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 Caffeine Now Live On One Google Data Center As expected the Google Caffeine index is now live on one Google data center. Note, it will not be added to more […]
Here, in the Paid Search column, there’s been a lot of talk of bid management tools and strategies for using them. Some of the uses of these tools can get pretty advanced. But in the real world you can do better with pretty basic bid automation strategies. Many people are afraid or skeptical of campaign […]
As expected the Google Caffeine index is now live on one Google data center. Note, it will not be added to more Google data centers until after the holidays. As I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable, Matt Cutts of Google confirmed that the IP 209.85.225.103 is hitting the data center that is running the […]
According to Reuters, French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said the European Union intends to develop a plan to offer a public and pan-European alternative to Google’s book scanning project. The French, among others, filed formal objections and opposition to the Google Book Search settlement with the court in New York this past September. An amended […]
Here are a couple important areas for Industrial Strength search marketers to focus on right now, both of which are feed-based: Google Product Search and Yahoo! Paid Inclusion. Below I outline why these channels matter more than ever this holiday season, and how they can help you capture substantial traffic and sales. Google Product Search […]
Discussing/insulting newspaper business models is all the rage these days. Danny Sullivan has had some choice words for the whole “let’s give Google the noindex finger” thing and a few weeks ago Chris Silver Smith offered some SEO advice for local newspapers. Given how on-trend the subject is I thought it might be useful to […]
Google has written two spam related posts over the Thanksgiving period on the Google Webmaster Central Blog tackling the issue of comment spam. The first post focuses on the futility of comment spam, saying: At best, a link spammer might spend hours doing spammy linkdrops which would count for little or nothing because Google is […]
If there’s one thing that both Google and Microsoft agree on, it’s that search isn’t solved yet. Google’s vice president of search product and user experience Marissa Mayer has said: We’re all familiar with 80-20 problems, where the last 20% of the solution is 80% of the work. Search is a 90-10 problem. Today, we […]
“Search is the world’s largest focus group.” A while ago, someone said this to me (I can’t remember who, but buy yourself an eclair if it’s you: you’ve earned it), and it struck me as pure brilliance. We tend to get so focused on the challenge of showing up in search results that we frequently […]
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, we will likely not be writing much here today. But I did want to share with you, like I did at the Search Engine Roundtable, the various logos we have from Google, Yahoo, Ask, Bing, AOL and others in the search engine industry. Google: Yahoo (Flash): […]
I said from time to time, I’d highlight some bad search results I come across. Here’s a killer — a top ranking for us national anthem on Google that when you click on it brings up random web sites that have nothing to do with the song. Behind the scenes, there’s an Ask.com connection. Let’s […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Black Friday 2009: Bing Cashback Bumps, Users Searching For Deals It could be that the general state of the 2009 economy is fueling the increase in early search queries for “Black […]
Recently, I was reading Julie Joyce’s Link Week article, 8 Tips To Make PPC Work With Link Building Efforts, and really enjoyed the premise of combining two disciplines that are often very separate in a marketing organization. Julie’s article got me thinking about some of the work we have been doing in the area of […]
Is it just me, or do too many agencies claim to be able to perform organic search optimization for clients? I mean, really. An agency that charges someone for doing “SEO” as part of a site build should be able to understand how to populate meta descriptions, and what to populate them with. Right? Sitemaps […]
It could be that the general state of the 2009 economy is fueling the increase in early search queries for “Black Friday” related terms, or it it could be that the retail industry as a whole have embraced the annual event as part of a clever marketing strategy to boost overall holiday sales. As you […]
Websites like Sponsored Tweets and Ad.Ly were created with the hope that famous and popular social media users will be willing to start sponsored conversations online. And with clients such Kendra Wilkinson and Kim Kardashian ready to spread any advertiser’s message for the right price, participating in social media has finally become profitable. Even Google […]
The Google AdWords API Blog announced that advertisers who use the v2009 API can now use up to two dynamic parameters in the ad copy. The ad parameters include numbers such as prices, discount percentages, quantities, and so on. For example, if you run an airline and you want to display the latest prices for […]
The Google Mobile Blog announced that the new Google movie search features which launched a couple weeks ago on Google.com, is now available on mobile smart phones. The best way to show you the various features is to share screen shots and a Google made movie demo on how it works. Now, if I can […]
The governments of Canada and Australia have given their okay to the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has published its findings, which say that “the proposed agreement was unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition.” The ACCC points to an existing deal in which Microsoft is using […]
In response to a report about pricing discrepancies in its Bing Cashback service, Microsoft says it has tools to prevent the problem from happening and the case in question was a mistake on the merchant’s part. The Bountii blog wrote Monday about a pricing inconsistency for the Canon Vixia HV40 camcorder. In Bing Cashback, 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: Google’s ‘New’ Search Ad Formats The Google Blog formally announced the new search ad formats Google has been showing in the search results. The new ads include the relatively old AdWords […]
The Google Blog formally announced the new search ad formats Google has been showing in the search results. The new ads include the relatively old AdWords video ad, AdWords Sitelinks, local AdWords, product AdWords, comparison ads and more. The product ads are now available to all U.S. advertisers. Here is how to get started: First, […]
Bloomberg has a story out suggesting that the publishers of the Denver Post and the Dallas Morning News may be joining Rupert Murdoch’s coalition of the willing to block Google. But I don’t think that’s what going on at all, and I’m trying to clarify things. Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, which publishes the […]
At a recent international search marketing conference in London the most frequent question asked by the audience was “How do I get my content found and indexed by global and local search engines?” During the breaks I talked to a few people who indicated little or none of their local market content was being indexed […]
Paid search marketing is complicated enough, and several long-held industry myths aren’t helping make your job any easier. Debunk these SEM tall tales once and for all, and your campaigns will be well on their way to higher ROI.
