AT&T which has publicly advocated on behalf of relatively stringent rules and opt-in requirements around behavioral targeting (BT) appears to have been working with BT firm Audience Science (formerly Revenue Science). Wendy Davis at MediaPost has written two related stories on the issue. Here’s her summary of the apparent contradiction between AT&T’s public position and […]
Over the weekend, there seemed to be a lot of activity on people coming and going at search companies. I figured I sum up some of those moves in a short post here. Former Googler Douglas Bowman, who resigned from Google due to Google being too data centric has taken a job at Twitter, according […]
The focus of the paid search world, if you measure it by tweets, blog posts and conference sessions, has turned squarely to Google’s AdWords Quality Score over the past few months. Google first introduced Quality Score years ago, but changes they rolled out in August of 2008 recently increased visibility of the score in the […]
Publishing many web sites can be a very challenging process. There are times when organizations have a larger main site and decide to operate one or more smaller sites (aka microsites) as well. Other organizations publish a number of microsites without having a larger site at all. Whether publishing microsites are in violation of the […]
After covering search for 13 years, I’m more than a little jaded. I’ve seen any number of search start-ups promise to revolutionize how we search. None of them have in the huge way they’ve promised, other than Google — and it’s a special case. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been watching Wolfram Alpha walk […]
A search for swine flu at Yahoo returns two indented results under the main results. As far as I know, Yahoo has only shown a single indented results under the main result. I am not sure if this is some type of bug or if Yahoo has decided to show more results from the same […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Knowing where a searcher is when s/he conducts a search is one of the big promises and opportunities in mobile search. Advertisers want the precise targeting, and it’s also a convenience for the user who doesn’t need to indicate a location when looking for products and services. There are already several tools and services that […]
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.
Yesterday Microsoft announced earnings. Though the company had $13.65 billion in revenue, it saw its first YoY revenue decline since becoming a public company. The bruising headline is: Microsoft Profit Falls for First Time in 23 Years. Below are two charts of interest, the first showing division revenues and the second focused on online business […]
Yelp has partly been successful because it was so focused on the consumer. Other competing local sites, such as Cox’s Kudzu or most of the internet yellow pages sites, among others, have for a long time tried to strike more balance between businesses and consumers. For example, they have allowed business owners to respond or […]
I’ve been exploring and researching the relationship between computers and people. More specifically, I’m fascinated by web sites and how, or if, they affect us emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. As a web site designer, what special power do you hold in your artistic hands? As a blogger, what kind of reaction are you seeking […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google has upgraded product search for mobile, on Android and iPhone devices, to allow users to get price, product specs and reviews information on their handsets. Google posted about it here. Users can either navigate directly to Google Shopping on their smartphone handsets (under the “more” pull-down) and enter a query or do the same […]
The Site Visibility blog noticed Google has updated their keyword suggestion tool to show local search volume in addition to global search volume. As you can see from the screen capture below, there are two columns, one for local and one for global. The local column shows search volume data “specific to your targeted country […]
The Google AdSense blog announced they are testing a new beta feature that gives publishers control over the ads they can filter. This filter allows advertisers to pick specific categories of ads that they want to block. For example, if you have a site about education and you specifically do not want to show any […]
Last month, I moderated a fantastic session at Searchfest ’09 subtitled “Little Is the New Big.” But had our conference taken place on April 10 rather than March 10, even that ambitious tagline wouldn’t have done the panel justice. That’s because two weeks ago, Google decided to start showing 10-packs and other local results (including […]
I’ve previously discussed why rankings are a poor measure of success, but only touched upon how to instead use web analytics to measure SEO success. My hope is that once you have a good grasp of what to review and how to use that info, you’ll be more inclined to wean yourself (and your clients) […]
Online video is quickly becoming a dominant medium that is necessary for survival in the online world. The 2009 NCAA Championship was a televised, “must-see” event that captured an enormous audience last March. It was a highly anticipated event that began with detailed and well-thought out brackets among friends and colleagues. This event was one […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Seems like Google is having difficulty keeping the Google News servers up. If you try Google News right now (at the time I am writing this), you will notice that it is returning a 503 server error. Here is a screen capture: People on Twitter are Tweeting about it right now as well. The first […]
Google Analytics announced the public availability of the new Google Analytics API. The API gives developers, webmasters, and SEMs the ability to pull data from Google Analytics to use as they wish. Clearly this can be useful for SEMs who want to integrate analytics data with their SEM systems, plus developers or webmasters who have […]
Happy Earth Day everyone! Like last year we wanted to post a collection of the logos created by the search engines for today. Here they are: For the animated versions of Yahoo and AOL’s logo, see my post at the Search Engine Roundtable and for past years, see 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.
