Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 31, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Maps Launches Foursquare Everywhere, World Tour & Oodle Rental Apps Bing Maps is keeping busy at the Where 2.0 conference today, making several announcements and product rollouts. Here’s a rundown […]

Google

Google Launches Lab For New Advertising Products

Google has announced a new lab-type area called Google Ad Innovations, which is where it’ll “show you some of our latest ideas around advertising technologies and get your feedback.” Think of it as Google Labs for Ads. There are currently 10 “innovations” listed, and each one has its own landing page with additional information, a […]

Paid social

Twitter: How Our New ‘Top Tweets’ Works

As Twitter continues to roll out its new home page, more users — new and old — are being exposed to the new “Top Tweets” feature. As we said yesterday, Top Tweets shows a collection of recent messages that scroll every couple seconds. That’s what it does, but the bigger question is, How does it […]

PPC

Yahoo Shutters Its Yahoo Publisher Network

In a sign of continued trimming at Yahoo, the company has announced that it’s closing the Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) — Yahoo’s counterpart to Google’s Adsense — as of April 30. YPN was launched about five years ago, but never formally advanced beyond the “beta” label. A Yahoo spokesperson gave us this statement confirming YPN’s […]

Content

Feeding The Content Marketing Dragon

A dragon is a good thing to have. Everyone knows dragons have magical powers. They are wise, although sometimes also vain. Dragons can be fierce protectors, too. The magic of the content marketing dragon is lead generation, lead nurturing, and SEO (especially if your dragon has a long tail.) But if you’re going to own […]

Google

Google Enables Mobile AdWords Access On Smartphones

Google has now enabled access to the AdWords dashboard and other features for smartphone users. It’s configurable and provides on-the-go access to account data and stats. The new mobile interface is currently available for iPhone, Android and Palm/WebOS users. You can access AdWords for Mobile by visiting https://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard on your mobile browser. There’s more discussion, […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 30, 2010

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 Execs Still At $1/Year, But Company Cuts Other Perks Google’s trio of top leaders — co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, plus CEO Eric Schmidt — continued to receive $1 […]

Google

Google Execs Still At $1/Year, But Company Cuts Other Perks

Google’s trio of top leaders — co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, plus CEO Eric Schmidt — continued to receive $1 salaries in 2009, but it was a series of other cutbacks that helped the company earn $6.5 billion in profit last year. The AP reports that some of those cutbacks directly impacted Schmidt’s overall […]

Paid social

Twitter’s New Home Page Focuses On Content, Users

Twitter is testing a new home page design that introduces new users to a wider view of the site’s functionality by focusing on specific content and users rather than the more nebulous idea of trending keywords and hashtags. I can’t get the new home page to load, so here’s a look at the screenshot Twitter […]

Content

Google, Microsoft, ACLU & Others Push For “Digital Due Process” – No Personal Data Without A Warrant

A broad coalition of interest groups, non-profits and private companies, including Microsoft, Google, AOL, the ACLU, EFF and others, have come together to set forth four principles that would update Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). That statute was enacted in 1986 and, in the words of Jim Dempsey, Vice President for Public Policy at the […]

Apple

What You Can Learn About Social Media from Woot.com

Woot.com redefined deals on the web and created a huge social presence along the way. The Woot blueprint is a great example of how to not only move merchandise but also how to breed raving fans across a variety of mediums. In case you have been living under a rock and haven’t heard of Woot, […]

SEO

Seven Deadly Link Sins

If you find yourself in link hell it might be because… 1.  You accepted information from the herd. The SEO/SEM industry is becoming cluttered with people trying to make a name for themselves by regurgitating information. Don’t take anything as fact. Test, test and test some more before drawing conclusions or changing how you build links. […]

Ecommerce

Sency Wants To Keep Real-Time Search Simple

Evan Britton attended the ‘140’ Twitter conference in Los Angeles last fall, went home and hired a programmer via Craigslist, and days later had launched a real-time search engine called Sency. That’s only possible when you keep things simple, and simplicity is what Britton hopes will distinguish Sency in the growing field of real-time search […]

Google Analytics

Avoiding Google’s European Privacy Gaffes

In many ways Europe and the US are similar, but there’s one key difference that’s essential for search marketers to understand, and that’s the way Europeans and Americans look at privacy. Europeans value privacy over virtually everything else, even before freedom of speech. Not sufficiently recognizing this difference has caused Google to run afoul of […]

Bing

OpenOffice.org Is MIA In Bing, But It’s Not Censorship

The home page of OpenOffice.org, the well-known Microsoft Office competitor, is missing from Microsoft’s Bing search engine. While it sounds suspicious, the problem has nothing to do with Bing itself — it’s a technical problem on OpenOffice.org’s end. Ian McAnerin noticed earlier today that OpenOffice.org doesn’t show up in Bing on searches for [open office] […]

Google

Lawmakers Want FTC To Investigate Google Buzz

Google Buzz is having a bad day. I reported earlier about the lack of search interest in Buzz, but there’s a potentially more serious legal problem coming: A group of 11 lawmakers is asking the FTC to investigate whether Google Buzz violated consumer privacy regulations. BusinessWeek reported over the weekend that 11 members of the […]

Google

Is Google Buzz Dead Already?

Where’s the buzz on Google Buzz? According to online ad network Chitika, the buzz is gone, dead. Chitika says this is true both in general web searches, as well as search activity across its network of 80,000 sites.

