Search Biz: Google News Courting Legal Trouble?, Bold Predictions About Behavioral Ad Targeting & More

Feb 27, 2009 at 4:04pm ET by Matt McGee

Will the recent introduction of paid ads on Google News lead to legal issues for Google? That question is discussed today on ClickZ, where Sandra Baron of the Media Law Resource Center says publishers will be looking at what Google is doing: "A significant issue for content providers is whether or not what Google provides becomes a substitute for going to the actual content providers site. When that tension becomes too great, people seek legal solutions to it." Google News itself only offers snippets of news articles, a photo, and then links to the content provider: The ads on the [...]

Filed in: Search Biz

SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 27, 2009

Feb 27, 2009 at 4:03pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Big List Of Search Engines & Their Employees On TwittersYesterday, Google joined Twitter with a company account. We twittered a few search engine-related addresses as part of our post about that, but we wanted to do one that was a little more organized. So welcome to our big search engine Twitter list! The list isn’t complete, nor will it ever be. But that’s how it [...] Search In Pictures: Google ViewMaster, Twitter & Ya [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

The Big List Of Search Engines & Their Employees On Twitter

Feb 27, 2009 at 1:30pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Yesterday, Google joined Twitter with a company account. We twittered a few search engine-related addresses as part of our post about that, but we wanted to do one that was a little more organized. So welcome to our big search engine Twitter list! The list isn't complete, nor will it ever be. But that's how it went with blogging. A few years ago, search engines and their employees jumped into the world of blogging (our Search Engine Land blogroll lists a number of these). "Who's blogging" lists soon emerged, until blogging became so mainstream that people stopped bothering to keep track. [...]

Filed in: Ask: Employees, Ask: Promotions, Features: General, Google: Employees, Google: Marketing, Microsoft: Employees, Microsoft: Marketing, Top News

Search In Pictures: Google ViewMaster, Twitter & Yahoo Cake Spelling

Feb 27, 2009 at 11:01am ET by Barry Schwartz

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. Sergey & Larry Pixelized: Big week for Twitter & Search Engines: Typo in a Yahoo Cake: A Google ViewMaster: Google's Easter Eggs: [...]

Filed in: Search In Pictures

Paid Search’s Point of Diminishing Returns

Feb 27, 2009 at 10:35am ET by Josh Dreller

"So, how much should we spend in Search?" Years ago, when I was a siloed search engine marketer, that answer was unequivocally: "As much as you can spend!". Return on Investment was through the roof and paid search was setting the standard for transparent measurement. "You only pay when someone clicks and they have to not only type in one of your keywords but feel the creative is relevant to them before clicking. That's double opt-in qualified traffic." Even though most accounts work on the Pareto principle (i.e. 80/20 rule where 80% of your traffic/costs/conversions are on 20% of your [...]

Filed in: In The Trenches

Google Still Working On Making Blog Search More Relevant

Feb 27, 2009 at 9:20am ET by Barry Schwartz

It has been almost three months since Google Blog Search began indexing full text of the page and, since then, there have been numerous complaints from searchers and webmasters. The majority of the complaints are that Google Alerts are coming up for irrelevant or outdated blog results. In addition, many blogs are no longer indexed quickly anymore. Plus, Google is indexing blogroll code and including them in the link command results. Jeremy Hylton from the Google Blog Search team updated the Google Groups thread saying that Google will be conducting "visual experiments early next mont [...]

Filed in: Google: Blog Search

Finding The Right Balance Between Search Marketing & User Experience

Feb 27, 2009 at 7:13am ET by Kim Krause Berg

Yesterday a colleague asked me to find information on software application response times. I responded with some qualifying questions to refine my assistance but what it boiled down was this: the corporate powers wanted to know how much they could fudge things so that an ecommerce software application could roll out into “production” even though it wasn’t ready to effectively respond to customers. Could this be a problem and if yes, who says so? As marketers, you may be wondering, who cares if it works well? Your job is to get pages crawled, indexed and ranked high in search engine [...]

