I’m just back from speaking at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summits in San Francisco and Boston, where I was giving a joint presentation with a client on SEO. As part of that presentation, we talked about the role and impact of corporate blogging. The client is a professional services firm operating solely in the B2B space. Theirs […]
The Google Blog announced you ca now buy YouTube Promoted Video ads directly in the Google AdWords console. Google said that any advertiser with video content in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands can do this today. Previously, all YouTube Promoted Video ads were managed on YouTube at ads.youtube.com. […]
Aardvark has redesigned its site and repositioned somewhat as a “social search engine.” The site can be accessed directly, via IM, Twitter and the iPhone. You can also sign in using Facebook Connect, which sends your activity on Aardvark back to your news feed on Facebook. What Aardvark is trying to do is not new […]
If Bing can brand itself “decision engine” as a strategy to differentiate from the leading “search engine” so can shopping comparison site TheFind. The latter is now calling itself a “buying engine” as a way to emerge from the anonymous sea of shopping search sites out there. This morning a redesigned TheFind went live with […]
Achieving and sustaining top ranking visibility for your brand on important organic terms is increasingly getting tougher. This is because natural text listings no longer rule on the search result page. There are many other elements that appear sometimes ahead of or intertwined with the natural results, including local listings with a map, shopping listings, […]
I guess Derek Powazek isn’t done with attacking SEO. Now he’s published an SEO FAQ page which, sorry, really doesn’t provide much FAQ about SEO. So what the heck. I’ll deconstruct it. Be sure to also read my previous post, An Open Letter To Derek Powazek On The Value Of SEO. What’s SEO? First, any […]
Google has announced a new tool called Google Building Maker that lets you make 3D buildings using aerial photos and 3D shapes. Google says early testers felt it was more toy-like than tool-like and suggests that teachers might use it to help teach geography. And at this point you might be wondering … 3D buildings? […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: An Open Letter To Derek Powazek On The Value Of SEO Derek Powazek launched an attack on SEO yesterday that really said nothing that others haven’t ranted about before. I’ve responded […]
Derek Powazek launched an attack on SEO yesterday that really said nothing that others haven’t ranted about before. I’ve responded to many of these attacks over the years in hopes of educating people about mistaken assumptions. I’ve largely given up. But I figured this time I’d give it another go with some personal illustrations I’ve […]
Google Webmaster Tools has just launched a “labs” section, where you’ll find new features that may be early in the development cycle and not quite as robust as the rest of the tools. The features available so far are Fetch as Googlebot, which lets you see exactly what Googlebot is served when it requests a […]
Two reports have come out almost simultaneously, from Efficient Frontier and SearchIgnite, offering insights into the US paid search market for Q3 2009. The two data sets are based on client search campaigns managed by both firms. The data are directionally consistent in most cases but slightly different in terms of specific percentages and figures. […]
The importance and impact of online testing on your conversion rates cannot be understated. Yet as powerful as testing can be, it is a double-edged sword that can actually set you back if you are not careful. Poorly designed tests can take years to complete, and even worse, they might not provide concrete insights to […]
A reader pointed us to the Delta 2 rocket launch where Microsoft was a co-sponsor. If you look closely, you can see the Bing logo on the rocket ship. While Bing’s logo went into space, Google today announced a partnership with DigitalGlobe to launch a satellite into space to provide “high-quality imagery in Google Earth […]
In my last column I addressed cultural differences within European countries. The main point was that Europe may be one continent, but you cannot treat every European the same way—there are many cultural differences among people in different countries, and in some cases, even within a single country. This is even more true from a […]
Have a Facebook page or creating a new one? Do yourself a favor and be proactive in setting your page up, so users can find you when they are looking. Too often, companies and brands don’t take the proper steps to be found and have to make adjustments in order to show in Facebook search. […]
Link building tends to be viewed as on off-page activity – you’re not messing with title tags or site architecture and you don’t actually have to touch the site itself or write new content. However, if all you are doing is building more inbound links to your site without doing any analysis of on-page factors, […]
This morning, many Yahoo advertisers received an email from Rust Consulting letting them know, they are included in a legal settlement over Yahoo search ads. The settlement web site, which is at inreyahoosettlement.com explains that the “lawsuit alleges that customers contracted for targeted ad placements through two products, “Sponsored Search” and “Content Match” (and predecessor […]
Consumers care about online reviews; small businesses (SMBs) care about what’s being said about them online. Most small businesses that are aware of the phenomenon of online reviews (and care) try to monitor those reviews by using a search engine or alerts with their business name. They also visit specific sites like Yelp or Citysearch […]
This year, we’ve seen several ambitious new efforts to mine and make searchable the vast part of the web that remains largely hidden to search engines—often referred to as the deep, hidden or invisible web. The latest foray into the reaches of hidden web is actually a hybrid, of sorts: Factual, founded by Gil Elbaz, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Levinson Leaves Google’s Board Of Directors, Stays On Apple’s Arthur Levinson, a member of Google’s board of directors since 2004, has resigned from that position effectively immediately. Google’s announcement doesn’t give […]
