Hey everyone, Happy New Year! I wanted to start the year off talking about one of the most important components of link popularity – anchor text. As far as I’m concerned, getting an anchor text link on an authority site ranks right up there with hitting the Powerball or finding out you’re having a baby. […]
TechCrunch reports that Joshua Schachter, founder of the Delicious.com bookmarking service and a former Yahoo executive, had his first day on the job today at Google. Schachter joined Yahoo when it purchased del.icio.us in December 2005. Schachter then left Yahoo in June 2008, calling his time there “an incredibly frustrating experience.” Schachter’s LinkedIn profile says […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Are you an in-house search marketer? If so, SEMPO would like your participation in its second annual in-house salary survey. This survey is for in-house providers only but is not limited to SEMPO members. The 21-question survey takes 10 minutes to complete, and will be open until February 20th.
I was in a meeting this week and someone was talking about her New Year’s resolution to eat healthy this year, and how it was already making her miserable. I think her exact words were “I’m ready to eat my desk.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Never have. […]
As the MicroHoo dance continues, here’s a wacky idea that just occurred to me: why doesn’t Nokia invest in or acquire Yahoo? It’s partly suggested by this Fortune article that discusses the challenges that the world’s leading handset maker faces in penetrating North America. Nokia has added a bunch of online services that try and […]
A lawsuit over a Yelp.com review has been settled, but the larger issue of how business owners, customers, and review sites will co-exist online remains wide open. CNET is reporting that a San Francisco chiropractor and his disgruntled patient have settled their differences over a negative review that the patient posted on Yelp. Dr. Steven […]
A common issue plaguing a great many local businesses is the fact that they provide services to many cities within a major metropolitan area, but they only have a single website and a single yellow pages listing. These businesses rank well for a local search where their office is physically located, but there’s no clear […]
Today, there’s no viable “con” position in the “paid search bid management” debate. Either you sing the praises of automated bid management, or you’ll be asked to sit in a dark corner (or cave) and contemplate what possessed you to enter the digital marketing arena. Unfortunately, there are few real debates on the advantages and […]
For the several years Nielsen and local SEM platform provider WebVisible have done research tracking online consumer behavior related to local search. Here is our write up of the previous round of findings from the last survey (October, 2007). Over the weekend I got a preview of some of the data from the most recent […]
Silicon Alley Insider reports Yahoo’s search ad share dropped 36% in the fourth quarter of 2008. The numbers come from AdGooroo, that claims Yahoo’s search ad share was 30.4% in September, then dropped in 23.7% in October, then to 20.4% in November and then to 19.4% in December. Meanwhile, Microsoft grew from 12% in October […]
Mozilla’s General Counsel, Harvey Anderson, announced the Russian builds of Firefox 3.1 will drop Google for Yandex. He explained that after months of research and surveys, Mozilla learned that their “Russian users really wanted direct access to the Yandex search.” So, in the next build of Firefox, the default search provider will be Yandex for […]
That’s exactly what several scientists and researchers tried to do: figure out how much CO2 is emitted from performing a search on Google. Here’s what the Times Online said over the weekend in summarizing these estimates: Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling […]
In new numbers just coming out from AdGooroo, it looks like Microsoft is closing the gap on Yahoo in terms of advertiser share for the last quarter of the year, moving to a narrow three point difference (19.4% vs 16.4%) from a 17.6% gap in the third quarter. Also, in the report, it seems that […]
We’ve covered earlier about Googlers and former Googlers making big donations to Barack Obama’s inauguration. Now Google’s taking it up a notch, throwing its first ever party in for a US president’s inauguration, in conjunction with its YouTube video site and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. It’s not a ball. In fact, the invitation […]
We’ve done some preliminary analysis of the top-performing entries in our Biggest Search Geek Contest and have compiled some fascinating (though not entirely scientific) results by looking at LinkedIn profiles of the top 10 scorers. By the way, it’s not too late to participate in the contest—it only takes a few minutes and the prize […]
It looks like Google just updated their favorite icon for the second time in less then a year. Don’t see it? Visit https://google.com/favicon.ico and refresh the page. Below, more about the old, new and newest ones.
If you’re looking for some fairly heavy SEO reading, something beyond the “Top 10-this” and “5-Tips-for-that” type of post, spend some time reading Dave Harry’s post on how search engines may get more granular with page segmentation analysis. If you’re not familiar with the term, page segmentation involves splitting a web page into separate pieces […]
SEOs have traditionally recommended using search engine friendly menu systems such those based on HTML styled with CSS instead of those written in JavaScript. The primary language understood by search engines has been HTML, but now several search engines have learned how to read JavaScript. I recently found an example that reveals how much progress […]
Sick of hearing about Microsoft being interested in buying Yahoo’s search business? So am I. Just buy it already. The saga — now nearly a year old — is back in the news. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is now saying that a deal should happen within the next few months, due to Microsoft and Yahoo […]
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.
