Better. Faster. Cheaper. That seems to be the mantra of senior management as they pressure marketers to do more with less during these trying economic times. But B2B marketers aren’t the only ones feeling the squeeze. Many of your customers and prospects are facing similar challenges. But what can you do about it? A lot […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Since it was introduced more than two years ago, Microsoft’s innovative Photosynth technology has been “under-leveraged.” I’ve written a number of times about Photosynth and its potential. Now, according to an article in Fast Company, Microsoft is going to compete more aggressively with Google StreetView by soliciting user-generated photos and then geotagging and Photosynthing them. […]
Today, I met with Dr. Ron Milo who works in the field of plant sciences at Weizmann Institute in Israel, who showed me a specialty search engine project he built from the ground up named BioNumbers. In short, BioNumbers is a collection of common biological numbers that is useful to one’s research. For example, the […]
Three new features just announced this week will make the already valuable Google Insights for Search an even stronger keyword research tool. Here’s a look at what’s been added: 1.) New data sources In addition to web search, you can now do keyword research for Image, News, and Product search, too. This opens up new […]
Gerry Campbell was at Alta Vista and later spent several years in the search unit of AOL before joining Reuters as “President/Global Head of Search & Content Technologies.” Among other roles, he was an advisor to Summize, acquired last year by Twitter. And now Campbell has joined “real-time” search service Collecta as CEO. Collecta hasn’t […]
Google is announcing two changes to search results this morning. The first involves the use of longer “snippets” (text extracts containing the keywords) when users input queries of three words or more. The objective is to provide more context to help the user determine if the site is worth visiting. Many search engines have attempted […]
I recently came across a post explaining why Twitter isn’t great for SEO. This quote in particular really got to me: “In addition to being a nofollow vacuum, Twitter has the danger of becoming a linking vacuum. In the ideal scenario, people will find a link on Twitter and then link the post in their […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Talk about finding a silver lining in dark search clouds: In two recent interviews, Microsoft has talked up its third-place position in search engine market share as something that gives the company more freedom than Google to take risks. It started last week with a Bloomberg report quoting Steve Ballmer: “Google does have to be […]
Yahoo has named Elisa Steele as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer, effective today. Steele comes to Yahoo from NetApp, where she was the senior vice president of corporate marketing. Yahoo hasn’t had a CMO since 2007 when Cammie Dunaway left the company. Yahoo tells us that new CEO Carol Bartz recently decided to re-establish […]
There were a couple of stories over the weekend and today about the capture on Google StreetView of images of a naked toddler. Here’s the original UK newspaper report: The Independent on Sunday alerted the internet search giant after finding the image of the toddler, playing at a family summer picnic in a garden square […]
In a struggling economy, there is even greater competition among businesses for the almighty dollar. It is the epitome of the expression “survival of the fittest” when you see which businesses will close shop and which will find ways to succeed. What ultimately separates the two is the ability to see the opportunity in an […]
It seems like almost everyone in Big Business is looking for a bailout these days. That’s certainly true of several big brand media companies who, according to an AdAge article today, have told Google they deserve higher rankings in Google’s search results. Not only that, but one executive has also labeled the rest of the […]
TechCrunch has a guest article today about internet advertising that sounded interesting until I got to the part about search ads as “misdirection.” At that point, I realized the author apparently knows little about search advertising — and since that’s the bulk of online advertising sold, it put into serious question anything he had to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Does Google depend too much on data over design instinct? Yes, says former Googler Douglas Bowman, who posted a goodbye note to the company on his last day there today. From his post: Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out […]
Microsoft’s new browser IE 8 is now in general release. There are loads of features, which I won’t go into at length. Danny did a preliminary overview of the search and ad-related features of IE8 already, which I’m sure he’ll revisit at some point. And the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg offers a generally favorable […]
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.
