July 2008: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from July 2008:
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 31, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Del.icio.us Now Delicious.com, With Improvements
Delicious has now relaunched under Delicious.com with some new functionality. The old Delicious was at del.icio.us and should soon redirect to the new dot com address. Along with the domain change, the Delicious site has been redesigned to aid newcomers on using the site. Here are before and after screen captures:
Google Tests Related Search Phrases Inline With Search Results
Aaron Wall noticed Google is testing a new location for “related” search results. This time, the location appears to be directly under each individual search result’s URL. Here is a screen shot of it in action, from Aaron’s blog:
Britain Clears The Way For Google Street Views; Google Argues No “Complete Privacy” In US StreetView Court Case
Watchdog clears Google’s street cameras from The Guardian reports Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office has officially given their approval over the privacy risks with the Street Views option in Google Maps. Meanwhile in the US, Google is arguing in a court case against StreetView that there is no “complete privacy.”
Do The Google Webmaster Support Reps Really Work?
Maile posted a Google blog post named A day in the life of webmaster support. The blog post basically takes you through a typical day at Google for a Google Webmaster Trends Analysts. Here is the video — it is about 7 minutes long and is fun to watch:
Report: Google To Develop A Venture-Capital Unit
Google to Extend Reach With Venture-Capital Arm from the Wall Street Journal reports Google is in the early stages of putting together a corporate venture-capital unit within Google. Google’s senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, is reported to be leading up the new unit. Google has hired William Maris, […]
How To Get New Web Sites To Rank Quickly
What is the difference between an unremarkable, no value added, thin ecommerce site, and a top ranked site? In some industries the difference is simply site age. Sites that were around a few years ago had fewer competitors, so it was easier for them to rank. As they aged they got trusted more, and some […]
Is Google Universal Search A Walled Garden?
Although Google Universal Search (GUS) is still very much in flux, it’s been a part of the SEO landscape for a while now. In that time, there have been some good studies about how often GUS presents video results, and some research into how it ranks videos versus text pages. One aspect of GUS that’s […]
Report: Newspapers, Yellow Pages Battle For Local Online Advertising Revenues
A new report from analyst firm Borrell Associates contains fairly dire revenue projections for both local newspapers and print yellow pages ($5 billion in projected print revenue losses in five years). The newspaper angle is picked up today by the Wall Street Journal and PaidContent, which both lay out some of the numbers. The report […]
A Small Business Marketing Success Story: K9cuisine.com
Being small is hard enough. But being small and in retail? That’s like having two strikes against you before the game even begins. From setting up relationships with banks, to finding trustworthy suppliers, to building a loyal customer base, being a small retailer is a challenge many businesses can’t meet. And if you’re an online-only […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 30, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google Now Notifies Of “Search Customization” & Gives Searchers Control
Google is now showing "search customization" messages to inform searchers when their search results have been modified from "normal" due to a searcher’s geographic location, previous query or web surfing and search history. It’s a nice move to help searchers know what exactly is going on "under the hood" at Google and override it if […]
YouTube Sued By Italian Broadcaster Mediaset
In a factually similar claim to the current Viacom litigation, Google/YouTube was sued by Italian media company and broadcaster Mediaset, which is owned by Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The company is seeking a minimum of EUR 500 million for copyright violations and hypothetical, lost ad revenue.
Live Search Adds Home Page “Hotspots”
Microsoft just announced the official U.S. launch of their new home page. The home page was seen in test mode a few months back, but now it is officially live. The home page contains a background image which contains “hotspots” used to show off some of the search queries available at Live Search. The home […]
How Cuil Is The SEO Industry?
Philipp Lenssen’s The World According to Cuil blog post inspired me to take snapshots of how Cuil, the new search engine, matches up the names of our industry to pictures. Here’s Danny Sullivan’s Wikipedia article, but showing a picture of Danny Sullivan the race car driver:
Google Slightly Updates Google Merchant Search
Loren Baker covered a small update to Google’s Merchant Search, which we outed back in May. Currently, Google Merchant Search is available in the UK and allows you to compare loan providers. When I covered it originally, it wasn’t available to everyone, but now it appears to be live. Conduct a search for secured loans […]
Total Search Marketing, Part 2
In the first installment of this series, Total Search Marketing, Part 1, I wrote about the eConsultancy research showing that natural search (SEO) was the most frequently used online marketing tactic for lead generation. Yet, most marketers put the bulk of their search marketing budget into paid search. Many of these marketers felt their company […]
Marchex Launches Platform And Tools That Seek To Better Connect Online Search And Offline Buying
One of the reasons that “local search” has struggled in some quarters has been the challenge of tracking the internet’s influence on in-store or local transactions. This is a theme I heard raised by large retailers at a ShopLocal partner event a couple of weeks ago and one that came up several times in various […]
Five Steps To Successful Site Architecture For B2B SEO
A couple months ago, I noted that one of the 6 mistakes B2B marketers continue to make with organic search was inadequate site architecture-the fact that many B2B sites don’t have sufficient content to respond to desired search terms. The solution, however, isn’t simply adding more content. Proper site architecture is also critical. Here are […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 29, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SearchBiz: Whetstone Becomes New Google PR Chief; Google And The “M-Word,” & Flickr Founder Criticizes Yahoo
