June 2007: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

Jun 30, 2007 at 11:59pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Below are Search Engine Land's 10 most popular stories from June 2007: 1) Ask Relaunches: Now "Ask 3D" - Ask.com is touting the release of "Ask3D" as a "major leap forward" for search. A bold three-panel interface (taken from the experimental Ask X) integrates more multimedia content, including images, videos, music files, as well as more structured text-based content. It also offers a battery of impressive features – new and existing – to bring more context and help to search results. =================== 2) Google Bad On Privacy? Maybe It's Privacy Interna [...]

Filed in: Most Popular Stories

London Car Bombs: The Big Fat Search Failure

Jun 29, 2007 at 5:09pm ET by Danny Sullivan

I was in London last night right smack in the area where a large bomb was defused this morning. Naturally, I was curious about what exactly had happened. I hit the news sites, but then I wondered what would happen for those searching generally for information using search engines. Both Google and Ask.com in particular have promised that their new search interfaces should naturally get us relevant news information. Both failed, as far as I'm concerned. Let's take a look. To test, I looked for [london bombs]. I think that's a reasonable way many people would be seeking information about what hap [...]

Filed in: Ask: General, Google: Universal Search, Stats: Relevancy

SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 29, 2007

Jun 29, 2007 at 3:32pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: That 25% New Queries Figure? Ballpark Estimate, Says GoogleLast week we had a lot of attention over Google saying 20 to 25% of queries are new. Well, it turns out that the figure is not an exact figure. Google now said it is a ballpark figure, as quoted on Google Blogoscoped: First, I want to clarify that we... Search in Pictures: Flying High, Signs & Google Chicken In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, sho [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

That 25% New Queries Figure? Ballpark Estimate, Says Google

Jun 29, 2007 at 2:39pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Last week we had a lot of attention over Google saying 20 to 25% of queries are new. Well, it turns out that the figure is not an exact figure. Google now said it is a ballpark figure, as quoted on Google Blogoscoped: First, I want to clarify that we do not keep searches from 1998. The 20-25% we've stated is only an estimate, which is why we gave it a wide range. We cannot compute the exact number, so we gave a ballpark number, based on some reasonable assumptions. Postscript: Matt Cutts just added a comment at Google Blogoscoped saying: Philipp, I think that's a pretty accurate estimate [...]

Filed in: Google: Web Search, Stats: Search Behavior

Search in Pictures: Flying High, Signs & Google Chicken

Jun 29, 2007 at 12:33pm ET by Barry Schwartz

In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more. Now this is one heck of a view: But I bet Larry Page had a better view from his trip to Foo Camp: Hungry? In the mood for some Google Fried Chicken? What do I have to do to win one of these? Frankie Lennon visited Yahoo: He broke the Yahoo sign? I found this floor poster to be pretty funny. This shows you something about the culture at Google. [...]

Filed in: Search In Pictures

Searcharazzi: Potpourri

Jun 29, 2007 at 11:31am ET by Searcharazzi

How, we ask, can Searcharazzi compete with the iPhone today? Any salacious details on the first malfunctions? Disappointed users? Easter egg functionality? Do tell, as Searcharazzi is not exactly camping out in front of an Apple Store. We did, of course, get our email from Apple saying that the iPhone is indeed here. So let’s return to two of our favorite topics: acquisitions and parties. WPP has gobbled up yet another shop, and is still hungry for more. WPP’s digital investment leg recently acquired Blue Interactive Marketing, a Singapore-based online consulting firm. Personally, [...]

Filed in: Searcharazzi

Google Launches “Question and Answers” In Russia

Jun 29, 2007 at 9:58am ET by Barry Schwartz

Googling Google reports Google Russia has launched a Questions & Answers service in Russia. Although Google closed down Google Answers late last year, this launch of Questions & Answers is a new flavor of such an application. To me, it looks more like a Google Groups approach than anything else. Since everything is in Russian, it is hard to understand what exactly is going on. Google Blogoscoped tries to translate the features: - You can ask questions and get answers from other users. - You can earn points for answering questions and become an “expert” in subjects; better answers gai [...]