Today in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the first day of Spring. The search engines, excluding Yahoo, have special logos for the day. Let me share them with you. Google’s logo was designed by Eric Carle: AOL has a Flash animated logo:
The Live Search blog posted a comprehensive guide on how to determine if your site is penalized in Live Search and if so, what actions you can take to remedy the issue. I’ll highlight some of the key points in this excellent blog post. Microsoft said, “most webmasters who get penalized know why it happened.” […]
You can get more than just links from social media. You can also get really great content. And one of the best places to find free content is on Flickr. There are tons of ways to use Flickr. If you can take a great photo, you can use Flickr to build inbound links and get […]
For over 10 years, I have been trying to convince my clients, colleagues, friends, family, and my 2 cats that SEO and website usability go hand in hand, that they are intricately related. And I have even chastised colleagues and clients for not considering users during the optimization process. I have seen many of my […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Ask around and you probably won’t find many people who think the idea of “Internet everywhere” is a bad thing. Thanks to laptops and smart phones, wi-fi and 3G, we can work (or play) at airports, check email during cab rides, and compare prices online from any department store. We can Google anyone or anything […]
Last month, Microsoft researchers from around the world showed off some of their most unique creations at the company’s TechFest 2009 event in Redmond. This month, a smaller group of Microsoft researchers took part in the 5th “Demo Fest” event — a smaller event that’s designed for researchers from adCenter Labs to show off their […]
The Yahoo Search Blog announced they have added additional filter options to Yahoo Image Search. You can now filter Yahoo Images by size, color, specific dimensions and even if it is from Flickr or not. For example, a search on grass allows you to click on “More filters.” When you click on it, these options […]
Sony, Google Challenge Amazo from the Wall Street Journal reports that Google is providing more than half-a-million public domain books to Sony, to offer on Sony’s digital book reader. Google Book Search has digitized millions of books and the partnership gives Sony users free access to these 500,000 public domain books in the Sony eBook […]
Google has released a bunch of new Street View images for cities in the UK and The Netherlands. Google Blogoscoped has a list of the UK cities. But you can just as easily drag “peg man” onto a UK or European map on Google and see the coverage. Recently Google added user photos to Street […]
Most books on search marketing focus on either the technical aspects of SEO or paid search, or on how to adapt traditional marketing strategies to the web. Web Design For ROI, by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus, is unique in its sharp focus on making your web site accomplish what should be its primary goal: […]
The term “online visibility” usually refers to the visibility of sites on the web. This column will discuss the online visibility of small and medium businesses (SMBs) and why it is harder to define, identify and measure SMB presence than web site visibility. Web site visibility consists of several relatively easy to measure features such […]
Back when Terry Semel ran Yahoo, the web portal embarked on a grand Hollywood-style video strategy that was abandoned after Semel stepped down. Now, with another change in CEOs, Yahoo is again reversing course and rolling out a new approach to web video. Carol Bartz is taking over from co-founder Jerry Yang, and among her first […]
Newssift, a semantic business news search engine created by The Financial Times, has launched in beta tonight. Currently indexing thousands of news sources worldwide, and with millions of articles in its database, Newssift aims to bring context and meaning that its creators say is missing from traditional keyword-based business news search engines. “We want to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Although it’s rarely discussed, a huge part of an in-house search marketer’s job is setting priorities on work items. In an even broader sense, this role expands out to encompass staffing, budgeting, content planning, infrastructure management and more. But fundamentally, setting priorities is a crucial part of assuring your internal search marketing activities are successful. And […]
Did you Twitter something embarrassing? Don’t think deleting your tweet or locking your Twitter feed means what you said goes away. Twitter Search still makes it available, which one job applicant may have found to their loss. Hutch Carpenter covers how one Twitter user named TheConnor said on Twitter that Cisco offered them a job. […]
Google’s Matt Cutts posted a recent video answering a question about the position of the keywords in the URL. The question asked, does the order of the words in the URL make an impact on one’s ranking at Google? Matt Cutts said one should not obsess about the order of the words but he said […]
Yet another privacy complaint has been filed against Google with the FTC, this time by the Electronic Privacy Information Center over Google’s cloud computing services and related privacy and data security issues. While Google is the named party, the company is basically the stand-in for “the cloud” as a whole. (If you want to read […]
Most B2B marketers associate search marketing programs with lead generation and customer acquisition efforts. However, search marketing can play a surprisingly effective role in ongoing customer engagement and retention. Here are 4 specific recommendations. 1. Examine searcher behavior Do you thoroughly understand how people are searching for your brand, products and services? Over time, search […]
Approximately five days after Tim Armstrong left Google for AOL, Google has filled his position. paidContent.org reports Dennis Woodside is the successor and will be the new VP-Americas Operations at Google. Woodside, a Googler for five years, was most recently Google’s Vice President for the UK, Ireland and Benelux. He will be transitioning into his […]