Engine Marketing is about trial and error. It’s about being able to scan the seemingly endless ocean of opportunity and knowing where, when, and how you are going to present your message. It’s about learning how to adapt successful strategies and tactics from one industry or target market to another because just like lakes, no two are alike. Fish respond differently based on their geography, history, culture, species and other environmental factors.

Anybody can throw a line in the water and get lucky by waiting long enough. Good internet marketers know that enduring success is not random, but rather the byproduct of preparation and opportunity.

But hey, a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work. Are you sure you are fishing where the fish are, or are you merely bobbing around?

A great article just surfaced from David Mihm about local search ranking factors. If you promote your business in Google Maps or Yahoo Local, you will want to learn these factors and apply them to your listings.

Among the topics covered are:

• Traditional on-page criteria
• Traditional off-page criteria
• Customer Reviews
• Local Business Listing Information

Just a word of warning, the local ranking factors change in importance all the time as the engines try to sort through the mountains of data that exist from multiple data sources, business owners and content providers. It’s certainly an interesting field and one worth paying attention to!