As Google has grappled with newspapers firing rip-off accusations at them, one of the key responses has been from Google’s Marissa Mayer. A move to “living URLs” would drive them more traffic, she’s said, talking about it twice this past month. But such a system won’t work unless Google News fundamentally changes how it handles […]
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 Still No. 1 Search Engine On Earth; Search Activity Way Up, comScore Says Search activity around the world jumped 41 percent between July 2008 and July 2009, and Google remains […]
Search activity around the world jumped 41 percent between July 2008 and July 2009, and Google remains the most popular search engine with 67.5% global market share. Those are some of the stats that comScore shared today about the global search market. According to comScore, Google is not only No. 1 around the world, but […]
In five weeks, our SMX East search marketing conference arrives in New York City from Oct. 5-7. The show features four to five tracks of sessions spread across three days and covers all aspects of search marketing. Below is a personal tour from me on what attendees can expect. Our SMX Advanced conference that sells […]
Ten days ago, we reported that Antonio Gulli left Ask.com after 4 years heading up their technology team in the European R&D center. Gulli announced his new plans are to continue in search, but switch ships and work for Microsoft Bing. Gulli said he will be “leading all the engineering development for UX and verticals […]
TechCrunch reports Microsoft is continuing with the Bing TV commercials but this time promoting the Cashback program. Most recently, Bing doubled the Cashback rewards to drive more awareness to the program. That double reward increase was so successful on some sites that Microsoft had to pull the program four days early. Maybe TV commercials end […]
Choosing the analytics tool you will use to track what’s happening on your web site can be a time-consuming, expensive, and incredibly frustrating experience. There are a number of good candidates to choose from and each touts an impressive feature set that promises to significantly improve everything about your web site. But while there’s a […]
Not long ago “computational engine” Wolfram Alpha struck a deal with Microsoft to license some of its data to Bing. Now, according to the Guardian UK, Wolfram is going wide with that strategy and will soon enable an API that third parties can use to create mashups or enhance their sites. This may be a […]
Read the search marketing press today and you’ll find abundant information on the importance of bid management strategies, as well as tools to maximize campaign ROI. However, as anybody who’s managed a search campaign recently knows, bid levels are only part of the equation. Effective search marketers know that search engines are looking to maximize […]
The NY Times offers an extensive and flattering profile of the former Yahoo EVP Qi Lu who, in January, 2009 was named president of online services for Microsoft. Lu was deemed an unlikely appointment by some given his background not as a business and advertising executive but rather as an engineer. However, he was apparently instrumental […]
The delay between clicks and orders can often make test results appear artificially bad or good in the early stages. This post defines two different approaches for more accurately gauging the effectiveness of tests.
In my last article, “Matching Local Advertising to Consumer Intent,” I encouraged local advertisers to consider the intent of the consumers that they wanted to reach with their advertising distribution sources. The same idea can be applied to mobile, including the types of advertising that best fits your desired action (i.e. an enticement for an […]
Google’s August 29th logo notes Michael Jackson’s birthday. Google has commemorated birthdays of many famous people and events, such as Luciano Pavarotti, Lego, and Dr. Seuss.
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 Adds Products, Businesses, Events, Discussions & News To SearchMonkey The Yahoo Search Blog announced the expansion of the SearchMonkey platform to not only include richer search results for categories such […]
The Yahoo Search Blog announced the expansion of the SearchMonkey platform to not only include richer search results for categories such as Video, Documents, and Games but now also in the categories of Products, Local Businesses, Event, Discussions, or News. Here are some example search results that show off some of these features: We have […]
No discussion of social media’s effect on organic search results is complete without considering Facebook’s well-laid play for “search” domination, in a closed-loop-members-only end run around Google’s public algorithmic crawl. With 250 million users, the recent purchase of friendFeed and newly offered ability to search at macro and/or granular users’ network levels, Facebook’s internal community-search […]
At the end of next month, September 30, Google will expand the current “developer preview” of Google Wave to roughly 100,000 consumer users. According to Google, “included in this group of early testers will be some of the businesses using Google Apps.” In anticipation of this wider release, Danny and I got some time with Lars Rasmussen […]
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.
The Google AdWords API announced the new beta version of the AdWords API, i.e. API v2009, is available for all advertisers to give a try. Google first released the beta just about two months ago, as a limited beta. Now, any advertiser can sign up at this page. Note, there are significant changes and improvements […]
A few years ago, I never would have been thinking about what Paid search wasn’t good for. Clicks were cheap, ROI was through the roof, and I was one of the biggest Paid Search evangelists out there. I attended an American Association of Advertising Agencies conference in 2007 where there was a session touting “And, […]
When do web searchers have commercial intent? What types of search queries do they try before actually making a purchase?