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 29, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Source: Google Ending AdWords Reseller Program (For Now) Following rumors over the past week or so that Google was shutting down its local AdWords reseller program, I’ve received two separate confirmations […]

Google Ads

Source: Google Ending AdWords Reseller Program (For Now)

Following rumors over the past week or so that Google was shutting down its local AdWords reseller program, I’ve received two separate confirmations of this today from credible sources. Both confirmed that Google is indeed shuttering the current form of the program, which has operated for at least three years. One of the sources said […]

Google

Google Expands Search Suggestions, Real-Time Search & Adds Refinements To Local Searches

The Google blog posted their weekly, “this week in search” announcing small but important changes released on Google search. They include expanding the search suggestions user interface internationally, adding more language support to real-time search, adding refinements to local search queries and introducing lists for bookmarks. On Google.com, Google used a boldface for search suggestions, […]

Local

Is “Yellow Pages” Becoming An Obsolete Concept?

The term "Yellow Pages" has been a literal description of a business directory product and the name for the industry which has produced it for over a hundred years. Rapid evolution of internet media seems to be revoking the conceptual connection between printed pages which are yellow and sources for finding local businesses. So, is the "Yellow Pages" name itself becoming obsolete?

PPC

Strike Keyword Gold By Writing A Simple Story

Finding new keywords usually involves examining some of your existing top performing keywords in all of the available tools and reports to find variations that you can use to increase the traffic your PPC ads generate. Conducting keyword research in this manner usually leads to choosing keywords that already have multitudes of advertisers. One of […]

Enterprise

Getting Top Management Buy-In For Enterprise SEO

My last post focused on selling the benefits of SEO in a large enterprise. Once you have done that you will already have made great progress, but now you need to take the next step: getting your management team to understand what is means to pursue SEO, and how it affects the business at an […]

Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 26, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Does CEO Coffee Summit Equal Détente For Apple, Google? Gizmodo shows amazing pictures of Steve Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt having coffee in a public place in Palo Alto, CA. […]

Apple

Does CEO Coffee Summit Equal Détente For Apple, Google?

Gizmodo shows amazing pictures of Steve Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt having coffee in a public place in Palo Alto, CA. Here is one of the shots from the encounter, which reportedly ended or moved when a crowd started gathering: While Apple and Google were close partners and even collaborators for several years Google’s […]

Google

Facebook Nabs Google’s David Fischer & Google Nabs Oracle’s Amit Singh

We had two interesting employments changes at Google reported both at AllThingsD. First, Google lost their VP of Global Online Sales & Operations, David Fischer to Facebook. Then we learn that Google hired Oracle’s 20-year executive, Amit Singh. Amit will be Google’s VP of International Sales for Google’s enterprise business. David Fischer will be the […]

Google Analytics

Q&A With Brian Clifton, Google Analytics Guru Extrodinaire

Brian Clifton (PhD) is an independent author, consultant and trainer who specializes in performance optimization using Google Analytics. Brian has been involved in web design and SEO since as far back as 1997, when he built his first website and started defining best practise to advise clients. From 2005-8 he was Head of Web Analytics […]

Analytics & conversion

Managing Tail Terms: Balancing Risk & Reward

The savvy search marketer always explores tail terms to improve overall performance. If done right, tail terms can convert better than the head and can also be cheaper in terms of Cost Per Click (CPC). Hence, effective tail management lifts the performance of the overall campaign. When exploring the tail, marketers are always faced with […]

Content

Creating An Emotional Response From Your Web Site

I hadn’t seen my artist friend in nearly a year, nor was I even sure he was still painting. But there I was the other day, standing with him in his art studio, chatting about the new things he wanted me to add to his web site. Suddenly he led me to one large 80″ […]

SEO

The Things That Facebook Causes, According To Google, Yahoo & Bing

I had a good chuckle over the news yesterday that Facebook apparently has caused an increase in syphilis (or not). So reported the Daily Telegraph, which turns around today to add that to a list of other things Facebook supposedly causes, such as cancer or a surge in rickets. Anything missing? How about asking Google, […]

SEO

SES New York ’10 Day 3 Live Coverage

The third and last day of the SES New York conference is now complete. Below is live coverage of the event that I found throughout the day. 21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites, BruceClay.com Ads in a Quality Score World from SES NY 2010, Search Engine Roundtable Advanced Paid Search Tactics from SES NY 2010, […]

PPC

The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2010

It’s probably no surprise to anyone working as a search marketer, but the industry is chugging along at double-digit growth rates, even as budgets for other forms of marketing and advertising continue to be slashed. According to SEMPO’s sixth annual State of Search Engine Marketing Report, the North American search engine marketing industry will grow […]

Google

Google China: Congressional Praise; Microsoft Supports Tyranny & Google Eats Poo Cartoon

The reactions to Google’s partial withdrawal from China continue. Yesterday, there were hearings in the US Congress where representatives showered praise on Google while competitor Microsoft was said to be supporting tyranny. Meanwhile, there is a nice round-ups of reactions from China folks on the web, including a great cartoon of something you never see […]

Google Ads

Google Now Offering “Remarketing” To All AdWords Advertisers

Last March Google initiated a trial of what it calls “remarketing” for display and text ads throughout its content network. Today it’s opening up the option for all AdWords advertisers. To be clear this is not “search retargeting” and doesn’t involve any Google.com query data. The benefit of this is being able to reach consumers, […]

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