Google's Dan Crow announced today that the unavailable_after META tag is now live and operational. Google To Add "Unavailable After" META Tag from about two weeks ago, explains in detail more about this tag and how it can be used. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | SEO: Blocking Spiders | SEO: Titles & Descriptions

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. For Yahoo Design Week, the designers sat on these blowup chairs. Google has their own dog food. Some neat Yahoo Travel flip flops. One of Google's lounges. Yahoo being pretty. Tele Atlas mapping streets in Rochester, NY. Yahoo ambassador "Can I Help You" shirts. Finally, Matt Cutts at Word Camp. Now, can he help you? ;-) [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

Wikia, Inc., the for-profit company developing the open source search engine Search Wikia, has acquired Grub, a distributed crawler platform, from LookSmart. Distributed crawler? Crawlers are software programs used by search engines to roam the web to discover pages that are then downloaded and indexed for searching. The crawlers operated by the major search engines are highly centralized, operating out of massive data centers, and are capable of finding and downloading millions of pages per minute. Grub, by contrast, taps into the spare power of thousands of personal computers connected to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Engines: Search Wikia | Social Media Marketing

Microsoft vows it won't let its core businesses be undermined by "the cloud." This article from the NY Times (and related discussion at Techmeme) quotes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer saying that Microsoft will compete aggressively with Google and other online alternatives to Office and will offer Web-based versions of all its core software: "We’re not moving toward a world of thin computing," said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, referring to systems in which simple processing takes place on a PC, but more complex processing is moved to a centralized computer through a networ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Docs & Spreadsheets | Google: Gears | Microsoft: Business Issues

The New York Times has a long article on mashups, the state of online mapping and user-generated content more generally. It's an overview piece, but does a good job of capturing the fact that online mapping in particular is one of the important trends online: visualizing all sorts of data on a map, whether local businesses, user photographs or other information. It also discusses how mapping APIs from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have unleashed third-party developer creativity and that of ordinary people (in My Maps and Live Local Collections). Google's recent Earth for Enterprise enhancements [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines

It was about to be one spicy Friday, as Searcharazzi received a call on Thursday from a recruiter looking to replace a top editor in the search space. The conversation went something like this: Recruiter: "Our client is looking to replace the top spot at [name of publication]." Searcharazzi: "I thought that role was filled a month or so ago by [name of person]?" Recruiter: "Didn’t last 2 weeks." Searcharazzi: "Are you sure?" Recruiter: "Yes, I got this job req a few weeks back." As it turns out, our friend the recruiter had been wrong, very wrong, and frantically called back to clar [...]

Related Topics: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments | Business Issues: General | Channel: Industry | Searcharazzi | SEM Industry: Acquisitions | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

A Complete Glossary of Essential SEO Jargon from SEOmoz has a very comprehensive list of SEO and SEM terms, words and jargon used in the industry with their meanings. It joins several other established glossaries out there: Search Engine Marketing Glossary of Terms, SEMPO SEO Glossary, WebmasterBrain SEO Terms Glossary - SEO Acronyms - SEO Abbreviations, SEO Consultants The Search Engine Marketing Glossary, SEO Book [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: General

Philipp Lenssen reported that Google is now using the Google Promotion label within Google Product Search results, for a promotion of the Google Checkout service above listings. Ionut Alex. Chitu saw this for a product search on watch and sent Philipp a screen capture. I don't see the promotion box coming up myself, though Danny does. This is the second sighting of a box labeled "promotion" in Google results. What is this Google Promotion label? Earlier this month we found Google promoting The Bourne Ultimatum without labeling the ad as a sponsored listing or with any disclaimer. Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Checkout | Google: Critics | Google: Product Search

Google 'the most improved brand' from the BBC covers an Interbrand report showing that Google's brand has increased in value by 44% over the past 12 months. The 44% increase makes Google the most improved brand when compared to the other brands that were evaluated in this report. Google's brand is valued at $17.8 billion, placing Google in 20th place on the overall list. Google falls behind the top five leaders, including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE and Nokia, respectively. However, while Coca-Cola leads, they fell 3% in brand value, while Google increased by 44%. Also today, Business [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Marketing | Stats: Popularity

When we’re talking about the search user experience, we’re always balancing two sources of information, organic and sponsored listings (at least, for now), with the overall objective of delivering the user the most relevant results based on their query. At this time, nobody has done that more successfully, from the user’s perspective, than Google. And the quality of the ads is a key component of that. So I wanted to talk to Google’s Nick Fox, who was joined by Diane Tang from the Ad Quality team. The topic: How Google’s Ad Quality score improves the user experience. I’ve stated [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Search & Usability | Stats: Search Behavior