The Forrester Blog published a small but interesting study on how you can improve your chances, by 50 times, of showing up at the top of the Google search results. Their tip? Utilize Google’s Universal Search by creating videos. Not only does Forrester share statistics and analysis on how to improve your odds with videos, […]
SearchBiz today rounds up some items from the last 24 hours. Most of them concern personnel moves or speculation about who might get the top spot at Yahoo. Then there’s the ongoing MicroHoo saga and whether a new CEO will restart talks with Redmond. There’s also the matter of MSN being branded a “lewd” site […]
Google: 1 Million Advertisers in 2007, More Now from the New York Times reports that Google has reported in their latest SEC filing that they have one million advertisers as of 2007. Now, that number is likely a lot more now, in 2009. An analyst from UBS estimated Google has between 1.3 million and 1.5 […]
According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Google StreetView was used by police to help locate a child in Virginia who was allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother. The police tracked the girl’s cell phone with GPS and then confirmed her whereabouts at a Budget Inn on a rural highway in Natural Bridge, Virginia, using StreetView: […]
Search Engine Roundtable reports today that Google’s SMS Search service isn’t working: When you send a search term to 466453, Google quickly replies that your query “did not return any results.” Barry Schwartz used “Lakers” and “RustyBrick” as examples to show what’s happening: The SER report says Google is looking into the problem, but the […]
I reported this morning that we have confirmed reports from Google at WebmasterWorld that Google is testing a new AdWords budgeting option named Timeframe. As far as I understand it, timeframe gives advertisers a new budgeting method that automatically adjusts the daily budget based on your traffic to reach a set dollar budget as per […]
I have been hearing from many people in the search industry that the recession won’t impact the search space as much as other industries. In fact, many people feel that search will grow, while we see other industries take huge double-digit declines. I am skeptical about the search industry not taking a hit, in fact […]
Matt Cutts of Google’s Search Quality team is asking for feedback on what you want Google to work on in relation to search spam in 2009. Matt does this annually, so if you have any suggestions, head over to Matt’s blog and join the already 90 comments by adding your two cents.
In January of 2008, I issued my predictions for the upcoming year in the SEO industry. Now that it’s a year later, let’s look back and see how I did. My first prediction was: SEO Becomes a Top-Of-Mind Priority in Larger Companies I predicted that more large companies and big brands would realize the value […]
Tonight at CES Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made several announcements during his keynote address. In addition to a preview of the Windows 7 OS, Ballmer announced high-profile distribution deals for Live Search. We were unable to write about the deals earlier today due to an embargo. However, we covered a Reuters report that was issued […]
The Associated Press reports that Google has released “a substantial number” of its contract and temporary employees, but the exact number isn’t known. The news isn’t a surprise; in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told the San Jose Mercury News that the company would reduce some of the 10,000 contractors on its payroll as a […]
The latest twist in the Yahoo-Microsoft saga comes from TechCrunch, which reports that a new group is trying to takeover Yahoo … with Microsoft’s money. The group is made up of investment bankers and Silicon Valley big-wigs, and Microsoft would loan the group the money to make it happen. If it sounds a bit complicated, […]
Reuters is reporting that Verizon has chosen Microsoft to be its mobile search partner. The rumor, based on an initial Wall Street Journal report in November, had been that Google and Microsoft were in tight competition for the relationship. Microsoft provided the following statement about the Reuters report: “We can confirm the Microsoft, Verizon Wireless […]
Few realize that outgoing US president George W. Bush has left behind a unique legacy for future presidents, including Barack Obama — that they are all condemned to rank tops for a search on “miserable failure” in major search engines. It’s my hope that Bush will correct this before leaving office, or that Obama will […]
According to the Google Mobile Blog, Google Maps has simplified getting directions on your BlackBerry, Nokia, G1 or iPhone — if you have the Maps client downloaded. Previously if users entered a business name on the Maps client as a directions end point, Google might not recognize it. According to the post: Until today, if […]
An SEOMoz post has documented statistics on how submitting a Sitemap to Google and Yahoo impacts the rate of crawling that web site. The results show that submitting a Sitemap to Google and Yahoo decreased the time it took Google and Yahoo to crawl the page. It is important to note that the test was […]
The folks at Bruce Clay have announced the release of two new SEO tools. One tool is named the Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool and the other is a toolbar named SEMToolBar.
Leading Chinese search engine Baidu has been sued by Chinese medical B2B marketplace Qmyy.com to prevent its site from being blocked or dropped by the engine. According to a factually lean report in China Daily: Qmyy.com required Baidu to stop blocking its web pages from appearing on its search results and pay 1.106 million yuan […]
In-house SEO can be more cost efficient, but it can also be very costly because in-house SEO has many unique challenges. If you are planning to bring SEO in-house in the coming year, be smart. Most companies can’t actually be 100% in-house because there aren’t enough SEO Michael Jordans out there willing to go in-house. […]