More from Search Engine Land: Page 3

Google Analytics

SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 18, 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: Search Engine Market Share Steady In July: Hitwise There’s little change in the latest search engine market share numbers from Experian Hitwise. The company announced its stats for July 2010 today, […]

SEO

Search Engine Market Share Steady In July: Hitwise

There’s little change in the latest search engine market share numbers from Experian Hitwise. The company announced its stats for July 2010 today, and there’s almost no change at all for Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Ask.com did get a 6% jump from June, Hitwise says.

Content

The Benefits, Limitations, And Risks Of Shared Platforms

There are a number of shared platforms for B2B marketers that promise increased traffic and search visibility for their members. Before you subscribe to a shared platform, be sure you understand whether it will really help you and how to best use it to drive increased visibility in the search results. This article looks at […]

SEO

SEO Metrics: Proving Value With Research, Data And Tact

When it comes to SEO, it is a quantitative marketing medium that is all about metrics and results. That means if you can’t provide data/research that proves value, as well as analytics and reporting to back your results, you’re basically asking for a whole lot of drama. Putting together the research behind a business case […]

Content

The Problems With Google’s House Ads

Many publishers run “house ads” to self-promote their own offerings. Google does too. However, Google differs from most publishers because it auctions ad space on its network. Thus, when Google runs house ads, it simultaneously conducts the auction that it is bidding in—an impermissible conflict of interest. This post explains when Google uses house ads, […]

Google

Google Buzz Suggesting Accounts To Follow

The Google Buzz team announced they will be offering suggestions for new people to follow the next time you login to Google Buzz. Google said the “suggestions are based on your frequent email/chat contacts, your public connections on other networks, and their activity on Google Buzz.” Google will only show you suggestions of public Google […]

Analytics & conversion

Conversion Zen: Transforming Errors Into Opportunities

Who’s responsible for your site’s error messages? Who decides what they say, when they appear, and how they look? It’s a key question—because if you haven’t paid attention to how your site treats visitors when things go wrong, their experience is much more likely to be negative—and talked about. This article is second in a […]

Link building

SES SF Live Blogging Recap: Day One

Below is the live blog coverage of the sessions given today at the Search Engine Strategies San Francisco conference. If you are aware of other live blog coverage, feel free to link to them in the comments. Content Marketing Optimization — SES San Francisco, BruceClay.com Deep Dive Into Analytics: When Bounce Rate No Longer Floats […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 17, 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: Hunch: Traffic Down, Registrations Way Up & We’re Smarter Even though its traffic is down, Hunch says new user registrations have risen dramatically recently. And as more users register, Hunch says […]

Ecommerce

Hunch: Traffic Down, Registrations Way Up & We’re Smarter

Even though its traffic is down, Hunch says new user registrations have risen dramatically recently. And as more users register, Hunch says its recommendation engine keeps getting smarter. Barely more than two months ago, Hunch began requiring visitors to register/login to use the site. In doing so, all Hunch visitors were required to answer the […]

PPC

Could CafeMom Become Yahoo’s Long Sought Social Network?

AllThingsD is reporting that Yahoo is negotiating with mom-oriented social network CafeMom for a potential $100 million acquisition — the price Yahoo recently paid for Associated Content. Yahoo has of course tried to buy other companies unsuccessfully in the past (most recently Foursquare, according to rumor) so it’s not clear it will happen. But this […]

Bing

Yahoo-Microsoft Organic Transition Happening, Site Explorer, Search Monkey Holding For Now

The Yahoo-Microsoft search transition is picking up momentum. Yahoo announced a number of things today relevant to the change over. They concern the organic search transition, SearchMonkey and Site Explorer. Yahoo announced that later this week the organic transition will commence for PC and mobile results in North America: This is an important step toward […]

Paid social

Facebook E-Commerce: A Look At Facebook Shopping Carts

Facebook pages can be quite a dynamic location for your brand and now there is a growing push towards monetizing pages from within Facebook. By utilizing shopping cart software built exclusively for Facebook, retailers can now sell products right on their Facebook pages – no need for users to ever exit Facebook.com. These e-commerce platforms […]

Link building

Smart Links Can Make Your SEO Sing

Webmasters build links for two reasons: to drive traffic and to influence search engine placement. Neither option is as cut and dry as I’ve stated here but when it gets down to it, that’s why webmasters deliberately build links. If you’re building links to support ongoing SEO efforts, there are a handful of key tips to […]

Google Ads

Google AdWords To Adjust Your Max CPCs Based On Conversion Data

The Google AdWords blog announced a new bidding method available to advertisers named enhanced CPC. Enhanced CPC uses your conversion data, the one you may willing provide to Google AdWords, to automatically adjust your Max CPC prices. The system predicts the likelihood of an ad converting based on the historical conversion tracking data in your […]

Content

New comScore Search Metrics: ‘Explict Core Search’ Up At Yahoo, Bing, Down At Google

As Danny earlier pointed out, comScore has devised a new metric called “Explicit Core Search” to separate intended search results from slideshow “gaming” (“contextual search”), which had arguably distorted search volumes at Yahoo and to some degree Bing in recent months. Here’s how comScore explains the new metric: When comScore reports our July 2010 qSearch […]

SEO

Europe Needs Bing, But Does Bing Need Europe?

