In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Matt Cutts, a Google engineer working on search quality, wrote at the Google Blog that Google has recently released a new spam detection classifier to help prevent “spammy on-page content” from ranking highly in the Google search index. None of this comes as a surprise, Matt told us Google would be stepping up their search […]
Google’s co-founders have long admired Apple CEO Steve Jobs, even though they now compete directly with his company. So I couldn’t help thinking that Jobs helped inspire yesterday’s announcement that Larry Page was taking over the helm at Google. (Jobs himself turned over the reins of his company this week to COO Tim Cook out […]
There were two Google navigation changes that people have started to notice. The first was making the Google search left hand bar more compact and the second was changing the menu choices in the top menu while in Gmail. Google Operating System reported the more compact version of the Google web search side bar. Google […]
Google has updated the PageRank values of many sites within the Google Toolbar. This is the first toolbar PageRank update of the year, and arguably the first one in almost 9 months. There have been minor updates, where some sites have seen their PageRank change during 2010, but I believe the last huge PageRank update […]
Welcome back, Larry! When you were last CEO of Google in 2001, the company was a much loved scrappy underdog with a bright future. Ten years later, you’re coming back to the helm. Things have changed. You’re soon to be steering a massive battleship that’s taking on water from a number of hits over the […]
Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called “Google Offers,” designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon. Google has told Search Engine Land: Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing […]
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’s Huge Earnings Overshadowed By Leadership Change Google just announced Q4 and full year 2010 earnings. They also dropped the bombshell that Larry Page would be taking over as CEO, with […]
Google just announced Q4 and full year 2010 earnings. They also dropped the bombshell that Larry Page would be taking over as CEO, with Eric Schmidt becoming “executive chairman.” Danny Sullivan has more on that development. In Q4 Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion, 26 percent growth vs a year ago. Full year revenues exceeded […]
Wow. Just announced, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is stepping down from that position, to become “Executive Chairman,” with Google cofounder Larry Page stepping into the CEO role. Below, some reflection on how Schmidt came into the role that Page once held and why the company may be making a change now.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, writing in the Harvard Business Review (via RWW), says that Google’s 2011 initiatives are “all about mobile.” In his short piece he explains that geolocation on smartphones enables contexual personalization and a range of new possibilities and user experiences. But to realize that vision there are three infrastructure elements that must […]
In my last column, I addressed the frontlines of mobile video optimization and also discussed the transformation of online video placement as a shift from containers to conduits. Now, I want to turn attention to mobile video SEO and ways you can strategically leverage your parent site for your mobile site. Implementing Mobile Video SEO […]
Often, when people in the industry talk about the two sides of SEO, they’re talking about black hat and white hat tactics. Having worked as an SEO since 2003 and in Internet marketing since 2000, both with Fortune 50 and mom and pop businesses with business goals as different as night and day, I think […]
Long awaited, it was first spotted by Engadget yesterday: Google Voice number porting. Though it’s only available in a limited test to a limited number of users, number porting is coming very soon to everyone with a Google Voice account. Currently that porting option only pertains to wireless numbers and not landlines. Gone Now, But […]
The Spanish Data Protection Authority is treating Google not as an “intermediary” but as a “publisher” under Spanish law. That brings with it numerous burdens and obligations that potentially create a massive legal and privacy headache for Google. A similar thing happened recently in Italy where YouTube is now being classified and treated as a […]
Apple has created a page on iTunes for the top app downloads of all time within the App Store. One of those categories includes the top downloaded apps within the free app category. Of the top ten free iPhone apps, two of them are from Google. Yes, Google is dominating the App Store with the […]
50 years ago today, John F. Kennedy gave his famous inaugural address. It was January 20, 1961 where John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president of the United States of America. It was the day where he gave his famous inaugural address and it is the inaugural address that Google used to […]
Finally! SEO gets its first mainstream exposure since 2005, when search marketer David Karandish briefly appeared the Martha Stewart edition of NBC’s The Apprentice (yes, I really did pull that reference out). But this time, the lights of Hollywood didn’t shine so brightly on search engine optimization – SEO was mentioned in a negative clip. […]
Depending on your viewpoint, Collecta has either shut down or hit the pause button while the company “takes a step back” and retools it’s approach. I just got off the phone with Collecta CEO Gerry Campbell who was upbeat about his company’s prospects and next steps. He was candid, however, that the market he and […]
Some users have been seeing the tests for a while, and now Google has formally launched a new Google Maps display that makes the different viewing options much more visible. The old display, with its horizontal row of text-based buttons … … has been replaced by what Google is calling an “all-inclusive widget.” It’s more […]
For the past year or so, there’s been a rising meme that Google is altering its search results in ways to favor itself over competitors. Now a new study is out showing the opposite. Google is far more likely not to show its own products in the first spot of its search results. The survey […]
