Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Time To End The Bullshit Search Engine Share Figures? Yahoo’s up again in comScore’s latest search rankings. Reason? It seems largely due to non-search “slideshow” activity. Solution? Time to end the […]
Yahoo’s up again in comScore’s latest search rankings. Reason? It seems largely due to non-search “slideshow” activity. Solution? Time to end the bullshit way search share figures are calculated. Chance of success? Probably nil, but it’s worth hoping for. Today’s figures, for share of searches in the US handled by the major search engines, show […]
There’s a highly local element to real-time search, and Sency — a real-time search engine that we’ve profiled before — has taken a small step toward marrying trending content and location. Sency is now showing what it calls a “trends engine for popular places.” The idea of trends usually revolves around topics, but Sency is […]
As I was searching for a topic for this article, the news has come in that legendary UCLA coach John Wooden has passed away. Not only was he a coaching legend, he was an extraordinary mentor and a damn fine human being. From what I’m seeing on Twitter, I probably won’t be the only Search […]
Our online activity is about to be spread over more and more devices. This opens up some interesting implications for UI design. More and more, we’ll be launching queries from more places that will have different environmental challenges. For example:
Let’s take a break from focusing on the practice of analytics this week to focus on a single idea I think both search marketers and analytics people alike can benefit from enormously. We need to learn how to make the message simple. With all of the complexity involved in what we do, it’s easy to […]
Today, Google is showing you two basic logos or “Doodles” based on the country you live in. Most people outside the U.S. are seeing a FIFA World Cup logo for the start of the tournament, while people in the U.S. are seeing Jacques Cousteau Doodle for his 100th birthday. The main FIFA Google Doodle is […]
Google announced a new beta AdWords feature that gives your more insight into your AdWords competitors. The new beta feature is currently a limited beta and is named analyze competition. You can check under the Opportunities tab to see if you have this feature or not. What does it do? The tool looks at the […]
Google announced that it’s rolling out its fixed-fee local ad product “Tags” (formerly “enhanced listings“) nationally. It also announced that Tags will be showing up in mobile search results. Tags offers local businesses (or locations) a way to make their listings in the map-related 7-Pack “pop.” Here’s an example for “massage, Houston“: Businesses can highlight […]
This never happens to me. Until now. While writing my earlier piece, Google News Tests Editors’ Picks, I went to Google News on the off-chance that I’d be able to see the “limited test” of editors’ picks. Nope. As expected. But totally unexpected was that I’ve been opted-in to a test of a completely new […]
Google News, which has always prided itself on being a 100% computer-generated news aggregator with no human intervention, is doing an about-face. The Nieman Journalism Lab reports that a limited test is underway which involves human editors from “partner news organizations” manually choosing certain articles “to be featured on Google News.” The new Editors’ Picks […]
Many consider search engine optimization as a sort of black box. But once the essential features of a search engine optimal website are laid out in a concise list, SEO is not nearly as mystifying. That’s where these checklists come in. They are designed for web marketers and web developers so that they can easily […]
The biggest sporting event in the world is underway and, if you’re unable to follow along on TV, there’s plenty of coverage of it online — including all of the major search engines and Twitter. Here’s a look at what you’ll find on the web if you’re looking for a football/soccer fix. Google Google seems […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Official: Google Removes Auto-Background Feature Confused about why Google was showing a picture on its home page today. Apparently, plenty of people were, some to the point of being upset. In […]
Confused about why Google was showing a picture on its home page today. Apparently, plenty of people were, some to the point of being upset. In reaction, Google’s dropped the feature. Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, confirmed the change via an update to the official Google blog post that […]
It seems like the Google Alerts team is up to some new tricks. A couple weeks ago, Google tweaked the quality algorithm of Google Alerts and, although I missed it then TechCrunch noticed, they dropped the web alerts option. In regards to the quality change, Googler Marcel said: Regarding the volume of alerts, we’ve been […]
I would love to be a fly on the wall at the FTC. A few weeks ago the agency grudgingly decided not to pursue its lawsuit to prevent the Google-AdMob deal on the purported basis that Apple’s entry into the mobile ad market would sufficiently balance Google’s new push into mobile display: The Commission said that although […]
As we’ve learned through this column, the three basic building blocks of paid search marketing are keywords, ads, and landing pages. For the next few posts, we’ll be focusing on the ads part of the equation. Next week, we’ll discuss the right brain of search—the creative side—but, first, you need to know the left brain’s […]
If you visit Google today, you may notice the home page is a bit different. About a week ago, Google began letting users to upload their own background images on Google.com, to help them customize the Google home page. To drive more awareness to this feature and to inspire users to change their home page, […]
SMX Advanced 2010 day two is now just about complete and below is the live blog coverage from the day: Microsoft Looks to Broaden Search Role, Wall Street Journal Best of SMX Advanced 2010, Managing Greatness Bing announces new Social vertical, LiveSide Bing loves Apple back: Details of Microsoft’s iPhone ‘partnership’, techflash.com Bing ready to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Colbert Goes From 0-To-40 “Bing” Mentions In 2 Minutes, For Charity Bing bought a pretty funny product placement on the Colbert Report this week. Comedian Stephen Colbert was promised $2,500 for […]