Filed in: Google: Outside US, Search Engines: Answer Search Engines

Google Sued In UK For Defamatory Postings In Search Results

Jun 29, 2007 at 9:39am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google sued over defamatory postings found on web search from The Independent reports that the company could be held liable for the publication of inaccurate, malicious or damaging material on the internet, even though Google did not create the content and is simply listing what's found on the web. The plaintiff, Brian Retkin, claims he was wrongly accused in anonymous forum postings of making a profit on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Retkin said he has been trying to get Google to remove the listings for three years. "There comes a point," said Mr Retkin, "when someone must take responsibil [...]

Filed in: Google: Legal, Google: Outside US, Legal: General

“Negative SEO” – Harming Your Competitors With SEO

Jun 29, 2007 at 9:14am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Saboteurs Of Search from Forbes has been getting some buzz from around the search industry. In short, the article interviews two SEOs about how they can potentially use "negative SEO" tactics to harm a site in Google. The other day, I reported at Search Engine Roundtable about companies offering to do this type of work. So the Forbes article is pretty timely. Google's Matt Cutts is quoted in the Forbes article, confirming that it is possible to hurt a site's ranking but says it's unlikely: "I won't go out on a limb and say it's impossible." The article details seven ways to "sabotage" [...]

Filed in: SEO: General, SEO: Spamming, Search Marketing: Public Relations

Google Released Referrals Beta To All

Jun 29, 2007 at 8:59am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Inside AdSense blog announced the launch of "Referrals 2.0." Now instead of AdSense publishers seeing only Google ads within their referrals section of the AdSense setup page, they will also see ads from Google's AdWords advertisers. The new releases for this Pay Per Action product include: Mass release to more AdSense publishers More inventory from advertisers You can target PPA ads by category, keyword or specific ad Google can pick the best performing ads for you You can promote referral ads on your site, i.e. encourage clicks More details in the AdSense referrals help area. [...]

Filed in: Google: AdSense

The “Slums” Of Search

Jun 29, 2007 at 8:27am ET by Gord Hotchkiss

A few weeks ago in Toronto at Search Engine Strategies, I mentioned in one of the sessions I was moderating that in Canada, the sponsored search listings are the slums of the results page. In this case, I meant that until the big brands and the recognized advertisers move into sponsored search in a meaningful way, from the user perspective there is little value or relevancy in the search ads. And that means they will avoid them. The likelihood of a user to interact with a top sponsored ad is directly tied to the quality of that ad itself. This is why both Google and Yahoo now offer qualit [...]

Filed in: Just Behave

Google Customizes Map Directions

Jun 28, 2007 at 10:44pm ET by Greg Sterling

Not long ago Google introduced an "avoid highways" checkbox on Maps that provides alternative routing. Now Google has gone much further in that direction (so to speak), allowing users to drag icons on the map to create customized routing. With each change directions update automatically. Here's the Google Lat Long Blog discussion and here's an entertaining video that explains the range of new features. This can be used within cities or on cross country trips. Below I plotted a car trip across the U.S. from New York to San Francisco, with a number of stops in between. One of the very nice [...]

Filed in: Google: Maps & Local

Yahoo Search Marketing Adds New Keyword Tool & More Features To Panama

Jun 28, 2007 at 7:00pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Yahoo will be launching new features within Panama today. The features include: An improved keyword selector tool giving you an estimate of the monthly searches. An easy way to move and copy keywords from one ad group to another. To do this, go to your ad group page and under the “Campaigns” tab, you should see a “Move” button that will enable this feature. This feature has been at the top of many advertisers' wish lists. A new "ad writing help guide," that will give you a method of previewing ads as they would appear in search results for your selected keywords. More details [...]

Filed in: Search Marketing: Search Term Research, Yahoo: Search Ads

SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 28, 2007

Jun 28, 2007 at 4:26pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Is Google Losing Its Magic For Employees?Today's Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled Start-Ups Make Inroads With Google's Work Force, which focused on emerging potential retention problems at Google (in particular vs. Facebook). Yahoo has recently shed – both voluntarily and involuntarily – a number of high profile employees and suffered negative publicity from some... Buttons, Buttons -- Let's Clean Up The Feed Buttons!As part of addi [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

Is Google Losing Its Magic For Employees?

