Blekko, the long anticipated search engine founded by Rich Skrenta, has finally opened to the public. The service offers an interesting way to "slash" or create specialty search engines for any topic, along with new features the company hopes will improve relevancy. My previous article, Blekko: New Search Engine Lets You "Spin" The Web, goes into great depth about the core features you'll find at Blekko today, so I'd encourage you to read through that. Below, I'll provide an update on a new features added since my review of Blekko was written in July, when the service opened to a small grou [...]

Related Topics: Blekko | Channel: Consumer | Top News

Google's lost yet another high profile employee, apparently to Facebook. Another sign that Google's slipping, to some. Perhaps. For me, Google has become the new "California," stealing that role away from Yahoo. Come along a tale of equity refugees and companies growing up. California: The Former Golden State I'm a California native. I grew up in Southern California during what some might consider one of the state's heydays, the 1970s. But as the 1980s unfolded, the state seemed to be in decline. House prices kept going up. People kept moving in. Traffic kept getting worse. People talke [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features: Analysis | Google: Employees | Top News

Google has a very special Halloween logo for this year's holiday. The logo is five different designs based around the classic Scooby-Doo cartoon. You can flip between the five different logos by clicking on the right arrow, clicking on the logo or clicking on the palm imprint under the logo. Here is a short video showing off the logo: Here are static pictures of the logo: The other search engines have logos as well, here they are: Yahoo: Bing: DogPile: YouTube: Sogou: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Top News

It's been a few days since the launch of Google's new Place Search results, and while there is plenty more prognostication to come on the subject, I thought it would be helpful to sum up the collective wisdom of SEO pundits from around the globe on what it all means for getting traffic to your website. SMB Websites Now Must Focus on Both Local and Organic SEO for Place SERP Rankings Place SERPs combine Local & Organic results in one SERP to much greater degree than before this update. As Miriam Ellis says, it's time for those small businesses who found it easy to put off revising th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Google just filed its quarterly 10Q statement. Among the things in the filing is detail about Google's acquisitions in 2010. There were 40 costing Google a total of $1.6 billion and change. There were three substantial acquisitions (mostly bought with stock) and a whole bunch of smaller acquisitions that Google lumps together in the filing: "During the nine months ended September 30, 2010, we also completed 37 other acquisitions for a total cash consideration of approximately $626 million." The big three were AdMob ($655 million stock, $26 million cash), Slide ($179 million cash) and O [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Business Issues | Google: Employees | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Top News

What are you going as for Halloween? If you're dressing as Lady Gaga or Jersey Shore's Snooki, perhaps think again. According to both Google and Hitwise, those are among the most popular Halloween costumes out there. And for dog owners, Yahoo has a take on dog costumes. "Rising" Costume Stars, From Google Google's annual blog post on Halloween costumes has just come out. It lists "rising" costumes according to what people are searching for. These aren't the most searched for costumes but rather ones that showing out-of-the-ordinary interest spikes. The list? 2010 halloween costumes [b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search & Society: General | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

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 Dominates Social Networking For Product Discovery, Study SaysSearch engines are the number one way that consumers find out about new products, according to a new study commissioned by commerce software developer ATG. The survey was conducted online and polled 1,002 U.S. adult consumers in July 2010. One question asked respondents to list up to five ways they discover new products. 53% of respondents [...] Bing Finally Getting Facebook "Liked Res [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Search engines are the number one way that consumers find out about new products, according to a new study commissioned by commerce software developer ATG. The survey was conducted online and polled 1,002 U.S. adult consumers in July 2010. One question asked respondents to list up to five ways they discover new products. 53% of respondents across all age groups said they discover products through search engines. Only 8% said they discover new online products via "links or information on social networking sites." In the survey, men were more likely to rely on search engines to discov [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search & Society: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News

Earlier this month, Bing announced a new deal with Facebook, where it would be showing you what your Facebook friends liked within search results. People are now reporting seeing the personalization appearing. Bing originally said the new feature was rolling out in the US when it launched on October 13 and that it would be going live worldwide over a period of months. However, no one seemed to actually spot it live and in the wild. Today, at least once person did see it. The user who spotted this was a bit taken back, saying, "How in the world did Bing get the right to snap up my profi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Social Search | Top News

One area in which Google services for Android and the iPhone appear to be diverging is Maps. I'm an Android EVO owner and still have iPhone envy except in the Maps department. The combination and integration of Google Maps, Places Pages, Street View and Navigation (with the phone and contacts) has created a kind of LBS juggernaut on the Android device that will increasingly prove challenging to compete with -- even for Yelp. Right now, no such combination of services exists on the iPhone, which makes it a more "open" playing field for location-based services and local publishers. I would [...]