Arthur Levinson, a member of Google’s board of directors since 2004, has resigned from that position effectively immediately. Google’s announcement doesn’t give a reason for Levinson’s departure, but he’s also been on Apple’s board of directors since 2000. The growing competition between Google and Apple led Google CEO Eric Schmidt to leave Apple’s board this […]
Mike Blumenthal offers a provocative post this morning about Google’s apparent decision to end its relationship (at least in the US) with mapping data provider TeleAtlas. Recall that Google previously had a relationship with NAVTEQ, which ended some time after the acquisition of that company by Nokia. TeleAtlas was substituted and there was even an […]
While search is the “front door to the internet” on the PC, the same cannot be said of mobile devices. Apps, bookmarks and other ways to access content have become at least as useful as the Google search box on a mobile device. While Google will laugh at anyone who publicly tries to suggest (as […]
The Yahoo Search Blog announced that BOSS developers can now add Yahoo Search ads in their search results. This will give developers a way to help monetize the BOSS applications they have built. How do you get ads in your BOSS results? You have to apply for approval by one of Yahoo’s 3rd party syndication […]
This past week at SMX East, I presented a longer-tail marketing tactic for Google Maps — creation and uploading of place marks data into the customizable "My Maps" section. For companies and individuals who have some rich local data to share, or local place expertise, My Maps may be for you!
It’s time for another in our occasional series of search tool roundups, but this one is more focused than previous articles: Rather than look at a variety of random search tools, I’ll introduce you to a handful of Twitter search tools that may have flown under your radar until now. You’ll learn how to search […]
Each report in your AdWords report helps you to extract data from your account so that you can make meaningful decisions to optimize your campaigns. In part one of this 6/90 series, I looked at six reports which will help you make ninety percent of the decisions you need to make on a day-to-day basis […]
Today I will make a case that nearly every organization should offer SEO training to anyone who even remotely touches the company’s web site, and why every senior manager should also be encouraged to attend. Failure to train people can lead to serious problems, with a frightful waste of time, blown schedules, wasted expenditure and […]
A Citibank/GFK Roper survey of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees has found very few small businesses in the U.S. have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses. The findings include: Three-quarters of the small business owners surveyed say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter […]
AllThingsD reported yesterday that Twitter was in independent discussions (which have happened before) with both Google and Microsoft “in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.” Reuters also picked up the story. Bing and Google have both […]
StumbleUpon wants to be a search engine. Kind of. It also wants to be more like Twitter and Facebook. Kind of. Better search and better social elements are the two cornerstones of StumbleUpon’s new web site, which was announced this week and will roll out to all during the next month. There’s no doubt the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Dissecting The AP & Murdoch Speeches Against Those Internet News Thieves Associated Press president Tom Curley and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch both made speeches yesterday in China that are being […]
Associated Press president Tom Curley and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch both made speeches yesterday in China that are being widely reported as an attack on Google. Having read through the actual speeches, I was surprised they weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be. Below, I’ve highlighted key portions along with my own commentary. […]
The clock is ticking: Google and the parties involved in the Book Search lawsuit settlement have one month from today — until November 9 — to revise the settlement and satisfy the recent objections from the US Justice Department and others. That may seem like an ambitious timeframe given the amount of objections the settlement […]
I’ve been in web development since 1995. For me, and many of you, it’s easy to forget that people don’t have the computer equipment to use the web sites and Internet applications we build. I’ve always found it interesting that TV show web sites are Flash based and loaded with images and video. It’s as […]
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.
Wired reports Google has fixed a year old bug where 700 million posts within a Usenet group were unsearchable via Google Groups. Google fixed this bug after Wired called them out for the blunder. Google sent Wired a response that read: It turns out there was a bug, a specific bug, that affected search within […]
Somewhat quietly, last week Kayak posted a new feature that opens up access to their search data using Kayak Trends. A key feature of Kayak Trend data is the KAYAK Travel Index™, an a statistical model that provides a measure of travel demand from analysis of searches on KAYAK sites, and aligns that with average […]
The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced the search ads displayed on Yahoo Search are now filtered based on the filtered sites you select on the left bar. For example, here is a search for a product in Yahoo Search: Notice all those ads? Well, when I filter the results to Amazon only, Yahoo only shows […]
I took a lot of notes at SMX Toronto earlier this year and posted them in this column as Golden Nuggets From SMX Search Analytics. Looking back at them now, the evidence undeniably reinforces my memory of how much I learned, and I’m glad to say that three days at SMX East this week was […]