Google CEO Eric Schmidt says consumers' adoption of the company's mobile services has happened more quickly than executives expected. Schmidt, who is set to step down as CEO in April, spoke at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs. "It's happening, and it's happening faster," he said. "We look at the charts internally, and it's happening faster than all of our predictions." As an example, Schmidt told the audience that Google sees 200 million mobile playbacks of content on YouTube per day. Additionally, the company saw mobile search spike in conjunction with a real world eve [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Change?On Thursday, Google announced a major change to its search algorithm, designed to weed out shallow and low-quality content from its top search results. Content farms were seen by many as the target. Were they hit? Who was hit? Some figures are coming out. If you were expecting these figures to show Demand Media’s eHow [...] Google’s “Farmer Update [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Even though the news didn't hit until late Thursday, Google's "farmer" algorithm update was one of the hot topics lastweek on our sister site, Sphinn. Three of the most tweeted Sphinn stories of the week were related to the "farmer" update, and several discussions about it are still ongoing this morning. One of those discussions produced our favorite comment of the week. In the story, Google Farmer Update: Quest for Quality , Sphinn member Aaron Bradley of SEOSkeptic.com, had this to say about the "farmer" update: Until now I would have said that Google was primarily aimed at returning [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sphinn

Trying to get your head around Google's "Farmer Update" that just happened, not to mention the other changes that Google's been making recently? Search Engine Land's got just the solution for you -- our SMX West search marketing conference next week, with panels that cover these topics. The Bad Reviews Update It's been an amazing few months in the SEO world, in terms of Google changes. At the end of November, there was a big New York Times feature article about a merchant, Decor My Eyes, that bragged who bad reviews helped it in Google. That wasn't the case, but it did cause Google to roll o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SEM Industry: Conferences | SEM Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX | SMX & DMD Alerts

I'll be the first to admit that I have little knowledge of formal project management. While I cherish quality project managers and certainly know the importance of prioritization, stakeholders, and overall project management, it is not my job. My job is to bring the best SEO strategies and ideas into an organization. Luckily for me, I have an entire team at AudetteMedia that includes skilled account and project managers, so I can blunder around with a lot of ideas in my head and not worry too much about how they're organized. But SEO is a unique discipline and requires very unique projec [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Industrial Strength

Some commonplace, traditional promotion methods provide significant SEO benefits for local search marketers. However, many managers expend more time and energy focusing upon elusive technical tricks. Here's one local SEO tactic that businesses should consider: write a book. Way before the advent of the Internet, there have been many business owners who wrote books to gain more attention and renown from the public. For some, it was merely a vanity status symbol. For others, it was a chance to gain some additional respect, and, hopefully, more customers. Yet, for others who were already we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Book Search | Local Search

Search Engine Land's SMX West is March 8-10 in San Jose. That's next week! Register now and you’ll still save $100 off the on-site rate. You already know about the exceptional content and highly qualified presenters at SMX West. But there’s another aspect of the conference that is just as important and valuable - networking. And with more than 900 companies sending delegates (so far), there are lots of people to network with! Keep reading to learn more about the networking opportunities and then register for your All Access pass! Networking begins before the conference on the SMX [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SEM Industry: Conferences | SEM Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX | SMX & DMD Alerts

Ad copy testing is essential for anyone running a paid search account. Testing ad copy in accounts in high traffic accounts is fairly easy, as you can add new ad copies to existing ad groups, wait, and then examine the metrics. However, in low volume accounts, testing is not nearly as easy, as it could take years to collect enough data to make statistical significant choices. Therefore, you need to employ specific testing methodologies to understand how aspects of ad copy behave across multiple ad groups at once. In today’s column, I’ll use video to show how to create, test, and meas [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: SEM | How To: PPC | Paid Search

The Xooglers Blog has been posting videos of the old GooglePlex, old Google office from back in November 1999. I believe these videos are from the office Google had at 2400 Bayshore, Mountain View. As Alex said, Google started off in Susan Wojcicki's garage, then moved to 165 University Ave in Palo Alto, then to 2400 Bayshore, Mountain View and now they are at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway. In any event, here are the videos of Google's office from November 1999: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Offices

A new report from agency GroupM and comScore details the degree to which search and social media have become intertwined in the purchase path that consumers take across the Internet. The report is a follow-up to a similar study done in 2009. GroupM and comScore looked at consumer behavior associated with purchase decisions in the electronics/telecommunications and consumer packaged goods categories. They found that while search dominates social media among consumers making buying decisions -- nearly 60 percent of cases that end in a purchase begin with search -- social media play an increa [...]

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

Mobile carrier AT&T is introducing location-based "ShopAlerts" with Placecast in four US cities: NY, SF, Chicago and LA. This is opt-in "push" marketing via SMS or MMS tied to "geo-fences." Privacy is a non-issue because of the opt-in dimension. Once a user has opted-in, which can happen on AT&T's site, Facebook or many other places (e.g., display ads online) that person will receive alerts (offers, promotions) when he or she physically enters the designated local area, which is defined by the advertiser (e.g., a mile from retail store XYZ). Initial advertisers that have sign [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Retail | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Engines: Shopping Search Engines

Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and drill into the Search Engine Land members library to find other stories in that area. Because some stories are listed in more than one category, you may see them repeated. Top News Study Asks, Can You Trust Google's Personalized Search Results? New: Block Sites Fr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search Week

Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and drill into the Search Engine Land members library to find other stories in that area. Because some stories are listed in more than one category, you may see them repeated. Top News Scoring the 2011 Super Bowl Commercials For Search Visibility and Visitor Engageme [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search Week

On Thursday, Google announced a major change to its search algorithm, designed to weed out shallow and low-quality content from its top search results. Content farms were seen by many as the target. Were they hit? Who was hit? Some figures are coming out. If you were expecting these figures to show Demand Media's eHow site to have been harmed -- surprise! Two studies show eHow actually gained. I'm still crunching through some of the figures, but the biggest "content farm" type brand that seems to have suffered are Associated Content. Sistrix's Visibility Index Losers Over at Sistrix, the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Content Farms | Features: General | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Panda Update Winners & Losers | 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: Google Forecloses On Content Farms With “Farmer” Algorithm UpdateIn January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. Now the company is delivering, announcing a change to its ranking algorithm designed take out such material. New Change Impacts 12% Of US Results The new algorithm — Google’s “recipe” [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Social ad network OneRiot is introducing the ability to target mobile audiences by interests, demographics and influence on its ad network of Twitter clients. The company produces an influence score for individuals and organizes them into buckets based on several targeting variables. Advertisers can then buy audiences according to those groupings. In a case study released this morning the company worked with GM/Chevrolet's ad agency to target male sports fans discussing the Chevy Super Bowl ad on Twitter. The objective was to gain additional exposure for the TV ad. The OneRiot campaign help [...]

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

You built out your new ad copy, tested out a bidding strategy, measured web and store sales to measure the online to offline effect; however, in the end you got the worst outcome possible – inconclusive results. A negative result would have been better; at least you would have known that your hypothesis was wrong or that your strategy was not effective. But an inconclusive result tells you nothing, which can be incredibly frustrating as a marketer. There are many reasons why a well-designed test might fail. For example, seasonal effects might be ignored, the dataset might be too small [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Politico is reporting, as have other outlets, that Google and the Justice Department (DOJ) are now negotiating intensely in the waning days of its investigation into the anti-trust implications of Google's potential acquisition of travel software company ITA. According to the Politico article: The Justice Department has made it clear to Google that it’s willing to go to court to block its acquisition of travel software-maker ITA – and Google has responded by stepping up negotiations to save the deal, a source familiar with the talks tells POLITICO. Sources say that a deal between G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Acquisitions | Google: Critics | Google: Legal

Last night, Google released the Farmer Update, which was Google's response to improving the quality of the search results, particularly removing sites "which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful." Many suspect that this was aimed at "content farms" and some labeled properties from Demand Media, such as ehow.com and others, as a content farm. In a blog post by Demand Media's EVP of Media and Operations, Larry Fitzgibbon, he said they "haven’t seen a material net impact" on their content network. Here we have Demand Media [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search

Over the last year or so, Google has been steadily adding features to the AdWords interface that on the surface seem wonderful, unless managing and learning AdWords isn’t your full time job. It seems like just keeping up with what remains and what is gone and how to work the new stuff is a 40+ hour a week endeavor. I answer a lot of questions about Google Ad Extensions – when to use them, when not to use them, and how to use them effectively. I’m sure my clients are not the only ones searching for guidance, so I’m going to share what I’ve learned over the past few months in an eff [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | How To: PPC | Intermediate | Search Marketing Toolbox