Filed in: Just Behave

Search Week: February 23, 2009

Feb 26, 2009 at 5:29pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and drill into the Search Engine Land members library to find other stories in that area. Because some stories are listed in more than one category, you may see them repeated. Top News Google Believes It Has Ended (Some) Hijacked Listings In Google Maps Yahoo Reorganiz [...]

Filed in: Search Week

SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 26, 2009

Feb 26, 2009 at 5:03pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Search Updating: Weather Reports Go Away?I am fairly confident that Yahoo Search is currently updating their index and algorithm now. Dozens of webmasters and SEOs are noticing this update and discussing it at WebmasterWorld, but the Yahoo Search Blog has no mention of it. Typically, Yahoo posts updates, which they call weather reports, when Yahoo is updating their index or [...] SEO 3.0 = Digital Asset OptimizationOur industry rolls along at [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

Yahoo Search Updating: Weather Reports Go Away?

Feb 26, 2009 at 3:06pm ET by Barry Schwartz

I am fairly confident that Yahoo Search is currently updating their index and algorithm now. Dozens of webmasters and SEOs are noticing this update and discussing it at WebmasterWorld, but the Yahoo Search Blog has no mention of it. Typically, Yahoo posts updates -- which they call weather reports -- when Yahoo is updating their index or shifting their algorithm. In fact, Yahoo was proud to grant Danny Sullivan's wish back in 2005 for search engines to provide these weather reports. But Yahoo's last "weather report" was in November 2008, three months ago. Typically, Yahoo does an update [...]

Filed in: Yahoo: SEO, Yahoo: Search

SEO 3.0 = Digital Asset Optimization

Feb 26, 2009 at 1:49pm ET by Jonathan Ashton

Our industry rolls along at breakneck speed. We are peeking around the corner trying to get a glimpse of Web 3.0 and big brand marketers are certainly investing heavily in the digital assets that make your user experience more engaging. Problem is that the search engines are still firmly rooted in Web 1.0. At Agency.com we are constantly asked by our clients to build rich experiences, integrate video, design pageless interfaces, connect widgetry and find ways to blow your mind on behalf of global brand marketers. But how in the world do we make sure that the search engines can engage with [...]

Filed in: Industrial Strength, SEO: General

Yahoo CEO Bartz: New Management To Make Yahoo “A Lot Faster On Its Feet”

Feb 26, 2009 at 1:42pm ET by Greg Sterling

People have been writing about the forthcoming management changes at Yahoo for a few weeks. Now they're starting to kick in officially. Yesterday Yahoo Connected Life chief Marco Boerries resigned and today, in something of a surprise, Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen also resigned. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz wrote a blog post explaining in general terms what's going to happen: So today I’m rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo! a lot faster on its feet. For us working at Yahoo!, it means everything gets simpler. We’ll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorio [...]

Filed in: Top News, Yahoo: Business Issues, Yahoo: Employees, Yahoo: General

Should YouTube Sponsored Video Ads Be In Your Marketing Mix?

Feb 26, 2009 at 12:21pm ET by Eric Papczun

According to comScore, YouTube surpassed Yahoo! as the #2 search engine in terms of search query volume in August of last year.  Recently, Google used the functionality of AdWords to launch the new YouTube sponsored video product, which allows advertisers to bid on keywords that trigger their video ad to appear in the YouTube search results.   The ad brings YouTube users to a video uploaded by the advertiser on the YouTube site.  Many advertisers who use sponsored video run a YouTube channel, which is branded by the advertiser as their own space on YouTube and includes a link to the adver [...]

Filed in: Video Search

Yahoo Adds Facebook As A SearchMonkey Friend

Feb 26, 2009 at 11:01am ET by Matt McGee

Thanks to Yahoo's SearchMonkey, you'll be able to poke your friends right from a page of Yahoo search results. Yahoo has announced that Facebook enhanced results are now turned on by default across Yahoo search results. This means that any Facebook user who has allowed his/her profile to be publicly viewable and searchable can now be seen in the Yahoo search results with enhanced Facebook data. Here's an enhanced result for Danny Sullivan: The main link points to Danny's Facebook profile, and there are additional links to add Danny as a friend, view his friends, send him a message, a [...]

