More from Search Engine Land: Page 3

Google

Mobile Answer Engines Battle Search Engines

A class of mobile “help” or “answer engines” has arisen as an alternative to traditional search engines. They hold out the promise more efficient, relevant or direct responses to queries than search engines can provide on the small screen. In several cases they involve the use of live human agents or a community of users […]

Paid social

How To Maintain Healthy Social Media Profiles

In social news and social bookmarking sites, many users tend to get caught up in how many votes or bookmarks it will take for their submitted content to be promoted to the frontpage or “popular” sections of the site. What is often overlooked by users is the quality and naturalism of those votes that trigger […]

PPC

Thoughts On Web Developers, SEO & Reputation Problems

After last week’s “Does SEO = Spam” debate erupted, I had a number of follow-up emails where I explained privately more about why SEO has such a bad reputation in some quarters, as well as what SEO is and isn’t, from my perspective. I wanted to share some of that below. Bad Advice Sucks: From […]

Google Analytics

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 19, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Supporting A Global Brand Campaign With SEM On the heels of launching Yahoo campaigns in three countries in eight days on an incredibly tight timeline, it makes sense to take a […]

SEO

SMN Webcasts This Week: Bid Rules That Work & Call Tracking & Analytics

Search Marketing Now hosts two free webcasts this week, both at 1 PM Eastern. Tomorrow, Tuesday Oct. 20, Adam Scott Riff will deliver a presentation “PPC Bid Managements Rules that Actually Work,” sponsored by Acquisio. He’ll explain how to build rules from the bottom up, when (and when not) to use them, and more. Thursday, […]

SEO

Supporting A Global Brand Campaign With SEM

On the heels of launching Yahoo campaigns in three countries in eight days on an incredibly tight timeline, it makes sense to take a small step back and jot down a few thoughts about what went right, what went wrong, and how to improve next time.

Google

American Association Of Advertising Agencies Backs Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal

One of the factors behind the US Justice Department’s (DOJ’s) objection to the now-defunct Google-Yahoo search ads deal, which was far less sweeping than the pending Yahoo-Bing/Microsoft deal, was the objection of the powerful advertising trade organization the Association of National Advertisers. Now, another advertising trade organization, the “4As,” or American Association of Advertising Agencies, […]

SEO

Yahoo Adds Delicious.com, Other Data To Site Explorer

Yahoo continues to add new data to its popular Site Explorer tool and, for reasons unknown, doesn’t tell anyone about it. Today, Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Roundtable about several new additions to Site Explorer’s data: Key Terms Delicious Activities Top Delicious Tags SearchMonkey Objects Barry posted this screenshot showing the new features as […]

Google Ads

Moving Ads Closer To “Free” Listing Ups Google’s Earnings

In early August, Google quietly shifted the ads closer to the free listings. We assumed then, Google did this to drive more attention to the ads, and now we can say that we were right. In the question and answer session of last week’s Google earnings report. A transcript reports Google’s Jonathan Rosenberg confirming that […]

Ecommerce

Wolfram iPhone App Improves Upon Site Experience

There’s a way in which the just-released iPhone version of Wolfram Alpha makes more sense than the web version. The web version suggests a Google-like general search engine, which it is not; it’s a “computational” or “fact engine” with a more limited range of use cases. It does what it does well — offer a range of […]

Google

Google Expands “Going Google” Enterprise Ad Campaign

Google has decided to extend and pick up the pace of its “Going Google” (Apps and enterprise products) traditional media campaign. The ads were first launched in August in four cities with billboards. Now Google says the campaign will be expanded globally to “the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore” and appear “in train […]

Content

Got Bad Incoming Links? Google Says, “Don’t Fret It”

The Google Webmaster Central blog has a post on “dealing” with low quality backlinks. In that post, Google basically explains that incoming links is “just one of many” ranking factors. That being the case, Google says if you have bad quality incoming links, “don’t fret” it and focus on things you can control, like your […]

Local

There’s No Debate That Local Search Has A Role to Play in Healthcare

Congress’ debate on healthcare has sparked many different opinions about the right path for the future of healthcare insurance. Regardless of where that debate is headed, all Americans share the same challenge at one point or another: finding good healthcare. And that’s where local search comes in—to help connect medical professionals with patients. Recently, Dennis […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 16, 2009

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 Testing Comment Search On YouTube Though the level of discourse in YouTube comments will never win awards, Google appears to be quietly testing a comment search feature. You won’t find […]

Content

Google Testing Comment Search On YouTube

Though the level of discourse in YouTube comments will never win awards, Google appears to be quietly testing a comment search feature. You won’t find it anywhere obvious in the YouTube interface — not on a video page, not even in Advanced Search. It’s available at this URL (you can change the query at the […]

PPC

Five Rules For Running A Successful Pay-Per-Call Campaign

Although it’s been around for years, pay-per-call advertising may be finally hitting its stride. Greg Sterling, a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, recently wrote: We’ve long known that calls are much more valuable than clicks to small businesses in particular, but also to many larger entities with call-center sales operations. However… it’s taken PPCall […]

Ecommerce

Wolfram|Alpha Opens Up Paid API

Wolfram|Alpha, the very impressive fact engine, has announced their new API that will allow third-parties to access and display results from their database. The API is priced out with three tiers: Developer & Personal Use Plans Small & Medium Business Plans (up to 750,000 requests per month) Enterprise Plans (over a million requests per month) […]

Analytics & conversion

Convert More New Users Using Advanced Segments

Whether your site’s purpose is ecommerce, data capture, whitepaper download or something altogether different, it’s almost certain that there is some kind of action you want users to complete. Channelling as many of your prospects as possible to this action should be pretty high on your “list of stuff to do on the site.” First step, make sure you have some way of tracking these actions and that you know what your conversion rate is.

