A week ago, I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google is now requiring advertisers of ringtones to disclose the price of those ringtones in the actual ad copy. Supposedly, this will become a new policy required of advertisers in the upcoming weeks. We do not yet have confirmation on Google about this new policy. On Friday, I spotted an explanation from MediaPost on why this policy is coming down the pipeline for AdWords advertisers. According to MediaPost, the Florida Attorney General's office has "convinced" Google to require AdWords advertisers to disclose this pricing inf [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords

There are arguably two parallel tracks in the "what will succeed Google?" meme. An emerging one is "will the feds intervene to block Google?" The second is much older and involves the hypothetical "semantic web" or sometimes "deep web." Essentially this asks, "who will do search better than Google?" (A third line of argument might surround "social search.") Two pieces in two days in the NY Times reflect the two former strands. The first article is Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big and picks up on the monopoly discussion. I responded over the weekend on my personal blog Screenwerk. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: Analysis | Google: General | Google: Legal | Google: Other | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Other Search | Search Engines: Powerset | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Top News | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: User Interface

It's probably safe to say that Yahoo has lots of fans rooting for the company to succeed under the management of new CEO Carol Bartz. In my vicarious observation of Bartz I've come to appreciate her no-nonsense approach and sense of humor. And as could have been anticipated after her appointment, another Yahoo reorganization is coming. Yahoo employees have got to be suffering a bit from deja vu or what might be called "reorg fatigue" in all this. Yahoo does need to execute at a faster pace and certain operations within the organization could be rationalized I'm sure. Beyond this every CE [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General

Registration is now open for Search Marketing Expo - SMX Advanced, June 2-3 in Seattle. Now in its third year, SMX Advanced is the conference for experienced search marketers. Sessions are fast-paced, interactive, and don't stop to cover the basics. Fluent in SEM? Come to Advanced and participate with others who speak your native language. Read what participants said about last year's SMX Advanced conference here. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SEM Industry: Conferences | SMX & DMD Alerts | Top News

Over the past year, the term "post-click marketing" has come up more frequently in search marketing discussions, especially in the context of improving conversion rates and overall search ROI. At SMX West earlier this month, Gordon Hotchkiss of Enquiro unequivocally declared that post-click marketing moves the needle for their clients more than any other aspect of search marketing. So what exactly is post-click marketing and how can you leverage it in your search marketing program? Here's a brief introduction. Post-click marketing > landing pages The simplest definition of post-cli [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Features: Analysis | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Marketing: Landing Pages

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 Changes Display URL Policy: One Domain Per Ad GroupThe Google AdWords blog has finally announced that the new display URL policy will go into effect the week of February 24th. The new policy, which was I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable about a month ago, and was confirmed by AdWordsAdvisor (an official Google representative in WebmasterWorld), will disallow multiple display domains [...] Google Suggests Ways To Prevent HackingIf you [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

The Google AdWords blog has finally announced that the new display URL policy will go into effect the week of February 24th. The new policy, which I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable about a month ago, and was confirmed by AdWordsAdvisor (an official Google representative in WebmasterWorld), will disallow multiple display domains per ad group. That means you can only have the same domain showing in a specific ad group in the display URL field. For example, you cannot have one ad in an ad group with the display URL of www.searchengineland.com and another ad in that same ad group wit [...]

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

If you run a popular/successful blog, there's a pretty good chance you're plenty familiar with hacking and how to deal with it. But hacking comes in many forms and can hit any kind of web site that isn't secure. In a post today, Google's Webmaster Central blog talks about ways to prevent hacking, including using Google search to find out if you've been hacked. The site: command can help identify if a hacker has added common spam content to your site when you do a search like site:searchengineland.com viagra Most webmasters are probably familiar with and use the site: command often. B [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Security | Google: Webmaster Central | SEO: Spamming

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. Ask.com Car & Crew at Daytona: Google Hammocks: Yahoo Hack Day in India: Vint Cerf at SMX West: Video of Ask.com Car at Daytona: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

Google has dropped the "Shopping" link from the main top navigation on Google.com and replaced it with a "Video" link. What is the big deal? Well, in November 2007, Google did the exact reverse. They dropped the video link for products to replace it. Then Google renamed products to shopping but that link remained at the top. Google has now brought back the video link, which has recently dropped the top viewed, top blogged and so on features from the home page of Google Video. We know Google Video also stopped allowing uploading directly to Google Video, so one may have thought Google w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: Product Search | Google: User Interface | Google: YouTube & Video | Top News