Remember Google losing its head of PR, Elliott Schrage, to Facebook back in May? Google has quietly found a replacement, that of Rachel Whetstone. She formerly headed corporate communications for Google in Europe. Google confirmed to us she was named to the post several weeks ago, though no announcement was made. But her replacement got […]
Google Maps Cleans Up Its Act
Google Maps (Earth) is far and away the company’s most successful product after search. It is now the second most popular mapping service online (Mapquest still leads) and the most popular mobile mapping tool (Mapquest Mobile is second), according to comScore. Every few months, it seems, Google “tweaks” the service, adding new features here and […]
Looking For Old News? Use Google’s News Archive Search
Today, the Search Engine Roundtable has a post explaining that Google News only shows results for news articles up to thirty-days old. To access any older news content, you must use Google News Archive Search. The thing is, not all Google News sources are included in Google News Archive Search. In fact, you must qualify […]
Google’s Send Mail Server Security Certificate Expires
It appears that Google’s Gmail SMTP (send mail) server might have let their secure certificate expire. I personally just got notified that the smtp.gmail.com server was not secure due to the certificate expiring. Here is a screen capture:
Google Logos For NASA’s & Beatrix Potter’s Birthdays
Today, Google has a special logo up for NASA’s birthday. Yesterday, Google had a logo up for the late Beatrix Potter’s birthday. NASA was established on July 29, 1958. Potter was born on July 28, 1866 and died on December 22, 1943. Here are the logos:
A Comprehensive Look At Digg’s Recommendation Engine
It’s hard to believe, but Digg‘s latest feature, the recommendation engine, is one that has been in the works for over two years. Before they developed images functionality, launched visualization tools, released Google, Netvibes, and Myspace widgets, developed Facebook functionality, rolled out dataportability enhancements, released updates to the comment system, updates to digg the candidates, […]
Search Illustrated: The ROI Of SEO
Organic optimization brings more than just results in the search engines. This week’s infographic shows off the additional benefits and return on investment that comes along with properly optimizing a site and pursuing targeted keywords:
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 28, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Power Searching Google News With Cluster Filtering
Ionut Alex Chitu noticed a new feature in Google News that allows you to filter news clusters by three options. The three options include, “All Sources,” “Blogs,” and local news options. Let me walk you through this step by step.
Yellow Pages Usage Stats Are Likely Wrong
I was reviewing print yellow pages book usage statistics this week, in preparation for the SMX Local & Mobile conference, and I was struck once again by the large numbers that the Yellow Pages Association (YPA) touts in their press releases and research papers. I’ve had some individuals at conferences dismiss the idea that print […]
Google Ad Planner: Another Disruptive Technology From Mountain View
When I tried out the new Google Ad Planner recently, I had no idea my reaction would be so out of step with the reactions of various observers on the scene. Has this ever happened to you? It’s like being in an episode of The Twilight Zone, as you pass by the horrified shouts of […]
Yahoo Improves Search Ad Performance Reports
The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced they have improved the Ad Performance Reports to include a few new columns. The new columns include: Ad ID column – This column displays your ad’s ID number. Ad: – This column provides a visual representation of your ad, including its title, short description, and display URL. Destination URL […]
Yahoo Search Improves News Injection In Web Results
The Yahoo Search Blog announced they have made “significant enhancements” to how they show news results in the web search results. Yahoo is now showing news results in different positions throughout the web search results, based on their new “News Direct Display (DD)” algorithm. In addition, Yahoo improved how they detect news queries and will […]
Google StreetView Mapping Rural Areas, Crosses “No Trespassing” Boundaries
Google is starting to take StreetView beyond major US and EU metro areas to more rural locations. In the process it may be, in some cases, disregarding “no trespassing” warnings on private roads. According to a Sonoma County, California newspaper, Google has started capturing images of large areas of mostly rural Northern California.
With Yahoo Proxy Fight Done, Shareholder Protest Now Largely “Symbolic”
Reuters reports that Gordon Crawford of Capital Research and Management, one of Yahoo’s largest shareholders, has apparently said that he may not support the existing Yahoo board at Friday’s annual shareholder meeting. The only trouble is that Yahoo’s settlement with Carl Icahn removes the ability for Crawford and other disgruntled shareholders to vote for alternatives […]
Cuil Fast Test – Relevancy Isn’t A Google Killer
Now that Cuil is live, I wanted to do a few fast queries to get a sense of how it seems to stack up against Google. With the huge caveat that nine queries are far from letting anyone conclude anything, I still didn’t come away with a sense that Cuil has Google-beating relevancy. Instead, it […]
Cuil Launches — Can This Search Start-Up Really Best Google?
Can any start-up search engine “be the next Google?” Many have wondered this, and today’s launch of Cuil (pronounced “cool”) may provide the best test case since Google itself overtook more established search engines. Cuil provides what appears to be a comprehensive index of the web, offers a unique display presentation, and emerges at a […]
What Should You Do When Quality Score Kills Your Keywords?
One of the biggest frustrations for an AdWords advertiser is when a minimum bid for highly relevant keywords jumps from a few cents to a few dollars without any seemingly reasonable explanation. The keyword, ad copy, and landing page can all be highly relevant. The CTR could be above 5%. The keyword converts well. Users […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 25, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.