Related Topics: 1 | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile

I can virtually guarantee that you aren't satisfying at least one major segment of your customers. Did you know that it took until 1989 for chunky tomato pasta sauce to come out? A guy by the name of Howard Moskowitz cracked this code for the Prego brand while they were trying desperately to defeat Ragu, the champion of pasta sauce at the time. Until then, companies were looking for the "perfect" pasta sauce, much like we seek the "perfect" architecture, interface, product photography, shopping cart, landing page, etc. It was Howard who pointed out that they shouldn't be looking for the per [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Analytics | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Search Term Research

This week was a pretty momentous one for me. I’ve changed gigs. I’m now an employee again. A big, public company now signs my paycheck. And, up to now, that company, YPG, has made most of their money by publishing phone books. The acquisition of Enquiro is part of a much bigger digital strategy for their future. It’s one I’m very excited about. But today, rather than looking forward, I’d like to look back, about six years back. It was when I first starting asking why. What's in a name? I’ve been doing search optimization since 1996. In 1999, I decided to make a business of [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Search & Usability

Prosecutors in Italy are investigating Google's Street View service to determine if the company violated privacy laws when it collected wifi data over unencrypted networks earlier this year. Officials in Rome announced the probe on Wednesday. This is separate from Italy's request last weekend that Google mark its Street View cars and publish their itineraries in advance. That ruling was from Italy's privacy authority and was more about the generic Street View photography; this new probe is specific to the wifi data collection that several countries are investigating and is being conducted b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Street View

Results from the Adobe 2010 Analytics Benchmark Survey The webcast discusses: Top challenges facing web analysts Five best practices that drive insight and action Description of how Zeo dreamed big with the Adobe Online Marketing Suite Download Now [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sponsor Messages

Google Social Search -- the service that adds content from your social circle to a search results page -- appears to be getting an increase in tweets. And fresher tweets, at that. Social Search relies on what Google knows about your friends and connections (via your Google profile, Google Reader account, etc.) and sometimes shows content from your circle at the bottom of a search results page. That content has, for the most part, been very heavy on articles and blog posts. But here's what I saw not long ago on a search for [google places]: That top piece of content is a tweet earlier [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Social Search

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Microsoft Records Their Q1 2010 Earnings, Bing Takes Loss AgainMicrosoft announced their Q1 2010 fiscal earnings with a 25% increase in revenue, $16.20 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2010. Operating income was $7.12 billion and net income was $5.41 billion, both up from the past. These reports beat Wall Streets expectations and the stock is currently slightly up in after [...] Multinational SEO That Doesn’t Break The BankSo, you’ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Microsoft announced their Q1 2010 fiscal earnings with a 25% increase in revenue, $16.20 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2010. Operating income was $7.12 billion and net income was $5.41 billion, both up from the past. These reports beat Wall Streets expectations and the stock is currently slightly up in after hours trading. How about Bing? Well, Bing is part of Microsoft's Online Services Division, which took an operating loss of $560 million. That is much higher from the previous year, where they took a loss of $477 million. However, revenue did climb in that division, with [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft: Business Issues

So, you've patiently built your brand as a local market .com TLD (in the UK, Germany or elsewhere) and, over the last couple of years, built a great reputation for service quality and hitting delivery deadlines with your niche products. Well done! Requests for your company's products have gone through the roof in your local market and you're looking to expand. Unfortunately, your local market is also now saturated and you need to reach out to new countries to maintain your growth—particularly the US, as you can easily extend distribution and it's a huge market. However, budget is l [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | How To: SEO | Multinational Search

Think it’s too soon to shop online for the winter holidays? Think again. Some retailers have been promoting holiday sales since this past summer. This year, both Walmart and Target held the first ever Black Friday in July sale, offering deals on a variety of electronics, apparel, toys, beauty products, sporting goods and other essentials. The early opening of the shopping season confirms that retailers are looking to find creative ways to spark buying activity after continued lagging sales as the US economic recovery stalls. The good news is that even in this economy, or because of i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | How To: SEM

Yandex, the number one search engine in Russia, has struck a deal with Facebook to get some updates for its search engine index. As announced today, the deal has two parts: First, Facebook will supply Yandex with a data feed of status updates from Facebook Pages. This is similar to the Facebook-Google agreement announced last December, but falls short of Facebook's agreement with Bing, which also includes updates on personal Facebook profiles. Yandex says it will add the Facebook data into its blog search index. Second, the Yandex.ru home page is showing a Facebook content widget (see im [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Search Engines: Yandex