Google

GOOG’s Mystery Stock Plunge

The stock market is bad, but Google trading for as low as 1 cent today and closing initially at $320 (after opening at $488) has the NASDAQ checking out some odd trades and resetting the closing price to $400. Reuters reports that “erroneous orders” may have caused the drop and that these orders might not […]

SEO

SearchBiz: Mehdi Moves Up At Microsoft; Should MSFT learn from Ask?; Top 25 People On The Web; Google & The NSA

With Microsoft’s current advertising campaign still leaving many people shaking their heads in wonder, TechCrunch has an idea: follow the lead of Ask.com. Jason Kincaid confesses that Ask’s ad — the one that shows a young woman “exercising” (ahem) on a stripper pole in her house — actually made him curious enough to click through […]

Link building

Linked, Tagged, Tweeted, and Feeded – Three Real Time Link Trackers

One challenge we all have is showing our clients evidence that our work is having the effect we said it would. What would make this part of the process easier is if there was one single universal tool that could identify every single instance when a site is mentioned, linked, tagged, tweeted, or feeded. That perfect tool doesn't exist, but a few weeks ago Delicious unveiled a relaunch, and what was once really a pain is now a breeze.

Content

Search Illustrated: Website Conversion Paradigms

Getting your site ranked and persuading customers to click on your search result are just the first two steps towards achieving the end goal: getting the sale. This week’s infographic details some quick tips for turning that click into a conversion:

Google

To Block Google StreetView, German Town To Require, Then Deny Permit

Just a couple months after launching in Europe, Google StreetView is running into a roadblock in Germany. Via WebProNews, Spiegel Online reports that the small town of Molfsee in northwestern Germany plans to require Google to request a permit before being allowed to record video while driving through the town’s streets. “And when they ask […]

Ecommerce

Travel Search Goes Green

With a couple of Stanford graduates as founders, a new entrant to the online travel space officially launched its beta site today, WholeTravel.com. Following a small but growing trend in the travel search space, Whole Travel uses what they call “Blue Sky Search”, or the ability for searchers to use open-ended experiential queries, rather than […]

PPC

Three Rules For Search Marketing With Franchise Organizations

I always think of an armada of ships when I look at a franchised company. You’ve got a large battleship, directing the path of the smaller craft—yet the smaller craft must navigate on their own, especially when the instructions from the battleship don’t make sense. And oftentimes, because the franchisees are busy navigating their own […]

Google

California Congressional Reps Urge Yes on Google-Yahoo Deal

The Google-Yahoo ad deal gained support in the form of a letter (PDF) from several of California’s congressional representatives asking that the Department Of Justice not to block the proposed arrangement. Led by Google and Yahoo’s "hometown" representative, Democrat Anna Eshoo from Palo Alto, the short letter signed by 11 US House Of Representative legislators […]

Local

Our Relationship To The Bottom Line

The search business is a roll-up-your-sleeves type of business. We’re continually honing the way we deliver the search experience of today while preparing for how that experience will change tomorrow. With our eyes on the road ahead, and our minds grappling with what lies around the corner, there isn’t much time to look in the […]

PPC

Why Position Bidding Wastes Money

It’s remarkable that in 2008 there are still many bidding systems in use by SEMs and in-house PPC managers dedicated to “finding the right position” for each keyword. These position crawling systems guarantee inefficiency and lost opportunity; to put it concisely: they’re playing the wrong game. Here’s why:

Ecommerce

ISP Behavorial Targeting Test To Begin In UK Tomorrow

The initials for British Telecom (“BT”) might now come to stand for “behavioral targeting” as the company prepares its opt-in trial with Phorm. Phorm is a UK-based firm that seeks to tap ISP behavioral data in an effort to serve more relevant ads to end users. The BT-Phorm “Webwise” test begins tomorrow and promises both […]

Google

Local Australian City Councils Abandon Use Of Google Earth To Monitor Building Permits, Unregistered Pets

Home remodeling without building permits is a popular pastime and cat-and-mouse game in the US, with homeowners trying to avoid increased taxation and building permit fees. Apparently that’s also true elsewhere in the world. In a a couple of towns on the Australian island of Tasmania, city officials were using Google Earth and Maps “to […]

Google

Yahoo Search Update & Google Toolbar PageRank Update

Search Engine Roundtable reports based on a WebmasterWorld thread that Yahoo Search is undergoing an update. Several webmasters have noticed significant changes in the Yahoo Search results. We do not have confirmation from Yahoo on this update, while the last Yahoo update was the first week of this month. Also, over the weekend we have […]