The Yahoo Search Blog has announced that they have added new Yahoo Travel shortcuts. If you search on a travel destination, such as Jerusalem, up comes a shortcut box with travel related information. It looks like this: In this pretty shortcut, you are given information on the destination including: Visitor Guide Hotels Restaurant Guides Maps Travel Options Top Rated Things To Do Slide Show of Pictures and more... Other example searches that work include Paris, Hanoi or Sydney. But there are hundreds US and international destinations that currently work, plus they plan on adding more [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Shortcuts

Microsoft has announced that it will purchase AdECN, an online ad exchange that competes with Yahoo's RightMedia and, presumably, the forthcoming DoubleClick exchange. Assuming that the deal goes through and Google's acquisition of DoubleClick isn't blocked by regulators, all the major search engines will have extended graphical ad distribution through so-called exchanges. This is obviously about building out more distribution and reach for Microsoft advertisers. I spoke to Microsoft and Bill Urschel, CEO of AdECN since writing the post above. Microsoft's Joe Doran, General Manager, Micros [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: General

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Sprint Announces WiMax Partnership With GoogleWireless carrier Sprint and Google have announced a partnership in which Google will provide "Web search, interactive communications and social networking services on devices for the new high-speed wireless network the carrier is building," according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.... AdSense Publishers Will Get Pay Per Action Ads, Like It Or NotI covered at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Wireless carrier Sprint and Google have announced a partnership in which Google will provide "Web search, interactive communications and social networking services on devices for the new high-speed wireless network the carrier is building," according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Sprint is building a national WiMax broadband network to provide consumers with wireless Internet access. Among the services Google will reportedly be providing to Sprint are general Web search, GTalk and, potentially, other services. What's interesting here is that Sprint previously announced a far-reac [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Partnerships

I covered at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning that some AdSense publishers are automatically being forced into trying out Google's Pay Per Action ads. Google sent out emails to select publishers, notifying them that a portion of their ads will be serving Google's pay per action ads. That means instead of these publishers earning money on a per impression or per click basis, they can only earn money when an action is completed by the user. This will only impact about 5% of a publisher's ads, plus publishers can opt out by emailing Google. But if no action is taken on part of the pu [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Google: AdSense

Click Quality Council Holds First Steering Committee Meeting from Search Engine Watch reports on a recent Click Quality Council Steering Committee meeting where Google's Shmuman Ghosemajumder said that Google is considering offering a "phone bill-like" AdWords invoice to all advertisers. Frank Watson reported that the Click Quality Council Steering Committee meeting had over 20 attendees, including Shmuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Trust and Safety at Google, and Erica DeLorenzo, Director of Industry Practices at IAB. Google is working with the IAB to create standards that [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Legal: Clickfraud

Google is bringing mashups behind the enterprise firewall and into the browser. What that means, among other things, is that Google Earth Enterprise users will be able to see data rendered on Google Earth within a browser environment rather than having the Earth client on their individual desktops. Here's the Google Blog post. According to the Google release: Through a special version of the Google Maps API (the programming interface for Google Maps) , administrators can also embed this 2D view into any web application (much like a Google Map) and create mashups with information from exte [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Earth

Last week in Part 1 of What You Don't Know About Your Web Site Can Hurt You, I revealed a few scary secrets most small business webmasters learn about the hard way. If that didn't scare you away, here are a few more to help the weary web site owner stay in good standing with search engines and your visitors. 1. You suffer from relative linking issues Every webmaster knows it's good insurance to regularly check your site for broken links. However, one of the most common types of broken links is self-imposed and thus preventable. What is it? It sounds woefully easy, but using the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEO: General | Small Is Beautiful

RH Donnelley, which acquired SEM firm LocalLaunch in 2006 and owns the local search/online yellow pages site DexKnows, has announced the acquisition of Business.com and its related properties for $350 million. According to PaidContent, there was an auction that included IAC, Dow Jones, News Corp. and the New York Times Company. According to comScore, Business.com's network reach and unique visitors put it in the top 50 of US ad networks. The acquisition will enable the yellow pages publisher diversify its online revenue base and gain technology that will help the overall business. Business. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: B2B Engines | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines

Optimizing a website that has tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of dynamically generated pages, requires thinking differently. Old school SEO, where you assign each page a keyword theme based on keyword research and hand-craft a title tag, H1 tag and intro copy, then figure out the best internal links to send to the page, just doesn't scale with big sites. Particularly when you're talking about the magnitude that our Netconcepts clients are operating at—typically over 10,000 SKUs and over 100,000 indexed pages. It's essential that you focus your SEO efforts [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | SEO: General