SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 14, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
More from Search Engine Land: Page 4
Local Search Finally Living Up To Its Promise
Nearly a decade ago, I believed in the power and promise of locally focused Web sites and applications. Back then, I was COO of About.com and in hindsight can say that I was a bit ahead of market adoption, to say the least! We ended up pretty successfully focusing on interest-based sites that became all […]
Google Maps Further Expands Coverage
Google announced expanded Maps coverage of Latin American and Asian countries on its LatLong blog. Recently added countries include: Afghanistan, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), […]
Yahoo Buys BuzzTracker News Site
Yahoo is buying news aggregator BuzzTracker (Kara Swisher reports for $5 million). Yahoo sees the acquisition improving and expanding its news coverage in a number of ways. BuzzTracker founder Alan Warms becomes GM of Yahoo News.
Google Creates Rich Australian Elections Site
As explained on the Google Blog, Google has created a Google Australia election website to track the candidates and results of the forthcoming Australian national election. The site involves use of Google Maps, iGoogle and YouTube. It’s something of a mix of public service and self-service (in the sense of smart marketing for Google’s applications […]
Google Calls For International Privacy Standards
Google is calling for a discussion on international privacy standards to take place, both through a blog post on its site today and in a speech that was given to a Unesco conference today. From the post by Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel:
Searcharazzi: Google Launching Presently Presentation App Next Week?
PowerPoint haters unite! So, Techcrunch says that The Inquirer says that Google is thiiiiiiiis close to launching Presently, a web-based alternative to PowerPoint. With consulting firm CapGemini now pushing Google Apps hard, can we finally say goodbye to Microsoft’s Office Suite? Some speculate that the app will be unveiled next week at TechCruch 40 (formerly […]
Google Is 10 Years Old? Finding The Real Google Birthday
When's Google's birthday? Whenever Google wants it to be, as it turns out.
U.S. EPA Selects Virtual Earth For Geospatial Maps
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has selected Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Platform for its geospatial mapping applications. The combination of diverse capabilities and imagery appears to be what appealed to the agency.
Organizing The World’s Push Content: The iGoogle Ecosystem
Today, we welcome another guest author to Just Behave. This week, we’re pleased to welcome Sep Kamvar, the lead software engineer of personalization at Google. In the first of two parts, Sep looks at how the introduction of iGoogle and gadgets have created a new ecosystem of push content and how Google tackles the problem […]
New Feed Subscriber Stats & User Interface For Google Webmaster Central
Google Webmaster Central has gone live with a new subscriber stats area showing statistics of how many people read your feeds through the iGoogle personalized home page and Google Reader, as well as a new look and user interface for GWC. Below, more about both, as well as issues for those tracking feeds through services […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 13, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
The New Google Moon
Google Moon went live back in July 2005 with relatively low resolution images of our closest neighbor. In conjunction with today’s news about Google backing private moon landings through the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a new version of Google Moon has been released.
Google Backs Private Moon Landing With Google Lunar X PRIZE
It has nothing to do with organizing the world’s information — but I don’t care, it’s pretty cool. Google’s backing a private moon landing. In particular, it’s putting up $30 million for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a contest for private landings on the moon.
A Crucial SEO Element: Web Site Credibility
Part of making a site a success from an SEO standpoint is making it credible and trustworthy. Being trustworthy means a site is more likely to draw high quality organic links, more likely to be mentioned in the press, and more likely to convert for consumers in your target market.
Local SEO For Retail Store Locators
Many companies have brick-and-mortar locations spread out across the country or around the world, and most have some type of store locator utility on their websites. Restaurant chains, hotels, retailers, service providers, and more will frequently have a substantial web presence coupled with the desire to make it easy for consumers to find their local […]
The Power Of Branding For Small Business, Part Two
People often associate brands with money. And lots of it. Generally, if you try to run a branding campaign such as you see from big companies like Target, you certainly will have to fork over a big chunk of change. But we small business owners don’t have that kind of money. And from my examples […]
Yahoo MapMixer & Shop By Color
Yahoo has released two products that have come out of its Hack Days: Shop By Color which lets you use Yahoo Shopping to find products matching colors, and MapMixer, which allows you to layer your own maps over Yahoo Maps.
Your Guide To The Google Jet
It’s now confirmed that NASA has granted Google’s cofounders landing rights for their private jet at Moffett Field. That’s a NASA-run airport practically next door to Google, now making the founders the envy of other Silicon Valley execs who could only dream of the same. With the news out, it seemed a good time to […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 12, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Mobile Search Forecasts: Apples And Oranges
The Kelsey Group added its mobile forecast to the range of other forecasts out in the market. The problem with all of these is that, like local search forecasts, there are fundamental definitional issues about how the marketplace is framed and conceptualized. Kelsey says “U.S. mobile search advertising revenues to grow from $33.2 million in […]
Will Google GDrive Come To GoogleDrive.com?
Garett Rogers reports that Google has updated the name servers for GoogleDrive.com to point to NSx.GOOGLE.COM. Garett explains that this is typically a sign that a new product is coming to life at that domain. Although we don’t know for sure, it may imply that GDrive is about to launch really soon.
