We’ve got just a few tickets available for SMX Advanced, June 5-6 in Seattle. Register now to ensure you’ve got a ticket for the conference created for experience search marketers. SMX Advanced features one-of-a-kind sessions. See the agenda. Over 75 of the world’s most knowledgeable search marketers will present. They’re selected based on ability and their willingness to share the tactics and strategies that make them successful. Reconnect with old friends and make new contacts at our networking events. We keep SMX Advanced intimate, so you are sure to connect with the peopl [...]

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

Ever amassed a collection of Web bookmarks on a particular subject and then wanted to search through their contents? Delicious users will be familiar with link curating and sharing, but there's no ability to actually search the contents of the bookmarked pages and sites. A few Florentines, mostly former colleagues from the Italian internet company Dada, set out in April 2011 to develop a new search engine, Attrakt, which would focus specifically on hosting specialized search engines curated by the Web community. Attrakt's Index Relies On Curator Contributions As such, Attrakt isn't a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Multinational Search | Search Engines: Other Search Engines | Search Engines: Outside USA | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

When you visit Google on April 24th, you will see a huge zipper down the middle of the Google of the logo. The logo is to commemorate the birthday of Gideon Sundback, the man who invented the zipper. He was born 132 years ago on April 24, 1880 in Sweden. In 1905 he immigrated to the United States and in 1917 he issued the patent for the zipper, being awarded the patent in 1914. Here is a movie of the special zipper logo in action on the Google home page: This logo is going into the Google Doodle history book. Other Google Logos: Google Grew Their Own Earth Day Logo Google R [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

Google is testing the effect of adding "Trusted Stores" badges to qualifying advertisers' search ads, as it considers deploying the badges more widely. The experiment was first reported by Internet Retailer. A Google spokesperson, asked to comment on the test, sent a statement that said: "As part of the Google Trusted Stores program, we’re currently conducting a test with a small set of advertisers to help users identify online merchants that offer a great shopping experience. In our ongoing efforts to provide ads that are useful and relevant for users, we’re experimenting with differen [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | 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’s Cutts Explains How Google Search WorksGoogle’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts, posted a 8 minute video on how Google search works. From crawling, indexing to ranking, he gets into a brief overview of how Google’s search engine does its job. Matt explains how PageRank is used, crawling timelines, frequencies, priorities, indexing and filtering processes within the databases. Here is [...] 5 “Local” Search Engin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Google's head of web spam, Matt Cutts, posted a 8 minute video on how Google search works. From crawling, indexing to ranking, he gets into a brief overview of how Google's search engine does its job. Matt explains how PageRank is used, crawling timelines, frequencies, priorities, indexing and filtering processes within the databases. Here is the video: Here is the transcript provided by YouTube: 0:00 0:00 MATT CUTTS: Hi, everybody. 0:01 We got a really interesting and very expansive question 0:04 from RobertvH in Munich. 0:06 RobertvH wants to know-- 0:09 Hi Matt, coul [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Web Search

We usually hyperfocus on Google Place search and Maps results, since they have such large market share. But there are good reasons for local businesses to be concerned with ranking elsewhere as well. So, here are a few other local search engines to consider, and a few tips for ranking effectively in their results. It's not surprising that many businesses focus mainly on ranking well in Google's local results, but working to rank well in some other search properties often has the benefit of helping to augment one's rankings in Google, too. Ranking well in directories can give your listing [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Google Rich Snippets are an outstanding way for webmasters to get more exposure for their pages in the Google search results. Using them, you can add add images, review stars and more to your listings. But for some webmasters, that is not enough. Back in November I noticed HTML entities working in Google's breadcrumb rich snippets, and I am a bit shocked to see they still work. A reader anonymously sent us another example, showing the breadcrumb rich snippets with stars. It reads SEO ★★★★★ Rated! Here is a screen shot, I tried to hide the offending site the best I could: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Rich Snippets | SEO: Spamming | Top News

Owners of ecommerce sites are a pretty observant bunch. The clarity that sales provide (or lack thereof) can make marketing a bit easier to quantify. There isn't a need to tie promotional activities back to branding metrics, or tricky-to-quantify engagement on the site ("Do we want more page views, or do less views mean the site delivered on the first try?") Thanks to that clarity, store owners keep a close eye on their data, and have probably seen mobile devices show-up on their radar a lot more than they used to. Combine that with the buzz around smartphones, and the idea of a store ap [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | How To: Mobile Marketing | Mobile Search | Search Marketing: Mobile | SEO: Mobile Search

Auditing your PPC accounts on a regular basis is something every company should be doing. Performing an audit lets you step outside of your normal day-to-day activities within an account to reevaluate the big picture and see where large opportunities may lie. Normally, when you hear about a company doing a PPC audit, it’s a consultant or an agency auditing an advertiser or occasionally a consultant auditing an agency. However, even if you are in-house managing your account internally, an audit can give you insight that’s easy to miss because one of the points of an audit is to step a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Paid Search

