Click-to-download AdWords ads for mobile devices are getting more visually appealing. Google will now find the advertised application's icon in the iTunes store or Android market and display it alongside the ad in search results. The new feature will automatically be applied whenever a click-to-download ad appears on a mobile device. Google announced its immediate availability late last week. To create a click-to-download ad, advertisers enter "itunes.apple.com/" or "market.android.com/" followed by the app name in the ad's display URL field. AdWords automatically displays this as "D [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Mobile

[caption id="attachment_86994" align="alignright" width="315" caption="Does Paid Search Really Cannibalize Your Organic Traffic?"][/caption] Though I've never met him personally, I admit to being a big Hal Varian fan. For those who don't recognize the name, Dr. Varian is the Chief Economist at Google and like me, one of the oldest guys in his company. Over the past few years, he and his team of researchers have made my life simpler by providing pithy answers to some of search's mythically difficult questions, like "How do search auctions work?" and "Does ad position effect conversion rat [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Paid Search

You may have read in SEOMoz a few years ago that link building is unnecessary for mobile rankings. When it comes to smartphone search engine results, data suggests otherwise. When I took a random sample of 11 of the most popular mobile queries and examined the characteristics of the top 5 Google smartphone results for each query, the average domain authority (using SEOMoz metrics) for the first five positions was 83/100, and the first result (on average) had as many links pointing to the first listing as it did to listings 2 through 5. Furthermore, there was only one site in the sample t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Mobile Search | SEO - Search Engine Optimization | SEO: Duplicate Content | SEO: Mobile Search

We all know that local search is a hot topic in today’s search space. For further proof, look no further than the latest "State of Local Search" study, prepared  by comScore for the Local Search Association, which found that local searches now account for 13% of all core search activity on major search engines like Google and Bing. Two platforms that really caught my attention with this study are mobile and online coupons, which by all indications, are growing by leaps and bounds as ways for consumers to find local businesses. Mobile Local Search Shows Double-Digit Growth The study fou [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Tests Ads Within Organic Search Results?The RKGBlog blog posted a screen shot of Bing testing search ads directly in the organic results. Honestly, I almost cannot believe it – but more on that later. Here is a cropped picture of the screen shot. Why is this so shocking? Placing search ads inline with organic free listings is somewhat taboo for [...] Search In Pics: Nooglers, Google Garage & Marissa Mayer With Martha StewartIn this w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

The RKGBlog blog posted a screen shot of Bing testing search ads directly in the organic results. Honestly, I almost cannot believe it - but more on that later. Here is a cropped picture of the screen shot. Why is this so shocking? Placing search ads inline with organic free listings is somewhat taboo for search companies. Years ago, search engines had "paid inclusion" programs which guaranteed content to be indexed, but they had no ranking factors. In fact, Yahoo after much controversy dropped their paid inclusion program in 2009. But to allow advertisers to inject ads wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads: General | Top News

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. Marissa Mayer with Martha Stewart: Google Car By Google Sign: Artistic Picture of The GooglePlex: A Noogler: Yahoo Cupcakes: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

Google is featuring a special logo for Alexander Calder, an American artist known for inventing mobile sculptures, 113th birthday. Alexander Calder was born on July 22, 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania and died on November 11, 1976 at the age of 78 in Manhattan. The logo is Google’s first doodle made entirely using HTML5 canvas. Google engineer, Jered Wierzbicki, said on the Google Blog, iit runs a physics simulation on the mobile’s geometry, and then does realtime 3D rendering with vector graphics. Only recently have browsers advanced to the point where this is possible." Here is [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

Every web analytics provider requires nearly the same setup process: pixels. A couple lines of JavaScript pasted onto the pages of a website provide data critical to any optimization process, attribution model, or consumer behavior analysis. As part of my role includes integration engineering for an analytics vendor, I spend a substantial amount of time writing, testing, and validating tags to ensure our clients are capturing the appropriate data. But even after all my work is QA’d, it can take days or in some cases, weeks for the tags to be placed into production on an advertiser’s sit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Whenever I’m asked what usability is, I get tongue tied. "It’s about humans and computers," I may say, but they’ll picture robots and talking cars. "I help make web sites that work," is closer, but vague because technically, if it’s on the Internet, it’s working. Then I’ll hear myself try to make it clearer by bringing up the "abilities", such as credibility, understandability, accessibility and findability. Of them, the most nods vote for understandability. It’s in our nature that we all want to be understood. We each want that something that fits us just right. We all [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Search & Usability

About two weeks ago, I started a new chapter in my professional life as the VP and "Conductor" of Marketing at BlueTrain Mobile, an award-winning technology start up company in Cambridge, MA. This is an exciting career move for me in so many ways, and will push me to ramp up on my "mobile SEO" knowledge very quickly. Of course, overseeing our own SEO program will be a small part of what I do, and I will need to quickly adapt my decade+ of search industry experience to help our customers understand why, and how, the mobile Web is so intricately tied to search and discovery. That's for [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing Toolbox

Local searchers and local businesses will see a fairly substantially different Place Page the next time they're poking around Google Maps/Places. The company announced a new look Thursday and promises more changes to come. The new layout of Place Pages puts a heavy emphasis on reviews. More specifically, it emphasizes reviews from Google users and no longer shows review content from third party sites. (Google had issues with both Yelp and TripAdvisor over review snippets last year, you may recall.) Rather than showing external reviews, the new Place Page only links to third party sites [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Top News

Below is today’s top news relating to Google+, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. Businesses Removed From Google+ Google Removes Mashable, Sesame Street & Other Prominent Accounts From Google+ is a post by Matt McGee which highlights some of the recently terminated Google+ accounts.  Mashable, Ford and even our own Search Engine Land Google+ account were terminated as Google is beginning the overhaul for proper business pages on Google+. Limited Test Phase For Businesses Discontinued, Will Be Open To Public Shortly Google+ for Business Update 3 i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Google+

I suspect someone is going to successfully build Google's "contextual discovery engine" before Google does. The newest company to make a run at what Marissa Mayer was talking about is Clever Sense with its new app "Alfred" (formerly called Seymour). Intended to be a demonstration of Clever Sense's underlying data extraction and machine learning technologies, Alfred creates a personalized "interest graph" that then serves up local recommendations for places you'll like. But you can also search in a more conventional way. Of course Clever Sense isn't the first company to create a "recommen [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Search Engines: Word Of Mouth & Buzz Search Engines

Microsoft announced fiscal Q4 and full year revenue this afternoon. Growing 8 percent from a year ago Microsoft reported $17.37 billion in topline revenue and $6.17 billion in operating income. Revenues for Online Services, which houses Bing and online advertising, grew 17 percent for the quarter and 15 percent for the full year. However the division lost roughly $2.5 billion for the fiscal year. Xbox did very well. However consumer PC demand was lukewarm and Windows revenue decreased by 2 percent for the year ended June 30. Overall, the company reported gross revenues of $69.94 billion for [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Microsoft | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: General

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: StumbleUpon Testing New ‘Explore Box’ Search ToolSome StumbleUpon users have been opted in to a new feature that seems to be aimed at helping them search and find interesting web pages more easily. StumbleUpon calls it their “Explore Box” and, if you’re part of the test, it can be accessed at www.stumbleupon.com/explore. The page, shown above, is currently very Googley with [...] Bing Getting Ready To Launch HTML5 Inter [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Some StumbleUpon users have been opted in to a new feature that seems to be aimed at helping them search and find interesting web pages more easily. StumbleUpon calls it their "Explore Box" and, if you're part of the test, it can be accessed at www.stumbleupon.com/explore. The page, shown above, is currently very Googley with its spartan layout that only includes the StumbleUpon logo and a search box. It functions similarly to the search/explore box that can be enabled on the StumbleUpon toolbar, with one noticeable difference. The Explore search box shows suggested topics as you t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | StumbleUpon

Rafael Rivera spotted a new Bing interface where Bing was overlaying "live titles" on top of the home page's awesome backgrounds. This is the new Bing HTML5 interface, that Bing has been for several months. Winrumors reports that along with these "live titles," Bing will be introducing a form of Google Instant search. The Instant features on Bing will adjust the page elements and results as the user types. Bing's interface will also "include smooth animations to allow users to jump backwards in their search history," said Winrumors. It will also include "small, hovering windows [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Microsoft: Bing

Learn how marketers are building successful content marketing campaigns — and how to find the right content marketing partner for your business. Read this E-Solution Spotlight at Search Engine Land. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sponsor Messages

In 2009, Google launched the parameter handling feature of Google webmaster tools, which enabled site owners to specify the parameters on their site that were optional vs. required.  A year later, they improved this feature by providing an option for a default value. Google says that they've seen a positive impact from the usage of those tools thus far." Now, they've improved the feature again, by enabling site owners to specify how a parameter changes the content of the page. My original article on parameter handling describes the issues that parameters can cause with how search engines [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Webmaster Central | SEO: Duplicate Content