Building up an authoritative status on social media profiles is a very important element that users spend hours doing daily. Usually it’s with some of the most popular social communities like Digg, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc. How many social media enthusiasts and search marketers actually stop to consider their Google profiles though? When I discuss […]
Previously, I covered the basic steps involved in setting up a Google Analytics account. In this column, I’ll focus on four GA reports to help you better manage your PPC campaigns. If you are like most search marketers, you’ve often wished for more insight into your campaigns than what AdWords alone can provide. You may […]
Does Facebook pose a threat today or in the future to Google by swallowing advertising dollars - and will the inclusion of web search speed that process? Google and Facebook actually many historical similarities - including the shape of their global roll outs.
Germany’s justice minister accused Google of becoming a “giant monopoly” and threatening government action if it doesn’t become more transparent. According to a Reuters report over the weekend, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger shared her concerns about products like Google Earth and Google Books with the German magazine Der Spiegel: “All in all, what’s taking shape there to […]
When it comes to search marketing, the Big Three is about to become the Big Two. The deal heard round the world this past July comes to fruition in 2010—and the much-anticipated partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo! will have significant implications for search engine optimization. Paid search will no doubt face its share of opportunities […]
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 News Fast Flip Featured Topless Playboy Model This morning I reported that Google was showing a topless Playboy model on the new Fast Flip portion of Google News. It seems […]
This morning I reported that Google was showing a topless Playboy model on the new Fast Flip portion of Google News. It seems like the image and result is now gone, but we found it a bit funny to see that on Google News. The result, which is shown below, was not complete nudity – […]
Relatively quietly Yahoo has decided to outsource most of Yahoo Shopping to PriceGrabber. This is analogous to what Yahoo is doing with Microsoft-Bing in search — just not with Microsoft. Merchant listings will now come from PriceGrabber and e-commerce sellers will only be able to get into Yahoo Shopping via PriceGrabber or Yahoo Search (Bing). […]
Yahoo has suffered attrition and a brain drain of top talent for the past couple of years. Google and Microsoft, in some cases, have been beneficiaries of those defections. Indeed, we’ve been lamenting the loss of engineers and talent at Yahoo for some time. Now, however, the SF Chronicle reports on a new hiring effort. […]
First published in 2010, PPC Academy is a complete guide to getting started in pay-per-click (PPC) based search advertising, covering a wide range of paid search tips, tools and tactics. a Due to the constantly evolving nature of paid search platforms, some of the example PPC tools and dashboards may have changed, but the basic […]
Every year, during or before the various sports seasons, the search engines try to mention their search results and how they often provide smart results for sport related queries. So as the NBA season gets underway, Bing wrote a blog post on how their NBA results help make you a better fan, both on your […]
“Why are we buying our brand keyword when we already rank #1 in the organic results?” “Why are we paying for traffic if we’re already getting it for free?” It turns out that the question isn’t whether or not you should be buying your brand keywords. The question is how much should you be willing […]
A new year offers new opportunities for local search providers and small business customers to reevaluate their advertising strategies to reflect the latest consumer usage trends and economic realities. On December 31st, Yellow Pages directory publisher Idearc emerged from bankruptcy with a new name, SuperMedia, and a fresh understanding that new initiatives in the online […]
Here we are, starting the second full week of 2010. Chances are good that you’ve already made your own marketing resolutions for the new year, or perhaps penned your own set of predictions for what 2010 will mean to online marketers. If so, you’re not alone; there’s been a lot of thinking about the new […]
It’s been noticed that new Associated Press stories — hosted by Google itself — are no longer appearing in Google News. It’s true. Since Dec. 24, Google has no longer added new AP content, something the company confirmed with me today. I received this statement: We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that […]
Google Fast Flip, the company’s experimental news reading tool, is now part of the Google News home page, while also still remaining a Google Labs project. According to Google’s announcement, Fast Flip will appear at the bottom of the Google News home page — a display option Google was seen testing back in November. Publishers […]
The company I work for, SLI Systems, specializes in site search—searching products or content within a single website. That’s all we do. For example, try searching Search Engine Land using the SLI-powered search box at the top of the page (but wait until you finish reading this article first!). As a result of our focus, […]
A number of articles appeared that speculate about or discuss ads on Google Maps (PC and mobile) now and in the future. Google Maps is one of Google’s most successful and valuable properties — arguably even more so in mobile — and the company is going to be both careful and thoughtful about how it […]
If you asked some of the best online marketers in the business what one piece of advice they can give you to help make your site better, stronger or more profitable, I bet most would say “test your pages, test your techniques, and test your theories.” The one constant in search engine marketing is change. […]
Next week will be Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz‘s, one-year anniversary at Yahoo. It has been a long year for Yahoo, between the Microsoft deal and closing down or selling many of their products – Bartz has been at the center of most of the praise and debate. In a Bloomberg piece, Bartz said during an […]
