Content

Baidu’s Search Ad Revenue Drops 10-15% After Paid Ad Scandal

Chinese internet giant sacks staff over paid for search listings from the Guardian reports Baidu has dropped the ads of four clients after finding out their medical licenses were false. According to the Guardian, this has resulted in Baidu’s ad revenue dropping ten to fifteen percent, plus the release of several ad representatives who have […]

Content

The Biggest Web Site Usability Mistakes You Can Make

When you built your first web site, didn’t you just want to promote it everywhere with big bold letters saying, “HEY EVERYONE! COME HERE AND LOOK AT MY WEBSITE! ISN’T IT GREAT?” Or, when you submit your web site to forums for web site reviews, what do you typically ask for? You may write, “Tell […]

Bing

Happy Thanksgiving & Programming Note

Happy Thanksgiving Search Engine Land readers! Today, in observance of the holiday, we hope to not write here today. So make sure to tune in tomorrow for today’s search news and tomorrows. To give you something fun to look at, I’ll post what I did at the Search Engine Roundtable, a collection of special Thanksgiving […]

Content

Measuring The Effectiveness Of B2B SEO

Many B2B marketers have difficulty justifying the value of search engine optimization (SEO) to senior level executives. Since SEO is a highly-efficient marketing channel with longer-lasting results than most mediums, establishing ROI is challenging yet critical. Here are a few suggestions on how to best integrate web analytics data with other tools to prove the […]

LinkedIn

Q&A With Paul O’Brien, Vice President of Marketing at Zvents.com

Paul O’Brien is an old-hand at the online marketing game, having honed his skills with brands such as Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.  I recently had an opportunity to chat with Paul, and it’s always impressive to meet well-rounded, knowledgeable thought leaders like him.  If you think you have heard Paul’s name before, it could be because […]

SEO

SearchBiz: MSFT’s Online Struggles; More on Yahoo-AOL; Cuts At Technorati

Fortune magazine asks why Microsoft can’t make money online, and shares some striking numbers: The company’s Online Services unit, which includes Live Search, aQuantive, and the MSN portal, lost $480 million in the quarter that ended September 30th — 80% more than the same quarter a year ago. Ouch! Why the struggles? The article suggests […]

SEO

Crappy MP3 Sites, Comment Spamming & Enough Already

In covering search marketing for the past 13 years, I’ve tried not to be judgmental about certain marketing tactics some people might undertake. Search engines have “rules” that they themselves knowingly allow others to break. Arguments erupt over the idea that any type of marketing is “manipulation.” But at some point, enough is enough with […]

Ecommerce

Yahoo Launches “Vertical Lens” Search Through BOSS

Yahoo announced an expansion to the BOSS technology named “vertical lens” technology. In short, this allows developers build their own vertical search engines using Yahoo’s search technology, through BOSS. This new technology is replacing Yahoo’s old Search Builder tool. TechCrunch is one of the first to deploy a “vertical lens” on their site. TechCrunch’s solution […]

Content

comScore: Yahoo Still Major Player In Japan

comScore has released metrics on search market share in Japan. Overall, in September, Japanese searchers searched 5.9 billion times, with an average of 96 searches per user. Yahoo is beating Google out in searches, with over 3 billion searches conducted on Yahoo properties. Google properties counted for just under 2.3 billion searches. Yahoo has a […]

Local

Meet Pegman: Google Makes StreetView Bigger, Easier To Use

Who knew that the little “man” that helps users navigate StreetView is called “Pegman”? As much as I’m a fan of StreetView, there was always something a bit awkward about maneuvering the little man on the map to launch the StreetView image window. But Google has now made a number of improvements that make it […]

PPC

SEMPO To Ring NASDAQ’s Bell

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, has been invited to ring the opening bell at NASDAQ headquarters in Times Square on December 1st. There doesn’t seem to be a news release about it yet, but SEMPO’s Dave Williams shared all the details on SEMPO’s Facebook group:

SEO

SearchBiz: MSN Staff Shuffles; GOOG Gains; eMarketer On 2009 Ad Spending

AllThingsD and paidContent.org are both reporting on staffing changes at MSN. AllThingsD calls it a case of “musical chairs,” and that seems pretty accurate based on a memo sent out by Greg Nelson of the Global Media Group. Nelson himself is now under Satya Nadella, Senior VP of Search, and Erik Jorgensen, Corporate VP of […]

SEO

Cyberchondria: When Web Search Makes You Sick(er)

Those muscle twitches you get probably aren’t a sign that you have ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”). But if you’re using search engines to diagnose what ails you, there’s a chance you’ll come to that conclusion. In a new paper, Microsoft investigates cyberchondria: “… the unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomatology, […]

Paid social

Why Social Media May Not Be Right For You

I was recently asked whether, if I had to make the choice, would I choose to work in just SEO or social media. Without any hesitation I answered SEO. In the current climate it’s obviously more accountable and seems a more obvious choice to me for brands looking to make reduced marketing budgets go further. […]

SEO

MapQuest: “We’ve Come Out Of Hibernation”

