According to a hearsay report in Wired, Apple CEO Steve Jobs allegedly said the following at an internal town hall meeting for Apple employees coinciding with the launch of the iPad: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: "It’s bullshit." Audience roars. This is being wide [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Top News

We came to a strange realization on Friday at SEL headquarters: Google Street View is terribly unintuitive on the iPhone. As Danny Sullivan suggested, you practically need a map to find it. For those of you with an iPhone or iPod Touch who know how to use Street View already, move along -- there's nothing here for you. For the rest of you who, like us, had no idea you could access Street View, here's the story of how and where we found it. It all began with these two links: the new iPad page on Apple's web site, and this video showing a demonstration of Street View on the iPad's Maps applic [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Street View | Top News

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Good Bye Winter, Hello Santa Clara. PPC Marketer’s Dream AgendaI suppose the next best thing to dreaming about leaving the cold New Hampshire winter is to actually do it! Can’t think of a better way to toss off winter blahs than with a few days at SMX West. [...] Yelp Ratings Appear In Google AdWordsI received a screenshot in email of an AdWords ad for a San Diego auto repair shop that featured Yelp ratings (and a link to the Yelp review) in the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

I suppose the next best thing to dreaming about leaving the cold New Hampshire winter is to actually do it! Can’t think of a better way to toss off winter blahs than with a few days at SMX West. Agenda Item #1 - Monday, Monday I am planning to get in early on Sunday to soak up the sun for a day or so before my favorite part of the week: Monday night’s SMX Meet & Greet reception. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This is the absolute best way to meet speakers and other attendees and make great connections in a relaxed comfortable setting. Don’t be shy. This i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SEM Industry: Conferences | SMX & DMD Alerts

I received a screenshot in email of an AdWords ad for a San Diego auto repair shop that featured Yelp ratings (and a link to the Yelp review) in the AdWords copy. Here's a screen of the ad: Detail: Google has been making AdWords richer, with product images and maps (and so on) in the ad copy: However the star ratings in the ad above is something new. When I sought to reproduce the search result yesterday I could not. The auto repair shop makes reference to Yelp reviews, among others, on its homepage but the stars/rating don't show up until you click through: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local

Microsoft had a "blow out" quarter in which it saw $19.02 billion in revenue, a 14 percent increase from $16.63 billion in the same fiscal quarter a year ago. This was largely about the success of PC OS Windows 7. That's the story: people like it and are buying PCs. Everything else is a bit more mixed. Online Services, which houses online advertising and Bing, reported $581 million in revenue vs. $609 million a year ago. Lower revenues translated into higher losses for the division. There was a quarterly loss of $466 million compared with $320 million a year ago. Bing is making steady in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Microsoft: Business Issues

The Chosun Ilbo reports a new Google China has launched, a knockoff, named Goojje.com. It was made in response to Google saying they may have to shut down their Google.cn search engine a few weeks back. It is a basic search engine, not affiliated with Google in anyway. It does however play on the Google name and Google logo. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Outside US | Legal: Trademarks

The Google Mobile Blog announced that Google has added "popular images" to their images home page on Android, iPhone, Palm and other smart phone devices. When you visit Google Images on those devices, you now see "popular images" and a link to browse more popular images. Here is the home page: After clicking on the link, you get popular images broken down by category. The categories include trends, movies, sports, cars & bikes, television, cartoons and music. Here is a picture of the images currently in the popular trends category: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Images | Google: Mobile

An often-overlooked metric is the time taken from the first click on an ad to the final conversion of the keyword. That is, the total conversion time for a keyword in a given campaign. While this metric may seem relatively unimportant to ROI (for instance), it can help you understand your clients and also help you better manage your campaigns. In this article, I'll demonstrate a few ways in which conversion time can be very useful. Consider an apparel retailer which sells several lines of clothing including menswear, womenswear, kids clothing, wedding and bridal wear, footwear etc. As a ret [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Analytics

When the Fort Hood, Texas shooting rampage hit the news, a small staff of news folks were trying to determine which words to use for their online news stories on the topic. The goal was to get Google News to find and rank their article higher than their competition. They struggled with the difference of the impact on web site readers for words like "hurt" vs. "injured," "shot" vs. "shooting," "deaths vs. "fatalities," "Fort Hood" vs. "Ft. Hood" and "Texas" vs. "TX". Would the Google News search engine agree with their choices? What might the reader response be to the words they used to desc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Search & Usability