The Google AdSense blog has added the font selection preference for publishers. Publishers can now pick between Arial, Times, and Verdana font types and they will be present on all of their Latin-based character units. Publishers can pick the font style two different ways within the AdSense console. They can go to the "Ad Display Preference" section and define their default font style When setting up an individual ad, you can specify the font style there Google has been testing various font styles in the past, and I suspect that we will see Google add more types to the list in t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Google: AdSense | Top News

Yesterday Google provided another round of Transit updates. These include more cities globally as well as full public transit schedules for a number of new cities in Canada, the UK, Houston, Texas and throughout the state of Virginia. Separately Google now says that its community mapping tool Map Maker is available in 27 languages: We are proud to announce that Google Map Maker is now available in 27 languages at mapmaker.google.com. This represents the primary or second language of more than a half billion people in the 164 countries covered by Google Map Maker. The objective of the prod [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Outside US

If you ask web professionals what their interpretation of the phrase information architecture is, you will get a wide variety of responses. A search engine optimization (SEO) professional might launch into some grand scheme about indexation and PageRank sculpting. A web developer usually views information architecture in terms of fields in a database—how each field (information) will be used on different web pages. However, if you presented these intepretations of information architecture to people who are actually information architects, you will probably see some raised eyebrows and con [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Search & Usability

That means they know all about your tactics, strategies, strengths, and weaknesses They Know How to Beat You Isn't it Time You Fought Back? The Search Monitor provides real-time competitive monitoring software with fanatical support. Try It! Get A Free Competitive Analysis Report Use Promo Code: SELNEWS. (p) 321-206-9705 | (e) support@thesearchmonitor.com [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sponsor Messages

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Go Figure: Twitter Tests Adding Search To Main NavigationThe Twitter blog announced they are now exploring the option of integration the search experience directly at the top navigation of Twitter. Twitter Search has become incredibly popular, even when most people I speak with have no clue on how to find it. Twitter Search is not even currently linked to on Twitter’s [...] And Your Next SMB Advertiser Is…Already An AdvertiserSMBs who [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

The Twitter blog announced that they are now testing the integration of Twitter search directly at the top navigation of Twitter. Twitter Search has become incredibly popular, even when most people I speak with have no clue on how to find it. Twitter Search is not even currently linked to from Twitter's main navigation, let alone there being a search box. It currently resides at a subdomain, http://search.twitter.com/. Here is a picture of the new Twitter with integrated search, currently being tested out on a select number of Twitter users: Let me take you back into the history o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter

SMBs who wish to advertise online now have many options: vertical sites, local sites, search engines, traditional and new directories; SMB owners need only choose where they would like their business to appear. Online directories are a common choice for advertisers, and the group at Palore chose to examine the more traditional type of national directories such as Internet Yellow Pages. We decided to focus on the south of the US for a change, rather than the top markets on the coasts. Looking at leading categories of SMBs in 3 major cities: Atlanta, Dallas and San Antonio, our review covered [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Small Is Beautiful

If you're dealing with a large complex website, rewriting your URLs from dynamic to static and placing all the necessary 301 redirects in place is - as programmers would say, nontrivial. The devil is in the details. Granted, the redirecting piece may not be quite as onerous anymore thanks to the advent of the search engines' new canonical tag, but you still have to worry about the user experience for users coming in to the obsolete URLs (through bookmarks, through old links, etc.). Therefore, ideally you'll still want the 301s in place. Regular expressions and mod_rewrite (or alternatively, IS [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | How To: SEO

After testing this for close to a year, Yahoo is set to formally announce Rich Ads In Search -- a service that places images and videos into paid ads in Yahoo's search results. The New York Times says the service will be announced formally on Thursday. A search for Pedigree dog food brings up a video in the primary paid listing: Other additions include images and search boxes inside paid ads. The NYT article says Yahoo is charging a monthly fee for Rich Ads In Search, and only "large, brand-focused advertisers" can use the service at this point. If you're thinking you've heard abo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Video | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

The Yahoo Search Blog is celebrating the 5th birthday of Yahoo's search engine today. It was February 18, 2004, when Yahoo stopped using Google search results and rolled out its own index and ranking of web pages. (It should be noted that Yahoo continued to use Google for image search results at first, even after launching its own web search engine.) Yahoo had purchased Inktomi about a year earlier, but rather than using that index, Yahoo built its own. At the time, Microsoft had yet to launch its search engine, and Ask Jeeves/Teoma was the only other top tier search engine available. L [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Search