Bing

New Year’s Eve & Day 2011 Logos From Google & Others

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone, except for you in the Australian region, where it is New Year’s Day! On behalf of the Search Engine Land team, we wanted to wish you all a happy and healthy 2011! As like in the past years, the search engines have special logos up for the New Years. Below […]

Facebook

What If Google Had Bought MySpace (And What If They Do)?

AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes reports that MySpace is considering significant layoffs — perhaps up to 50 percent of its 1,000 person staff. We also know (and she repeats) that the site could be sold by News Corp. because of recent poor performance. (News Corp’s attitude implies that it had nothing to do with that decline.) Reading […]

Google

How Cool Would It Be If Google Became A Carrier?

The end of the year is the time when people feel more free to make wacky statements and dubious predictions. Whether it’s the season, too many rich desserts or the additional alcohol people consume it’s not clear. But one such prediction is that Google might seek to become a full-fledged phone company in 2011. Having […]

Content

Rosetta Stone AdWords Info Revealed In Google Brief

Interesting tidbits have emerged from Google’s release of an unredacted appellate brief from its trademark battle with advertiser Rosetta Stone. While none of the information is earth-shattering, it’s interesting to note that Rosetta Stone earns a better return-on-investment from advertising with Google AdWords than any of its other advertising methods. Between July 2007 and March […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 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: What Every Search Marketer Needs To Know About Web Security All too often web site security is somebody else’s problem. It shouldn’t be. If you work on websites, you should know […]

Local

Yext Takes Google Tags Idea Across Web

Local advertising provider Yext has spearheaded the launch of a Google-like “tags” product that receives distribution across a vast array of local sites including Yelp, Yahoo, Mapquest, Superpages, Topix, Patch, Citysearch and others. It’s being characterized as an “anti-Google alliance.” That’s not exactly correct. As a practical matter it gives advertisers a way to run […]

Google

One Ex-Googler Leaves Obama’s Administration

Andrew McLaughlin, one of several former Google employees who joined the Obama admninistration, resigned last week as Obama’s number two tech expert. The news was first reported last week by Politico, which says McLaughlin was leaving to launch two start-ups. USA Today, however, reports today that McLaughlin isn’t sure what his future plans will include. […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 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: Google Fights Order To Surrender Names Of Search Marketers A federal judge has ordered Google to reveal the identities of four AdWords advertisers who were clients of search engine marketing agency […]

Google

Google Fights Order To Surrender Names Of Search Marketers

A federal judge has ordered Google to reveal the identities of four AdWords advertisers who were clients of search engine marketing agency Wpromote. The order comes as part of a lawsuit involving Google’s AdSense for Domains and AdSense for Errors programs, in which plaintiffs argue that the search company placed their ads on low-quality web […]

Apple

Paul Allen Refiles Patent Suit Against Google, Facebook, Yahoo & Others

As expected, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has re-filed his patent infringement lawsuit against some of the biggest companies on the web. The suit alleges that 11 companies have infringed on technology developed in the 1990s by Interval Licensing (AKA Interval Research Corporation), one of Allen’s companies. The 11 companies named in the suit are Google, […]

Google Analytics

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 28, 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 Vows To Look At Deceptive Cloaking Techniques Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted that Google will be looking more at Cloaking in the first quarter of 2011. Cloaking, as defined by Google, […]

Google

Google Vows Renewed Look At Cloaking In 2011

The head of Google spam fighting team, Matt Cutts, has tweeted that Google will be looking more at cloaking in the first quarter of 2011, perhaps with more clarification of what exactly cloaking is. Cloaking, which is against Google’s webmaster guidelines, is defined by Google as follows: Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different […]

Facebook

Gender And Tech Companies: Where Are The Women?

Google’s Marissa Mayer is profiled in a Q&A interview in Newsweek. It’s both about her past and about women in technology — why there are so few of them in Silicon Valley engineering roles. Mayer says she never really encountered any obstacles as a female computer science/math student at Stanford. She also discusses Google’s early […]

Apple

Report: Logitech Revue Paused, More Trouble In Google TV Land?

Last Friday a report appeared, citing the usual “anonymous sources,” that asserted Logitech asked one of its suppliers to “temporarily suspend shipments of [its Google TV] Revue set-top boxes for the period from December 2010 to January 2011 waiting for Google to complete updates or to launch a new version of its software for Google […]

Apple

The 2010 Santa Tracker Review, From NORAD To Google Earth

It’s Christmas Eve, and you know what that means. Santa Claus is busy delivering toys to boys and girls around the world. Where is Santa Claus right now? Below, our annual round up of ways to find Father Christmas, from tracking Santa on Google Earth to monitoring him from your iPhone. NOTE: If you’re looking […]

