Yahoo recently announced its purchase of Maven Networks in a $160 million deal. Maven Networks is an online video platform provider and so this purchase will give Yahoo a new way to expand its reach into the consumer video as well as advertising markets. It’s estimated that online video advertising in the U.S. will grow to more than $4 billion in 2011.

The interesting thing about the purchase is that it came just as Microsoft presented Yahoo an unsolicited bid for $44.6 billion. With the two companies arguing over the value of Yahoo, the Maven acquisition just adds another dimension. However, it appears the merger talks between Yahoo and Maven were happening before the Microsoft bid surfaced.

Yahoo has plans to invest in the growth of Maven’s overall video business as well as expand on its offering through video monetization services. In exchange Yahoo hopes to raise its video content syndication and advertising capabilities to publishers and advertisers. Yahoo would also like to join its library of licensed video content, as well as its relationships with advertisers and Web publishers, with Maven’s technology to manage and distribute online video to such media company titans as Fox News, Sony BMG, and Gannett.

Maven will retain its operations in Cambridge, Mass., and operate as a wholly owned Yahoo subsidiary.

In today’s world of the power of search you may or may not realize that people are searching for you, too. In a survey conducted by The Creative Group, over 50% of respondents said that they would Google or another search engine to find information about a perspective employee. With everything that you’ve ever written or anything anyone else has written about in cataloged neatly for them to find that can be a pretty intimidating idea. However, you should never be caught by surprise; you should already know everything out there that someone can find out about you through online searches because you should already be managing your online reputation. Here are some tips for doing just that.

You can sign up for Google and Yahoo email alerts that will notify you when your chosen keywords (your name and/or company name) are found online. This first step can help keep you up to date on who is writing about you or your company, whether it’s flattering or not.

To create some more positive findings and increase your name awareness you should find appropriate message boards or forums that you can participate in. You can also join different groups on Yahoo, AOL, Google, etc. By participating in these types of online activities you leave behind a footprint that shows you are involved in your particular niche and it also gives people a chance to know your thoughts and opinions on important ideas in your field.

With that said, many people have a bigger problem than a bad online reputation to consider and that is no online reputation. If someone doesn’t find any trace of you online while doing a search that also says something about you to a prospective employer so here are some tips for beefing up your online appearances.

Use the social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace to post information about your professional qualifications. Just make sure that your profiles are professional, too. Also be sure to join other social networking sites such as Linkin.com and niche-specific sites as well. However, when you join these sites be selective with who you allow in your network as they are a bigger reflection of who you are compared to other social networking sites.

You should also consider creating your own web site or blog. Provide information about yourself and keep the page updated with links to things of interest in your field such as other blogs or informative articles. If you are creative you should include a portfolio of work samples to help people understand projects you’ve worked on before. If you aren’t as creative include highlights of your past accomplishments.

Finally, be ready to offer an explanation if something bad is said about you, whether it’s true or not. If it is true you should be honest and talk about what the circumstances where. If not, simply provide your proof that it’s not and leave it be. Badmouthing an adversary won’t help in maintaining your reputation, online or off.

The Long Tail, a phrase made popular by Chris Anderson’s Wired article, refers to the many products that are less popular, but still wanted by consumers. Businesses such as Amazon.com made this kind of purchasing popular and have an extremely successful business model based on it. So, when you are optimizing your site a choice you can make is to go after the “head”, or most in demand keywords for your market, or the “Long Tail”, the more specific keywords. The problem is, how do you know which is better to pursue?

While it is impressive to think of the thousands of people that may want to buy the latest blockbuster you should keep in mind that there might be many more thousands of other movies that people want to purchase in smaller amounts. Either way, they both add up to profits. Here are some advantages and disadvantages to pursuing the long tail

One of the main benefits of chasing the Long Tail is that these keywords tend to have a much higher conversion rate. The reasoning is that people who are searching for a specific product are usually ready to buy. The more generic searchers are usually still in a research and compare phase.

Another benefit is that it is much easier to rank higher for long tail keywords. The competition can be fierce for the more general keywords and phrases in your market. However, not everyone offers the products found in the Long Tail or wants to try to rank for them. This often increases your chances at a number one ranking. An additional benefit of this is that your PPC costs will be lower because of less competition.

