Google recently announced that a massive operations overhaul is in the works. “Caffeine,” as it’s known internally, is described by Google’s Matt Cutts as primarily driven by “under the hood” changes to improve Google’s indexing technology, allowing the engine to be more flexible and efficient in the way it collects pages. He went on to […]
As expected, the US Department Of Justice today has filed a list of objections and modifications it would like seen made in the proposed settlement to the Google Book Search lawsuit. It’s not saying that the settlement should go back to square one. In fact, it suggests that “momentum” potentially could be lost to improve […]
Google’s search results change regularly, but with the impending rollout of Google Caffeine, there’s a lot of people wondering if that’s what the changes are. Google’s Matt Cutts told us today that Caffeine has not yet been rolled into the main Google.com search results. Twitter has seen its share of questions about the Caffeine rollout: […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook’s Focus Is Friend Search; Bing ‘Sort Of’ Adds Value When it comes to search, Facebook’s focus was, is, and apparently always will be on the idea of “friend search.” That’s […]
Next Tuesday, September 22 at 1 PM Eastern, Alissa Ruehl will be the featured speaker on the Search Marketing Now webcast “PPC: Not Just About the Numbers.” Alissa will talk about the qualitative side of PPC campaign optimization—why human insights are every bit as important as the algorithms and machine-driven processes that are part of […]
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.
When it comes to search, Facebook’s focus was, is, and apparently always will be on the idea of “friend search.” That’s the main conclusion you draw from reading paidContent’s interview with Akhil Wable, the man leading Facebook’s search product. Friend search is becoming a core part of the social web experience, and it’s an area […]
The Google News blog announced that they have begun labeling some sites, sites they consider to be a “blog” as blogs in the Google News search results. For example, here is a snap shot of how Google labels this site in Google News. How does Google determine which site is a blog versus a newspaper? […]
For all its faults, Wikipedia has a lot to teach us about usability. Here are three things that Wikipedia does right that I think websites should emulate to better engage users, boost time on site, and hopefully lead to more conversions. Summary sections Wikipedia offers summaries at the top of its feature-length articles. While I […]
Friday could be an important day in the ongoing battle over the Google Book Search settlement. According to the Wall Street Journal, the US Department of Justice is expected to announce its concerns over the proposed $125 million settlement of the lawsuit over Google’s scanning of copyrighted books and making them available online. The DOJ […]
DoubleClick’s advertising exchange has been in the works since at least 2007 and before Google acquired the company. But this morning Google is formally announcing the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which reflects a milestone of technology and platform integration between Google and its DoubleClick unit. Google sees this an an opportunity to attract more display and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Schmidt: Someday, AdSense Publishers May Know Google’s Cut Of Ad Revenues How much money does Google keep back for itself from the AdSense ads it places on third party sites across […]
How much money does Google keep back for itself from the AdSense ads it places on third party sites across the web? Right now, most publishers don’t know. But that might change in the future, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. AdSense is largely a black box for publishers. They agree to carry ads from Google. […]
According to a post on the Bing Community blog, Bing should be your first stop for Emmy updates, starting now, leading up to the broadcast on Sunday, September 20th on CBS. A query on Bing for “Emmy Awards” and searches related to the Emmys will produce an Instant Answer result like this: For now, you’ll […]
I noticed this morning that Yahoo has added a new feature named “Top Queries” to Site Explorer. I have not seen any announcement from Yahoo on this addition, but it seems pretty new. The tool shows you the top ten queries by day, week or month. It also shows you your top ten URLs by […]
There is a new greasemonkey script made for Firefox that allows you to pick any past Google Doodle and make it permanent. The script can be located over here and like I said, requires Firefox and having Greasemonkey installed. Once you install the script, you should go to Google.com and see the Google Lego logo. […]
The Rimm-Kaufman Group reports eBay has quietly dropped Yahoo in place of Google to power the paid search ads on eBay. Mark explained that over the past several months, eBay has been testing Google ads on about 1% of the ads shown on eBay. On August 26th, he said, eBay “flipped the switch” and began […]
It may have a search box and look like a video search engine but Clicker is not according to CEO and co-founder Jim Lanzone. In a way this may seem like a strange position to take given that Lanzone was the very partisan CEO of search engine Ask. But while Clicker does index video it […]
Organic links – the ones that just happen are typically driven by things like public relations, brand awareness, unique content, existing exposure, and social networking. In competitive markets, some aspects of the evolving SEO field should be baked into the core of the company’s DNA. When you get interviewed, you have to know to ask […]
eMarketer recently published an article titled The Online Video Advertising Picture Clears Up which forecasts that online video advertising will represent 4.3% of online spend and 1.6% of television advertising spend this year, growing to 11% and 5.5% respectively by 2013. While these figures seem small, to achieve them requires 30% to 40% annual growth, […]
