Next up was the keynote address from Bas van den Beld, a well-known expert on search trends. Bas told the audience that if they wanted to benefit from search you have to understand that search engines think "like humans – if others say it’s good, they believe it’s good!" He added that they still don't have it right - sometimes they think you’re thinking one thing when you’re thinking the other and present the “wrong” data, so the engines are now trying to learn more about your intent.

Other points that Bas made included the fact that YouTube (not Yahoo) is the second largest search engine so it is important to remember video as a way to find your site and that users look at a Google search results page for just 1.8 seconds, and look only one time, making it imperative that you stand out.

Bas also identified important trends in the search space, saying that universal search is arriving – producing results that include news, video, images, etc., and pushing the rest of the search results down the page. It’s getting harder to get to the top spot. To improve your positioning in a universal search world it will be important to optimize your images as well as your text. Also, try to get Google to include you in their news

Keynote speaker Bas van den Beld gives
attendees tips on search engine strategy.

distribution and, if you have a locally oriented site, look for a way to get it into Google Map results. Bas's bottom line was that search is evolving and is presenting more in results. Time to adapt.

comScore VP Jeremy Copp

comScore’s Jeremy Copp was next on stage to talk about Europe's Internet vital signs. Copp noted that 84% of net population is outside North America. The top five Internet users in Europe, by country, are Germany, France, Russia , UK and Spai n, however the top five by average searches per month are, in order, Poland, UK, Finlan d , Turkey and Irelan d. 

Another interesting fact was that 84% of users don’t click on ANY ads, however Copp said that doesn’t diminish their value to you. He advised testing with control groups for behavior measurement so you can find ways to arrive at “lift metrics" - ad effectiveness is more than just talking about click-through rates"

Copp's talked closed out the morning session. Attendees were then treated to a lavish buffet luncheon at the Intercontintental Hotel.

After the lunch break attendees were able to take advantage of a one on one power networking opportunity as experts in four different disciplines set up around the hall. Guest could visit any group they pleased to listen in and ask their own questions. The themes for the four groups (with the participating experts noted in parenthesis) were: European ccTLD and IDN Opportunities (Daniel Dryzek, Sergey Gorbunov, Hennie Groot Lipman, Christoph Grueneberg), Alternative Ways to Monetize Domain Traffic (David Hauser, Ralf Hein, Freddy Schiwek, Art Shaw), Selecting Keywords That Produce Traffic (Jan Bednar, Thomas Bindl, Matej Novak, Florian Stelzner) and European Legal Issues Impacting Domain Investors (John Berryhill, Paul Keating, Christian Kerschbaum).

The Moniker/SnapNames live domain auction closed the day with over $250,000 in sales booked, plus another $200,000 when a deal for one of the names that did not sell in the auction, DayTrading.com, was closed right after the sale ended. 

Above: Auctioneer Wayne Wheat (at right) conducts the Moniker/SnapNames live auction 
DOMAINfest Europe Oct. 6 while Moniker CEO Monte Cahn (center) tracks Internet bidding.

Below: Part of the crowd on hand for the live auction.

After the auction, Moniker and SnapNames hosted a networking dinner party Wednesday night (Oct. 6) in a spectacular setting at Prague's National Museum.

DOMAINfest Europe ends today with a day devoted entirely to Relationship-building Excursions (plus a closing dinner party tonight). The excursion schedule allowed registrants to pick from among ten different activities (five in the morning and five in the afternoon) including everything from Grand Prix Go Kart or Bobsled Racing to Shooting AK47s and M16s! Not sure how close I would want to get to domainers armed with automatic weapons but it surely breaks the usual conference entertainment mold!