Log In - The New York Times. Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets. Someone types the word “dresses” and hits enter. What will be the very first result? There are, of course, a lot of possibilities. Macy’s comes to mind. Maybe a specialty chain, like J. Crew or the Gap. Perhaps a Wikipedia entry on the history of hemlines. O.K., how about the word “bedding”? “Area rugs”? You could imagine a dozen contenders for each of these searches. The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs.
This striking performance lasted for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping. With more than 1,100 stores and $17.8 billion in total revenue in 2010, Penney is certainly a major player in American retailing. Does the collective wisdom of the Web really say that Penney has the most essential site when it comes to dresses? Despite the cowboy outlaw connotations, black-hat services are not illegal, but trafficking in them risks the wrath of Google. Who is that someone? American Airlines in Fight With Orbitz and Expedia. Sabre to End Contract With American Airlines. AOL Outsources in Health and Sports. AOL’s turnaround effort under Tim Armstrong, its chief executive, focuses on a few areas of strength: technology news and local news along with products like e-mail and instant messaging. Inevitably, some other services will get less attention. On Thursday, AOL disclosed its plans for some of those “other services.”
The strategy, the company said, will be to establish partnerships with outside companies to provide content in three categories: sports, health and real estate. The deals give AOL “more resources, time and energy to double down on areas we want to win in as a company,” Mr. Armstrong said. Sporting News will supply most of the articles for Fanhouse, AOL’s sports channel and one in which it has built a sizable editorial team. Up to two dozen of AOL’s Fanhouse employees will be laid off, according to Mr. Additionally, AOL said it would outsource much of its health coverage to Everyday Health, an online health site. Racing to Mark South Pole Expeditions’ 100th Anniversaries. Patch.com and AOL Bet on Hyperlocal News. Over the last year and a half, AOL, the former Internet colossus, has spent tens of millions of dollars to build local news sites across the country through Patch.com.
The idea is that the service would fill the gap in coverage left by local newspapers, many of which are operating on a string after declines in advertising revenue. Patch has already set up shop in nearly 800 towns. By the end of this year, it expects that to be in 1,000 — each one with an editor and a team of freelance writers. Traffic on individual sites is low; former editors say that the average post attracts just 100 views and that they considered 500 page views a wild success. In December, Patch had just over three million unique visitors, 80 times that of a year earlier, according to . Yet over the years, a number of so-called hyperlocal news sites have failed, and the idea is largely unproved financially. AOL declined to discuss the financial performance of Patch other than to say that it was in investment mode. Mr.