A simple look at search market share in Europe shows that Europe is a Google continent. Though the search giant’s headquarters are physically based in Silicon Valley, a huge part of their community is based in Europe. Only Yandex in Russia and Seznam in Czech are able to compete with Google, but only on a […]

Ecommerce

Swingly: New Search Engine Reveals Just The Facts

The days of search engines merely being a middle man are over. Search isn’t about sending users to the right web page, it’s about getting them the information they want as soon as possible — sometimes it’s a web page, but it might also be a sports score, movie showtimes, election information, or some other […]

Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 16, 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: Q&A: comScore’s New “Core Search” & “Explicit Core Search” Figures Today, comScore is releasing an additional set of search market share metrics designed to better reflect “core” search activity, something that’s […]

SEO

Q&A: comScore’s New “Core Search” & “Explicit Core Search” Figures

Today, comScore is releasing an additional set of search market share metrics designed to better reflect “core” search activity, something that’s become an issue as companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft have inflated traditional metrics through the use of “slideshows” and other “contextual search” activities. Below, a Q&A with Cameron Meierhoefer, comScore’s executive vice president […]

Paid social

Twitter Expands Social Connections With New Features

Twitter is rolling out a couple new features this week that expands its ability to show and help you develop your social network. The new features — “Followed by” and “You both follow” — are on their way to 100% availability, a Twitter spokesperson tells us. Both features show up when looking at another user’s […]

Apple

Is Google’s Brand Equity In Danger?

Last week, while I was on vacation, the big news was the Google-Verizon “net neutrality” agreement. Mostly the public response has been negative and very negative in some quarters. Danny’s How Google & Apple Sold Out The Cell Phone Revolution is one example. The even stronger Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net Neutrality Surrender Monkey […]

SEO

Lycos Sold For $36 Million

Lycos, that old search engine, was reportedly sold for $36 million. Ybrant Digital, an Indian-based digital marketing solutions company, bought Lycos from Korean-based Daum. Daum purchased Lycos back in 2004 for $95.4 million—and that was a mere fraction of the of the $12.5 billion Spanish telecom company Terra paid for Lycos at the peak of […]

SEO

Chitika: Bing Passes Yahoo In Search Market Share

Well here’s a surprise. New stats from Chitika show Bing has taken over the second place spot for search market share from Yahoo — and back in January 2010! Chitika is an advertising network similar to Google AdSense. The company receives data about visits to the 80,000 sites in its network, which are mostly US […]

Local

Optimizing Facebook Status Updates For Local Marketing

Many small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) are awakening to the marketing potential found in Facebook’s massive audience, and have begun developing their Facebook pages to promote their companies. While posting status updates is a great way to engage with your customers, there are some ways to kick them up a notch to expand your promotional potential, and […]

SEO

Tracking Seasonal Search Behavior

Many products are naturally seasonal in nature. For example, Halloween costumes are generally only sold in the weeks preceding the holiday each year. However, while this seasonal behavior is easy to conceptualize, it can frustrate your ability to measure the progress of your SEO efforts, and the traffic growth you would like to see from […]

Google Shopping

SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 13, 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: Oracle Sued Google Over Patent Infringement Of Java Within Android Oracle has filed suit against Google for allegedly infringing on patents they hold for Java, which Oracle acquired last year. Karen […]

Content

Oracle Sued Google Over Patent Infringement Of Java Within Android

Oracle has filed suit against Google for allegedly infringing on patents they hold for Java, which Oracle acquired last year. Karen Tillman from Oracle said, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.” Google said they have not yet been served the […]

Content

How To Rescue Poorly Converting Web Sites

Twice this year I got the call too late. Two online businesses were in their final death throes. Their owners begged me for emergency help with sinking conversion rates. Both believed that I could find what was “broken,” repair it with some magic usability tape, traffic would flow again and sales would return. Though I […]

Ecommerce

Dead Girl On Google Street View? No, Just A Game

Imagine clicking through your neighborhood’s Google Street View photos and finding this: If you think you’re looking at the body of a dead girl, so did people who live on Middle Road in Worcester, England. But, as the Daily Mail reports, it’s just a ten-year-old named Azura Beebeejaun who happened to be “playing dead” with […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 12, 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: Gnarly, Dude: Google Solves Rubik’s Cube In 20 Moves This’ll make a lot of us feel a lot dumber: Scientists have used Google to prove that Rubik’s Cube can be solved […]

Google

Gnarly, Dude: Google Solves Rubik’s Cube In 20 Moves

This’ll make a lot of us feel a lot dumber: Scientists have used Google to prove that Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less. So, that was about two years of my early 1980s life wasted. The UK’s Daily Mail says that a Kent State University professor worked with a Google engineer […]

Apple

Google ‘Voice Actions’ Eases Search (& More) On Android

Life just got a little easier for U.S.-based smartphone users running Android 2.2 (Froyo). During a press event this morning, Google announced “Voice Actions,” a series of commands that lets users speak tasks that typically require typing. Danny Sullivan was at the event and live-blogged it here on SEL, and now there’s more information from […]

Paid social

Twitter Launches Official Tweet Button

As rumored yesterday, Twitter has launched an official “Tweet” button that’s available to all web site owners. You can see it in action already right here on Search Engine Land — look how well it plays with others in the sharing options for our Tweet button story from yesterday: The Tweet button builder has some […]

SEO

Why I Still Hate Rel=Canonical

Note: this article assumes you understand the basics of canonicalization. If you don’t, have a look at my article, 8 Canonicalization Best Practices In Plain English. I still don’t recommend using rel=canonical. It should be your weapon of absolute last resort. Last February, the Big 3 search engines announced support for this link tag. A […]

Google Analytics

9 SEO Realities For Small Businesses

David Ingram and I recently had the pleasure of sitting with Tom Critchlow from Distilled (SEO consultants) for a few hours to asses our local business directory, brownbook.net. A whole load of notes and actions flowed from the meeting — some of which may be very useful to others. Here are a few points to […]

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