Ecommerce

Google User Interface Test Gives Searches Control Over Snippets

TechCrunch reports based on a WebmasterWorld thread that Google is testing on a limited basis, giving searchers the ability to control the size of the search snippets. A snippet is the small description seen under the blue links in the search results. In this test, users can select to not show the snippets by clicking […]

Google

The Google Hive Mind

As Google turns 10 years old, that important birthday sees the company more powerful than ever before. With its competitors in disarray, the Big G seems likely to grow even further. The secret to its success? For me, it’s what I’ve been calling the “Google Hive Mind. ” Rather than follow a rigid top-down master […]

Google

Google’s 10th Birthday Logo

Google is officially 10 today and, as you’d expect, has a birthday logo in celebration. For a look at Google’s history you can see the company’s interactive timeline.

Apple

Cool (or Cuil) Still Has To Play By The Rules

I recently did an opening keynote down in Silicon Valley and before my audience got well into their first cup of coffee, I started ranting at them. Now, being Canadian, my rants are rather mild and non- threatening (although I apparently scared a lot of Aussies at SMX in Sydney) but consider it a kinder, […]

SEO

Welcome New Search Engine Land Editors!

The Search Engine Land team is growing. We’ve gained two new editors this month, Matt McGee and Elisabeth Osmeloski, plus Melissa Cormier came on as our editorial assistant in August. Below, an update on the entire team, and what we each do.

SEO

Solid SEO Starts With A Solid Business Model

Bob Massa, one of the original SEOs (though I don’t think he likes to be referred to with that label), always talks about SEO from a conversion standpoint, offering quotes like “traffic without conversions is the epitome of futility.” The SEO space is a bit crowded right now. So many people are fighting for attention […]

Google

Google Launches Yahoo-Google Facts Site

Google has launched a new informational site designed to tell its story about why there’s no need to fear an ad partnership between it and Yahoo. Within the site, you’ll find lots of information about the deal except for one key fact: when exactly does it start? The launch of the site suggests any day now.

Platforms

How To Walk A Mile In A Search Engine’s Shoes

Small business owners are often curious, and sometimes desperate, to understand why their web sites are doing well — or doing poorly — when it comes to search engine visibility. Online forums and message boards are filled with questions like “Why is my competitor outranking me?”, “Why doesn’t my new product page bring me any […]

Google

Google Moderator (AKA Dory) Launches

Last night Google released Google Moderator, a tool to organize “tech talks” or question and answer sessions. It is a free service that Google used internally, but now made public. Matt Cutts said Google calls this application Dory “after the fish who asked questions all the time in Finding Nemo).” To me, this seems like […]

Bing

New Virtual Earth Features, APIs & 3D Tools

Microsoft has announced three new enhancements to their mapping solutions with Virtual Earth. The first are new features in Live Search Maps. The second is a new Virtual Earth Web Service and Virtual Earth Map Control 6.2. The third is a new version of Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D and 3DVia.

Content

Video Search Hacks For Checking Competitors

There are plenty of analytics tools available to help you measure traffic to your collection of videos. These range from the straightforward stats supplied by YouTube Insight to the complex dashboards available from TubeMogul. One area where we’ve not seen much progress is competitor analysis. In conventional search marketing, we have a variety of tools […]

SEO

SMX East: Looking At Search & The US Presidential Campaign

Our SMX East search marketing conference is coming up fast — Oct. 6-8 in New York — and I’m going to be highlighting some sessions we’re having in the run-up to the event. First up is a late breaking entry: Search & The US Presidential Campaign. By several accounts, this is the year the US […]

PPC

Yahoo Debuts APT, Its “Unified Digital Advertising Platform”

At various times it’s been called AMP or APEX, but today Yahoo introduced its new “unified digital advertising platform,” which the company is now calling APT. With the platform it gained through the Right Media acquisition at its core, Yahoo is positioning APT as a dynamic, open marketplace (dispensing with the term “exchange”).

Content

Pew On Networked Workers: Connected, Distracted, Ambivalent

The Pew Internet Project has just put out its latest survey of technology adoption and usage: “Networked Workers.” Conducted in March and April of this year, among 2,134 US adults, the findings are not explicitly about search. The data concern use of the internet and mobile devices at work and at home and the bridging […]

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