SEO

How To Grind Out Q&A Content For SEO Success

Every content-driven SEO strategy targets a tiny sliver of a giant Venn Diagram, with content that is either a) valuable enough that someone out there will search for it, and b) unique enough that it can rank. There’s one company that has turned that from a guideline to a credo: Demand Media. Demand Media’s financials may be […]

Google Ads

Google Adds 100 Reps To Sell Google Local Ads

Google Woos Local Advertisers from the Wall Street Journal reports Google has added about a hundred sales representatives to focus solely on selling Google Local ads. The products these sales representatives are selling are primarily Google Place Tags and Google Boost. Tags are a $25 per month label or tag appended to your maps listing […]

Apple

Where Is Search Going: More With Yahoo’s Shashi Seth

In part one of my interview with Shashi Seth, the Senior VP of Search Products at Yahoo, we looked at what Yahoo’s current thinking is about search since the Yahoo/Bing integration. But the point of this series of columns is not where search is, but where search is going. And that’s where we’ll jump off […]

Advertising

Time Is Short for Automatic Yahoo To Microsoft Migration

As you cross things off your holiday to-do lists and make your New Year’s resolutions, don’t forget to migrate your Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns to Microsoft adCenter. The deadline for U.S. and Canadian advertisers to use the companies’ transition tool is January 5. After that, you’re stuck with exporting and importing, though some search experts […]

SEO

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 23, 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: Santa Pegman Comes To Google Maps “Pegman” is the little icon in Google Maps that you can drag to enable the Google Street View feature. Tomorrow, he’s getting into the Christmas […]

Ecommerce

Santa Pegman Comes To Google Maps

“Pegman” is the little icon in Google Maps that you can drag to enable the Google Street View feature. Tomorrow, he’s getting into the Christmas spirit by becoming “Santa Pegman” and sporting a Santa Claus hat. Google’s sent a few preview pictures of how Santa Pegman will appear beginning tomorrow at 2am Eastern time through […]

Link building

The Secret Life Of The Black Hat SEO

The black hat SEO flies under the radar. He doesn’t want to attract too much attention — he knows attention brings bad things. Essentially he lives in the shadows. He doesn’t speak at conferences. He doesn’t publish articles. He hangs out with other black hats at conferences and road trips. In my opinion, an affiliate-oriented […]

PPC

PPC Academy Final Exam: Test Your Paid Search Knowledge

Here we are. I hope your time here at PPC Academy was productive and you learned a lot because it’s now time for your final exam. Were you paying attention? Have you bloomed into a search marketing pro with the knowledge and skills to kick major PPC butt, or do you still have things to […]

Google

Google’s Click-to-Call Growing Amid Booming Mobile Activity

The number of advertisers using click-to-call features on Google ads has grown an average of 28 percent month-over-month over the last few months, the company confirmed. The 28 percent stat represents all of Google’s advertisers, in both search and display, around the globe. As first reported by GigaOm and confirmed by Search Engine Land, Google […]

SEO

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 22, 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: Ten Search Marketing Hot Spots To Watch In 2011 As you shift your focus from frantically optimizing holiday campaigns to methodically (hah!) executing 2011 plans, here are ten areas worth thinking […]

Apple

Ten Search Marketing Hot Spots To Watch In 2011

As you shift your focus from frantically optimizing holiday campaigns to methodically (hah!) executing 2011 plans, here are ten areas worth thinking about: 1. Local. With all the buzz over Google’s near-acquisition of Groupon, it’s clear the Big G is ready to make a big move in the local space. While it may not be […]

Content

Net Neutrality: What Do The New Rules Mean And What’s Next?

The new “net neutrality” rules passed yesterday by the FCC (3-2 along partisan lines) are a kind of “Rorschach test.” Depending on where you sit on the political spectrum or in the internet economy you may see the new rules as “not going far enough” or “a unnecessary power grab by the government.” Some people […]

Link building

Of Salary Surveys, Training Options And Twelve Days

It’s that time of year again, when an in-house SEO’s mind turns to spiked eggnog at the company party and tinsel around the cubicles. With 2011 looming large in our collective monitors, it feels like the right time to share some love. Again this year SEMPO has run the Industry Salary Survey. Started a few […]

SEO

How To SEO A Vending Machine

If you were visiting a new city, you would hope your travel agent would suggest restaurants with good atmosphere, good service, and good variety—not a vending machine at a gas station. Google wants to be a good travel agent. When you perform a search, you’re really asking Google to present a choice that is perfectly […]

Google Analytics

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 21, 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: Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing I generally enjoy John Gruber’s writings, but today he’s dishing out SEO advice about HTML title tags. Some of it is bad […]

SEO

Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing

I generally enjoy John Gruber’s writings, but today he’s dishing out SEO advice about HTML title tags. Some of it is bad advice. So with respect, here’s how I’d suggest you write page titles in a way that can please search engines and humans alike. What Is An HTML Title Tag? Let me go back […]

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