A post by Ashim Chhabra from the Yahoo Boss team in the Tech Group adds some details to how Yahoo BOSS will survive under the Yahoo-Microsoft deal. It appears that Yahoo is allowed to continue operating BOSS under the Microsoft deal. Some of the results will be powered by Yahoo, while the search results in […]
According to Google, affiliates provide such a road-rage-awful experience that they deserved to be kicked out of AdWords en masse. My experience shopping for a new laptop for my dad during Boxing Week more than proved that status as an affiliate site hardly determines usability, and that merchants sin liberally against the commandments of user […]
It’s that time of year again. Well-meaning people all over the world are proclaiming that they will quit smoking, drink less, eat fewer bacon sandwiches and of course, make more of an effort to analyze the performance of their websites. I am afraid I can’t help anyone with the first three having repeatedly failed with […]
Just a couple weeks after failing to consummate a rumored deal to buy Yelp, Google has launched a mobile search tool that could take away the mobile market share of Yelp and similar sites/apps like Urbanspoon, MapQuest, and some of the yellow pages apps. It’s called “Near Me Now,” and Google previewed it last month […]
Via Search Engine Roundtable comes news of refreshing candor from a Bing employee about the performance of Bing’s crawler, which is still referred to as MSNbot. The admission happened yesterday in the Bing Webmaster Center forums, when Brett Yount, a program manager for Bing, replied to a question about why Bing has only indexed one […]
France to explore “Google tax” to pay creative work from Reuters reports the French government wants to find a way to tax Google and other companies like them. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said: For the time being, these companies are taxed in the country in which they are headquartered even though they make […]
There was a small earthquake this morning near San Jose, California. According to the USGS, which now shows “real-time” information, the quake was relatively small: magnitude 4.1. Last year Google launched an Earthquake OneBox; however that OneBox didn’t catch this quake. Google is saved by integration of Twitter results (see below), which did report it:
MediaPost reports Yahoo has settled a search ad keyword lawsuit with American Airlines. The suit dates back to October 2008 in a federal court and both were expecting a judgement on the case sometime this year. The two companies reached a settlement prior to judgement, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed. In […]
AOL’s CEO: Google To Get 1st Shot At New Search Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports AOL’s CEO, Tim Armstrong saying that Google will get “first dibs” at a search deal. Armstrong said this at Citi’s annual entertainment, media and telecommunications conference today. This was prompted by a question about possibly using Microsoft Bing […]
In less than two months, Search Engine Land’s SMX West search marketing conference will happen from March 2-4 in California. Anyone who is even remotely connected to gaining visitors, customers and driving sales should be attending. Experienced search marketer? Newbie? Web developer? Designer? Involved in public relations? Traditional marketer? There’s good stuff for all these […]
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave the opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last night. It was a review of Microsoft accomplishments and product launches during 2009 (e.g., Windows 7, Bing) as well as a preview of some products coming to market (e.g., Project Natal for Xbox) in the future. Ballmer spent […]
Starting last night, Google began sending out the monthly (or so) Google Local Business Center updates. The updates go out via email and contain analytical information about how many times a listing was viewed, clicked on, and other miscellaneous analytics. The analytics are a summary of what they would see in their Google LBC analytics […]
The beauty of online marketing is transparency - there is no other medium in advertising within which a direct ROI or CPA can be associated without questioning a slew of externalities.
Ever failed to stick to a New Year’s resolution, and then blame yourself for poor willpower? Well, it may not be your will that’s to blame—it may simply be the way you phrased your resolution. And the same could be said about the goals you have for your website. As we enter a new year, […]
The 1950s classic Japanese film Rashômon by Akira Kurosawa is an exploration of human perception, truth and how there can be widely differing accounts of the same event. The film’s plot revolves around the rape of a woman and murder of her husband and is told through dramatically differing accounts of four witnesses. The stories […]
A French appeals court has ruled against Google in a case about the appearance of negative words in Google Suggest. According to the French legal site Legalis.net, and reported by BigMouthMedia, Google has been ordered to remove the word arnaque — which translates roughly as “scam” — from appearing as a Google Suggest term on […]
If you visit Google.com today, you will see that they are showing a promotion for the Nexus One. The promotion is found under the search box and reads, “Experience Nexus One, the new Android phone from Google.” As we saw in Danny’s live blogging of the event, yesterday – Google said they would use Google.com […]
PPC Hero has details about a new Google AdWords beta named contact form extensions. Contact form extensions provides a contact form directly in the search ad, which a searcher can fill out and the advertiser can then use in the future to contact that lead. It is very similar to a lead acquisition form, but […]
Content marketing is one of the most powerful tools for B2B marketers, most of whom likely have content development as a substantial part of their 2010 marketing plans. But before you get started with developing more content marketing assets, take a step back to assess your efforts to date. Below are six steps to help […]
This being my second in-house SEO column for Search Engine Land, I wanted to continue where I left off by giving you some insight into some best practices for in-house SEO reporting. The understanding of analytics and reporting, setting up a baseline for your goals, and how to report on those goals and analytics. If […]