That rise in Microsoft’s search share that Compete reported last week? Now the latest figures from comScore report the same — that Microsoft’s Live Search Club significantly increased traffic to Windows Live Search. First the numbers, which shows the percentage of searches in the United States handled by each major search network for June 2007, […]
Google has just informed me that they have added the label “Google Promotion” to the Bourne Ultimatum video ads they have been running. They said they made this change to “make it more clear that this is not one of our objective search results or an ad, but an experiment promoting Google products.” Here are […]
The Google Blog announced that Google will be shortening the expiration date of its cookies from the year 2038 to a two-year life cycle.
Answers Corp has reached an agreement to buy Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com from Lexico Publishing Group, LLC for $100 million. These properties attracted 11.5 million unique monthly users in the U.S. during the month of June 2007 according to comScore. They generated revenues of $7 million, EBITDA of $2.9 million and net income of $2.8 […]
Our next Search Marketing Expo conference focuses on local and mobile search engine marketing, in Denver on Oct. 1 and 2—a beautiful time of year here in Colorado. As with our filled-to-capacity SMX Advanced show, we are limiting attendance, and once the show is sold out it’s sold out. You can win a free, full-conference […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Both Coca-Cola and Pepsico have seen fit to set up redirects on their homepage URLs—a very common practice among commercial websites. Classically, search optimization experts have advised clients that if their sites perform redirects on pages, they should use only server-side redirection, and it should ideally be a 301 redirect in order to ensure that […]
RedFly Marketing developed a Firefox extension that enables you to see Google search results from any country. It is well known that Google will change the search results for a keyword phrase based on the country you are searching in. This new Firefox extension easily allows you to see the localized search results, as if […]
Microsoft announced that they now are allowing advertisers to use the negative keywords feature at the campaign level. This way, you can apply a negative keyword to all the ad groups within the campaign, as opposed to adding the negative keyword to each and every ad group.
Jingle Networks’ 1-800-Free411 and Idearc’s SuperPages have announced a distribution deal whereby SuperPages advertisers and will be accessible to Free411 callers. This is significant for both companies. It gives SuperPages strong mobile distribution for its advertisers, as part of a larger local search network. It also provides Jingle Networks with access to SuperPages’ pool of […]
The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced more detailed warning are now being displayed to those using Google Sitemaps, when minor problem are spotted. Previously, Google showed any problem, be it large or small, as an error. Now small issues that are “confusing or inaccurate” are considered “warnings” and large issues that make sitemaps unreadable are […]
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable on a WebmasterWorld thread that shows Google is showing a graphical ad for the search jason bourne.
Several years ago I was having lunch in a restaurant in New York with a couple of Yahoo executives, discussing the challenge of motivating people to rate local businesses. Yahoo was way ahead of the online curve back then, although now ratings and reviews of local businesses are seemingly everywhere online. Indeed, that conversation seems […]
There’s an interesting thread over at SEOmoz about how some unscrupulous marketers will try to sabotage a competitor’s web site by engaging in social media communications and link seeding/spamming tactics that they hope will spark a rash of bad publicity and maybe even trigger some sort of rankings and/or reputational search penalty against their competitor. […]
Today’s the day we’re encouraging people to try Ask.com as part of our Google Free Fridays in July. But why is it happening on a Monday? Because I’m a day behind, as I explained last Friday. Shush, you! What’s that? Why do we hate Google so much to be promoting Google Free Fridays? We don’t, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
My last article, How To Structure an In-House SEO Team, stated that once business goals and KPIs are established, in-house marketers must conduct a needs assessment for both the in-house search team and the Web site. Your Search Engine Marketing Needs Assessment Report (SEMNAR) is the anchor for future in-house search projects, specifying the resources […]
Earlier this week, Microsoft got some positive news about its search share growing thanks to a Live Search Club program it started in May. But then came the criticisms. Was the traffic just off people using robots to win prizes? Nope, says Microsoft. I had a short talk with the new general manager of Window […]
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.