Bing bought a pretty funny product placement on the Colbert Report this week. Comedian Stephen Colbert was promised $2,500 for each mention he did of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, with the money to go to his Gulf oil spill relief charity fund. Colbert did 40 within 2 minutes in various ways, racking up $100,000 in […]
Bing announced Bing Social search today at the SMX Advanced keynote. Bing Social search should be live shortly at bing.com/social. Features include: Status updates and shared links from Facebook fan pages Aggregate shared link data for non-fan pages Re-designed homepage that shows improved trending topics derived from both Twitter and Facebook data For more details, […]
Good morning from Seattle! The sun is shining outside and the coffee is flowing inside (as required by city ordinance) and day two of SMX Advanced is about to get started. Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business at Microsoft will be sitting down in a few moments for a Q&A conversation with Search […]
Google announced a new tool named the AdWords Campaign Experiments tool or ACE. The tool aids advertisers in testing their campaigns. Google said “ACE allows you to perform faster, more accurate tests by executing your experimental campaign alongside your original campaign. By performing this type of simultaneous split test, we can tell you precisely if […]
Google announced that its mobile voice search offering is now available in several, new European flavors. It has been available for English, Mandarin and Japanese until this point. Now Google will be offering voice search in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Image: Google Voice search is popular — though Google so far hasn’t provided any […]
Are you struggling to communicate your program’s successes and plans across your organization? Do you have a hard time getting people to pay attention to SEO in your company? Let’s take a look at a three step plan to improve your internal SEO communications. Newsletters I’m sure everyone has thought of this approach by now. Not […]
Today, some insights from Stephen Pavlovich at Conversion Factory. He’s a very experienced conversion rate optimizer. I specifically focused on questions around how to persuade clients to actually start testing and to make radical tests. Let’s dive in! Tom: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get into conversion rate optimization (CRO)? Stephen: […]
When an investment in social media marketing is considered by executives, it’s common to hear objections like “prove to me we can make money” or “where’s the ROI?”, regardless of whether the organization is an extremely large business or a mom and pop shop. Such classic concerns actually make a ton of sense. Social media […]
At today’s last session of the day at SMX Advanced, You & A with Google’s Matt Cutts, he announced the official rollout of “caffeine”, which Vanessa Fox covered in an earlier post, Google’s New Indexing Infrastructure “Caffeine” Now Live. Here’s Cutts discussing with Danny Sullivan what it means to everyone:
SMX Advanced 2010 day one is now complete and below is the live blog coverage from the day: Good Morning SMX Advanced, Seattle 2010!, AIM Clear Blog Internet Marketing Business Track: Opening the Contract Kimono: Translating Your Pricing Model to Legal Agreement, BruceClay.com Live Blog: Matt Cutts ‘You & A’ At SMX Advanced, Search Engine […]
What you need to know about Google's indexing system.
Welcome to our live blogging coverage from SMX Advanced in Seattle. Google’s Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team, is doing his traditional keynote that ends the first day of the conference. He’ll be sitting down with Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan for a “You & A” conversation that’s due to start at 5:00 […]
The Twitter Blog announced they are now testing expanding their Twitter based URL shortening service, t.co on URLs that are long. The main difference here is that they will show a portion of the real URL, but pass it through t.co for security reasons. Twitter explained: When this is rolled out more broadly to users […]
Many potential clients ask me what types of links they can expect if they hire us. Like any other link building company, we have our own in-house link guidelines, which clients can adapt to suit their own needs. Some clients take more risks than others, some have an in-house SEO team who guide us, and […]
One of the challenges that bloggers face, compared to ‘real’ journalists, is that we’re not conditioned to churn out stories, no matter what. And so with a deadline looming for this post, I wondered what to write about, but nothing really grabbed my attention. But then I got to thinking – maybe I should write […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Local Search Marketers Share Ranking Factors Nearly three dozen local search marketers from around the world have shared their opinions on what matters most this year when it comes to ranking […]
Nearly three dozen local search marketers from around the world have shared their opinions on what matters most this year when it comes to ranking well in Google Maps, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local. David Mihm has published the results of the 2010 Local Search Ranking Factors survey. The survey asks local search marketers to […]
SMX Advanced kicked off this morning in sunny Seattle (yes, seriously) with a packed house for the opening session of the SEO/Social Media track, “SEO for Google vs. Bing: How Different are They?” I won’t be recapping all of the sessions I attend today and tomorrow, but will do my best to share any interesting […]
People ask friends and followers lots of questions on Twitter. Now a new service called Replyz is making it easy to find all the questions being asked, answers being given and provides a platform allowing anyone to participate in question-answering on Twitter in an organized manner. It offers much to searchers and search marketers, alike. […]