As real-time searches for information on the Haiti earthquake disaster have bombarded Twitter, Facebook, as well as mainstream media websites and the search engines themselves, each of the major search engines have responded by linking information about disaster relief efforts from their homepages. Google has created the Google Crisis Response page, on which they pledged: […]
Looking for old tweets? You won’t find any that are more than a week or so old on Twitter. Put the blame on all the massive number of new tweets coming in. The engines, they canna hold captain! Or that is, the search index behind Twitter Search can’t hold it all. NOTE: Since this was […]
At the recent Google Search Evolution event late last year, Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated search suggestions on mobile devices that varied by location. He showed that query suggestions could and would be different based on user location. Today Google is rolling that improvement out for the iPhone and Android devices. The geographic point […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Shashi Seth Now At Yahoo From AOL, Cooliris & Google Yahoo announced that they named Shashi Seth as the new Senior Vice President of the Yahoo Search Products team. Shashi Seth […]
Yahoo announced that they named Shashi Seth as the new Senior Vice President of the Yahoo Search Products team. Shashi Seth will be managing Yahoo’s Search team and all things related to Yahoo Search. Of course, in the wake of the Microsoft deal – exactly what his role will be if/when that deal closes, is […]
Taking a page from Facebook or Twitter, Google is putting a bit of real-time functionality on local business Place Pages. Google is promoting the idea that small businesses can use their Place Pages to promote time-sensitive (real-time) events. Here’s the Google LatLong blog discussion of how they envision its use: Holding a special event today? […]
Google surpassed 72% U.S. market share in December according to the latest numbers from Experian Hitwise. For Google, that represents a slight gain over November’s share of all U.S. searches. Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com all saw their search share drop from November to December. In a separate blog post, Hitwise’s Bill Tancer says Bing’s search […]
In a previous column, we saw that about 20% of Orlando businesses show up on Google Maps’ first search engine results page (SERP) for at least one local keyword, and that 61% showed up in one of the first 50 SERPs. These figures surprised many, as they imply that one in five local businesses is […]
With how much information SEO’s have available to them, it is easy to get lost in analysis paralysis. The opportunities are virtually endless. The only limits are time and capital. And markets keep shifting. Given that, sometimes seeing a visual abstract of the market can help you better understand your market position (or at least […]
After about a quarter of Yahoo Search Marketing not announcing any major product updates, Yahoo has announced two new features to the search ad product. The first feature is named Network Distribution and allows advertisers to select if they want to advertiser on Yahoo’s entire network or if they want to advertise just on either […]
It’s an open secret that the Chinese government and related Chinese companies conduct espionage against Western governments and companies operating both in and outside China. The Google GMail attacks represent a kind of “last straw” scenario. And it’s all but certain that this episode was either initiated by the government or done with government knowledge […]
The Google AdWords API blog posted another warning that on April 22, 2010 there will be a major sunsetting of the version 13 API features. As of April 22, 2010, the following v13 services will no longer be accessible: CampaignService AdGroupService CriterionService AdService InfoService KeywordToolService SiteSuggestionService However, the AccountService, TrafficEstimatorService, and ReportService will remain available […]
There are many frequently asked questions lists floating around the web for paid search. Here are the five most common questions that will help you understand this powerful advertising medium better. What’s the difference between organic and paid results? On a search engine results page (SERP), the organic (also called natural) results are determined by […]
Over the past year, I’ve moved more and more of my data over to the cloud — in particular, to being stored with Google. I’m rethinking that, in the wake of Google’s statement that it was the target of a sophisticated hacking attack. Further, I’m wondering if this entire episode — GoogleHack, for want of […]
Looking for the official Google blog post about Google deciding to to leave China over censorship? Don’t try finding it on China’s leading search engine, Baidu. It doesn’t appear to exist. Google’s post was titled “A new approach to China.” A good search engine, at least the American-based ones that I’m familiar with, will generally […]
With another holiday season behind us, retailers are busy crunching sales data to measure success and year over year revenue. However, this is also a good time to assess your company’s brand experience. And if yours needs improvement, integrating offline and online marketing can help. How integration strengthens your brand Integrating your offline and online […]
Our very own Matt McGee announced the nominations for the 2010 SEMMY awards is now live. Respected judges in the SEM industry will vote on articles from 17 categories. The articles that win the judges votes will then move to the next stage of the awards contest, where general public voting will be accepted. 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: How To Optimize A Mobile AdWords Campaign Google is going mobile in a big way. Following the announcement of Nexus One, the official Google phone, and the acquisition of adMob, Google […]
Google is going mobile in a big way. Following the announcement of Nexus One, the official Google phone, and the acquisition of adMob, Google is ready to make some serious moves on the small screen. Early days of mobile advertising Before smart phones hit the market, mobile advertisers were confined to the small screens of […]
One of Google’s more vocal critics says the company should cut its ties with InfoSpace over what he calls “a particularly insidious kind of click fraud” that involves a fairly complex combination of paid ads, affiliate traffic brokering, and spyware. Harvard assistant professor Ben Edelman also wants Google to repay the affected advertisers and be […]