Content

How Much Detail Do Product Detail Pages Need?

Can an ecommerce store’s product detail pages bog a visitor down in too much detail? Can you provide the wrong information and leave people with unanswered questions? My friend and occasional client Michael runs Greek For Me, an apparel store for Greek fraternities and sororities. He recently asked me for usability consulting to help him […]

Google

Google Endorses Reputation Management, Says Stop Asking Them To Remove Content

Google already offers PPC advice and SEO advice. And now, with “Googling yourself” becoming a common part of the language, Google’s now offering reputation managament advice, too. The actual advice is basic, to say the least: Create a Google Profile. Ask happy customers to review your business online. Publish positive content about yourself. But it’s […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 15, 2009

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’s Q3: $5.94 billion, 7 Percent YoY Revenue Growth, 14 Percent Paid Click Growth Expectations were high for Google’s Q3 given some of the positive reports coming out about clicks and […]

Google

Google’s Q3: $5.94 billion, 7 Percent YoY Revenue Growth, 14 Percent Paid Click Growth

Expectations were high for Google’s Q3 given some of the positive reports coming out about clicks and search volumes from third parties such as Efficient Frontier and comScore. Even though Google performed solidly (almost $6 billion in a still-bad economy) there may be some disappointment on Wall Street (apparently not). Google’s Eric Schmidt said “The […]

PPC

Yahoo To Drop Paid Inclusion Program

Yahoo has announced that their paid inclusion program will cease at the end of this year. Partners were informed yesterday (such as here and here), and a Yahoo representative confirmed the move on a panel discussion moderated by Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan at the iProspect/Range Online Media Client Summit today. We’ve also received […]

Ecommerce

Google Editions: Online E-Bookstore Coming in 2010

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Google revealed its plans to launch Google Editions, an online store to sell e-books. The company says the store will launch in the first half of 2010 with about half a million e-books. The e-books will come from publishers with whom Google already works, and unlike Amazon’s Kindle e-reader/store, the […]

Enterprise

Enterprise Search: Keyword Arbitration Between Organic & Paid

Enterprise Search Marketing programs face a multitude of challenges. Lack of resources, lack of accurate metrics, difficulty getting site changes implemented for organic optimization and so forth. Many of these challenges are more on the organizational side of things than anything else. For those of you in this camp, here’s a challenge that will sound […]

Content

What Is A QR Code And Why Do You Need One?

We all know that one of the keys to great SEO is making sure you keep your website updated, new and fresh. Whether you do this with a blog, or you change your homepage with new offers, coupons or new products, it serves to show Google that your site is “alive.” For many small businesses […]

Google

Google Quietly Drops PageRank From Webmaster Tools

My piece this morning, Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools from the Search Engine Roundtable has sparked a lot of discussion on Twitter. Google had indeed removed the PageRank statistics from Google Webmaster Tools. I believe it was removed when Google released the Webmaster Tools Labs features earlier this week. PageRank being pulled from […]

Bing

Google Approaches 65% Market Share In Latest ComScore Survey

According to the latest comScore survey, Google’s search market share climbed to just under 65% last month, and remains more than triple that of Yahoo, the second-place search engine. ComScore pegs Google with 64.9% of all searches conducted during September 2009, up from 64.6% in August. Yahoo dropped from August’s 19.3% to 18.8% in September. […]

Google Maps

Tectonic Shifts Altering The Terrain At Google Maps

Google recently upgraded Google Maps with a new land parcel data layer, added a Map error reporting function, has promised map fixes to street errors in 30 days or less and has replaced Tele Atlas as their provider of roadway data. It was widely expected that Google might replace TeleAtlas but I don’ think anyone […]

SEO

How To Use Google’s Sidewiki For Maximum SEM Benefit

Google’s Sidewiki is here and it’s not hard to see that it could be big, that it could change the way we use the internet. However, it has some frankly scary implications for website proprietors. People can visit your pages and leave messages, whether you want them to or not. Dell Homepage with Google SideWiki […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 14, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Landing Page Testing: Choosing Between A/B Or Multivariate Approaches There are quite a few testing techniques available in the market. In this post I will dwelve into the two commonest testing […]

Ecommerce

Google Defends Its Design Philosophy

In an interview on TechRadar UK, Google’s director of user experience goes a long way toward responding to claims earlier this year that the company’s design team is too reliant on data. “Data informs decision-making but it’s less useful for conceiving and building conceptually new directions,” explains Irene Au. “It’s most useful for optimising and […]

SEO

Sorry, Yahoo, You DO Index The Meta Keywords Tag

Oh, that this weren’t true. Last week, Yahoo made news by disclosing that it had quietly dropped support for the meta keywords tag. As a long time hater of that tag and the insane questions it has produced, I was thrilled! But today, I see conclusively that Yahoo still supports the tag. The test was […]

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