More from Search Engine Land: Page 3

SEO

SMX West 2009 Agenda Is Up! Want To Speak?

Search Engine Land’s next Search Marketing Expo conference, SMX West 2009, comes to Santa Clara, California this Feb. 10-12. The agenda has now been posted. It has sessions of interest to search marketers of all levels, and I’ll be doing a longer post in the near future to cover everything in the program. But for […]

Google

Google Testing Sitelinks In Search Suggestions

It was just a few months ago when Google.com added search suggestions to the main page. Now, I am receiving reports that Google is testing enhancing those suggestions by showing URLs in the suggestions, in some cases. For example, Sam at Oh! Nuts emailed me a screen shot of Google showing his URL in the […]

SEO

Yahoo Layoffs Happening Live Online

The Yahoo layoffs are underway, and are happening live online. Blogs, news sites, and social sites like Twitter are filled today with live reports about what’s going on inside Yahoo’s offices. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve found. Silicon Alley Insider is posting updated comments from the now ex-Yahooers, who are describing the scene at […]

Local

Importance of Rankings In Local Listings

There are plenty of reasons besides user experience when adding categories to your internet yellow pages (IYP) listings on various sites. This simple step can result in supplying you with great results in Yahoo! Local, Google Local, increased web references, and potential increased rankings in Google web search. Here is how it works:

Analytics & conversion

How To Increase Your B2B Conversion Rates By Reducing Friction

This month, I continue my series on improving conversion rates using the Conversion Sequence.  The Conversion Sequence is the heuristic that was created and is being taught by the good folks at MarketingExperiments.com.  Improving your conversion rates will obviously help squeeze more value from all of your diligent search engine marketing efforts. So let’s jump […]

SEO

Reputation Management: That Brand Thief Stole My Clicks!

You may not be aware of it, but brand thieves are everywhere, lurking in the shadows of sponsored search, working hard to exploit your brand and steal your clicks. Their favorite tactics include hiding in lower positions during off hours, and targeting markets that you cannot see. Who are these brand thieves? How do they […]

Paid social

AOL Debuts Bebo “Social Inbox”

AOL is repositioning or perhaps enhancing Bebo as a kind of dashboard for the internet using the concept of a “social inbox.” The Wall Street Journal has coverage of what’s at stake for AOL and the challenges facing social media ad revenues. The social inbox idea is about aggregation of content and services (e.g., email) […]

Content

YouTube Continues To Dominate Growing Video Landscape

Google continues to dominate the online video market in much the same way it dominates search. Google properties set a record in October with more than 100 million video viewers — 99.5 million of whom watched videos on YouTube. Those are some of the numbers issued this afternoon by comScore from its Video Metrix service. […]

Google

Google Book Search Puts Magazines Online

First Google digitized books, then newspapers, then historic Time-Life photos and now — magazines. Today through Google Book Search, people can search the full-text of millions of articles from more than 10 magazine with hundreds more to come, the company has announced. Eventually, content from the magazines will be available to those doing Google News […]

Bing

Yahoo Board Mulls CEO Pick, Layoffs Loom

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Yahoo’s board is considering offering the CEO job to Arun Sarin, the newly retired CEO of EU mobile carrier Vodafone. It’s merely speculation at this point but Sarin is attractive for several reasons:

Bing

Microsoft Will Cut Data Storage Time If Google & Yahoo Do, Too

Responding to European demands that the major search engines cut the length of time they store records of web searches, Microsoft said on Monday it would only store that data for six months as long as Google and Yahoo follow suit. The New York Times reports, however, that neither Google nor Yahoo are ready to […]

Google Ads

Google Ads For Hard Alcohol & Liqueurs Now Allowed

The Google AdWords blog just announced they are now allowing search ads for hard alcohol and liqueurs. Just a couple months ago, they allowed beer ads and now they have expanded this to hard liqueurs in the US. Why did they change this? They said based on “advertiser feedback we’ve received over the years.” But […]

Ecommerce

Yahoo BOSS Now Serving 100 Queries Per Second

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that BOSS, Yahoo’s build your own search service, is now serving 10 million queries per day. That is about 100 queries per second and according to Yahoo, who cites comScore, that is just behind Ask.com’s search volume. Note, these queries do not count as part of Yahoo’s search network, because […]

Google

Dilbert’s Scott Adams: Will Google Replace Your Doctor?