In October 2009, Google proposed a new standard for implementing AJAX on web sites that would help search engines extract the content. Now, there's evidence this proposal is either live or is about to be. Read on for more details on the proposal, how it works, and why it might be past the proposal stage. The Trouble With AJAX Historically, search engines have had trouble accessing AJAX-based content and this proposal would enable Google (and presumably other search engines that adopted the standard) to index more of the web. The standard SEO advice for AJAX implementations has traditiona [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: SEO | How To: SEO | SEO: General | Top News

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Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sponsor Messages

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Ballmer Blogs His Thoughts On Google, ChinaBoth current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and former CEO Bill Gates have recently spoken out critically about Google’s stance on doing business in China. (See my previous posts, Ballmer Critical Of Google’s China Decision and Like Ballmer, Bill Gates Dings Google On China.) Now, Ballmer is putting his thoughts in writing … well, electronic writing [...] Bing Debuts In-Depth Stock PagesBing has ann [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Both current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and former CEO Bill Gates have recently spoken out critically about Google's stance on doing business in China. (See my previous posts, Ballmer Critical Of Google’s China Decision and Like Ballmer, Bill Gates Dings Google On China.) Now, Ballmer is putting his thoughts in writing ... well, electronic writing ... via a post on Microsoft's new blog. Says Ballmer: Engagement in China and around the world is very important to us, in part because we believe it accelerates access to 21st century technology and services and helps provide the widest po [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Critics | Google: Outside US | Legal: Censorship | Microsoft: Employees | Microsoft: Outside US

Bing has announced a new "Stocks and Funds page" that offers in-depth information for users following or doing research related to stocks and finances. A sample page looks like this one for Apple: Searching on Bing for a company's or fund's ticker symbol prompts a new link called "Investor Data" on Bing's main search results page. (circled in the image above) Clicking that link leads to the new Stocks and Funds page. This is probably not a feature I'll be using much since it'll only remind me that I sold a few shares of Apple stock many years ago when it was below $10. Sorry, Bing.. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Microsoft: Bing

Today Google is formally launching functionality that enables a "clickable local phone number" to appear in mobile ads.  In other words a phone number appears as part of the ad copy and consumer-users can simply tap the number to initiate a call (see image below). It's a call for the price of a click on mobile handsets. Not available on PC AdWords campaigns, it's only available on "high-end" mobile handsets with full HTML browsers. We wrote about this initially when an email went out to AdWords advertisers notifying them that Google was introducing click to call in mobile ads. Earlier t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Mobile | Top News

The Early Bird Rate for Search Marketing Expo – SMX West expires in just two days (Saturday, Jan. 30) Register now and get 3 days of exception content and invaluable industry connections for only $1245. Join us in Santa Clara, CA March 2-4 for the most compelling search marketing conference on the West coast. Our roster of 100+ of the most knowledgeable presenters will share tactics that made and keep them successful. The multi-track, 50 session agenda allows you to customize your program to best fit your needs and maximize your investment. Plus SMX West offers the ideal mix of opportun [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SEM Industry: Conferences | SMX & DMD Alerts

Not to beat a dead horse, but as I said in my last column, I think 2009 was truly a watershed year for local search. Between Google’s introduction of the generic 10-pack, its beta test of local listing ads, dramatic improvements to Bing’s Local Listing Center, and numerous partnerships throughout the industry— all of these developments and more have placed increased focus on local search and its integration into organic search results. Traditional search marketers far and wide – including some of the absolute best in the industry – have recognized that the 10-pack/7-pack has chang [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Small Is Beautiful

Less than 24 hours after Apple announces the Apple iPad, Google announces improvements to the Google Books home page. The improvements include: You can now scroll through categories of books and magazines The My Library feature is now on the home page My Library selections can be kept private now You can now add one or more books to more bookshelves. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Book Search

In the past few months, I’ve been the technical SEO consultant to 6 companies who have been in the process of redesigning their websites. The companies range in size from a one-person show to a world-reknowned Boston hospital, and everything in between. All of the companies were smart enough to know they needed expert SEO eyes as they developed their new websites—which is more than I can say for most companies who embark on a website redesign. Typically, we get the dreaded "my search engine traffic has tanked since our new site went live" call. It’s been interesting working with many [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | Columns