Happy Holidays from Search Engine Land! Below is a listing of special logos from Google and the search industry for the holidays. I also posted this at the Search Engine Roundtable, with links to the past five years of logos from our industry. Everyone, have a happy holidays and thank you all for reading! Google: Yahoo: Live.com: DogPile: Ask.com: AOL.com: Baidu: FriendFeed: Quintura: BruceClay: Hitwise: Marketing Pilgrim: PPC Heros: Cre8asite Forums: Search Engine Ro [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: General | Search Engines: Baidu | SEM Industry: General | Top News | Yahoo: General

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: 8 Santa Trackers For Christmas Eve 2008, From NORAD Santa To Twitter It's Christmas Eve, and that means Santa Claus is out doing his run. But where is Santa right now? Thanks to the internet, there's a huge number of ways to get Santa sightings. Below, a summary that covers online video sightings, Santa's phone number (apparently he can talk while driving), email updates, tracking him via your mobile phone and yes, even getting Twitter updates: [...]

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NOTE: For the latest news on 2012 Santa tracking, see our post: Where’s Santa Claus? The 2012 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Google, From The Web To Apps It's Christmas Eve, and that means Santa Claus is out doing his run. But where is Santa right now? Thanks to the internet, there's a huge number of ways to get Santa sightings. Below, a summary that covers online video sightings, Santa's phone number (apparently he can talk while driving), email updates, tracking him via your mobile phone and yes, even getting Twitter updates: 1) Video Clips From NORAD Tracks Santa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Santa Tracker | Top News

Twitter announced that you can now use their people search feature to find friends, family or colleagues that are using Twitter. For example, I wanted to see if any of my immediate family is on Twitter, so I searched for schwartz. It looks like I am the most popular Schwartz on Twitter (ahem). But it does list another 233 people with the name Schwartz, so I will scan through them to see if I know anyone. I do wish there was an RSS flavor for this search, so I can track particular names. But the normal Twitter Search has RSS, so that works. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Engines: News Search Engines | Search Engines: People Search | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Top News

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Court Rules Google Not Liable For Bad Products Sold Through AdWordsFeel like you got defrauded by someone who lured you to their site through an ad on Google? Don't expect that you'll be able to go after Google itself for running the ad. A US federal court ruled that Google wasn't liable in a case involving ringtones, which would also seem applicable to any type of product or service. Court Clears Google In Ringtone Ad Suit from MediaPost covers the c [...]

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Feel like you got defrauded by someone who lured you to their site through an ad on Google? Don't expect that you'll be able to go after Google itself for running the ad. A US federal court ruled that Google wasn't liable in a case involving ringtones, which would also seem applicable to any type of product or service. Court Clears Google In Ringtone Ad Suit from MediaPost covers the case. New Jersey resident Jenna Goddard claimed that she was billed for a ringtone subscription she didn't want, after visiting a site she found through Google's ads and leaving her number with the site. US [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Legal | Legal: General | Top News

If you're a general search engine that competes with Google (Yahoo & Microsoft), as you know, it's very hard to make headway in that game. But if you recharacterize or reposition yourself as other than a "search engine" you might gain some adoption. To some degree that's what Kosmix did by building out multi-media rich Wikipedia-like "topic pages" (a better version of the US version of Yahoo Glue Pages). Hakia faces this same conundrum. The company has been trying for some time to tell people that its "semantic search" delivers better results than Google. However people largely haven't bee [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Hakia

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search Biz: MSFT Layoff Rumors, Google Chrome Complicates Mozilla Relationship & MoreThere are several gloom-and-doom reports in circulation today about Google, Microsoft, Web 2.0, and the entire Internet sector, for that matter -- not exactly how you'd like to start out a holiday week, but so be it. Let's get started, shall we? First up, we'll hit the rumor mill. The Mini-Microsoft blog is getting and posting a lot of comments purportedly left b [...]

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There are several gloom-and-doom reports in circulation today about Google, Microsoft, Web 2.0, and the entire Internet sector, for that matter -- not exactly how you'd like to start out a holiday week, but so be it. Let's get started, shall we? First up, we'll hit the rumor mill. The Mini-Microsoft blog is getting and posting a lot of comments purportedly left by Microsoft employees who are being warned/told that job cuts are coming on January 15, 2009. Some of the comments are just things heard on the grapevine, while others are from people specifically told in meetings that they have "fo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Search Biz

It has been an active weekend for Google. Google has added additional search options to Google Image Search. Google has also introduced a "What's Hot" area to Google Reader Blog. Finally, Google is testing showing search history within Google search suggestions. Google has added additional search options by style. So in addition to searching for faces or photo content types of images, or news content, you can also search for line drawings, and clip art. Here is a picture of the available style options in Google Image Search: Google Operating System reports that some users are se [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Images | Google: Reader | Google: Web History & Search History | Google: Web Search | Top News

Search Engine Land turned two years old this month. In that time, our content has blossomed. We run nearly 20 columns on search marketing issues, routinely post multiple brief items per day about breaking search news along with regular long, in-depth analysis or "How To" stories. Our old design didn't serve to present this content well. So today, we present a fresh new face to Search Engine Land. Below, an introduction to the new design along with new features, including a return to allowing comments directly within our stories plus a new "Members Only" sec [...]

