Search marketing campaigns for business-to-consumer websites need to address the issues of trust in the brand name as well as confidence in making a purchase. Third party validation and “wisdom of the crowds” mentality rule the day. This week’s infographic illustrates various pieces of content that can be created and optimized in order to build […]
The Symbian mobile software is already what Google Android aspires to be: the world’s dominant smartphone operating system (it runs Nokia smartphones, among others). But it isn’t free, or I should say wasn’t free until today. Nokia announced that it was buying the shares of Symbian that it doesn’t own — the licensing company was […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
In a bit of irony, Microsoft-owned Avenue A/Razorfish’s search VP Matt Greitzer said that the recently announced Google-Yahoo paid search pact “is going to be good news for advertisers.” Greitzer subsequently qualified (or might have been asked to qualify) his early enthusiasm for the deal by suggesting that it could result in higher prices for […]
Last Tuesday afternoon, I got a phone call from a director at Yahoo Small Business who asked if I wanted to testify in front of Congress at a hearing of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Small Business about search marketing. Now less than a week later, I’m speaking before Congress about the benefits […]
Google has best reputation in U.S., airlines fall: survey from Reuters reports on a recent Harris Interactive study that showed (PDF) Google is the number one company ranked for corporate responsibility in America. Google took over the number one spot from Microsoft, who is now ranked number ten. Here is the top 10:
Chris Bowers is trying to push in certain articles into the Google search results for a search on [john mccain]. His goal is to “Google Bomb” these articles into the search results before Labor Day. ComputerWorld has a write up on his efforts. But as Danny described in the past, this type of Google Bomb […]
I was saddened to hear one of my favorite comedians, George Carlin, passed away Sunday. Clearly he touched many people. A quick look at Google Trends shows searches related to him have spiked up as well as for his famous "seven words you can’t say on TV." Among the things people are seeking:
Google Video has introduced related searches and suggestions in a horizontal layer just below the search box. These suggestions broaden or alter the scope of the original search query. It’s a way to drive additional volume and page views on Google video. However, YouTube accounts for 98 percent of video viewing on Google-owned properties, according […]
The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that they now have APIs for developers and webmasters to tap into. You can now access some of the data you see in Google Webmaster Tools through an API. API features currently include:
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
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.
Google has launched a major addition to Google Trends named Trends for Web Sites. Trends for Web Sites extends Google Trends by enabling you to search for web site addresses, as opposed to just searching for trends by keyword. R.J. Pittman, Google’s Director of Product Management, told me that by entering a domain name into […]
Google has a special logo up today in honor of the summer solstice, AKA the first day of summer. The solstice is when the “Earth’s axis is most oriented toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun to reach its northernmost and southernmost extremes,” according to Wikipedia Danny is actually out at Stonehenge for […]
As SS Yahoo appears to be sinking, let me be the contrarian about her future. I admit, I find it as hard to believe as anyone that Yahoo has much life left in it after all the executive departures this week, plus the latest news of Delicious founder Joshua Schacter going. But since Yahoo’s leadership […]
The Google News Blog announced that they will be running limited tests on the Google News portal and search engine. Google did not specifically let us know what they are testing within Google News. If you see any weird search results or weird interface changes at Google News, please let us know. How can you […]
Did you miss the Google Webmaster Help Group Chat that took place last night? If you did, no need to worry, I was able to record the audio and export the full Q&A transcript, with well over 300 questions answered by Googlers. You can find the audio recording and downloadable Q&A transcript at the Search […]
Are we watching an awkward transition at Yahoo or something more like a collapse? To declare my biases openly, I hope it’s the former. Yahoo and Google need strong competitors to keep them on their toes. But what’s happening at Yahoo certainly does not look good. The company has gone through several “reorgs” in the […]
Over the past several months, we have been hearing report after report that Google is changing the search results based on the case sensitivity of the search phrase. In May, Matt Cutts of Google was confused by my reports of case sensitivity as well but never really confirmed or denied the reports. In addition, according […]
Forget the business issues over the deal where Yahoo will selectively serve Google ads on the Yahoo site. What about the impact on the advertisers? Overbidding on Yahoo and potentially underbidding on Google’s network system will likely be the most immediate changes. But there are positives, as well.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
As part of my Compete: Google Keeps Stomping The Others In Search Traffic article earlier this week, I posted the exact rules that Compete uses to calculate search share, along with commentary on why digging into this is becoming increasingly important. A reader noted the rules didn’t seem right. As a result, Compete stepped up […]
There’s been a near parade of executives leaving Yahoo recently. TechCrunch reports three more are going or ready to go according to “sources close to the company.”