I recently had the opportunity to interview two senior level executives from Mapquest to find out what the longtime provider of online mapping services is up to. Despite perceptions, MapQuest is actually a more popular mapping destination than Google or Yahoo’s map sites, and the company continues to innovate and push out new features and […]

SEO

Nielsen: UK Mobile Web Growing “8x Faster” Than PC Internet

Nielsen released some UK mobile usage data yesterday that are very interesting on a number of fronts. The highest-level findings reflect that in the UK the mobile internet is growing much faster than the PC internet (8x) and that the average age of mobile users is younger than online. There are now more than 7 […]

SEO

Q&A With Google On SearchWiki (Don’t Expect An Opt-Out Soon)

Four days after it launched, Google SearchWiki continues to attract much attention from critics and fans alike. Meanwhile, there remain questions on how it all works, under the hood. Below, a follow-up to my Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide article from last week, answering some of the remaining questions. Oh, and for those looking […]

SEO

SearchBiz: Facebook-Twitter Talks Fail; Yahoo Loses On Kelkoo; Google To ‘Take Over TV’ & More

Here’s our lead story in 140 characters: Facebook buying Twitter=fail. Allthingsd.com says $500m stock offer too low. Twitter unsure about selling. Talks over, but FB may try again. The longer version for those not active in microblogging: Facebook recently came up short in a serious bid to buy Twitter. Kara Swisher at allthingsd.com says Facebook […]

Local

Numbers Show Search Has Changed, But Not How You’d Think

If you want to get a snapshot of a specific era in American society, I’d suggest the Yellow Pages industry is a good place to take that picture. The companies and headings listed can provide a footprint in time for people’s needs and interests of the day. In the 130-year history of the Yellow Pages, […]

Google

Google’s SearchWiki Struggling Through Its First Week

Google’s SearchWiki is off to a rough start in the user feedback/public relations department, and has already been knocked offline by some kind of technical issue. SearchWiki usage seems fair to strong, depending on the queries you’re looking at, but is it the type of usage Google wants? Let’s take a look at SearchWiki’s first […]

PPC

PPC Holiday Tips: It’s all about Execution

The Rimm-Kaufman Group manages paid search for a great many retailers across just about every vertical and the October pain was felt by all of them. We know that the stakes are incredibly high going into this holiday in particular, placing a premium on getting the details right. Here are some tips to help out.

Content

The Complete Guide To Google’s Website Optimizer

Why is it that some web sites are golden, compelling visitors to buy while similar web sites, perhaps even offering the same products at similar prices, fail to make the grade? It may be dumb luck on the owner’s part, but a more likely explanation is that the golden site is the result of careful […]

SEO

SEO: Just Deal With IT (The IT Department, That Is)

Every corporation large enough to have an IT department has had search engine optimization problems at one point or another. Well, at least every corporation that I’ve dealt with. And dealing with these issues sometimes requires the diplomatic skills of Henry Kissinger, the technical skills of Bill Gates, the persuasion skills of P.T. Barnum and […]

Microsoft

Microsoft Rebranding Live Search As Kumo.com?

Say it ain’t so! LiveSide is reporting that Microsoft might be rebranding Live Search under the name, Kumo.com. Kumo.com is now registered under Microsoft and the name servers are now under SEARCH.LIVE.COM. Going to Kumo.com takes me to a page that says I do not have permission, but takes Microsoft employees to a special internal […]

Google

Have Google & Yahoo Begun Laying Off More Workers?

The Web Guild reports Google has begun laying off staff and up to 10,000 ‘Googlers’ can be impacted by this new wave of layoffs. The Web Guild said in August, recruiters said about 500 ex-Googlers were on the job market and that number continues to increase. I am a bit skeptical about the Web Guild’s […]

SEO

Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide

Google SearchWiki — a new feature that allows you to move and comment on search results — has been out for less than a day, and it’s amazing to see how much confusion (as well as commentary) there is already developing. So below, some clarification on how it works, opportunities search marketers should consider, some […]

Google Analytics

SEM Pre-Click & Post-Click Double Feature: Conversion Attribution and Q&A with Analytics Guru Eric Peterson

In The Trenches is a spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: news from the search engines, today’s double feature is Pre-Click: Conversion Attribution 101 and Post-Click Q&A with web analytics guru with Eric Peterson, who shares his […]

SEO

Yahoo November Search Update

Yahoo has informed us that they will be rolling out a search update over the weekend. Yahoo said, that you can expect “some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days and expect the update will be completed soon.” As always, expect the ranking to change, hopefully not too much […]

SEO

Two Little Things That Make A Big Difference

A lot of the focus in the search marketing world—both paid and organic—is on the technical and quantitative side. And that’s understandable, given the technical background of many of the practitioners and the perception that those elements are relatively easy to control. But many search marketers do themselves and their clients a disservice by not […]

Apple

A Searcher’s Perspective Of iPhone 2.2 Update

Last night Apple announced a software update to the iPhone.  This update was pretty major and there are tons of sites covering all the details of the changes.  I thought I just focus on the features specific to searching. Apple made a change to the browser, featuring the Google search bar more and a few […]

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