Microsoft will offer cash back to users who make purchases after using Live search. IMHO, you can’t buy user loyalty.

Two thumbs up for the Amazon Kindle. Excellent UI.

Will defaulting automatic match to “on” help or hurt the bulk of Google advertisers?

For the first time, Google nudges Yahoo out of the top spot as most popular US site.

Focus your efforts on merchandising the first twenty pages of your catalog, your website home page, and website top-level product category pages with order starters.

Your current nav and prodcat categories make good sense to you. Have you considered if a different categorization might make more sense to your users?

Bidding by margin rather than sales has many benefits, particularly for retailers with a diverse mixture of products.

Wondering if your site visitors are satisfied and how you can help them? We’re fans of Avinash’s 3 question primary purpose survey. A new free tool makes it easier to ask these questions on your own site.

Heading to ACCM Orlando in a couple of weeks? Give us a holler if you’d like to meet up to talk paid search or website effectiveness. We look forward to leading several sessions at the show and connecting with old and new friends.

Ryan will be presenting some key tactics for managing an effective paid search program.

Looking at Q1 numbers for our client base, Google continues to gain paid search market share.

A small mathematical model to help understand the relationship between never-mails and the bottom line.

I caught up with Scott Silverman and Elizabeth Oesterle to hear about Shop.org and the NRF’s lobbying work on behalf of online retailers.

Two in-the-cloud apps I find really useful are TripIt and HighRise. What both apps have in common how cleverly they use email for input.

Two really interesting interviews with Chris Anderson and Michael Arrington on Charlie Rose back in March.

Crazy idea for a e-comm architecture: render the whole site in static HTML each evening, with prices and quantities accurate as of when written. Then use tiny fast AJAX calls throughout the day to update only those few bytes on each page that really change.

If you’re benefiting from the Open Source Movement, give something back.

Those super affiliates, who “drive” so much business to your company? Where do they get their traffic? The answer will tell you whether you should clap them on the back or clap them in irons.

ProQuo is a venture-backed company hoping to profit from consumer opt-outs and opt-ins.

Notes from Overstock CEO Patrick Bryne’s excellent keynote at the Shop.org Marketing Workshop in Scottsdale.

If you mail Slim Jims, check out Ross-Simon’s proposal to the USPS, and add your voice and support if you agree.

If Catalog Success accurately captured Lin’s statement — that is, if Zappo’s first six year of growth were at break-even and at not at tremendous losses — that would be astrounding.

Sometimes, we take technology for granted. That can be perilous in the search game.

I’m fascinated by Google’s recent announcement of Google App Engine.

I’m honored to be invited back to MIT to speak on “The Business And Mathematics of Pay-Per-Click Bidding” May 30, 2008, at MIT’s Tang Center.