Google has been visualizing US primary election data and, in anticipation of the US presidential election, has now created a Google Maps Elections Gallery. There is a wide range of data here, from election results, to Twitter Tweets and search query volumes for each candidate. All the maps can also be embedded.
According to SEMPO and its Annual State of Search Survey 2007, SEMs largely remain focused on search fundamentals: traffic, conversions, CTRs, and ROI. Very consistent with percentages in last year’s results, marketers and agencies are interested in direct sales (58 percent) and brand awareness (61 percent). But there’s new interest in video and mobile, as […]
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google seems to be testing additional AdSense fonts for the text used in the ads. The image shown here is from when Google tested using the Comic Sans font back in May. These tests seem to have expanded into various font types, including but not limited to […]
Google announced that the page load time metric is now a live factor that will influence your quality score and your minimum bids for your AdWords ads. We first heard that page load time was coming to the Google quality score in early March. Google then provided advertisers with metric in their AdWords consoles so […]
Facebook ‘dipping’ craze irks pool owners from the Telegraph reports that teenagers on Facebook are using Google Maps to locate pools in their neighborhoods and then hold pool parties as uninvited guests. The new phenomenon is called “dipping” and has caused concern in the Bournemouth, UK area. These “dippers” have been inviting others via Facebook […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google recently came under fire for not providing a link to its privacy policy right from its home page, as Yahoo and Microsoft do. Ask.com, apparently hoping to ride the issue to some consumer gains, has emailed us that it now proudly sports a privacy link on its home page, along with some new privacy […]
As I watch search marketers often continue to obsess about things like PageRank, I wanted to do a personal post / wake-up call related to our SMX Local & Mobile Search Marketing show happening next month in San Francisco, July 24-25. Because for all the buzz that goes on around link building, link baiting, PageRank […]
Nielsen Mobile is reporting that Google leads rivals Yahoo and Microsoft in mobile search by margins comparable to those on the desktop.
The rumor was that Microsoft had been interested in buying Spot Runner, which provides a range of targeting capabilities to cable TV advertising (as well as online). But instead the company has purchased Navic. Navic does many things but basically enables more targeted and, in some cases, interactive advertising on cable TV. It also enables […]
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning that Google said if your robots.txt is unreachable, your site might not make it into the Google index. By unreachable, Google means that if your server simply times out and does not return any server response when Googlebot attempts to access your robots.txt file, then it […]
Conduct a search in Google for gay, lesbian, homosexual, and other related searches and you might see Google supporting gay pride by adding a rainbow colored divider between the organic search results and paid search results. Philipp spotted this the other day and also added that Google is well known for supporting gay rights and […]
While Microsoft closed its book search service to focus on search with “high consumer intent,” Google’s gone the opposite way and expanded its book search service in one of the most consumer-driven search verticals, product search. Google Operating System reports that Google has integrated Google Book Search directly into Google Product Search. That means, when […]
Yahoo feels like a nation that won its independence only to see all its leaders immediately flee the country. The latest emigrants: Flickr cofounders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield. Their departure is unlikely to stall Flickr, but it gives a terrible impression of Yahoo as a company in further disarray.
The latest search engine share stats for May 2008 from Compete show Google hitting yet again another high. Let’s do the numbers, including the debate on whether Microsoft Live Search Club searches should be counted plus how everyone might start generating queries in new ways.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SEO practitioner David Mihm conducted a survey of local search marketing professionals about which variables they believe most heavily influence local rankings and results. It’s a great resource for those interested in local SEO and related issues. Rather than a simple list, it’s an open discussion of the criteria and considerations that appear to boost […]