Can a search engine accurately diagnose health problems? Can it someday replace your doctor? Questions like this aren’t new, but the discussion has gotten a bit louder in recent weeks. Just a couple weeks ago, I reported on a Microsoft investigation of cyberchondria, when inaccurate medical information online makes actual health problems worse. On Friday, […]

PPC

9 Myths Of Landing Page Quality Score

Your landing page quality affects your AdWords quality score. and quality score has a large impact on the success of an AdWords account. So, it’s important to separate the fact from the fiction about what affects landing page quality score, and to understand what you can do to improve your landing page.

Google Ads

Google AdWords Adds New Mobile Targeting Options

Google has announced new mobile advertising options to target the iPhone, G1, and other mobile devices with full HTML web browsers. Advertisers can now create separate campaigns that are targeted specifically toward mobile searchers with smart phones. You can write mobile-specific ads and get performance data separate from your other AdWords campaigns.

Bing

Live Cashback Users Feel Cheated By Microsoft

On Black Friday, Microsoft’s Live Search Cashback program went black, in short, the service went down and many shoppers were unable to use the great deals they provided with their merchants. Back then, Microsoft promised to make things right. Microsoft’s Live Search Blog posted an update explaining that they have been communicating with those customers […]

Google Analytics

Do Search Engines Use Bounce Rate As A Ranking Factor?

Your web site’s bounce rate may be a significant factor in your search engine rankings. If the bounce rate on your site is high, you could end up with lower rankings in the search engines. Correspondingly, lower bounce rates may actually offer meaningful ranking boosts. (Don’t know what a bounce rate is? Hang on—definitions below.) […]

Google Analytics

Dear Santa, All I Want For Christmas Is A SEM Super Tool

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’s in-depth look: Creating a SEM Super Tool and a contest for search engine marketers: Calling all search geeks: PPC management tool vendor Marin is running an […]

Content

Why User Experience Is A Crucial Part Of Good SEO

Have you ever heard a search engine optimization (SEO) professional use the term user experience during a presentation, in an article or as part of a sales pitch? On the web, user experience (commonly abbreviated as UX or UE) is a term used to describe the overall perception, experience, and satisfaction that users have as […]

Google

Google Reader Gets Cleaner, So Does iPhone Version

Yesterday, Google Reader team announced that they have released a cleaner and fresher look to Google Reader. The change incorporates a less blueish color scheme and a more whitish scheme. Google has consolidated some of the features, added collapsible navigational links on the left and rounded some of the corners. But to my surprise, the […]

Bing SEO

Live Search Discusses Good & Bad Links

Jeremiah Andrick from the Microsoft Live Search team has written a detailed blog post named Getting the right kind of links. In this blog post, Jeremiah explains the issues Microsoft sees with link exchanges and then gives tips on how to get “the right kind of links.” Those tips include to be the “subject matter […]

SEO

Google Webmaster Help Group: Version 2

Today, Google relaunched several of their help forums, moving them from Google Groups to a new help-specific platform. The English and Polish Google Webmaster Help group have made the move to this new format, with the other languages soon to follow. Below, more details about how this change will benefit site owners and a bit […]

Ecommerce

Yahoo Upgrades Flickr Mobile; Google Upgrades Picasa

Photo search took a couple steps forward today with announcements from both Yahoo and Google. The news from Yahoo is a mobile makeover of its Flickr photo sharing site, while Google announced a variety of improvements to its Picasa photo service. Here’s a look at the two announcements:

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