Superpages Acquires ‘LocalSearch.com’ Domain
Local destination site AmericanTowns.com owned the URL LocalSearch.com but has now sold it to Idearc (publisher of Superpages) for roughly $3.3 million. That figure includes a strategic investment in AmericanTowns, which Superpages will help further develop. This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search […]
Eleven Tips For Optimizing PDFs For Search Engines
The SEO purist may argue why anyone would ever want to use PDF content on a website for search purposes. The reality, however, is that many businesses have a lot of PDF assets. These may include sell sheets, brochures, white papers, technical briefs, etc. The purist simply says why not convert these to html? In […]
Google Street View Might Violate Canadian Privacy Law
Although it’s not yet available in Canada, Canada’s privacy commissioner has raised concerns preemptively that Google’s Street View photography could violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of 2004. This article is part of Local Search Week here at Search Engine Land, a special look at local search marketing issues in the […]
Yahoo Nabs Bebo Display Ad Deal
Google has MySpace, Microsoft has Facebook and now Yahoo has become the exclusive display ad provider for popular social networking site Bebo. Bebo reportedly has 38 million users globally, with its most popular sites in the UK and Ireland, although the company is based in San Francisco. Bebo search has been “powered by Yahoo” since […]
Surveying The People Search Landscape
Can you imagine trying to sort through billions of web pages without a search engine? Inconceivable! They make it easy and fast to find information. Now how about finding one of the six billion people on the planet. Where’s the Google of people search? As it turns out, an entire industry of people search engines […]
Marchex Issues Local Search Report, Starts Local Blog
Marchex, which recently acquired VoiceStar, launched 100,000 local search domains and is about to relaunch OpenList as a new, comprehensive local destination site, has issued a local report entitled “Unlocking the Potential of the Local Internet.” The document is a very good overview of the state of the market (with data) and the opportunity. Here’s […]
Propeller.com: New Home For The Netscape Social News Site
Last week, it was announced that the social news site Netscape had been transformed into a year ago was going way, with Netscape becoming a more classic news portal and "social Netscape" to be moved elsewhere. Now we know where elsewhere is: Propeller.com (not currently live). Social News Update from the Netscape Blog informs people […]
Activity Streams & Other Social Nuggets From Leaked Google Video
A new video, apparently leaked and intended to orient new Googlers about the Google Reader application, has shed some new light on Google’s plans in the feed and social space, as well as providing some stats on Google Reader itself. Leaked Google Video Discusses Google Reader, Social Efforts from Google Blogoscoped is an excellent, detailed […]
Launching Organic Analytics & Buzz Monitoring In-House
In previous articles, we covered Structuring an In-House Team and Creating the Search Engine Marketing Needs Assessment Report. So now your in-house search team is in place and the search department has gained insight into the key performance indicators (KPIs) they are responsible for influencing, as well as the resources available to accomplish search engine […]
User-Driven News More Diverse Than Mainstream Coverage
In this era of fragmented audiences, with newspaper journalism feeling the pressure of blogs and the Internet more generally, the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) undertook a study comparing mainstream media coverage of news with user-driven news and content sites Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit. The authors of the study also compared Yahoo News editors […]
Dissecting An SEO Quiz — Are There Right Answers?
SEOmoz released its latest SEO quiz today, which is now getting some buzz as folks poke at the accuracy of the questions. Below, my own spin through the test, which constantly had me disagreeing with many of the "answers," plus some links to more of the chatter about it.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 11, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google Promoting Mobile Ads As Extension Of Desktop AdWords, Requiring Opt Out
Although Google has been testing/running ads on mobile for at least a year, the company is now starting to formally promote mobile to its advertiser base and SEM firms. Here are the FAQs. If AdWords campaigns conform to Google’s mobile ad requirements and limits they will be automatically included in mobile AdWords distribution for free […]
Google Health’s Adam Bosworth Leaves Google
I got a tip that Google vice president Adam Bosworth, who headed up the Google Health project, had left Google. Now Google has provided me with the first confirmation this is so — Bosworth is leaving the company. Says Google:
State of the Contextual Nation: Why New Google Won’t Be Like New Coke
Was “Classic” Coke so much better than “New” Coke? It sure was in the real world. Why mess with a good thing? A favorite formulation turned out to be, well, still a favorite in spite of a more modern, “scientific” formulation. Google creates products that are a lot more complex than a soft drink. When […]
Superpages Now Offers Compare Merchants Feature
Today Superpages formally rolled out a compare merchants feature. In doing so it becomes the second major US yellow pages publisher to offer that feature in its online directory. DexKnows, owned by R.H. Donnelley and powered by Local Matters‘ “destination search” platform, has offered the feature for some time. This article is part of Local […]
Man Arrested for Google Bombing Polish President Into Top Spot For “Kutas” (Penis)
Philipp Lenssen reports that a Polish newspaper says that a 23-year-old polish man was arrested for Google bombing. Marek W. from Cieszyn is accused of somehow causing the Polish president Lech Kaczyński’s web site to rank tops for “kutas,” which translates to penis. Marek reportedly used software to help produce the ranking. When questioned, he […]
4 Questions & Answers You Should Know About Facebook’s Public Search Listings
Last week, Facebook formally announced that it was making millions of personal profiles accessible to the public via major search engines. As far as I can tell, Facebook members who never intended or expected to be listed this way were suddenly opted-in to Facebook’s new plan. I say “as far as I can tell” because […]