If it sometimes seems that there’s no rhyme or reason to the various tools and products Google adds to its properties, this one will change your mind a bit: Google has (finally, some would say) brought together its local business listings with Street View inside of Google Maps. As the announcement explains, when looking for […]
Google’s Marissa Mayer tweeted about Google’s official ASCII logo. The neat and geeky part is that the way you can see this Google ASCII logo is by searching in google for [ascii art]. Give it a try, and you will see the logo at the top left of the search box, that looks like this: […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Debunking The Italian Newspapers’ Antitrust Allegations Against Google May it please the Italian court. Google does not ban newspapers that opt-out of Google News from being in Google at all, as […]
May it please the Italian court. Google does not ban newspapers that opt-out of Google News from being in Google at all, as a new complaint from Italian publishers alleges. It’s not actually a court that’s going to ponder this allegation. It’s Italy’s AGCM, which appears to be akin the the US Federal Trade Commission, […]
Those with BT broadband in the UK have noticed that the Yahoo/BT portal at bt.yahoo.com has a new search technology provider. You would guess that if Yahoo would replace their own search technology, it would be in exchange for Bing, in light of the recent news about the Bing & Yahoo deal. You would be […]
Google launched Google Health back in February 2008. Today, Google is integrating Google Health content into the search results via the classic OneBox section of the page. You should be able to see the Google Health OneBox for medical related searches, such as for [asthma] or [diabetes]. Here is a screen capture of the OneBox […]
A fire has broken out at Google’s UK headquarters in Victoria, south west London. The fire appears to have been started on the rooftop, possibly due to the barbecue that is used there. Right now, it appears the fire is under control and that no one was hurt. The 6 floor building has been evacuated […]
The Google Mobile blog announced that Arabic and Hebrew mobile searchers are now able to see universal results directly on their mobile devices. Although not related, this comes soon after Google Translated recently added 9 new languages. I know a bit of Hebrew, so I tried to test out the search results on Google Israel […]
A reader emailed us a screen capture of Google testing a new form of display product results in the AdWords listings. This is the third significant test of how the product data is shown in the search ads. We have the way most people see Google AdWords product plusbox and some more recent quick link […]
The NY Times blogs about an interesting lawsuit between online mortgage lead generator LendingTree and one of its partners Mortech, Inc., which is allegedly about to help Google launch a LendingTree-like loan aggregation or mortgage lead-gen service. According to a press release issued yesterday about the litigation by LendingTree: Mortech, whose technology helps automate lender offer pricing, […]
The handful of SEM companies that we work with at Palore make millions of calls to Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) every year. This raises the question of whether the market for SMB online advertising is saturated, and how much room there is for growth. A good (albeit somewhat simplistic) way of answering that question […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Continues With Fake Referrers: What Part Of Stop Don’t They Understand? For over two years now, Microsoft’s search engine has been generating fake information that can make site owners think […]
The beauty of online marketing is that every step in the click path is visible. A searcher clicks on an ad, lands on a merchant’s site and navigates to purchase—all of which can be viewed and analyzed. This process is often referred to as multiple metric optimization. However, this term is often misused so it […]
People have been searching for the Loch Ness Monster for decades, using all kinds of scientific gear in and around Loch Ness in Scotland to see if the creature is real or fake. Is it possible they just needed to search Google Earth, instead? (Probably not, but play along with me on this.) Jason Cooke […]
We’re finalizing the speaker lineup for SMX East, and there are still a few openings. We’re particularly interested in hearing from you if you can speak knowledgeably on the following topics:
All landing page tests are not created equal. What you test on your pages—and what you learn from those tests—can better inform tactics and strategies throughout your entire marketing program. Here are four kinds of landing page tests that can help you learn about your market. Beware butterflies and magic bullets How much can you […]
Collecta, the real-time search engine that launched in June, has announced a set of upgrades to its site today. The most noteworthy is the addition of a social sharing/bookmarking tool that lets users share or save a Collecta search on any of six social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon. Collecta has also modified […]
Search and online marking firm 360i published findings from a small but structured test of how the “Caffeine” search infrastructure changes could affect results and ranking on Google. As Vanessa Fox wrote when Caffeine went public earlier this month, there apparently would be a number of changes in the ordering and content of results. As […]
For over two years now, Microsoft’s search engine has been generating fake information that can make site owners think they’re getting strange search traffic (including porn traffic), when they are not. It’s time for this to come to an end. The culprit? Microsoft’s “crawler,” the software that visits web pages across the web that go […]