I’m currently working on a column (series?) for Just Behave where we’ll explore what the search results page might look like in the year 2010. As part of that I sent out invitations to a number of my contacts in the usability world, including Marissa Mayer (Google), Michael Ferguson (Ask), Larry Cornett (Yahoo!), Justin Osmer […]
Remember Google Free Friday? Last week, I posted info to help those trying out AOL as an alternative. Today, it was supposed to be Ask.com’s turn. But I’m afraid the launch of our Sphinn social news and sharing site has put me behind. So I’m moving Ask’s Google Free Friday turn to next Monday. IE, […]
Google takes swipe at Viacom, talks social networks from Reuters reports Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying “Viacom is a company built from lawsuits, look at their history.” Schmidt said this while being asked questions at a hotel bar at the 25th annual Allen & Co. “moguls meeting.” Schmidt added, “Look who they hired as […]
Got a web site for mobile phone users? Now Google wants to give you ads to put on it. AdSense For Mobile has arrived, at least in beta testing. Scott Jones at Self Made Minds reported being invited to participate in the new beta test. He received an email saying:
Cheeky China company says to sue Google over name from Reuters reports Beijing Guge, a Chinese company, is suing Google over their name. Beijing Guge wants Google to change their corporate name to something else. Beijing Guge says that they get tons of phone calls with people confusing Guge for Google. They said people are […]
Join us next week for a free webcast from our sister site, Search Marketing Now: Offline Conversions: The Missing Metric, Thursday, July 19 at 1:00 PM EDT. Tracking offline conversions has always been a challenge for online marketers. Studies show that nearly two-thirds of sales that being online are closed offline. How do you track […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Deborah Fallows, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Internet & American Life Project, has just published a fascinating report detailing the demographics of Chinese internet users. Deb, an American currently living in Shanghai, notes that “there are now an estimated 137 million internet users in China, second in number only to the United States, where estimates of […]
When Search Engine Land launched last December, I talked about liking the name in part because it sounded like "a community, where people can meet, talk, discuss and network." I promised to upgrade the site to help a community thrive. It took much longer than the original "month or so" I envisioned to make this […]
Lately, around the Pole Position Marketing office, we’ve been discussing the cost involved in providing top quality search engine optimization. All too often we find value added services or strategic improvements that require more time than initially anticipated. How much additional value can we provide without increasing fees? While those questions continue to be bantered […]
Getting Into Google by Jill Whalen reports Dan Crow, director of crawl systems at Google, saying that Google is releasing a new META tag named “unavailable_after.” The “unavailable_after” tag will allow you to tell Google when Googlebot should no longer crawl that page. Jill explains that this tag comes in handy when you have a […]
Google Blogoscoped discusses an issue with Google Images where Google will not always show the original source of the image in their results. In short, Google may display an image that is hotlinked via a third-party site, in a higher position within Google Images than the original image. One of the earliest reports on this […]
The Yahoo Search Blog announced that the search box on Yahoo.com now offers search suggestions as you type. For example, as I started typing “danny s”, Yahoo offered suggestions, including “danny sullivan.”
Watchdog takes Google to court from News.com reports that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is taking Google to court for allegedly displaying misleading and deceptive sponsored results.
June was a busy travel month for me. I spoke at the SMX conference in Seattle and SES in Toronto, as well as at our own High Rankings Search Marketing Seminar. The common thing throughout my travels (besides discussing search marketing) was the abundance of food! On the road, you can’t help but eat, and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SMX® - Search Marketing Expo & Conference series
Yesterday, the Yahoo Search Marketing team honored three small business owners at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ as part of the Yahoo! Ultimate Connection Contest. Of over 10,000 applicants, five finalists were chosen, and of those five, three special individuals, Glen Halliday of Kids Crooked House, Mike Willner of AlphaGrip, and Melissa Belland […]
Last week, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo renewed his campaign from earlier this year against Squidoo as a source of search spam. This time, he appears to have gotten a result. Despite Squidoo’s belated plea that it would clean things up, Google seems to have penalized Squidoo. Below, a timeline for those keeping score along with […]
Watchdog group flags top pirated films on Google Video from News.com covers a report by the National Legal & Policy Center named Is Google Promoting Video Piracy? In this report, they documented fifty cases of movies and other copyrighted material being uploaded and accessible via Google Video for free. Some examples include Spiderman III, 300 […]
FCC Draft Auction Rules A Win For Google, Hi-Tech Industry from CNN Money reports that Google’s wireless spectrum proposal gained backing from FCC chairman Kevin Martin. Ultimately, this could see Google buying wireless broadcast rights. The USA Today article, New rules could rock wireless world, explains part of the proposal means that you might be […]
The Google Lat Long Blog announced a new feature available on Google Maps that enables you to add “Mapplets” directly on the “My Maps” section. These Mapplets, often referred to as mashups, allow you to add data on top of the maps. Some of the data overlays include real estate listings, jogging trails, events and […]