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 Knol Still Alive & Fixed, But Questions Linger About Its Future Google has fixed a bug that temporarily made Knol look like a ghost town this week. And, without exactly […]
Google has fixed a bug that temporarily made Knol look like a ghost town this week. And, without exactly providing a ringing endorsement of its article writing service, Google says it is still supporting Knol. The Google Operating System blog suggested yesterday that Google had “abandoned” Knol and questioned if Google should or would shut […]
The SEO landscape is competitive enough for B2B organizations. The last thing they need is internal competition from other business units. But many marketers face this hurdle when implementing an effective enterprise search solution. But to be successful, enterprise level SEO needs to be supported by a governance system based on effective communication. Why Governance […]
The annual Sundance Film Festival is about to converge here in Utah January 20-30, 2011, with Bing.com and YouTube as Leadership Sponsors. Bing is the official search engine of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival website, and YouTube has two special channels for the event, the main Sundance Film Fest channel, and the YouTube Screening Room, […]
Back in 2001 when I started my professional career in online marketing, SEO was still pretty new. Paid search had literally just materialized in the form of goto.com (anyone remember penny bids?!). Everything was still soft and new. Negotiating ad buys was as simple as cutting the seller’s price in half. Paid search could be […]
Today is Paul Cézanne’s 172nd birthday and Google is remembering his work with a special Google logo. Paul Cézanne was a painter and artist born in 1839 and died in 1906. Here is a picture of the Google logo: Google tweeted this morning that the logo you see on the home page was first created […]
Google announced that after years of not allowing those in Iran to download their software, Google has opened up downloads of their Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome applications. Now if you are in Iran you will be able to download Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome to your computer. Google explained that the U.S. export controls […]
The concept of “search neutrality” that has recently emerged is an attractive idea to many, appealing to notions of even-handedness and fair play. However it completely breaks down when one seriously considers its implications in practice. We’ve written a great deal about the challenges and problems lurking behind “search neutrality.” Now in an academic article, […]
Google has announced the fourth “Doodle 4 Google” competition, this one is named “What I’d like to do someday…” These competitions are targeted at children who design logos around a theme each year. Like I said, this year’s theme is “What I’d like to do someday…”. Google runs the competition worldwide, but this one is […]
Google is making a slow comeback in China — in more ways that one. Earlier this month Google CFO Patrick Pichette was quoted in The Times of London suggesting that Google would “return” to China in a more forceful way in the not-too-distant future. The company stopped censoring its results last year and started redirecting […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: A Plea To Make Your Links More User Friendly Have you noticed that it’s harder to find critical contact information these days? If you have a question about an online order, […]
Have you noticed that it’s harder to find critical contact information these days? If you have a question about an online order, finding a phone number so that you can speak to an actual person is a nightmare at times. Some sites are automatically setting ridiculous default options for you (yay spammy and for-sale email […]
Is Facebook’s third largest advertiser really a site that tries to trick people into switching to Bing? Apparently not. Still, Bing’s not happy with the tactics and is ending its relationship with the publisher. The site, Make-My-Baby.com, now appears to have gone down. But earlier today, it was suggesting that people needed a plug-in to […]
Last week we reported on two extensive questionnaires being used by the European Commission to gather factual information as part of its antitrust inquiry against Google. Agencies, advertisers, ad networks and publishers are being solicited for their input through these documents. We obtained a copy of what appears to be the shorter questionnaire. In it […]
That was the response I gave a few hours ago to a packed room of attendees in a full day workshop on Search Marketing here in Delhi India. During the afternoon workshop that was more of an open Q&A site clinic format, the majority of the questions were about multinational SEO. While I was able […]
Gazopa recently added stock photos to its image search engine. That isn’t exactly huge news in and of itself, but the interesting thing about Gazopa is the multiple ways you can search for images. The company has added a “stock photo” tab on its search results page, so a keyword search for office furniture and […]
Each day seems to bring new twists and turns in Europe in the unfolding saga of the many investigations against Google going on there. Yesterday, in a bit of good news for Mountain View, the Italian Competition Authority ended an antitrust investigation into Google News. The investigation was initiated in 2009 after complaints by Italian […]
In my last post, I suggested that Groupon would be 2011’s Twitter, by which I meant that it would start attracting more and more media attention, as well as big brand dollars. And I stand by that. However, if you’re a frequent reader of Techcrunch or many of the other big tech-blogs, particularly those based […]
Spending on search engine marketing (SEM) grew 23% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2010, signaling optimism both from marketers and consumers, according to the latest report from Efficient Frontier, a search marketing agency that manages more than $1 billion in annual spend for its clients. The company attributed the strong growth to increases in […]