In October TheStreet reported a rumor that Google was building its own mobile phone. That was repeated again recently by TechCrunch, which said emphatically that Google was building a branded phone — despite Android founder Andy Rubin’s denials that Google was going to design its own hardware. Now we get the Times of London with […]
Yahoo has announced a new set of features for its Search Assist service that makes the Yahoo search box a lot smarter. Perhaps the main innovation here is the inclusion of content and information right inside the Search Assist dropdown. For example, do a search for a company’s stock symbol, and Yahoo will show real-time […]
Google is doing some very interesting things in TV and video advertising these days. Not long ago it licensed Nielsen’s PRIZM audience segmentation data for enhanced audience targeting through TVAds. Google also recently introduced “skippable” pre-roll ads on YouTube. The idea is to find willing audiences and make advertisers (potentially) only pay when someone watches […]
Forget PageRank, at least if you’re a news publisher looking to do well in Google News. Google’s news service doesn’t rely on the same algorithm used by “regular” Google, of which PageRank is a part of. Instead, Google News taps into its own unique ranking signals, which include user clicks, the estimated authority of a […]
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google AdSense is displaying ads with weird characters in the titles and ad descriptions. The characters seem to be broken HTML entities of some sort, where the HTML is not escaping properly. Here are screen shots from the ads on this site and my personal blog: Google […]
The Google AdWords API blog reminds us that version 200906 of the beta AdWords API will be shut down on February 2, 2010. Replacing that is version 200909, which has been available since October. Also, as a reminder, version 13 of the API is closing April 22, 2010. I keep reminding AdWords advertisers and developers, […]
In this crazy digital era where even people like my poor old gospel-singing father look online for almost everything (usually guns and cashews), you really need to understand how to use as many types of advertising as possible in order to improve your efforts and expand your reach. Since link building is all over the […]
I’ve just had a rather surreal afternoon, having been asked (at very short notice) to appear on Channel 4 News (the main news show on one of the UK’s 5 terrestrial broadcasters.) I was invited on the program to to discuss Rupert Murdoch’s reported plans to link up with Bing at the same time as […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Offensive Michelle Obama Image Returns, Google Buys Ad To Explain Google is buying ads to explain why an offensive image of the First Lady is back in its index and ranking […]
Google is buying ads to explain why an offensive image of the First Lady is back in its index and ranking so highly on searches for Michelle Obama in Google Image Search. As we reported last week, Google had originally removed the Michelle Obama image on the grounds that the site hosting the image violated […]
Google Product Search is rolling out three new features today, a new shopping “OneBox” that features popular products in certain categories of searches, a summary of product reviews and a “gallery” view option of products. Popular Products OneBox In the “normal” shopping OneBox, Google lists a variety of products along with an estimated price and […]
Google has offered local coupons for a couple years now, but the response has never matched the promise. Neither business owners nor local searchers have embraced coupons as much as many thought they would. Maybe this will change things? Google has announced the availability of mobile coupons. All new coupons created in the Local Business […]
Google announced they have purchased Teracent, a company that uses machine learning to show the different display ad creatives based on dozens of factors. Google bought them to improve and better automate the display ad side of their ad serving technology. Google said: We think that this technology has great potential to improve display advertising […]
In this post I’m combining two search trends reports: early Q4 search spending data from SearchIgnite and excerpts from a terrific Q3 local search spending report from WebVisible. Both show gains by Bing. The WebVisible report also shows significant improvements by Yahoo. Based on “41 million clicks on Google, Yahoo! and Bing during Q3-Q4 of […]
Boycott Microsoft Bing by Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times claims Microsoft is “sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing.” It is believes that Microsoft is censoring their search results to appease the Chinese government. Microsoft responded to this criticism with their blog post named […]