Google Video has updated the search results design and interface recently. The new design shows search results along the left hand column and the selected video on the right hand side. The video on the right hand side expands and contracts based on the size of your browser window. It also displays the video’s title, […]
Yesterday on the Yahoo Q1 earnings call, CEO Carol Bartz sent a mixed message of sorts. She said at the outset that Yahoo was going to focus on key areas of the business and was open to “outsourcing” some functions if that made sense. Like me, many people listening must have immediately thought “search.” But […]
The core problem of link building - assuming you've maximized your site's linkability - is not prospecting for sites that may potentially link to yours. The problem lies in rapidly identifying - within 1,000+++ lists the link prospects whose links will provide the fastest and largest impact on your search marketing goals... We wrote this article - and created a free, downloadable worksheet - to enable motivated link builders to quickly identify the most relevant, valuable and likely-to-link prospects from thousands of potential link targets.
For many B2B marketers, social media is still a bridge too far. Because it’s a broad concept—there are so many different ways to use social media—its amorphous nature can impede implementation. But a good way to get beyond this obstacle and jumpstart your social media efforts is to start small and aim to get some […]
As expected, Yahoo earnings were down, about 13 percent YoY. According to the earnings press release: Yahoo! Inc. today reported revenues of $1,580 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, a decrease of 13 percent from the first quarter of 2008. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, revenues for the first quarter of […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Ever searched for yourself on Google and come away dissatisfied, especially if someone else you share a name with seems to dominate the results? Ever looked for someone else and been disappointed that you couldn’t find the person you wanted? Google’s new “Profile Results” launching today aim to correct both problems. Since the end of […]
paidContent reports Microsoft has registered a new trademark for the term, “Sift.” The trademark filing describes the name as: Operating system software for mobile phones; computer search engine software; computer programs for searching email, text messages, address and contact information It was filed on January 9th and can possibly be used as the mobile search […]
paidContent reports South Korean officials are not happy with how Google skirted around their law to continue to allow YouTube to operate in Korea by simply turning off video comments and upload ability in that country. South Korea passed a new law requiring sites with 100,000 unique visitors per day to require users to provide […]
Gomez, Inc. and dotMobi have joined together to rate mobile sites across several verticals according to how well they perform on the mobile internet. The criteria and ranking methodology used included the following benchmarks: Discoverability – how readily a consumer can find the mobile Web site using different URLs. Readiness – how well the mobile […]
The American healthcare system is very broken, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others. Health insurance carriers and providers hold almost all the cards. However the internet has gone a long way to arm consumers with information and help them become more sophisticated about their conditions and treatment options. And while the […]
Gmail and Google Maps are two of Google’s hottest properties, while YouTube and Google Image Search are falling on the list of the most popular Google properties. That’s according to Hitwise data that tracked U.S. visits to Google sites during the month of March: Gmail is the big winner here, surpassing YouTube as the number […]
Is link building becoming harder as brand identities become more blurred on social media sites? Go search for a big brand on Facebook and try, in less than 5 seconds, to correctly identify the official brand page. Try to determine whether a Twitterer is the “real” one you want to follow. It’s not that simple […]
Google is almost uniquely situated among tech companies in that it can reveal very little about an event or announcement and be all but guaranteed that most of the journalists and bloggers on the tech beat in Northern California will show up to cover it. That’s what happened today. Google brought bloggers and journalists into […]
When I speak to lead generation marketers at conferences and shows, the first thing I tell them is to get beyond a Cost Per Lead (CPL) metric and to tie their closed deals back to the lead and back to the ads that produced the lead. Once they’re able to do this, they can then […]
In addition to the new similar image search, Google has also announced the addition of Google News Timeline as a Google Labs experimental service. Google News Timeline is what it sounds like — a tool that lets you see news coverage over a period of time. A search for “somali pirates” showing weekly coverage looks […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.