Filed in: Search Features: Enhanced Listings, Yahoo: Search, Yahoo: Search Monkey

Google Maps Adds User Photos To Street View

Feb 26, 2009 at 10:34am ET by Greg Sterling

Google has added geo-tagged Panoramio photos to StreetView images. According to the Google LatLong Blog it's done automatically: Google's image-matching algorithms will analyze them at some point to see if they are also a good match for a Street View location. Google has offered images on Maps for some time, but not directly integrated into StreetView like this. A thumbnail appears in the upper right of the StreetView image (see below). Clicking it opens a new view of the location with a horizontal scrolling bar of images. Users can click any of the images to enlarge. Google is implying [...]

Filed in: Google: Maps & Local, Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local, Microsoft: Photosynth, Top News

Report: Lack Of Buying Searchers Leading To Depressing Search Ad Market

Feb 26, 2009 at 9:48am ET by Barry Schwartz

I have been fascinated watching how the search ad space has been impacted by the current global recession. Rimm-Kaufman has posted early first quarter PPC data showing the weak trends in retail for search advertisers. Let me summarize his retail client data: Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last year Approximately 20% reduction in his costs from search ads from last year The average order value from search ads dropped 10% from last year The conversion rate from search ads seemed to remain stable from last year There may be more competition in the space, but ha [...]

Filed in: Search Ads: General

Google Gets On Twitter

Feb 26, 2009 at 9:36am ET by Barry Schwartz

If you are a Twitter addict like I am and you read this site, then you will be happy to know that Google has officially signed up to Twitter at http://twitter.com/google. The first twit, captured in the image above, was in binary and translated into "Feeling Lucky." You can expect this account to post announcements, similar to what is posted on the Google Blog, plus more, on a relatively frequent basis. Matt Cutts of Google confirmed this Googler on Twitter is a real Googler. There are many Googlers on Twitter actually. I think someone should make a directory of Googlers on Twitter. [...]

Filed in: Google: Marketing, Top News, Twitter

Google News Officially Adds Advertisements

Feb 26, 2009 at 9:24am ET by Barry Schwartz

Although many people have been noticing ads on Google News for the past few months, Google News has rolled out ads on Google News search results to all US based searchers. Google began testing ads on Google News back in mid-November of last year. Google confirmed those tests in their blog post, where they said: In recent months we've been experimenting with a variety of different formats, like overlay ads on embedded videos from partners like the AP. We've always said that we'd unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, [...]

Filed in: Google: AdWords, Google: News, Top News

Tips For Optimizing Your Local Business Listings, Courtesy of SMX West

Feb 26, 2009 at 5:00am ET by David Mihm

In last month's column, I highlighted the need for search marketers, search engines, and data providers to reach out to small business owners to increase their awareness of the free opportunities to claim their businesses online.  Well, the two excellent Local Search panels at SMX West, put together by Search Engine Land's own Greg Sterling, did just that. It's just a shame there weren't more small business owners in attendance! So for SMB's reading this column, I thought I'd highlight a few key takeaways related to maximizing your presence via local business listings. In the first pane [...]

Filed in: How To: SEM, How To: SEO, Small Is Beautiful

SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 25, 2009

Feb 25, 2009 at 4:59pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Joins EU Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft BrowserOver the past couple of years Microsoft and Google have become increasingly intense (maybe even bitter) rivals. Most recently the two companies used Yahoo as something of a pawn their game. It may be somewhat unfair to all involved to characterize Yahoo as a “pawn.” But Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo primarily as a way [...] Microsoft’s TechFest 2009 Is A Search PlaygroundHund [...]

Filed in: SearchCap

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