Long Tail keywords also tend to increase traffic, and highly targeted traffic at that, to your web site. Since you have a lot more pages indexed and ranked by search engines for specific phrases you’ll have more visibility, which leads to more SERPs. However, this is a gradual result and shouldn’t be expected immediately with the implementation of Long Tail keywords. Additionally, more traffic means more awareness of your site, which ultimately grows your customer base and can lead to increased revenues.

However, there are some disadvantages to Long Tail keywords, too. First is the fact that each Long Tail keyword brings in significantly less traffic than the more popular ones. This means you’ll have to spend a lot of time coming up with words that are searched for often enough to make a difference to your business.

Another problem is the potential keyword combinations. Many Long Tail keywords rely on geographical or similar qualifiers, such as Denver, CO SEO. The problem here is determining which combinations will work best for your market.

Finally, you don’t want to pick words that return only one or two searches per year, so you have to monitor your Long Tail keywords to find out which ones deliver search results often enough to be profitable for your company. The effort of monitoring keywords can take up a lot of time if you aren’t well educated on what your market is looking for.

While there are many advantages and disadvantages to using Long Tail keywords, the best strategy is most likely a combination. Don’t rely solely on the Long Tail and don’t try to make due without it (unless you’re already a bigger company) for the best search results for your business.

Izea CEO Ted Murphy made a recent post about Google’s new “modification” of PageRank. It seems that Pay-Per-Post bloggers have had their PageRank dropped to zero overnight prompting Murphy to claim, “Google has proven that PR has little to do with blog traffic, influence or relevance.”

This incident has created a lot of buzz about whether Google has a noble end in mind or if they are simply trying to defend a “monopolistic stranglehold” as Murphy says on search and online advertising.

Pay-Pre-Post bloggers are required to say somewhere on their site that they use Pay-Per-Post, but it isn’t necessary in individual posts. This may be the reason for Google’s PageRank punishment – the search giant may be trying to maintain their search purity and avoid misleading searchers with paid posts. Murphy, however, believes that Google is working against bloggers that make a living from the Pay-Per-Post services they offer simply to prevent AdSense competition.

Surprisingly enough, the sites that had a drop in PageRank haven’t really seen any adverse affects such as a drop in traffic. If this remains true, then many people believe the point of Google’s dropping the blogs’ PageRank to zero may be something else entirely. Some believe it’s a move by Google to show how unimportant PageRank actually is. However, others believe that Google’s internal results have shown that paid links and Pay-Per-Post blogs do adversely effect organic search and therefore want to stop these activities immediately.

Either way, it currently seems that PageRank has little or no effect on traffic and so if your site has been doing well as is then you should be fine in search terms.

Local Search has been getting a lot of attention recently, but not many companies have been paying attention. Here are some reasons that you should.

Nelson/NetRatings MegaPanel hosted a survey where they asked roughly 2,000 random consumers about their online search and shopping. Surprisingly, almost half (49%) performed searches with a geographic modifier. And 86% of the respondents said they had used the Internet to find a local business in the past.

For all the people using the Internet to find a local business, search engines were the number one resource they used. In the survey, people were allowed to pick more than one answer and so the total percentages add up to more than 100, but here is how the usage broke down:

•    Search engines: 74%
•    Print yellow pages: 65%
•    Internet yellow pages: 50%
•    Traditional newspapers: 44%
•    Print white pages: 33%
•    Television: 29%
•    Consumer review websites: 18 %

67% of the respondents said they favor Internet yellow pages to the printed version. Most (84%) preferred the online version because they believed it was faster to find businesses that way. Others (63%) thought the online pages were more current. The one weakness was in thoroughness, 73% of people felt the print book was more comprehensive.

But, just being listed in your local pages isn’t enough. 75% of the people surveyed said they rely on multiple sources for their information. They look for things such as product reviews by other customers or mentions in a blog to secure their trust.

And while many consumers like to search online for a product before purchasing it, they also tend to go to a local bricks and mortar store to actually purchase the item. And 70% of the survey respondents wanted to stay within a 20-minute drive of their homes when going to a business.

So, while many businesses aren’t paying attention to local search modifiers, it’s a good idea to be one of the first. Then, by the time others catch on and join you, you’ll already be a familiar name in the neighborhood.