More from Search Engine Land: Page 4

Google Maps

Create Custom Driving Directions With Google Maps Maker

The Google LatLong Blog announced that you can now create your own custom driving directions in Google Map Maker. This comes in handy when Google Maps is missing roads, is mistaken on directions or if you want to make up a better route to get to your destination. Typically, I would take you through a […]

Google

Hitwise: Visits To Gmail Surpass YouTube

Hitwise reported that “for the past two weeks, the market share of US Internet visits to Gmail has been higher than visits to YouTube.” Accordingly, the measurement firm says that Gmail is now second only to Google.com in terms of visits among Google’s properties. Gmail has recently had a number of problems, with several outages […]

Apple

Kosmix Launches MeeHive Personalized News

MeeHive, a personalized service that scans more than 5,000 news sources and 5 million blogs to bring you fresh news and information based on your interests, launches today. MeeHive organizes information “relevant to a person rather than a topic,” with “fundamentally time-changing information,” said Kosmix co-founder Venky Harinarayan. The service is very easy to use. […]

Content

A Moving Target: Are Mobile Devices Costing You Business?

There are multiple parties involved in the B2B purchase decision. While several parties have the ability to influence the purchase decision (e.g., purchasing personnel), those with the ability to make the decision are typically very busy, often spending significant time on the road, in airports, in meetings. They may not be tethered to their laptop, […]

Google Ads

Google Gets Into Behavioral Targeting, Launches “Interest-Based Advertising” Beta

Google today is launching a form of behavioral targeting advertising named Interest-Based Advertising. Interest-Based Advertising allows advertisers to deliver ads based on hundreds of interest categories and previous interactions with those users. The beta is opening to select advertisers at first but will be expanded in the upcoming months. Brad Bender, Google’s Product Manager in […]

Content

Yahoo Remains Big In Japan (& Beating Google)

While stats out from Hitwise today show Google still reigns supreme in the United States, in Japan, it’s a different story. Yahoo remains the top search engine there, the latest stats from comScore show, and it’s growing faster than Google. comScore reports Yahoo is still leading, in a major way, in Japan. Yahoo holds over […]

SEO

Want To Speak At SMX London? Let Us Know!

I’m now accepting speaking proposals for SMX London. We’ve moved the conference dates to May 18 and 19, the perfect time to be in London, especially at our venue, the New Connaught Rooms in the heart of London at Covent Garden. Please note that the agenda for the show is final, and I will only […]

Apple

Wolfram Alpha To Challenge Google?

Better Search Doesn’t Mean Beating Google from Saul Hansell at the New York Times does an excellent job breaking down the latest Google threat, or lack there of. A secret search engine named Wolfram Alpha is being designed now by Stephen Wolfram, a British mathematician. Wolfram Alpha differs from Google in that it hopes to […]

PPC

SEMPO Report Cuts Search Ads Forecast

SEMPO’s new report, due to be released this week, cuts its forecast for search advertising. The results are based on a survey of almost 900 agencies and search marketers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the report scales back previous growth projections considerably: [SEMPO] says North American search marketing spending will increase only 9% to […]

Link building

A Link Building Stimulus Plan

With the economy the way it is, we’re getting a lot of inquires from people asking for package programs. They’re willing to cut back on the number of link building techniques they contract for, but not the quality of the links secured. Because of the volume of requests we were getting, I decided to look for a way to trim a couple […]

Paid social

How To Use Social Proof For Social Content Promotion

You’ve heard it before, “Content is king”, but is it really? When it comes to promoting content in social media, content is not what’s solely going to drive popularity to your campaign. Content is still a very important factor, especially if you are using a resource hook to drive traffic and links. I’ll wait for […]

SEO

Former Yahoo Engineer Charged As Alleged Terrorist In India

Barron’s Online reports a former Yahoo engineer has been put in custody for allegedly being the “media chief” of the Indian Mujahideen, a terror group. Indian Mujahideen is charged with the September 2008 bombings in Delhi. The ex-Yahoo’s name is Mohammed Peerbhoy and he was sending IM warning just before the bombings. It also says […]

Google

California Lawmaker Jumps On ‘Google Maps Helps Terrorists’ Bandwagon

A California lawmaker has introduced a bill that would limit what Google Maps and other online mapping sites are allowed to show, on the basis that these online tools help terrorists plan attacks. We’ve been here before: Late last year, the Indian government suggested that Google Earth should be censored after terrorists involved in the […]

Google Analytics

Paid Search Automation: Choosing A Vendor

In the previous two columns, I covered questionable assumptions and inconvenient truths related to bid management automation in paid search. With all those reservations and concerns out of the way, if you’re in the market for a solution vendor, you still have to form a relationship with one that meets your needs. Let’s look at […]

Google

Google Docs Bug Shares Your Documents Without Permission

Over the weekend a confirmed Google Docs bug may have shared your private Google Documents with others, without your permission. Google said this “affected less than 0.05% of all documents.” What exactly happened? “The inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom the document owner, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a […]

