Content

Internet Yellow Page Video SEM: Worth The Effort?

Informational videos are an excellent way for local businesses to get positions with the natural search engines, through the trend toward blended or universal search results which mix video in with traditional results. Videos are also becoming an attractive way to bring in leads, sales, and new customers from viral and social marketing. While most […]

Content

Video Search: New Column From Search Engine Land

Our newest Search Engine Land column, Video Search, launches today. Video Search looks at how search engines index videos, and explores the unique search engine optimization techniques that can make videos visible in search results. Our video search columnists are: Grant Crowell, CEO and Creative Director, Granttastic Designs Bob Heyman, Chief Search Officer, Mediasmith Eric […]

PPC

Report: Click Fraud Up 15% In 2007

Click Forensics, the company that maintains the Click Fraud Index, a network that monitors and reports on data gathered from more than 4,000 online advertisers and their agencies, has released its most recent quarterly report on click fraud. The company found that the overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 16.6 percent for Q4 […]

Google

Google’s Marissa Mayer On Social Search / Search 4.0

VentureBeat has a nice Q&A with Google’s Marissa Mayer on how the search engine is considering using social data to improve its search results — what I’ve described as "Search 4.0" as a generational jump in my Search 3.0 article from earlier this year. Some highlights below:

Content

Making a Good Impression With About Us Pages

Sipping on a cup of coffee on a Wednesday morning in the lounge of the local bowling alley last summer, surrounded by shop keepers and insurance salesmen and other small business owners, I hand out my business card. Most of these merchants have actual places I can visit, while all I have are pages they […]

PPC

Vote Now For SMX Search Bowl’s Search Marketer Team

The nominations are in, and now it’s time for search marketers to vote on which two people should represent SEMs against the major search engines in the SMX Search Bowl search trivia contest, which happens at our SMX West three-day search conference next month in California. The nomination round happened last week, and now SEOmoz […]

Google Maps

New “Show Search Options” Broadens Google Maps

As the Google LatLong Blog reports, Google has added a new “show search options” link beside the main search box in Google Maps. This is a very interesting development for several reasons. It’s a pull-down menu that allows you to narrow or expand results for the same query and more easily discover non-traditional content in […]

Google

Google’s Founders & CEO Promised To Work Together Until 2024

Google CEO, Co-Founders Made Long-Term Promise from the Wall Street Journal reports Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, said they would work together until the year 2024. Google spokesperson Jon Murchinson told the Wall Street Journal that the “informal pact” between the three top Googlers was made one month […]

Google

Google Universal Search Expands

It’s just over a half-year since Google launched Universal Search, its method of blending results from its own various topically-focused or “vertical” search engines. Since that time, the system has evolved. In particular, Google Universal Search now fills more than just 10 spots on the page, while shopping and blog search results are among new […]

SEO

SMX West: Preview Our Upcoming Conference In Sight & Sound

Search Engine Land’s first three day search marketing conference — SMX West — is only about a month away. Thinking about going? We’ve got a great program lined up, and I’ve just finished a podcast giving those interested an audio preview of what to expect. Check it out here (MP3 file). It runs for 37 […]

Google SEO

Scientologists Google Bombed Or Not?

Just days after the one-year anniversary of Google’s Google bomb fix, a new Google bomb may have gotten through — dangerous cult, bringing up the Scientology web site, as shown above. But is it really getting past the fix? Considering one of the targeted words is being used on the page itself, it’s hard to […]

SEO

Search Engine Reputation Management: Setting & Managing Expectations

The euphemistic phrase “reputation management issue” describes what happens when you have a problem arise in search engine result pages. Whether it’s the result of an algorithm change, bloggers, or social media sites jumping on negative news or other negative linking bandwagons, reputation management issues are a major pain for brands. When this happens, frustrations […]

Content

The Big B2B PPC Mistake

It’s been said that the three rules of marketing are brand recognition, brand recognition, and brand recognition. Given that, marketers spend considerable funds and resources to ensure that people recognize their brands and connect with them. In other words, brand matters. Yet, when it comes to PPC marketing, the importance of brand gets a little […]

SEO

Don’t Panic – Plan For Disaster

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you know all about the “hit by a bus” scenario. What happens when key members of your team leave? Is there knowledge sharing among the team? Can your business function effectively while you scramble to find a replacement, and if it truly is a “hit […]

SEO

4 Days to Save Big on SMX Social Media

Registration is now open for SMX Social Media – but hurry, the current “pre-agenda price” will expire on February 2. SMX Social Media is coming to Long Beach, California, April 22 & 23. This SMX Social Media is an encore presentation of the standing-room only New York City edition presented last autumn. Attendees Dugg (sic) […]