Nielsen has released its December 2009 search engine rankings. They reflect gains by Google and a minor gain by AOL compared with November 2009. The data show declines by Yahoo and Bing. Here is the chart: Compare data from November: And finally, compare comScore’s November search rankings: I think there can be no argument now […]
Google’s decision to potentially pull out of China if it cannot operate without censorship is a remarkable story. The statement was made after Google discovered a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on GMail. Google didn’t say the Chinese government was behind the attacks but that’s the clear implication. The attacks involved more than just Google […]
The Technology Review magazine has an article named How Google Ranks Tweets. They interviewed Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow, who led development of Google’s real-time search, on the topic. Amit explained that in the social context, the number of people following someone is similar to the number of links pointing to a page. We know […]
The Google AdWords blog announced a new change to their display URL policy for ads leading to hosted domains. The change is fairly simple, if you are hosted on a blogspot.com, wordpress.com or similar type of domain, Google wants you to show the subdomain portion of the domain, in addition to the main domain. For […]
How many basic web patterns are there? If you were to boil every web site down to a set of core species, how many would you list? Would there be 500 basic types? 100? 50? How about five? Conversion scientists require some categorization and classification to do their job well. This allows us to simplify […]
In October of 2000 a start-up company launched a self-service ad program with 350 customers. The company was Google and the program was, of course, AdWords. While practitioners of SEM were then relatively rare, those employed full-time by companies to optimize websites for search engines were almost unheard-of. Some ten years and billions of dollars […]
B2B managers need to figure out the best way to manage SEO efforts. One key decision is whether to bring SEO in-house or outsource. Your choices usually look something like this: Hire an in-house SEO employee Work with an individual SEO consultant Outsource to a search engine marketing (SEM) agency Typically this decision is not […]
SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is seeking candidates for its Board of Directors. Terms for the current board members expire in March. SEMPO is hosting a webinar this week to explain more about the requirements and responsibilities of being a board member, as well as the nomination and election process for its board. […]
Google has revealed that the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were targeted last December in a hacking attempt. That, along with other issues, has convinced the company that it will no longer censor results China as the Chinese government wishes. In particular, Google has willingly allowed self-censored its search results since January 27, […]
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 Docs Adds Files Storage, AKA GDrive The Google Docs blog announced a new feature that allows you to upload files and share those files with friends, co-workers and colleagues. Google […]
The Google Docs blog announced a new feature that allows you to upload files and share those files with friends, co-workers and colleagues. Google is limiting the file upload to 250 MB per file, with a maximum total of 1 GB of free storage. Of course, you can always buy more storage at any time, […]
Bing announced that they have added new content partners for health and medical related queries. The health related queries are related to sicknesses, medicine, medical facilities, in addition to more generic health and fitness related queries. Here are some screen shots of queries that show off the new content at Bing. Many of the other […]
Google issued an apology to Chinese authors, according to China Daily, for scanning their books without permission. Google has also been sued in China for copyright infringement in connection with unauthorized book scanning. Meanwhile the amended US Book Scanning litigation settlement still awaits final court approval. There are several private Chinese groups that seek apologies […]
The Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that Google has hired Jill Hazelbaker to replace Matt Furman as head of corporate communications. Most recently Hazelbaker worked for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his successful re-election campaign. Google has historically hired people with Washington experience, but bringing on Hazelbaker may anticipate a somewhat more […]
There’s been enormous debate in the US over the years about whether Google and other search engines violate copyright laws by indexing content of various sorts. The Google book scanning litigation was a copyright lawsuit. And the newspaper industry has repeatedly accused Google of building its news site on the back of their copyrighted material. […]
Reuters reports that China’s popular search engine, Baidu, was hacked for about four hours by the Iranian Cyber Army. Baidu sent Reuters a statement on the hack: This morning, Baidu’s domain name registration in the United States was tampered with, leading to inaccessibility. Here is a picture of the hack from @mranti: This is the […]
On February 11, 2009, we reported Google penalized Google Japan for selling links. It resulted in Google.jp having their toolbar PageRank score drop from a 9 to a 5. Shaun Anderson noticed today that Google.jp now returns a toolbar PageRank score of 8. He said prior to December 31st, it was still a PageRank of […]
Netconcepts, a Wisconsin-based SEO company, has been acquired by San Diego’s Covario, Inc. Many of you know the name Stephan Spencer, he is the Founder and President of Netconcepts. Wanted to wish Stephan and the whole Netconcepts team a huge congrats from us. Here are some quotes from the press release: “With the acquisition of […]
In 2009 we found that visitors from our two blog interviews converted to inquiries 3X more than visitors from our SEL articles. We also discovered, in the link building query group interview we conducted with 21 link builders, the “share-power” that interviews can have. That piece received 443 tweets, 238 Delicious saves and over 4k […]
VigLink is a new service with venture capital backing from Google that aims to make it easy for publishers to earn through affiliate programs. It promises to turn any outbound link on a web site into an affiliate link after the installation of a small bit of JavaScript code. VigLink is in the news today […]