Google

California State Legislator Wants To Limit Info On Maps To Block Terrorists

Citing the Mumbai terrorists’ statement that they used Google Maps as a planning tool, a California legislator (from El Cajon) has introduced a bill which would “not allow online mapping tools from companies like Google Inc. to provide aerial or satellite images of schools, places of worship, government buildings and medical facilities unless they have […]

LinkedIn

Harness The Power Of Twitter For Local Marketing

The Twitter social networking and micro-blogging service was launched only two years ago, but it’s rocketing up in usage numbers quickly, and it seems likely to turn red-hot. Many companies are rapidly cluing into the promotional value, but smaller businesses appear slow to hop on the bandwagon. Here are a few tips on leveraging Twitter to […]

SEO

How We Manage SEM Budgets (And Expectations) At Yahoo

If you’re like me, you spent most of Q4 last year planning out SEM budgets for 2009. Perhaps you even changed your entire SEM strategy from last year to this year due to the economic downturn, and now you’re optimizing to different metrics. Planning meant accounting for seasonality, negotiating with different groups around the organization […]

PPC

Importance Of SEO Makes Front Page Of Los Angeles Times

What a nice surprise to see on the front page of the Los Angeles Times today a story that features how important SEO is to web sites. It’s Web 101 for this experienced intern covers how a former magazine editor, Lois Draegin, has entered a new life of online editing after losing her job with […]

Google Maps

Google Maps Allows Third Parties To “Close” Local Businesses

Google has allowed the community to edit Maps listings for some time. That capability has not been generally abused although there have been some persistent issues with mapspam. Today Barry posted at SEO Roundtable that anyone could go in and request that a business listing be permanently removed because the location was, allegedly, permanently closed: […]

Bing

Microsoft Cashback Comes to the MSN Toolbar

Although I don’t personally use it I’m a fan of Microsoft’s Cashback. That sounds like a contradiction I know. But I thought it was a very clever consumer-advertiser proposition when it launched in May of last year. It gives advertisers a way to stand out in search results* (and only pay if there’s a sale) […]

Google

AdSense Publisher Sues Google And Wins

Why I Sued Google (and Won) from the Huffington Post has a story about an AdSense publisher who sued Google and actually won. I have seen the beginning of the story hundreds of times in forum threads, emails and via Twitter. Google terminated the publisher’s AdSense account because of “posing a significant risk to advertisers.” […]

Paid social

Search and Trends On Twitter Begins Showing Up

We recently reported Twitter started testing search and trends directly in their top navigation bar. Now, many Twitter users (not myself) are noticing the new search bar and trends tab. Here is a picture of the new search and trends tab that many users are now noticing at Twitter. If you prefer Google, you can […]

Content

Is Google Rewiring Our Brains?

Some time ago, I wrote an article called “Are Our Brains Becoming Googlized?” It became my most read Search Engine Land post ever. Apparently I wasn’t the only one fascinated by the prospect of wholesale rewiring of our brains through exposure to technology. UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior is one of the […]

Ecommerce

Google Touts Wisdom Of Crowds For Financial Help

Talk about irony: Although we’re living through a financial crisis that we created ourselves, Google is touting the so-called “wisdom of the crowds” to offer financial help. That’s the premise behind today’s announcement of TipJar. TipJar is sorta like Yahoo Answers, only without the questions. It’s people submitting answers to the question, How can I […]

Content

Why Do Lawyers From Utah Hate Search Ads?

Eric Goldman reports that Utah, for the third time, is trying to regulate keyword advertising by proposing new law. The first two times they failed, but they are hoping the third time will be a charm. This revised law proposal, HB 450, is trying to prevent registered marks as triggers for keyword advertising but specifically […]

Apple

Inquisitor Debuts On iPhone

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that my favorite search browser plugin, Inquisitor has made its way to the iPhone. You can get it right now on your iPhone in the iTunes Store for free by clicking here. The features include: Yahoo Search Assist search suggestions View search results in one click, within the application Site […]

Content

Search As Television’s Savior?

Nielsen Research came out with interesting statistics on overall video consumption last week indicating that total TV consumption reached record levels when considering traditional broadcast video, time shifted video, web video and mobile video. This seems to fly in the face of the predictions that online video is cannibalizing the traditional business model. The web […]

SEO

Having A Crawlable Site Architecture Still Matters

Over the past few years, all of the search engines have made tremendous strides in trying to discover different parts of the web, find deep content and understand complex URL structures better. The first big stride came when each of the search engines adopted the XML Sitemap protocol. Website owners now had the ability to […]

Google

Google Health Makes It Easier To Share Medical Records

Google Health has taken a step forward in utility with the launch today of two new tools to help users share their medical information with trusted friends, family members, or medical providers. First, “Share This Profile” is an email-based tool that lets you give someone else online access to a Google Health profile. Privacy and […]

Google Ads

Google Testing (Annoying) Expandable Ads

In a dual-barrel announcement, Google is introducing “expandable ads” to its AdSense and AdWords programs. Expandable ads are those annoying banners/graphics that expand and cover up the actual page content, as shown in this Google example: To Google’s credit, these ads will score somewhat lower on the annoyance meter than similar ads from other systems […]

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