Advertising

Microsoft adCenter To Power Ads On Wall Street Journal Digital Network

The adCenter blog announced Microsoft will be powering the contextual and paid ads on the Wall Street Journal Digital Network. The WSJ Digital Network includes sites such as WSJ.com, Barrons.com, Marketwatch.com, allthingsd.com, and others. This is a huge deal for Microsoft, giving their ad program exposure to 20 million unique users and over 330 million […]

Paid social

15 Fundamental Truths About Social Media Marketing

In September 2007, I was offered the role of ‘Social Media Manager’ at a company in Cape Town, South Africa, which I took without much hesitation. I knew my job would focus on the ‘general’ projects such as proposals, running campaigns, and devising social strategies for clients who had something they wanted to generate a […]

SEO

Byzantine Legal Fight For Control Of Ask.com Parent IAC

The Wall Street Journal covers the “open warfare” between IAC CEO Barry Diller and Liberty Media, one of its largest backers and investors. Liberty Chairman John Malone has grown increasingly frustrated with IAC’s financial and stock performance and Diller himself. Diller has control of the company through a Byzantine procedural agreement that allows him to […]

Ecommerce

Once Again, A Google Murder Case

In the UK, a woman has been convicted of trying to murder her husband after researching methods on Google. It’s one of several cases like this that have come up in past years. Google poisoner tried to murder husband describes the method this woman used to try to kill her husband of seven years. She […]

Paid social

How To Create Compelling Social Media Profiles

Social media is not really new anymore, but many people still struggle with the subtle things that might help or hurt success within the top social communities. Recently Muhammad Saleem published a great article on the various tips you can follow to help you succeed in most social media communities. In this article, I’m going […]

PPC

The Nominees Are In For SEMPO’s 2008 Board Of Directors

Bill Hartzer has the scoop on the 33 individuals who are on the nominee list for SEMPO‘s board of directors of 2008. Thirteen of the nominees will be elected to be on the board of directors for a two-year period. The voting process is internal and will begin on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 5 […]

Google

Google’s Position Six Penalty (Or Bug) A Reality

A week ago we wrote about Google’s Mysterious Position Six Penalty. The phenomenon described has now been confirmed by Google’s Matt Cutts in one of our Sphinn threads on the topic. It appears from Matt’s comments that the drop for pages impacted was an “unintended consequence,” as Glengara puts it in a WebmasterWorld thread, to […]

Content

Search Illustrated: B2B Long Tail SEO

It’s hard to dispute that the Long Tail is an important concept in Search. A lot of times, though, we tend to think of the long tail as being a B2C concept by relating it to specific product names in ecommerce situations. But, it’s just as relevant in the B2B world. One-word phrases bring businesses […]

PPC

Spying On Your Paid Search Competitors

Last time around, I wrote about paid search planning and some cool tools to help you understand your customers and your target market (here). This time, I’ll take a look at the competitive landscape and understanding competitors in general—and show you some excellent tools that can help you gain better insight into their specific strategies […]

PPC

Search Engine Land Column Switcheroo

Heads-up to all of you faithful Link Week and Paid Search column readers: Today we’re swapping days for the columns. Paid Search will now appear on Mondays and Link Week on Tuesdays. No worries if you’ve subscribed to the feed for either column—you’ll still get the content you’ve asked for.

Ecommerce

Google A “Mystery Buyer” In Colorado?

Denver area residents were treated to some fun over the weekend with reports of the purchase of a 432-acre former campus of Storage Technology by a “mystery buyer,” for as much as $60 million. The buyer insisted on absolute secrecy from everyone involved in the deal, including Sun Microsystems, which owned the campus. “It’s like […]

Ecommerce

New UK-Based Real Estate Search Engine DotHomes Launches In US

Just when you thought there were enough competitors in the real estate vertical, here comes some more. Last week a new real estate search engine, Roost, launched in selected US markets. Today UK-based DotHomes, which has been operating in the UK and South Africa, makes its US debut. DotHomes seeks to become “the Google of […]

Ecommerce

Today Is “Data Privacy Day;” Bush Admin Launches Internet Monitoring Initiative

For most people, today is Monday, January 28. However, today has been designated “Data Privacy Day” in North America and in 27 European countries in conjunction with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Google’s privacy counsel, Jane Horvath, says the company is joining in an international privacy conference being held at Duke University in Durham, […]

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