Jun 28, 2007 at 4:16pm ET by Greg Sterling

Today's Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled Start-Ups Make Inroads With Google's Work Force, which focused on emerging potential retention problems at Google (in particular vs. Facebook). Yahoo has recently shed – both voluntarily and involuntarily – a number of high profile employees and suffered negative publicity from some of those departures. Now it may be Google's turn. Yesterday Barry Schwartz wrote about an internal Microsoft email containing the reflections of a former Google employee who had joined the company. The WSJ article focuses on several specific employee [...]

Filed in: Google: Employees

Buttons, Buttons — Let’s Clean Up The Feed Buttons!

Jun 28, 2007 at 11:22am ET by Danny Sullivan

As part of adding our new "Lands" tabs to Search Engine Land last month, I cleaned up our feed page that helps people understand how to add our feeds to various feed readers. The biggest challenge was dealing with the inconsistent sizes of feed buttons from the different providers. I wanted to share how we arrived at a cleaner look, along with an fresh urging for feed reader providers to standardize buttons to help publishers. Plus, I've got some standard buttons anyone can grab, if you want help with the issue now. At Search Engine Land, we have one main feed page that describes al [...]

Filed in: SEO: Blogs & Feeds, Social Media Marketing

Lawsuit: Google’s AdSense For Domains Program Contributes To Trademark Infringement

Jun 28, 2007 at 10:29am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google Sued in Domainer Lawsuit--Vulcan Golf v. Google from Eric Goldman covers a new lawsuit in which Google is being sued for allegedly violating trademarks by helping domainers monetize "typosquatter" domains. Eric explains that this filing (4.3MB PDF) may be the first lawsuit against Google for its domainer relationships. The complaint considers Google as the domain name licensee, because AdSense for Domains effectively takes control of domains in the program. Google's policies aren't supposed to allow typo domains to be in its program, but these get through. And since Google puts ads [...]

Filed in: Google: AdSense, Google: Domains, Google: Legal, Legal: Trademarks, Search Ads: Domaining

Study: Good Brand Can Make Search Seem More Relevant

Jun 28, 2007 at 9:42am ET by Barry Schwartz

Penn State released a report -- Branding matters -- even when searching -- that claims the brand value of a search engine can make searchers believe results are better or worse than they are. The study showed that when a searcher was given an identical result set across Google, Yahoo, Windows Live Search and an in house search engine, Google and Yahoo came out as more relevant. Why? Because of the brand of the search engine. Despite the results pages being identical in content and presentation, participants indicated that Yahoo! and Google outperformed MSN Live Search and the in-house sea [...]

Filed in: Stats: Popularity, Stats: Relevancy, Stats: Search Behavior

Mossberg, Ask.com “Goes Much Further” Than Google

Jun 28, 2007 at 9:06am ET by Barry Schwartz

Ask.com Takes Lead In Designing Display Of Search Results by Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal reviews Ask.com's new 3D look. Mossberg gave Ask.com great reviews, comparing Ask.com's three-pane approach to Google's Universal Search approach. Mossberg said Ask.com "took greater strides" than Google with their user interface. The new Ask.com user interface makes for a "better advance in unifying" the different levels of vertical search options available to the searcher, said Mossberg. He explained that this makes "search results easy to navigate and use" than Ask.com's competitors. [...]

Filed in: Ask: Web Search, Google: Universal Search, Search Features: General, Stats: Popularity, Stats: Relevancy

21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

Jun 28, 2007 at 7:41am ET by Matt McGee

Small businesses are growing more aware of the need to understand and implement at least the basics of search engine optimization. But if you read a variety of small businesses blogs and Web sites, you'll quickly see that there's a lot of uncertainty over what makes up "the basics." Without access to high-level consulting and without a lot of experience knowing what SEO resources can be trusted, there's also a lot of misinformation about SEO strategies and tactics. This article is the second in a two-part SEO checklist specifically for small business owners and webmasters. Last week, I shar [...]

Filed in: SEO: General, Small Is Beautiful

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