Related Topics: About Search Engine Land | Channel: Other | Top News

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search Biz: YouTube Growing Up, Google Owns Ad Serving Market & MoreIt wasn't too long ago that YouTube was mostly a haven for the video expressions of teens and young adults; popular clips often showed skateboard crashes, air guitar contests, and bedroom renditions of Numa Numa. But now, as the site continues to grow in popularity, it seems YouTube is finally turning into a serious business and money-making platform. First, let's talk about grow [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

It wasn't too long ago that YouTube was mostly a haven for the video expressions of teens and young adults; popular clips often showed skateboard crashes, air guitar contests, and bedroom renditions of Numa Numa. But now, as the site continues to grow in popularity, it seems YouTube is finally turning into a serious business and money-making platform. First, let's talk about growth. TechCrunch reports on new ComScore numbers that show YouTube is the second biggest search engine behind Google; it gets more searches than Yahoo and accounts for more than 25% of Google's search queries. Just la [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Search Biz

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. My SEM Wish List: All I Want For Christmas is the Perfect Search Tool, Continued In my last column, I explained how much I want a new perfect search tool for Christmas. Yes, there are some really good ones out there now that do specific things, but I need the kind of tool that I can pull out for every occasion. Some of the features I outlined in my last letter included: Landing page rotation Intra day bidding Giving cr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing Toolbox

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. Yahoo's London Snowball Fight (with Nicola McLean, David van Day & Timmy Mallett): Do You Know the Way to Googleville?: Yahoo's David Filo Giving Presents to The Remaining Yahoo Employees?: Google Waterloo Cake: Yahoo! France Christmas party: Yahoo! Buzz offsite cruise: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

India is something of a parallel universe in terms of search and internet activity. It's a massive and incredibly dynamic market but distinct from the US and Europe in important ways. All the major engines are competing there and it's also often a testing ground for new products. For example Yahoo's "Glue Pages" were released and tried there before coming to the US. Now Yahoo has bought a 30 percent stake in a local information database and directory assistance provider in the market: Info Network Management Company, which runs the Call Ezee service. Seen as a way to secure local data and prov [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Outside US | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships

Google StreetView has been a controversial offering since its launch, with privacy at the core of both individual and regulatory concerns. It's also enormously practical and useful in many cases. But governments from Canada to Europe have sought to gain privacy concessions from Google in its international rollout. Google has also been sued a couple of times by private parties over alleged trespassing by StreetView vehicles and imagery. Now a group of academics and attorneys in Japan is trying to fight StreetView on privacy grounds as well. Reuters quotes a spokesperson for this group: "We [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Features: Analysis | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Outside US | Google: Street View | Search & Society: General | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

Dear Search Marketers: I’m worried about us. The way we’ve started talking about our target audience has me concerned that our priorities may be out of whack. By target audience I don’t mean our clients or employers. I mean the people to whom we’re marketing—the human beings performing the searches and on whose backs we make our living. I’ve been wanting to address this issue for some time, but haven’t done so for fear of offending people. But I’m over that. So here’s the potentially offensive stuff… Watch your language Here’s my concern: I’m hearing mor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: General | Search & Usability

Michael Arrington went on a rant about Google testing sound effect in the new Google SearchWiki. In short, Michael is upset that Google would spend the time adding sound effects over adding an option to turn off SearchWiki. I do agree with with Michael on this, but we do know that feature is coming in early 2009. But if you watch Michael's video, using SearchWiki becomes addictive when you hear the sound effects - at least to me. Watch the video: I can see searchers hear the sound and then be led to remove or promote more results, because it makes it more fun. However, I think [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: SearchWiki

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Do Social Media Links Translate In Organic Rankings?Most clients I work with understand the importance of link building and the effect it has on organic rankings and traffic. However, many clients, for a variety of reasons, aren't willing to consider social media as link building tactic. They feel that it's not worth the time investment, and the quantity and quality of links don't result in ranking changes or increased traffic. For this article I'll d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap