Apple

The Top 10 Things Eric Schmidt Revealed At D9

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt just finished being interviewed at the D Conference by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, and there were a number of interesting revelations that came out. I thought a list of highlights was in order. The highlights below are roughly listed in the order they came up during the interview, rather being […]

Apple

Live From D: It’s Google No-Longer-The-CEO Eric Schmidt

I’m at the D Conference in here beautiful Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is to be interviewed by our fearless host Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. Let’s see what he has to say. Postscript: See The Top 10 Things Eric Schmidt Revealed At D9 if you want the less stream-of-consciousness view […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 31, 2011

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Twitter Intros Instant Follow Button In a bid to increase its presence across the Web, Twitter today announced the “follow button,” a snippet of code that can be placed on any […]

Paid social

Twitter Intros Instant Follow Button

In a bid to increase its presence across the Web, Twitter today announced the “follow button,” a snippet of code that can be placed on any Web site that allows readers logged into Twitter to click and follow instantly. Previously, a Twitter user would have to click-through to the Web site’s Twitter.com page and click […]

Google

Official: Google +1 Button For Websites Comes Tomorrow

It’s official. Google’s +1 button for websites will be coming tomorrow. A launch partner accidentally tipped the news of the release to TechCrunch, and Google’s since confirmed with me that it will be happening. UPDATE: See our new post about the actual launch of +1 buttons: It’s Here: Google +1 Buttons For Websites. Google tells […]

Content

What The Link Value Economy Hath Wrought

It’s often said that paid links have created a false economy. As someone who has admittedly purchased links and contributed to that, I would definitely have to agree. I’ve caught loads of heck for buying links and there have been recent high-profile slaps for sites caught buying links, but what isn’t often discussed is the […]

Bing

Bing Maps Tweaks Streetside, But Silverlight Still Needed For Best Experience

Bing Maps has added what it’s calling a “significant enhancement” to its Streetside product, but the best version remains the one that’s only available with Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin installed. According to today’s announcement, the Streetside upgrades are both structural and functional. On the structural side, Bing has eliminated what it calls “bubbles” of street-level views […]

Paid social

The Difference A Company’s Size Makes In Social Media

Maybe the size of a company has never been pondered by the employees or consultants who are managing their social media campaigns. However, whether or not a company is considered a small business or a big company can make a significant difference in overall strategy, timeliness, and overall presence on social networks like Facebook, FourSquare, […]

Google

Google Tests New Colorful iPhone Search Design

PhoneArena.com has screen captures of a new Google search interface designed for the iPhone and maybe other mobile devices, such as Android, Palm Pre and others. The interface uses colorful app-like icons at the top of the search bar, instead of small blue tabbed links on the current interface. It does push down the search […]

Link building

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 30, 2011

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Hot At Sphinn: Measuring Social Influence, Matt Cutts’ Live Chat & More Social media measurement was the hot topic last week on our sister site, Sphinn. A discussion about measuring social […]

SEO

How Mobile Searchers Are Changing Keyword Research

Many analysts are making the case for separate device targeting in mobile paid search these days, but due largely to the subtlety of the differences in natural search results, too many SEOs are under the mistaken impression that desktop and mobile SEO are one in the same. Because this ignorance affects all of us by […]

Advertising

AdCenter API Daily Budget Changes To Roll Out To All Campaigns

Over the last few months, Microsoft has been tweaking the daily budget capabilities in its API in an effort to make its system simpler and easier to use. As of earlier this month, any new or edited campaigns included the Daily Budget with Monthly Maximum option, which calculates a monthly maximum based on advertisers’ daily […]

Apple

With Google Wallet Mobile Payments Era Is Finally Here

For more than a decade people have prophesied the end of cash and credit cards. And for the past two years the drumbeat around mobile payments has grown steadily louder with the adoption of smartphones. Now numerous companies are jockeying to participate in what expected to be a huge market that will eventually generate billions […]

Google Ads

Google Apparently Testing Numbers In Job Ads

Google seems to be testing an AdWords display for jobs ads that includes an automatically-generated extra line of description that includes the number of jobs available and reiterates the brand of the advertiser. To make room for this third line, the two description lines are combined. Presumably the number of jobs comes from Google Base […]

Google Ads

Google To Begin Charging For Directions Location Extensions

Google announced they will begin charging for searchers clicking on the directions of the location extensions found on some AdWords ads. Location extensions add an address and phone number to your Google AdWords ads. In the past, clicking on a phone number via your mobile phone to call the advertiser or clicking on an address […]

Google News

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 27, 2011

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Size Does Matter: How Retailers Should Manage Campaigns For Big & Small Ticket Items Big retailers with a substantial store presence most often have a big online presence with thousands of […]

Analytics & conversion

Size Does Matter: How Retailers Should Manage Campaigns For Big & Small Ticket Items

Big retailers with a substantial store presence most often have a big online presence with thousands of SKUs. Apart from drawing consumers who might solely look online to buy products, they also help consumers in the earlier research phase of the buying cycle. Sometimes, the merchant will complete a transaction online that might have otherwise […]

Google

Official: Google’s New Travel Search OneBox

As we expected, Google officially announced the launch of their new flight onebox. The new travel onebox will show up when you search for flight related keywords with destinations. For example, [flights from new york to san francisco] or [flights from new york or [flights to new york]. They all work to five you an […]

Google

PayPal Sues Google, Sees Powerful Threat To Its Future In Google Wallet

In California it’s almost impossible to stop a key employee from jumping ship to a rival company. The law heavily favors the employee’s right to earn a living and typically won’t permit the former employer to prevent the employee from working for a rival. California law does, however, protect “trade secrets” and will sometimes permit […]

Content

5 Website Tips To Decrease User Frustration

If you ever need a topic to discuss at a social gathering, just ask everyone, “What do you find the most frustrating about using websites?” There are so many common complaints and issues raised by everyday Internet users and yet so many websites are still driving us crazy. Websites contain oversights. It happens to even […]

Google

Google Tiptoes Into India With Street View

Google launched Street View on Thursday in India, the second most-populous country on earth. But “launch” may be a bit of an overstatement because, in a country that’s also the seventh biggest in square mileage, Google is only taking photographs in one city: Bangalore. Google announced that it’s using both cars and trikes to photographs […]

Content

IDC: Google Overtakes Yahoo In Display Ads For First Quarter Ever

Move over Yahoo, there’s a new display advertising champion in town, as of the first quarter of 2011. You may have heard of the company, as they’ve also been dominating the search advertising category.  According to a new report from research firm IDC, Google’s net U.S. display advertising revenue share grew to 14.7% in the […]

Google Analytics

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 26, 2011

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Is It Time For A New Compensation Model For Search And Digital Marketers? Pay for performance is certainly not a new concept. But a number of digital marketing industry pundits have […]

Analytics & conversion

Is It Time For A New Compensation Model For Search And Digital Marketers?

Pay for performance is certainly not a new concept. But a number of digital marketing industry pundits have publically suggested that attribution measurement should drive a new compensation model for publishers and search engines that’s based on the actual contribution they make to each conversion and dollar of revenue, rather than for the credit that […]

SEO

Friends Don’t Let Friends Use NoFollow

This is an old, old issue, but one that keeps cropping up. People keep using nofollow. Why? Please, tell me why? The nofollow tag is bad, bad, bad for SEO campaigns. The only time you should use it? If you’re selling links or doing something that could be interpreted as selling links, and want to […]

Apple

Live Blogging The Google Wallet Launch Press Conference

Google’s Commerce VP Stephanie Tilenius took the stage this morning in New York to announce what everyone was expecting: Google Wallet. She said that Google wants to create “tomorrow’s best shopping experience” and “bring online and offline together” through an open payments platform. Google aspires to bring offers, payments and loyalty together at the point […]

Content

The Unexpected Consequences Of Higher Quality Scores

Quality score can drive the success or failure of your paid search keywords, and the two best known impacts of quality score are the effect it has on text ad position and cost-per-click: Ad position is determined by Ad Rank which is calculated as bid x quality score. CPC is calculated by dividing the Ad […]

Content

Q1 Online Ad Revenues $7.3 Billion, Search Nearly Half

The IAB announced this morning that online ad revenues were $7.3 billion in the US in Q1 2011. This is a 23 percent increase over the same period last year. In 2010 total online revenues were $26 billion according to the IAB. For the full year 2010 (graph below) paid search constituted 46 percent of […]

Google algorithm updates

SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 25, 2011

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 Ireland Greeting A Google Street View Car Wouldn’t it be cool to know when a Google Street View car was planning on taking pictures of your office or home? Most […]

Google

Google Ireland Greeting A Google Street View Car

Wouldn’t it be cool to know when a Google Street View car was planning on taking pictures of your office or home? Most of us do not have that luxury, but if you are Google, you are privy to that information. All of Google Ireland’s staff stood outside cheering, holding signs, balloons and other items […]

Google

Google Correlate: A New Way To Research Keyword Popularity & Trends

I love search data. Being able to mine through millions of search queries to find out what people are really interested in is fascinating (and useful!). Google provides search data a number of ways, including Google Trends, Google Insights for Search, and via the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, and Microsoft has some great stuff via […]

Google algorithm updates

Google’s Matt Cutts Riffs On J.C. Penney, Panda Update & Other SEO Topics In Live Webchat

Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed this morning that Google has lifted J.C. Penney’s SEO penalty, that the Panda update will continue to rollout internationally and offered numerous SEO- and search-related tips in a live webchat on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel. More than a thousand viewers tuned in but, for those who weren’t able to […]

SEO

The Oprah Effect On User Search Behavior

Last week, in honor of the ubiquitous daytime talk show wrapping after 25 years of production, Yahoo released some search stats as the buzz leading up to the final show airing today (Wednesday, May 25, 2011) built up, with searches related to Oprah Winfrey rising 56% in the week prior. The queen of daytime has long been […]

Paid social

Twitter Buys TweetDeck, Promises To “Invest” In It

When rumors circulated in recent days that Twitter was about to buy Tweetdeck, there were red flags flying everywhere from people assuming that Twitter would buy the popular client software and then shut it down. Not so, says Twitter. In a blog post confirming the acquisition, Twitter promises that “we will continue to invest in […]

Google

Google’s Matt Cutts Live Q&A On YouTube Now

Right now on the Google Webmaster Help YouTube Channel Matt Cutts is live answering questions. You can go to that page and ask him questions in the Live video feed chat room. Give it a try now over here. I expected this would happen this morning and as I noted there, Google offered these webmaster […]

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