Google has a special Earth Day logo that flips through the various cycles of the growth of flowers and plants over time. In fact, A Google Doodler named Jen planted and grew the logo, taking pictures over time, which made up today's Earth Day logo for Google. Here is a video of the logo in action: Google's Marissa Mayer tweeted about how the logo was made: For Earth Day, doodler Jen actually planted and grew our logo, then made a time-lapse video: google.com— marissamayer (@marissamayer) April 22, 2012 Here are all the still shots of this logo: Last year, Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

When new employees join the Google ad quality team that manually reviews suspect ads, they start by studying internal documentation of policies that outline examples of ads that would be approved, and those that would be rejected. Then the employees' skills are tested on ads that don't run, they graduate to ads that get little traffic, and finally they move up to ads expected to get lots of impressions. These are some of the tidbits revealed by Google director of engineering for the advertising team, David W. Baker, in a wide-ranging conversation this week. Despite many years of being tight [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Top News

Analyst firm BIA/Kelsey has projected that by 2015 there will be more local searches coming from smartphones than PCs  in the US. It's a bold prediction and one that has logical merit: smartphone search volumes are growing faster than search on the PC. While local search is at least 20 percent of total queries on the PC (per Google) it's at least 40 percent of smartphone queries, also according to Google. Mobile vs. PC Local Search Volumes (BIA/Kelsey Forecast) Source: BIA/Kelsey (2012) In some categories such as restaurants and travel, mobile searches represent 15 - 20 percent [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Stats: comScore | Stats: Size

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 Shuts Down Patent Search, Google Related Toolbar, One Pass & Vaccine FinderAfter only eight months, the Google Related toolbar is headed to the dead pool. That’s one of several Google products being phased out in the company’s latest “spring cleaning” announcement, along with the One Pass payment system for news publishers, Google Patent Search and Google Flu Vaccine Finder. Google Related is was a browser toolbar t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

After only eight months, the Google Related toolbar is headed to the dead pool. That's one of several Google products being phased out in the company's latest "spring cleaning" announcement, along with the One Pass payment system for news publishers, Google Patent Search losing its own home page and Google Flu Vaccine Finder. Google Related is was a browser toolbar that offered contextual information about the web page being displayed in the main browser window. For example, when looking at a restaurant's website, Google Related would show a map/address, reviews and similar restaurants/bus [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Patents | Google: Toolbar | Google: Web Search | Top News

With worries of "over-optimization" on the minds of many SEOs right now, it's a good time to remember that it's long been good advice in search engine optimization never to do anything to an extreme. Cue the concept of "Goldilocks SEO," which SEO Book introduced in the form of a good infographic fairly recently. Want the infographic for yourself? You'll find it here: Goldilocks SEO. Related Articles Too Much SEO? Google’s Working On An "Over-Optimization" Penalty For That Is Google’s "Over Optimization Penalty" Its "Jump The Shark" Moment In Web Search? Dropped In Rankings? [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Infographics | SEO: General

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. Google's Founder Wearing Google Glasses: Source: Google+ Google Halfpipe: Source: Google+ Gooogle Cars: Source: Flickr Googlers On Segways: Source: Google+ Noogle Hangout: Source: Flickr Bing Train: Source: Flickr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

One might find it strange to talk about click-through rate (CTR) optimization when talking about conversion rate optimization, since these indicators do not initially seem related. Yet, while these metrics are not always correlated, they sometimes – and actually often - are. However, a high click-through rate does not assure a high conversion rate. The two can even have an inverse relationship: an ad copy geared towards curiosity clicks will result in fewer conversions, percentage-wise, than an ad copy geared towards qualified clicks. Keeping An Eye On CTR Helps Maintain Conversion Volum [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Although a formal launch is planned for this weekend, Google's Street View imagery for Israel is already online. It marks the first time Google has put street photographs online from any Middle Eastern country. Shown above is a screenshot of the Wailing Wall (also called the Western Wall) in Jerusalem, one of the city's most sacred sites. Plans to bring Street View to Israel have been the subject of great discussion -- and some controversy -- for more than a year. In early 2011, Israeli government officials met with Google and concluded that allowing Street View images online would be go [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Outside US | Google: Street View

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Home Depot To Correct Misleading Link RequestIt read like one of those bad link requests you get. Link to me, and you’ll rank better. It even suggested hiding the link. But the request was from Home Depot, to its network of nearly 2,000 service providers. Now that it’s come to light, the home improvement store chain says it is correcting the [...] Free webcast: Google+ and Social’s Impact on SearchTuesday, April 24th – 1 PM EST/ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap