When you think “Local SEO”, what generally comes to mind is the 7-pack, reviews, local dominated search results, distance from the centroid, and other miscellaneous terms that mean you can rank for “city keyword“. Because of this, the strategies between local and national SEO tend to segregate. Not as much as say, PPC and SEO, […]
Why does search giant Google care about Isohunt, a search engine that few have ever heard of? That’s the question raised in a Paid Content report. Turns out Google filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a civil case against Isohunt Web Technologies, a BitTorrent site, because it’s concerned the court will set a precedent it doesn’t […]
Sure, everyone has heard of Facebook and Twitter, but what about Feed the Bull or Tweako? Yes, you can talk about sports on your old college roommate’s Facebook wall, but what about squaring off with strangers on a site like YardBarker? These types of niche social networking sites are what the social media industry has […]
Russia blames Google for stirring Egypt unrest: report from Reuters reports Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s deputy, Igor Sechin, as telling the Wall Street Journal: Look what they have done in Egypt, those highly-placed managers of Google, what manipulations of the energy of the people took place there. Of course it is a bit interesting […]
Pierre Far from Google wrote a blog post on how to design mobile friendly websites while considering Google’s webmaster guidelines and best practices. I’ve pulled out the key points from this post in bullet format: Google differentiates between traditional mobile phones and smartphones. Google has two bots: Googlebot and Googlebot-Mobile. Googlebot crawls desktop-browser type of […]
Reflecting the growing number of content types on its platform, Facebook has changed its search results display — the drop-down that appears as soon as users begin typing in the Facebook search box. The new display is organized into different content types, replacing the old version which showed results in a straight list format with […]
French newspaper Le Monde issued a report using search query data to argue that the French are pre-occupied with whether their leaders (and would-be leaders) are Jewish. According to AFP, data from Google’s search suggest/auto-complete function indicates that French people are routinely searching on politicians’ names followed by the world “juif,” which means “Jewish” in […]
Ever dream of being your own boss? If you’ve got a good idea and are willing to take the plunge into starting your own business, it’s now easier (and cheaper) than ever to get a local business started. Put Up Your Website (<$100/yr) You’ll probably want your own domain, so you’ll have to shell out […]
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 Simplifies Site-Specific Bidding on Display Network Google is eliminating managed placement default bids in an effort to simplify bidding on its Display Network. Now Display Network advertisers who use managed […]
Google is eliminating managed placement default bids in an effort to simplify bidding on its Display Network. Now Display Network advertisers who use managed placements will only have to deal with a regular default bid and a Display Network default bid. The change will go into effect March 15. They effect managed placements only, which […]
Google’s long created title tags from means other than using the HTML title tag, however, there are reports that it might be increasing the times it does so. A WebmasterWorld thread has dozens of webmasters complaining that Google is not using their HTML title tags. The HTML title tag is often used by Google as […]
Consumers don’t always make a purchase within the same day or even the same week that they click on an ad, but that doesn’t mean the ad didn’t drive a sale. Many online marketers see significant latency between a paid click on an online ad and a purchase. Moreover, your most valuable customers are the […]
It’s landing page testing time! In this article, I will outline five ways to test elements on your landing pages. Before getting started with landing page testing, it’s important to ensure the following: Identify testing goals. Are you trying to increase sales? Leads? Identify them. Test variables that have a direct impact on your goals. […]
There have been a number of comments in forums and tweets that people aren’t seeing the Google Maps’ “send to car” option any longer. The following comment is representative: The send to car option is gone from the Google Maps Beta: there is only a send to email and send to phone option. Is it […]
A Federal judge in California has denied Google’s motion to dismiss a “false association” claim in Daniel Jurin’s case against it, surprisingly reversing his own previous rulings. Intellectual property attorney Eric Goldman reported the development in his Technology and Marketing Law Blog. Jurin has been waging a legal battle against Google for years, alleging that […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Social Meets Search At Search Engine Land’s SMX West Event Everything we program at Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo events are always related to search. So why a post […]
Everything we program at Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo events are always related to search. So why a post about social media sessions at our upcoming SMX West conference? Because social continues to play a big role in search. Search marketers need to know social. Here’s what we’ve got planned for you at […]
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.
Long time readers of this column know that I am fascinated with the technology behind search engine marketing. In recent posts, I’ve highlighted tools that optimize the Google Display Network, help generate winning text ads, and even a platform for developing thousands of tiny ad groups for Quality Score optimization. With SEM representing almost half […]
A few weeks ago, I saw a reference to search engine optimization (SEO) on the TV Show The Good Wife that made me fall off of my chair. (See SEO Gets Dissed by CBS TV Series “The Good Wife” for the transcript.) I fell off of my chair for two reasons: (1) I certainly did […]
Lately, Webmaster Tools has been improving its analytical capabilities significantly. This trend comes as a great benefit to webmasters and search marketers, both of whom are gaining access to important data in order to understand how their Search Engine Optimization is performing, as well as additional tools to help optimize their efforts. Last year, Google […]
Why was he there? Who wasn’t invited and why? What did they talk about? Why was he really there?
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 Congratulates Watson On Twitter; IBM Says Thanks Among those watching IBM’s Watson win Jeopardy last night were folks at Google, which just tweeted congrats over to IBM. In response, IBM […]
Among those watching IBM’s Watson win Jeopardy last night were folks at Google, which just tweeted congrats over to IBM. In response, IBM has said thanks. Ah, sweet.
Bing is introducing a totally redesigned version of its toolbar, called the “Bing Bar.” Apparently it has been “rebuilt from the ground up,” says Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz. Indeed, it operates more like a kind of “dashboard” than a conventional toolbar with links to various sites. And yes, the Bing Rewards loyalty program is still in […]
I recently had an interesting conversation with Microsoft adCenter support which left me feeling sad about how Microsoft is missing out on opportunities to expand their market share in search advertising. Let me start by saying, I’m a fan of adCenter because it provides high quality traffic and a solid return on investment for many […]
Last week’s inaugural Conversational Commerce Conference (C3) was dedicated to bringing together relevant groups and influencers to discuss the growing connection between marketing and customer service. Core to this discussion was the rapid adoption of social media and mobile Internet-enabled devices, and how these trends are being leveraged by businesses both large and small, to […]
As former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum sets his sights on the White House, he has a lot of awareness-raising to do, and he desperately needs some help with search, a Roll Call piece this week shows. Currently, when you search for Santorum, the first result is a blog apparently started by gay syndicated sex columnist […]
Your friends’ activity on Twitter, Flickr and elsewhere — but for now, not Facebook — will soon be a lot more visible in Google’s search results, including having an impact on how pages rank. Google has announced an expansion of its Google Social Search results that’s beginning to roll out today on Google.com. Here’s a […]
Earlier this week Apple introduced its long-awaited in-app subscription service for publishers. As part of that arrangement Apple wants its standard 30 percent cut of iTunes/app revenue. However it threw a bone to publishers by allowing all revenue from subscriptions initiated outside the iTunes environment to be kept by publishers. Many publishers are now angry that […]
A week ago, we reported on a new top navigation bar Google began testing. Now it’s official. Google tells Search Engine Land that the new navigation bar is being rolled out to everyone.
Set it and forget it AdWords? Um, no. But Google announced changes today to roll out its AdWords automated rules, in limited release since December, which it says will help make things just a little less manual. Maybe you could even take a day off. Automated rules let advertisers set up certain actions — pausing […]
Like many people, I was amazed to watch IBM’s Watson supercomputer playing Jeopardy this week against past human champions. But could Google have done the same thing? Let’s go behind the scenes of these two search masters to understand what they can — and can’t — do.
What do you do if Google warns you about a violation of its paid links policy and you can’t find any such links on your web site? If you’re a small webmaster you might go to Google’s Webmaster Help forums and ask for help. But if you’re part of the website team at a major […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Visualizing Google’s Dominance Of Mobile Advertising A report on mobile apps report released today by security firm Lookout is being used to discuss the relative sizes and growth of Apple and […]
A report on mobile apps report released today by security firm Lookout is being used to discuss the relative sizes and growth of Apple and Google’s apps marketplaces. Called the “App Genome Report,” the much more striking thing it reveals is just how dominant Google is already in app-display advertising. Take a look at these […]
In April 2008, Google launched its Public Data Explorer, a fantastic tool that allows you to visually explore and analyze very large data sets. Since then, it has curated 27 datasets including more than 300 data metrics. The Public Data Explorer now enables people to visualize everything from labor productivity (OECD) to gender balance in […]
Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past week, you’ve certainly heard about this JCPenney SEO debacle. But I think it’s worth mentioning that while this issue revealed itself through some sketchy SEO, the issue here really isn’t about SEO at all, and it’s not limited to JCP at all. The links […]
Yes, Google uses data from its Google Toolbar to improve its search results. But no, Google reasserts, it doesn’t use its toolbar to mine search behavior on other search engines in the way that Bing does.
It was interesting to see some of the recent reactions when upstart Blekko decided to toss some sites out of their index. For the uninitiated it was a bit of a seeming PR play against Google whom have been getting smacked about for thin quality of late. If you hadn’t guessed by now, we’re talking […]