Is it possible that, say a couple years from now, you might visit Yahoo.com and its Bing-powered search engine, but actually search Google, instead? It seems so. PaidContent reports on Yahoo’s appearance Wednesday at the 2009 Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, where Burke Colligan, a senior director for Yahoo Front Doors — the company’s user experience […]
As the proposed Google Book Search lawsuit settlement is debated, I’ve read calls from various critics that everything should go back to “square one” for a solution. Would Google be willing to do this? Google CEO Eric Schmidt says he’s open to ideas, but none of the critics are putting forward new solutions that would […]
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 Lets You Tell Them Which URL Parameters To Ignore A new feature has appeared in the Site Configuration Settings Sections of Google Webmaster Tools. The setting, called Parameter Handling, enables […]
A new feature has appeared in the Site Configuration Settings Sections of Google Webmaster Tools. The setting, called Parameter Handling, enables site owners to specify up to 15 parameters that Google should ignore when crawling and indexing the site. Google lists the parameters they’ve found in the URLs on your site, and indicates whether or […]
The goal here today is not to cover every single point in an internal SEO plan, but to provide you a reasonable framework to work from. Using these points and fine tuning to your unique situation, will help you create a detailed plan which will be successful. Domain expertise No program will function without domain […]
The big news is that Google has officially acquired reCAPTCHA. reCAPTCHA are those funny looking letters you see when you fill out forms, asking you to enter in the letters into a box, in order for you to validate that you are indeed a human. Why did Google buy them? Not for the CAPTCHA feature, […]
Matt Cutts of Google has blogged that Google is willing to hire Yahoo Search engineers. Matt said, “if you’re an excellent Yahoo engineer with solid experience in search, Google is hiring.” Clearly, since the Microsoft & Yahoo deal, engineers at Yahoo might be a bit concerned about their job stability. Ask.com ran a funny poaching […]
Startup RedBeacon, a self-described “Open Table for service businesses,” has won TechCrunch 50’s top prize and $50,000. I wasn’t at TC50 but I watched the demo pitch on video. RedBeacon is the just the latest startup to take aim at the massive local services segment. The demo was elegant and the theory behind the site […]
I often write about what you can do to protect your brands when it comes to the major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing. But did you know that the second most popular search engine today is YouTube? (according to Hitwise, ranking ahead of Yahoo search). You can buy self-service advertising on YouTube through its […]
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 Fast Flip – Google’s Newspaper & Magazine Reader Goes Live The previously rumored Google news site “Flipper” is in fact launching today as “Fast Flip” in Google Labs. But maybe […]
Aardvark, which can be described variously as a “social search engine, “help engine” or “answer community,” has launched an iPhone app. It was many months in the making according to co-founder Max Ventilla. And with it, Aardvark arrives on what may be its breakthrough platform, helping to introduce the service to the mainstream — or […]
uTest released a study they named “Battle of the Search Engines” which measured the relevancy of Google, Yahoo, and Bing based on “search results accuracy, page load speed, real-time relevance and usability.” The report found that there were over 600 “bugs” found in the test. By “bug” I believe they mean links that lead to […]
When you’ve spent a lot of time and money fine-tuning content, coming up with the best headline and description and sprucing up imagery and design, the last thing you want to do is promote content at an off-time when few people are listening. A big challenge with social media is to break through the information […]
If you follow me here or on the Link Spiel, you know I am a loyal fan and staunch supporter of using directories to secure links. After reading last week’s Elephant in the Link Building Living Room, I wanted to present a different point-of-view as I don’t feel the directory industry or the link builders using […]
When optimizing for a European audience there are a lot of thinks to take in account. There are numerous languages which you have to optimize for, but a major aspect is also the cultural one.
Currently, most Google search properties that are currently in a time zone that is September 15th, such as Google UK, are sporting a special Google Doodle that links to a search result for crop circles. It seems likely this logo will appear in the US soon. The logo shows a flying saucer above a series […]
No one reading Search Engine Land should be surprised to hear stories about Google’s dominance of the search landscape. But the degree to which Google dominates in some areas is sure to make you raise an eyebrow. Consider India and Brazil, two growing Internet markets. ComScore released some stunning numbers about what’s happening in those […]
The latest search engine stats from Nielsen bring good news for Bing, which now has more than 10% market share for the first time in … well, longer than I can remember. Nielsen says Bing captured 10.7% of all searches in August, up from 9.0% in July. Based on that jump, Nielsen says Bing is […]
The previously rumored Google news site “Flipper” is in fact launching today as “Fast Flip” in Google Labs. But maybe it should be called Google Skimmer because it permits people to move very quickly through lots of visually rich news pages from dozens of partner publications. According to the Google Blog Post: Fast Flip is […]
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 2.0 “Visual Search” Launches, Allows Search By Pictures Microsoft has unveiled Bing 2.0 at TechCrunch50 today, also known as Bing Visual Search, which allows people to “search by picture.” After […]