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• white boards
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• Pop up stands
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• Panel Kit
• Portable Displays

Then check out the great new look of the site which now has even better discounts.

Click here for the new blog on Harris Fowler Personal Injury Solicitors.

Google pulled out of a search advertising partnership with Yahoo due to regulatory objections, causing Yahoo shares to rise as investors hoped the move could lead to a resumption of deal talks with Microsoft.

Yahoo denied rumors it was in talks to sell itself to Microsoft for between US$17 (S$25.43) and US$19 a share but its shares were over 8 per cent higher. ‘Not true’ said Yahoo spokesman Tracy Schmaler, who also denied a rumour that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was on his way out.

The US Justice Department said on Wednesday it had told Google it planned to file a lawsuit to block the deal, under which Google would have placed its more lucrative ads on Yahoo searches.

‘Had the companies implemented their arrangement, Yahoo’s competition likely would have been blunted immediately with respect to the search pages that Yahoo chose to fill with ads sold by Google rather than its own ads’, the government said.

Yahoo regretted Google’s decision, saying it was ‘disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court’.

Between them, Google and Yahoo had more than 80 per cent of the web search market in August, according to comScore.

Microsoft had lobbied hard against the partnership which Yahoo initially struck with Google as a way to fend off an unsolicited takeover bid from Microsoft.

‘They didn’t want the Yahoo-Google deal to go through because they wanted to be in control of Yahoo’s assets instead of Google being in control’, said Mr Youssef Squali, an analyst at Jefferies & Co.

Yahoo shares were up 8.5 per cent to US$14.49 in afternoon trading while Google was down 4.3 per cent at US$351.18. Microsoft was down 3.6 percent to US$22.68. All three trade on Nasdaq.

‘(Yahoo) investors are reacting favorably to the news (that the Google deal is off) as it might open the door to a possible deal with Microsoft, including a possible outright takeover of Yahoo’, said Mr Frederic Ruffy, options strategist at New York-based website WhatsTrading.com.

Google and Yahoo, No. 1 and No. 2 in the Internet search market respectively, announced the planned partnership in June but delayed implementation to allow the Justice Department to review it.

Google said it pulled out of the deal rather than face a protracted legal fight.

‘After four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement’, Google legal officer, David Drummond, said in a blog posting.

‘We’re of course disappointed that this deal won’t be moving ahead’, he said.

A source close to the deal said that Microsoft’s decade-plus-long legal battles with the Justice Department over antitrust matters had been a lesson for Google. ‘Most observers would say that they (Microsoft) did allow themselves to get distracted,’ the source said.

Advertisers hotly opposed the search partnership, arguing that Google and Yahoo’s dominance of the market could mean they would raise prices.

But the source said regulators were more concerned that Yahoo ‘over time would become overly reliant on our system and would over time exit the search market’.

Mr Squali, the analyst at Jefferies & Co, said some sort of deal with Microsoft now seemed inevitable.

He said it was unlikely that Yahoo could grow organically and deliver high profit margins. ‘(It’s) not in the picture right now’, he said.

Yahoo could have gotten cash by selling its Asian assets, but Mr Squali said it was unlikely given the state of the capital markets.

Needham & Co analyst Mark May said Yahoo remaining independent was the ‘worst possible scenario’ for the company.

Sources have told Reuters that Yahoo is in talks about buying the content and advertising operations of Time Warner’s AOL unit.

This is my first post so i thought i would write about something i am learning,  which is Search Engine Optimisation.

The head is where you will outline the content of the website. The main focus should be titles and meta data.

• <meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword, keyword,keyword,keyword,keyword,keyword.” />

• <meta name=”description” content=”.” />

Each page should have an individual title and meta tags. Keywords content should hold aprox. 10-15 keywords. The description is the first thing a potential visitor will seee. Include keywords but not to many.

The body should be treated as validation of the information you have provided in the head.

• <h1> Most Important (keyword)</h1>

• <h2> Second Most Important (keyword)</h2>

• <h3> Third Most Important (keyword)</h3>

It is rarely you will get to use the header tags down to <h6> but try to utilise <h1>, <h2> and ,<h3> where possible.

• <b>Keyword</b>

• <strong>Keyword</strong>

All paragraphs and content should be in <p> tags and should contain keywords to the fore of the text.

• <img src=”image.jpg” alt=”keyword/description” title=”keyword/description” />

As a rule the title will generally be the same as the alt text.

File names should represent the content also.